Archives for the month of: February, 2012

Teaching

February 27, 2012 //
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When you teach, you have to think. You have to look at things in new ways. I like thinking new things, but I don’t always like acting in new ways.

my class

I have been teaching more than usual lately. Last week I led a seminar on Writing Your Spiritual Autobiography at New York Theological Seminary.

In the fall, I taught a weekly creative writing class for middle school kids.

When you teach, you can’t multitask. You know, there’s no schmoozing by the water cooler or reading the paper with your feet on the desk as a teacher. You have to be on — prepared and smart.

I like that. And I like being in the zone of teaching. It’s a change. And today, I don’t necessarily think I can make any big life changes. While my marriage is hard, due to Chris’s Parkinson’s, we all still love each other. And besides that, the kids (and Chris? and I?) need stability.

And so to get out of my rut, I teach. I am grateful for the opportunities to indulge in this happy and meaningful pursuit (distraction from my real life).

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Categories Rules To Live By

Forgiving the Bad Apples

February 24, 2012 //
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We had a class meeting the other night. One parent reported that a few bad apples have spoiled the whole class’s reputation. Several people nodded and one parent said something like, “Yes, if we were rid of those bad apples, everything would be fine.” Most of us nodded. (I didn’t even know the bad apples, but what she said made sense. Like the song goes, “One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl.” Oh, wait, one doesn’t spoil the whole bunch! Good to know!)

One woman spoke up, “I think we’re too involved. Let’s let the kids work it out themselves.”

Jones Beach in winter

Another said, “Yes, we should teach our children to be forgiving. We hold our grudges for too long.”

Walking out with these new friends from the meeting, I said to the woman who advocated forgiveness, “What a powerful idea. I forget about forgiveness.”

“Some of my students’ parents still remember when their child was wronged in 1st grade and I teach 8th grade,” said a new friend, a teacher in another school. “We have to let go.”

I’ve thought about this conversation for several days. I wonder if I, like many people, define myself by NOT being one of the bad apples (and certainly none of MY children are rotten!). And I’m not sure I always forgive and forget.

I have always liked being a good apple. And have enjoyed the smug pride of my righteous, responsible and kind nature.

I actually despise bad apples. I detest overly negative people. (Especially since giving up gossip again this Lent!) And yet, I recognize the irony — I am extremely negative about negative people.

I wonder if I might try this new practice of forgiving the bad apples, the good apples, the negative people and even, myself.

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Categories Parenting Tweens, Rules To Live By

enlarge

February 18, 2012 //
1

Right outside my office, there was an empty cubicle and right next to the empty cube was P’s desk which overflowed with papers and magazines. I told P. that she and I should both ask management to break down that wall and enlarge her space into the empty cube. We did and now there’s one large cube.

I like encouraging people and being encouraged to learn, grow, and get bigger. Not everyone does this. I think sometimes people might feel like enlarging someone else’s space might diminish their own. But admiring and enlarging others makes us bigger too.

I love the way Vincent Van Gogh wrote in his letters to Theo about his admiration for his contemporaries. He admired religion, Japanese art, other artists.

“If I love someone or something, then I do so in earnest and sometimes with real passion and fire, but that doesn’t make me think as a matter of course that only a few people are perfect and all the others worthless — far from it.”

More inspiring quotes from Vincent van Gogh:

“There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”

“I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.”

And in his letters, Vincent advised his brother, Theo, over and over, to “admire.” For me, that means to enlarge others. I look for the good in everyone and try to get them more space.

20120218-192858.jpg

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Categories Uncategorized

Coffee & Meditation

February 14, 2012 //
1

Some mornings I only get out of bed because of the coffee. And my journal. And my friends. Okay, and my family. But coffee comes first.

Today’s Valentine’s Day. Perhaps it’s a little depressing for many? Like my family of origin, my husband’s not too big on gifts, cards, remembering holidays. I, on the other hand — the one who overcompensates — made every one a personalized Valentine’s Day card. And though I didn’t get much — or anything — at home, I did get some little cards with fair trade chocolates and a pink Valentine’s dish towel at work. I love my work peeps!

It was an ordinary day. I worked my job, did Pilates at lunch, worked again, then taught a session of comedy/improv at the Middle School, made dinner, shared dinner with the fam, went to the theater with my husband, (we saw The Broken Heart a play from the 1620s by John Ford — it was a bit of a slog). I took the subway home alone (I couldn’t stay for the second half). I shooed the kids to bed. I did the dishes.

And tomorrow I’ll do it all over again (though I hope I don’t have to see that play again).

I want to be grateful for every single day. I want to have an open, loving heart, especially on Valentine’s Day. And I did find one moment of deep calm and contentment in my day. At the end of Pilates class, Shayne, our teacher, turned off the lights. We lay in the Yoga corpse pose, Savasana. Then, Shayne read this poem by Hafiz:

The Sun Never Says

Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe Me.”

Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.

Is that amazing, or what? Meditation is almost as good as coffee.

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Categories Christianity, Rules To Live By

thoughts on Whitney Houston’s death

February 12, 2012 //
3

Whitney Houston (from creative commons, wikipedia)

I like being ordinary. When I was younger, I wanted to be famous. I wanted to act, dance, write, host a talk show, be on TV. (Okay, yes, I did these things, but not in a big way. When I was younger, I was frustrated with my lack of fame; but lately I’m happy I never hit it big. I could never have withstood the attention.)

I don’t know whether to blame Whitney’s death (or Michael Jackson’s or Amy Winehouse’s or Elvis’s or you name them) on our f’ed up culture that elevates celebrity and then loves to watch our elevated gods plummet. Or maybe I should blame the pervasiveness of drugs and alcohol in pop culture. Or better yet, let’s acknowledge the reality that drug and alcohol addictions are diseases — diseases that inevitably and eventually kill people if left untreated. The best treatment is the one that includes 12 steps and anonymity (the exact opposite of celebrity!)

As a society, we need to get in the habit of finding heroes in our real lives, not in movies, fan magazines, or political parties. Then, let’s build each other up — don’t put each other down or delight in anyone’s demise.

Our outpouring of love for people who’ve died from addiction is too late. Yet every person has the potential to heal from diseases of addiction.

If someone you know needs healing from a disease of addiction, tell them, write to them, let them know that their illness can be treated; that they can get better. This is hard to do. Do we ever tell people we worry about their drinking? I rarely do. When I have had those conversations, it’s been very hard. I’ve needed to detach with love. Give people their dignity. Give them their choice — the choice to recover is always there. Making that choice as a public person must be extremely difficult.

Yet life’s difficult journeys are the ones we learn and grow the most from. The difficult times are the moments that teach us to be real and to love one another. That is, at least, what I tell myself. Me, someone ordinary, not someone famous, but someone who is alive and happy and grateful for each new day.

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Categories Rules To Live By

Marriage and Work

February 10, 2012 //
2

While my husband has been away for a month, I’ve been extremely productive — embarking on a new job; completing writing and art projects; making new parenting connections. I wonder if my productivity has anything to do with being single, even briefly.

Was thinking about this when I took a walk in Riverside Park at lunch time yesterday.

Is it possible that relationships — particularly marriages — take up energy that might be (better?) spent pursuing art?

In my Henry James class in college we talked about this a lot. James never married and was incredibly prolific — coincidence? James advocated substituting sexual desire with creativity. He thought marriage was deadly to artists, particularly writers.

I remember feeling this after I split up from my first husband (I always feel like Zsa Zsa Gabor when I refer to my “first” husband), I remember wondering then: ‘If I had not spent all this effort in my marriage, to what heights could I have climbed.’

No one argues that relationships take work, but once free of that work, even for a month, the possibilities for other creative and, let’s face it, better paying, work emerges.

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Categories marriage, Rules To Live By

Going Just A Little Bit Out of My Way

February 7, 2012 //
1

I am always shocked that my kids make it to the school bus on time. In the morning, I am the pit boss of the Indy 500 — fixing broken wheels and finding socks. So the fact that the kids get launched into the world every single morning — and have never missed the bus — shocks me.

It’s about the routine. To save me from the huffing and puffing and stress of the morning launch, I’m thinking we should tune up our morning and evening routines.

Grant's Tomb at dusk

I started thinking about how one small action can cause a new chain reaction last night, when I stood waiting at my usual bus stop for my usual M5 bus. I saw the golden light of sunset and realized I had not taken a photo for the day. So I walked towards the next bus stop.

And on the way to my new stop in the dusky light, the sunset was brighter, the Hudson more reflective and Grant’s Tomb more pinkish.

kids skateboard near Grant's Tomb

Walking to my new bus stop, I passed a bunch of kids skateboarding. And I thought, I’ve got to do this more often — find a new way. Because right next to my usual routine is something dazzling and brilliant.

I don’t know if one small tweak will help me with our morning and evening family routines, but I think it’s worth a shot. Chris, my husband, has been gone for nearly a month, directing a show in Florida, so I think the time is now to get into a good new habit before he comes home!

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Categories Parenting Tweens, Rules To Live By

My Life as Superwoman

February 2, 2012 //
1

My days have been chock full. In no particular order, over the last couple of weeks:

  • I discovered I have more basal cell carcinoma (this time, on my hairline). Surgery is tomorrow.
  • I have taught creative writing at a public middle school.
  • I bought a sectional couch and rearranged the family room. (I believe the Raymour & Flanigan salesman gave me a nice discount because he admired my tenacity and good spirits as I furniture shopped with boisterous preteens and a teen.)
  • I have been solo-parenting while my husband Chris is in Florida for a month, directing Picasso at Lapin Agile.
  • I have met a challenge with teen boys’ behavior. Say no more.
  • I have had sick daughters (one with strep throat, the other with swimmer’s ear).
  • I have started an interim job as a writer for another faith-based organization, a women’s group.
  • I have received an email, first contact in 20 years, from my ex.
  • I have been taking a sketch class at the Art Students League. I have been painting, drawing, and collaging a lot. And even sold some art.
  • I have been taking a photo every day.
  • I have been journaling every day.

the fog in Riverside Park on one of my lunchtime walks

I could elaborate on any one one of these bullet points. Suffice it to say, I have felt like Superwoman, empowered and challenged. Being Superwoman is tiring.

I have felt, just recently, the need to slow down. Perhaps February can be a month for that.

All of my work — my art, writing, and teaching fills my soul and I intend to keep on keeping on. My husband suggested that when he comes back, I should go to a spa for a few days. I like that. Until then, I might just curl up on the new sofa with a good book.

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Categories Parenting Tweens, Rules To Live By
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