Smart

I.Q. is notoriously tricky.  Does creating a test where scores follow a predictable bell curve mean that you have identified an accurate measure of what it is to be intelligent?  Or is it simply a measurement for something you have now constructed--"I.Q."--which may be correlated with intelligence, but may also be quite flawed?

To begin with, what is human intelligence, exactly?  When I make snap judgments regarding how smart other people are, I often link it to verbal expression: I am unimpressed when someone misuses a word or requires an explanation for a term that I think should be common knowledge; conversely, if someone can articulate an abstract or unusual idea, I elevate my opinion of his/her intelligence.  I like to joke about my roommate's ex-boyfriend's stupidity because he routinely made errors mistaking things like Barbados for Barcelona (although it turns out he actually was thinking of Pamplona, so his issues with intelligence can be argued to go beyond language).  But what I can observe of verbal expression is really a measure of performance, and so by definition my perception will be skewed to favor performers.  What of those with performance anxiety or who are hesitant to show off, to say nothing of those whose intelligence is non-verbal?  Granted, there are other accepted ways of demonstrating intelligence besides the verbal, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule.  One of the few I can think of off hand would be performing an advanced math operation.

Is the construct of intelligence as we commonly use it even compatible with a non-verbal or mathematical form of intelligence?  We use other adjectives to describe aptitude in other areas--musical, talented, gifted, artistic, creative, skillful--even though accomplishments stemming from these same feats can arguably represent the greatest heights of human brain power: the most moving music, the most stunning art, the most innovative design.

I think about this quite often as regards my ESOL students, who are by definition limited in the reception and production of the English language.  Students who have strong academic language skills in their primary language transition relatively well to an English -only schooling system: while they often have predictable struggles deciphering new vocabulary or correctly using English syntax, the linguistic structure for how to think, analyze, and organize an argument is already firmly rooted in their first language.  In my experience, teaching these latter skills is infinitely more challenging and abstract than explaining when to use present perfect or memorizing new vocabulary.  The language part of my job has surprisingly turned out to be relatively straightforward.

I worry a great deal about my students who lack both general English proficiency and academic proficiency in any language.  I worry that kids who may be pretty smart in the sense of having a sharp awareness of the world may find themselves feeling horribly stupid as they navigate the American educational system.  The way it is set up now is hardly conducive to creating a well-rounded citizenry or workforce (if that is actually what we want our schools to achieve--even that is not something clearly agreed upon).  Students who are either athletically gifted or who do well in a traditional academic environment emphasizing the verbal/mathematical intelligence can finish high school feeling pretty good about themselves, but those whose gifts lie elsewhere will only struggle to find relevance.  Well-meaning school boards and law-makers add academic requirements for graduation without considering if another Algebra credit is universally desirable--what about the student who just can't do well in math, who wants to work in a totally non-math related field, who has no desire or inclination to go to college?  High school success just got that much trickier.

The great pendulum of public opinion swings back and forth on this issue, but I would love to see a greater investment in vocational programs in high schools.   I love the idea of open enrollment in Advanced Placement courses so that students from working class backgrounds or without a history of academic success can push themselves if they choose to, but I also love the idea of schools openly acknowledging that an academic route isn't the only one, and that we value the roles of those who do the tangible stuff in our society--designing our clothes, cutting our hair, making and serving our food, manufacturing products, stocking shelves--and that these too, can be done with skill and pride.

Old Books

Growing up, there was a long, heavy, somewhat ugly bookcase in the hall filled with books inherited from my grandfather's library, including his dusty (but smelling of that delightful old book smell!) Yale Shakespeare.



I really wanted to be smart. I wanted to prove I was smart--smarter than other people, smart to a superlative degree--one of the smartest.  To my nine-year-old mind, Shakespeare was the epitome of intelligence, so naturally I decided I had to try to read it.

I wanted to begin with a play I had actually heard of, so naturally I chose Romeo and Juliet.  I still remember some of the confusion I encountered trying to trudge through Elizabethan prose.  It was so clearly beyond me, but I persevered for a surprisingly long time.  I still remember reading the scene beginning "Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds."  I was confused as to how she had ended up racing away on horses--I imagined her driving a chariot and running off somewhere, obviously in desperation to be with her true love.  I must have given up not long afterwards because I don't remember much of anything else.  I went back to my Madeleine L'Engle and L.M. Montgomery novels after that.

My mother got rid of the bookshelf a few years ago, and with it, most of the books.  She felt no one was reading them anymore, and with all of the kids out of the house, likely no one was.  But I miss it.  I miss the rows of old books and wondering who had read them before.  Their dated covers and crumbling pages seemed to hearken back to the richness of a past age, where I imagined people read with greater regularity and less distraction.

It Takes a Village and Other Clichés

Life can be a pretty dreary thing at times: wake up too early, work, exercise, eat, run errands, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Joyful moments are rarer than I would like, and sometimes the dreariness seems to overshadow them completely.

A week ago, my sister gave birth to her fourth child and first daughter, and a joyful vista opened up again.  This photo of my six year-old nephew cradling his baby sister expresses the happiness of that moment better than words ever could.

Within minutes of being born, the baby was whisked off to intensive care.  Two or three times in quick succession, she turned slightly blue and stopping breathing.  It was a frightening and tense time.  So that my brother-in-law could stay at the hospital, my parents drove to the hospital, picked up the older kids, drove them home, put them to bed, and woke up several times in the middle of the night to check my oldest (type 1 diabetic) nephew's blood sugar.  My father drove the kids to school and packed their lunches.  Neighbors watched the house.  Church members brought meals for days--the family was even double-booked on a couple of nights.  Support and prayers poured in from friends and family on Facebook, by phone, and by email.

Their family would no doubt have survived without outside help.  My brother-in-law would have had to leave the hospital and take care of the kids on his own, my sister could have looked after the baby in the hospital, and they would have made it through without messages of comfort and support.  But what a bleaker, sadder world that would have been!  I don't know precisely what it is that we are made of that makes us yearn for contact with one another, but I am heartened by the goodness in other people and by the compassion that moves them to reach out.  This is the stuff of minor miracles: just when life began to seem too dismal, I found unexpected joy in the mysterious warmth of human connections.

Oscar Pistorius

In the last Olympics, I was taken with Oscar Pistorius for his inspiring drive to compete despite having had his legs amputed below the knee as a child.  I got sucked into the media machine and loved hearing stories about him: how he met with a young girl who had lost her arms and legs to meningitis, how a fellow competitor asked to swap numbers with him in recognition of the historic nature of his success, even though he failed to make the final of the 400.  It was a dream come true for the media outlets, the ultimate feel-good human interest story in the Olympics, which have really become more about creating heroes than the actual sports.





When news broke that Pistorius had shot his girlfriend to death, I shared the horror of the rest of the world--and also the sense of betrayal.  But why betrayal?  Who was Oscar Pistorius anyway, except someone who wanted to be a star athlete, who also happened to have no legs below the knee?  His qualifications for fame had nothing to do with character.

Even those who are elevated to hero status based on their good deeds reveal themselves to be fallible human beings.   Greg Mortenson, the co-author of the bestselling Three Cups of Tea, a tale of utter selflessness in the pursuit of improving the lives of the children of Pakistan and Afghanistan, seems to have fabricated sections of his book and misappropriated donor funds for personal use.  His demise was documented on 60 minutes, he was eviscerated by Jon Krakauer, and the public outrage likely led, at least indirectly, to the suicide of his co-author.

Herein lies the trouble with hero worship: it elevates people beyond the status of human beings to demigods.  We expect them to live better lives than we do because they have inspired us--they should not give in to lust, greed, laziness, self-promotion, addiction, envy, because we conceive of them as somehow superhuman--and when they fall, we cannot excuse it.

We imagine those in the spotlight, who have accomplished extraordinary things, to be made of different material from the rest of us.  The truth is that there are no demigods--just people like us.  It can be frightening to acknowledge, but it can also be liberating, for instead of relying on others to fulfill our demands for greatness, we can recognize the same power within ourselves.

Listening

Observations on myself: I am unusually sensitive to sounds and unusually insensitive to sights--I might walk past the same building or sign many times and never notice it, but a loud or jarring (or beautiful!) sound is sure to catch my attention.  Here are some of the sounds I love:

Crickets--a relaxing summer evening, sitting on a back porch with people dear to me, having the pleasure to slow down just to listen, being near to nature and its beauty

The sound of a neighbor's outdoor basketball game--comfort, homeyness, familiarity

Ocean waves crashing--the combination of a soothing, reassuring, repetitive rhythm coupled with the ocean's (almost literally) unfathomable mystery

An orchestra tuning--dissonance, difference, resolving into unity while maintaining uniqueness

Musicians breathing in the background of classical music tracks--a big intake of breath right before an important passage--it's almost like they're reminding you how to live: play and work with intensity, but don't forget to breathe

Children laughing--really anyone laughing, especially people you love--a blessed reminder that perhaps not all of life is suffering, after all

Traveling Alone

This past weekend, a dear co-worker was married in New Hampshire.  After receiving her invitation I assumed it would likely be impractical to attend, but I looked online and saw that ticket prices direct from DCA to Manchester were cheap, and on a whim, I bought a ticket.

I arrived late on Friday night, rented a car, and drove to a small family-owned lodge.  I woke up with light poring into my windows through the brightly tinted leaves. I loved having a room to myself, tucked away in the New Hampshire forest, quiet, restful, private, protected.  I felt like I didn't have to live up to any expectations.  I slept in, read a bit, went for a long walk, ate a late breakfast, and drove myself to the wedding.  I chatted with strangers and friends of the family, congratulated the bride and groom, headed to the reception, ate, danced, chatted, and went home early to read in bed.

It was perfect.  It was restorative.  I should do this more often!

The view from one of my windows:

My glorious morning walk

:

The lovely stained glass in the church:

The bride and groom:

View from the reception site:

Connected

I read this article today about gang violence in El Salvador.  It made me think about how many stories are in circulation regarding suffering in far away places, and how their sheer volume makes it hard to feel compassionate about all of them--we have to live at some point, running errands and making money, and stopping to feel properly empathetic, to consider whether our consumption is exacerbating the problem, or to wonder if contributing funds might help, becomes simply unbearable over time.  Yet how unfortunate to feel myself becoming hardened!

I write about this now in the context of beginning another school year with a new crop of students.  As the level 1 ESOL teacher, I see my students every morning first thing and thus become the default homeroom teacher/counselor/social worker for students.  Students routinely ask me questions in the minutes before and after class on everything from free lunch to homecoming tickets.  The harder cases are the ones where I have to ask the questions: why is Douglas sleeping? (Answer: working illegally long hours in the evenings to help the family put  food on the table).  Why is Maria so despondent? (Answer: in fear that his daughter has become too "loose" and Americanized, her father has been beating her).  Why does Danny seem so angry? (Answer: in immigrating to the U.S. to flee his father's gang-related aspirations for him, he has been reunited with a mother he hasn't seen in 10 years--and after the initial joyful reunion, it has been a difficult and frustrating adjustment).  My beginning students are disproportionately Central American in origin, and so stories like the NY Times article cited above are more than an abstraction--I see the impact of violence and poverty on my students' learning and behavior, which in turn has a direct impact on me.

I didn't choose this profession because of an unselfish desire to comfort the afflicted.  I saw in it an opportunity to earn a living in something I enjoyed: I both love teaching and feel naturally gifted to do it well, and I am fascinated by the intersection of language and culture.  It was only after being in my field for a few years that I even realized how essential it is to acknowledge what a huge impact the circumstances of my students' lives can have on their performance in school, and how I can never ignore that if I want to help them reach their best potential, academically or otherwise.  I became connected to this community by accident, and I care about immigration, about Central American countries with their soaring murder rates, corruption, and horrifying poverty, not so much because I am compassionate and selfless, but because it affects me, actually and quite concretely.  Trying to get a deeply angry seventeen-year-old boy to care about improving his writing has made it abundantly clear that I cannot separate myself from the woes of a far-off country.

I ended up here by accident rather than by any inherent goodness.  However, I feel acutely that experiencing things like this--where I can directly observe the suffering of others because of real connections with those it most affects--is an essential part of helping me to become more loving, more compassionate, and a better Christian.  I should do more good--I should find ways to serve outside of what I already do in my profession.  So many people do that, and in this way their lives become interwoven with another community, and they learn to feel compassion and understanding for those who are in distinctly different circumstances from themselves.  It is so natural to cling to others like us who are of similar faiths, professions, academic backgrounds, with similar interests.  I, too, choose to spend the great majority of my time with those with whom I have the most in common, but I've come to see that I am simply too limited in my capacity for far-off compassion.  I cannot understand or care about other people in a meaningful way without knowing them with some degree of intimacy.

Slipshod

This summer I picked up the habit of walking to the local branch of the library to read for an hour or two.  It's a pleasant spot, with large and airy windows, lots of trees so the light isn't too intense, and an interesting mix of local people, yet is never too crowded.  I love having reference books at my finger tips, and while I was perusing the dictionaries the other day to look up a Spanish word that showed up in my novel (I didn't have my computer with me), I saw a copy of Bryan Garner's Modern American Usage Dictionary, the dictionary made famous by David Foster Wallace's sparkling review.

I flipped through it and within seconds I had completely abandoned my original purpose in visiting the reference shelves.  It was deliciously fun to see how authoritatively Garner explained his stylistic preferences, giving examples of improper usage straight from the pages of well-known publications (the San Diego Union-Tribune came off especially poorly).  It stroked my cattiest impulses--it was like fashion police for the usage stickler.

Here's one of my favorite terms of Garner's: "slipshod extension," which "denotes the mistaken stretching of a word beyond its accepted meanings, the mistake lying in a misunderstanding of the true sense."  I love this--"slipshod" is a word I need to use more--it's so much more visual than "slovenly."  It makes me think of something like this:



In his list of slipshod extensions, he includes "protagonist."  L.A. Times film critic Kenneth Turan (who is less obnoxious to me than most film critics) is cited for making the embarrassing mistake of referring to mere characters as  "protagonists."  Garner has the amusing habit of citing a malapropism and then correcting it:

I find his parenthetical "read characters" to be delightful.

I love having all my annoyances called out like this.  In a culture where it's increasingly common to hear people say things like "it literally broke my heart" in all earnestness, Garner's comments are simultaneously validating and amusing.

But of course if I read more of the book, I'll be sure to find examples of words and phrases I use incorrectly.  I have a fairly brilliant friend, one of the smartest people I know, who misuses the word "tendentious."  I was 25 before someone pointed out to me that my pronunciation of miscellaneous as "mish-ell-aneous" was incorrect.  I think what I'm deciding is that I feel okay allowing myself to laugh at other people, to smugly smirk at Kenneth Turans and Union Tribunes, if I can maintain my sense of humor at my own expense.  We're all somewhat ridiculous.

Mental Health and Happiness

I think, maybe, that I suffer from a mild, but nonetheless highly unpleasant form of anxiety.  It applies a bit to every part of my life--a need for absolute perfection at work, an awareness that I'm not as socially graceful as it seems a well-adjusted adult would need to be, a deep-seated fear that there are things I'm missing because overwhelming feelings of inadequacy paralyze me.  (All of that was obnoxiously vague, but perhaps that is what I need to say to maintain some sense of privacy in this internet confessional.  And why am I doing this online at all?  I feel like confessing will relieve some of the pressure building up, and strangely, writing is so much easier than speaking, and this blog feels strangely anonymous, like those who read it are a select audience of those few people who are genuinely interested in what I think).

Anxiety, as I experience it, is both physical and mental.  It feels like some kind of inflammation in my chest--a burning tightness, seeping up from my chest to my throat.  I'm fortunate in that what I experience is relatively mild compared to some--it's not unbearable pain, I don't feel like I'm unable to breathe or get enough oxygen--I just feel strained, and when I'm particularly tired or out of sorts, it overwhelms me so that I cannot focus on anything else.   Emotionally, I feel stuck, and I start to rethink all of my recent interactions and obsess over what was said and not said, and worry, worry, worry.  I find it incredibly hard to concentrate, and I often want to turn the lights out and fall asleep, hoping the feeling will have passed by morning; if nothing else, I find solace in knowing that for at least a few hours I will be blissfully unconscious.

Anxiety is particularly nefarious because it can cause feelings of dread regarding the anxiety itself, triggering anxiety over a perceived potential anxiety.  It can be consuming, and that is the terrifying part--that this nastiness will take over my life to the point where I can no longer function at the levels to which I am accustomed, and that any normalcy and healthiness in my life will start to wither away as I become a crazy person.  I recently saw Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine", and while the title character (SPOILERS!) became gradually revealed as someone whose all-encompassing selfishness destroyed everyone around her, she was also surprisingly sympathetic to me because I could identify with her episodes of anxiety.  While I haven't devolved into alcoholism or publicly talking to myself, I felt an uncomfortable familiarity with the way she seemed to retreat into herself when her stress levels increased due to awkward social situations, invasive questions, unwanted attention from her boss, even painful memories.

All this leads to some kind of main point, if there is one: I feel like I've been hearing a lot lately about how happiness is something we choose, and I feel deeply troubled by that.  I am sure that outlook plays a significant role in one's perception of happiness.  I can imagine becoming obsessed with what is still missing, whether it be that perfect beautiful house, great job, idealized spouse, etc.  But I also sense a stunning lack of empathy, a smug self-satisfaction, in the idea that one's own success with finding happiness means that those of us who struggle with it--who find it more elusive--are simply too self-absorbed or negative, too short-sighted, ungrateful, whiny, etc., etc.  Yes, I am a bit of all of those things.  But I want to be happy more than I want to be self-indulgent or melancholy, and while I absolutely experience meaningful moments of happiness, it doesn't come easily for me.  I certainly don't reject outright the ideas passed along in articles ubiquitous on Facebook like this one; if people find greater happiness because of reading something like that, than by all means, pass it along.  But if my own mild anxiety can be a barrier to me experiencing a fullness of happiness, I cannot imagine what kind of unhappiness those who severe mental illness might be facing, nor can I begin to fathom what kind of anguish people must feel whose circumstances are truly tragic or nightmarish.  It's comforting, I suppose, to imagine that happiness is something we can control, and that therefore people who have it, deserve it.  Perhaps there is some truth to that idea; there likely is.  But truth can also be maddeningly complex, and this case, in my opinion, is no exception.  I propose that good people, who try their utmost to live meaningful, productive lives, can be severely unhappy.  That sounds desperately pessimistic.  Maybe it is.  But perhaps there is also something deeply commendable and inspiring in how they are trying to live good lives, even without much in the way of reward.

Smell and Memory

My roommate made coconut red lentil soup the other night.  She started by sauteing the onions with the spices--curry and cinnamon.  The smells were so rich, so warm, so inviting--it was an instant pick-me-up after my second consecutive twelve hour workday, transporting me to warmer, more exotic places.

What is it about smell that is so directly linked to mood and memory?  When I was an undergraduate studying French literature, I must have had to read Proust's iconic madeleine passage--the one where he dips it in tea and is instantly transported back in time --in at least three classes, in one context or another.  Here is the relevant passage:

No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.




Here it is, this time unabridged, in French; the relevant passage begins under the heading "Le texte celebre de la madeleine".  (I'm also struck by the contrast of the English to the French--it's a cliche, but to me, it rings true-- the French language is seductive, rich, smooth.  But I digress into reveling in another of the senses).

The distinctive, instinctual memory associated with smell is for me evocative of places as well as time.  Perfume mixed with cigarette smoke = streets of Paris.  Sage = hiking in California. Fresh baked bread== home, mother, love, all things domestic.  Bleach = comforting cleanliness.  Herbal Essence shampoo= college, showering in the late afternoon to avoid the morning rush in the dorms, my old  fuchsia bathrobe.  Beer plus food deep-fried plus smoke = Czech pub.

How fascinating are the strange connections in our human brains: associating smells so intensely with memory is powerful and creativity-inducing, but it's also limiting in the sense that it colors perceptions of new events and therefore inhibits our ability to make impartial observations.  This, I think, is part of what makes being human so interesting--our very flaws are so often inextricably linked to our greatest capacity.

Best of the Violin

Quick notes on favorites:

I don't always love Beethoven,as I feel he can be overblown and rambling, but still he is worth listening to for his inimitable ability to capture joy and triumph over darkness (see the ninth symphony for both the best and the worst of Beethoven).  One of my favorite pieces from Beethoven is the third movement of his violin concerto, positively soaring in its climax: listen to this Heifetz recording, starting from 7:00.  Turn it up LOUD!  My favorite way to listen to this is in the car, blasting it.  Beethoven was not meant to be played timidly.

I want to like Brahms more than I do, although I really do love his violin concerto, especially the slow movement, so beautiful that it stops your heart.  The most glorious section begins right at the soloist's entrance at 2:25, although it's ultimately more satisfying if you allow yourself to listen to the entire orchestral intro that precedes the entrance, as it builds so magnificently.  Oy, at 2:36 or so--the gradual rise, the beauty of those singing high notes!  Words fail me.  

Both of these are far beyond my technical range now or even when I was practicing regularly and taking lessons up until the age of 18 or so.  But here's the second movement of the Bach Double Violin Concerto, also stunning, but less demanding, one which I have actually performed with my little sister.

I have also played this.   Mozart was a pretty good match for me stylistically at the height of my technical prowess.  But watching Hillary Hahn, one of my favorite violinists, perform this with such effortless grace, I am astounded by the gaping chasm between her ability and mine.  So here is the principal and lasting result of many years of lessons and unfortunate embarrassments stemming from my laziness: I have come to love this music.  Worth it, I think.  

Me as a Violinist: Crappy, but Happy (Mostly)

When I was 12, a family from church asked me to play the violin at their son's baptism.  It was a relatively minor thing: I was to play the descant to one of the most popular songs in the hymn book while the congregation sang along.  I had done it before, so I blew off practicing even once with the pianist.  As we began, I played only one note before I realized something was disastrously wrong.  At first I thought the problem might have simply been that the piano and I hadn't tuned to each other (I know, I know--any musician reading this is cringing at how awful it was that I didn't even bother to do that), but then I realized that the problem was much worse--we were in different keys.  I did what I could to transpose what was written into the correct key, but the panic at having to do it unexpectedly, plus the initial missed notes, threw off my performance and resulted in disaster.

Unfortunately, I have lots of stories like that.  There was the time (age 15) that I didn't practice at all for an upcoming orchestra seating test where we would have to defend our placement within the orchestra by playing selections from the repertoire for our upcoming concert. The conductor started at the top of our first violin section and asked the top two musicians to both play, and then the rest of us voted with closed eyes for who we thought had played the best.  The idea was that a stronger performance by a person seated lower in the section could bump someone out of his or her seat.  This continued down to me, seated squarely in the middle of the first violins.  In one of the most humiliating moments of my life, I played so poorly that I was bumped all the way to the bottom of the section.  I can still remember the shame burning my cheeks--and the tear I was unable to prevent from escaping--during my next lesson as my teacher berated me for embarrassing him with my poor showing.

Clearly, I do not have what it takes to be a professional.  Beyond my lack of discipline and the satisfaction I find in achieving middling results, I suffer from crushing fear.  A conductor for a youth orchestra I auditioned for once told my mother I needed as much audition experience as she could get for me because I had been "shaking like a leaf."  I play only in church these days, a venue renowned for its combination of high support and low expectations, but I still sit down after a performance with shaking hands and a rapid pulse.

But.  BUT!  There is something to be said for what I have experienced when public performances haven't ended ignominiously.  The nervousness that can be so paralyzing heightens the senses, and when a beautiful arrangement, dutiful rehearsing, and skillful accompaniment all come together, there is an indescribable sense of joy.  At the risk of being obnoxiously melodramatic, I would even say I feel synergy with the universe.  That crescendo in feeling that comes with the most expressive music--that is the closest thing I have ever felt to pure unadulterated bliss.  It sounds self-aggrandizing, but I move myself.  There is nothing like being in the middle of an orchestra or a choir and hearing the sound rising all around you while knowing that you yourself are an integral part of that beauty.  In all of my limited experience, it is the closest I have felt to heaven.

Nostalgia

Seven+ years after leaving graduate school, I finally cleaned out binders filled with articles from class and independent research.  Into the recycling bin went hundreds of articles on linguistic-y topics: everything from case studies of bilingual children to descriptions of phonological processes to meta-analyses of English language programs.  In other words, all of this stuff that was genuinely fascinating, that I spent two years of my life delving into, I have not once touched since.  As much as I love thinking about language, language learning, educational policy, constructions of culture, repercussions of tests--I just haven't reread any of it since then, and now all of it is pretty dated.

It's amazing how you can become so immersed in something that quickly gets superseded by the rest of life. You devote hours and hours of concentrated attention--and then it fades into the background.  Thus went trumpet-playing, mathematics, Latin, Chinese.  What next?

Fitter, Happier. .

For the third year in a row, my annual physical revealed a vitamin D deficiency, with this year's number lower than ever.  This is somewhat ironic, given that the other predictable pronouncement by the nurse practitioner is that I am dangerously fair-skinned (fairer skin being linked to relative ease at vitamin D absorption from the sun).  I blame this unlikely dual misfortune on my scrupulous sunscreen habit, which the N.P. assures me I should continue in order to protect myself from the likelihood of skin cancer.  In the meantime, however, she has finally prescribed me a ridiculously high vitamin D dosage in hopes that I'll finally stop blowing off her advice to take a supplement. So far the added seriousness of having a prescription has worked, and whereas I used to diligently take my OTC-level dosage of vitamin D for only a couple of days before succumbing to the suspicion that it didn't really matter that much, I've now been going strong for five weeks.

Beyond the prescription, my dedication was in large part fueled by my internet reading on vitamin D, which lists the symptoms and complications of a deficiency as including everything from increased risk of cancer (this time NOT skin cancer--you can't win) and osteoporosis to difficulty sleeping, depression, and even weight gain.  I relish the thought of the effortlessness of popping a pill resulting, potentially, in being thinner, more cheerful, and more energized.  Articulating this fantasy to myself evoked the Radiohead song "Fitter, Happier"  Yep, that joyless song probably accurately captures the likelihood of finding such an easy fix.  Oh, well.  Here's hoping for the placebo effect.  That's a thing, right?

Thinking about God

At the moment, I'm reading Blake Ostler's Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God, which addresses Mormon theology and how it fits in with other Christian theologies.  Mormonism has some striking differences with traditional Christianity--the emphatic way we highlight that the trinity consists of three separate personages, the inclusion of the Book of Mormon in the scriptural canon, the historical practice of polygamy, and the (currently not widely professed) view that human beings have the potential to become as gods.

Before this I had read virtually no theology; while I had read some of Augustine's Confessions and excerpts of Aquinas in college, in the context of my class we were viewing the texts more for how they approached the ineffable than for any theological conclusions.




As I was reading Ostler, at first I found I was distracted by the impression that he was trying too hard to invent a systematic theology where no such thing existed.  For example, he acknowledges the widely documented Mormon view that God did NOT create ex nihilo ("out of nothing"), but simply organized matter that already existed and that therefore he cannot force separate "intelligences" (which can refer to either individual people or even to matter) to act in any particular way--therefore they have free will, separate from God's ability to act upon them.  He then attempts to reconcile this with seemingly contradictory scriptures like D&C 88:47--"God hath given a law to all things by which they move" (implying that God is the ultimate cause behind all other events brought about by other agents)--by stating intelligences have power to cause certain events to take place, but that God must lend them his power for this to occur.  The intelligences therefore can act as free agents, but only with God lending his power simultaneously--something Ostler calls "concurrence".  An interesting and creative conclusion to be sure, but definitely not something that must be universally arrived at, since it is not at all clear if this is what is meant by Mormon scripture or if it is what Mormon prophets had meant to convey.  While one could argue that God may reveal truths without the complete understanding of his mouthpieces, there remains the question of whether this is even God's intended conclusion from combined Mormon discourses and scriptures.  In other words, all interesting ideas, but not necessarily convincing and certainly not conclusive.

But then I realized that this systematizing of unsystematic utterances about God into a coherent theology is itself the discipline of theology, which is what Augustine and Aquinas and all the other theologians were up to themselves, taking biblical record, some of which is clearly self-contradictory, and trying to reconcile it with logic and what was known of science and philosophy.  On the whole, Mormons have not always been friendly to such attempts, perceiving efforts to define theology from non-prophetic sources as inevitably tainted by human interference . Certainly the task theologians undertake is audacious--but is it worth doing? Does it add anything to the spiritual life?

My own thought is that reading arguments about the nature of God seems to do little to convince me about one view or another.  I'm honestly really unsure about things like whether God is ultimately infinitely omnipotent or if such a thing is even possible (or desirable) and he is instead "maximally potent"; the more I read, the more I find new questions arising.  But I've decided that I like reading theology because the way I experience the world and discover my beliefs is not just through inspired feeling, but by reasoned thinking and analytic reflection.  In years past when I ignored difficult and thorny theological questions, it essentially meant that I was shutting off an important part of myself to God--and therefore my relationship with him felt boring and stagnant.  And writing that feels blasphemous, for I cannot believe that God himself is either of those things.  So while I am very unsure if I agree with Ostler's conclusions about what Mormon theology is--or even what it should be--I'm very much appreciative of the exercise of considering these questions. Thinking about God turns out to be a devotional activity for me in much the same way that prayer and church attendance are; I'm turning my mind towards him in the same way I've always known to turn my heart.

Fear

Fear.  Oh, I hate it so.  It has both kept me awake and haunted my sleep.  I have missed out on what should have been fun or exciting moments because of worry, distress, anxiety--all words to describe subtle variations of fear.

November, 2002.  When the NATO conference came to Prague, our language school, across the street from the US Embassy, closed for the week.  A friend and I decided to go to Krakow. Despite a long delay while changing trains near the border, it was a pleasant journey. The city itself was breathtaking, not too full of tourists because of the chilly time of year. On the first night, we finished dinner fairly late and headed back to our hostel on the outskirts of town past the Vistula River.  It was a weeknight in a mostly uninhabited part of the city, and the streets were dark and deserted.  We were talking and laughing when we noticed two men in the distance heading our direction on the opposite side of the street.  My friend made a comment about feeling nervous, and while I'm not normally easily spooked, I clenched my bag tighter.  As they drew nearer, they suddenly changed direction and started crossing the street as if to confront us directly.  I couldn't speak and I couldn't react--I found myself suddenly unable to move at all, with a desperate prayer in my throat--"Please, please, please don't let them come too near--don't let them touch us.  And if they do, please let it be just our money they want."  They grew closer, they were near, and without a word, they passed silently by.  My friend let out a relieved laugh.  "I really thought they were going to attack us!"--but I couldn't speak.  We got back to the hostel, and I was too stiff with fear to even make my bed--my hands were useless.  I had to just sit for 15 minutes or so while the adrenaline finished its rush through my body.  It was an odd overreaction--I'm not exactly sure why I had become so terrified, although maybe the experience really was as menacing as it seemed.  More than ten years after the fact, my memory is not so clear.

Most disturbingly, my own body had betrayed me.  I couldn't have run, I couldn't have fought--I had frozen.  I was useless--worse than useless--at defending myself.  In nightmares, I have felt my legs turn sluggish while trying to run away, as if moving through jello.  But at least I could move--here I had become totally helpless, and I couldn't consciously will myself back into control.  I don't fully understand why that happened, but the two or three times that I've been truly fearful in my life have all had the same result.  I have heard of fight or flight--but freeze?  What on earth could be the biological explanation for the usefulness of that?  According to wikipedia, "many animals freeze or play dead when touched in the hope that the predator will lose interest".*  Yikes.  I don't like to consider my survival prospects if I ever encountered real danger; fortunately, my few scary moments have always turned out to be false alarms.

(*Another source suggests that "tonic immobility may be useful when additional attacks are provoked by movement or when immobility may increase the chance of escaping, such as when a predator believes its prey to be dead and releases it."  So maybe my body just knows I'm a crappy runner and an even crappier fighter and thinks, "eh--playing dead is the best defense I've got." )

The Impossible

I recently watched "The Impossible" while struggling to get through a red eye flight (why do I keep booking these?  I can't seem to remember that I can NEVER sleep on planes and that it's routinely a miserable experience.  Here's hoping that writing and publishing this will strengthen my resolve not to do it again).


The movie was--well, moving.  Sitting on a dark plane surrounded by hundreds of sleeping strangers in the early hours of the morning, I found myself weeping for the dead and the anguish of the survivors and shuddering at the horrors of extensive injuries.  I can point out what I think are some flaws in tone or story-telling, but I thought that the acting was great and the portrayal of the catastrophic tsunami was pretty amazing. I came home and looked it up on wikipedia and imdb and was unsurprised to see that the reviews were mostly good, but that it received some criticism for "white-washing", or telling a story affecting people of minority ethnic or racial groups with white actors to appeal to a mainstream white audience. It caused me to reflect on my impression of the movie and ask myself if I agreed; while I determined that I did not, I found this argument to be compelling and worth addressing.

I asked myself, what if the movie went about telling a story of a Thai, or Sri Lankan, or Indonesian family who suffered loss and injury in the tsunami?  For starters, the essential nature of the film would be different.  The exposition would require more detail to give the western audience the necessary background to understand something about the lives of the characters, leaving less time to explore the nature of the catastrophe and its aftermath.  The filmmakers would also need to find a way to hook the audience into relating to people whose lives are so different.  The movie would then shift in tone from being about the tsunami's destruction and the fragility of human life, and become an exploration of how we are somehow unable to feel the same compassion for people we identify as different (dare we admit that in the unexamined parts of our consciousness, we even consider inferior?) from us.

We would be forced to face our own assumption that when people in the developing world, who don't have our same conveniences and cultural norms suffer, that it is less meaningful, less real, less important.  This is a difficult truth.  It is worth asking hard questions about why these films don't get made--why we as consumers don't want to consume them, really, since I'm sure that the studios would be happy to produce something sure to be lucrative.  And while we probably know--or have a good sense for-- the answer to that question (art that is hard on its audience is not generally popular for mass consumption), we should be asking ourselves what can be done to change that--even in small ways.

But in the end, "The Impossible" is telling one story, based on true events suffered by a real family. While it does portray a disaster that disproportionately affected southeast Asians, and not European tourists, we should be outraged at our failure as a society to want to tell--or more importantly, to want to see--such stories rather than at how "The Impossible" cannot tell every story, or convey every political and social message that we believe should be out there.  We should look closely at how we view tragedy, and if and why we may feel greater shock and sadness when people who look more like us--whether because they are white, middle-class, from the developed world, English-speaking, etc.--are harmed or killed or suffer than when people who are different endure the same.  But it seems unfair to penalize one film, written and produced to tell one specific story, for failing to address all these collective wrongs.

Reasons to Run

I am not much of an athlete.  Naturally mediocre in both strength and speed, I don't do myself any favors with my lack of discipline and dislike of physical discomfort.  But even with my limitations, I have found exercise to be both pleasurable and healing over the years, although in different phases of life, it has had different purposes.

As a child, I loved the idea of being fast.  I read every Marguerite Henry book I could get my hands on and became obsessed with horses, a creature built for speed.  I would run everywhere and imagine I was Florence Griffith Joyner (I actually think the cheesy music on that link perfectly describes the soundtrack in my 10 year-old brain as I would run).  Schoolyard games always included running: various forms of tag, butt's up (which, ever the good Mormon girl, I dutifully referred to as "bum's up"), and imaginary games that always involved running--we were unicorns, we were riding horses, we were running from the bad guys, we were flying through the air. My mother loves to tell about how she would pick me up from school and I would be completely disheveled: clothes dirty, hair escaping my pony tail and plastered to my sweaty forehead.

It was in high school that I objectively learned that I was an above-average high school runner, and nothing more.  There's nothing like a stop watch for forcing you to face reality.  I was disappointed, but by that time my identity as a bookwormish nerd was set, so it wasn't as devastating as it might have been.  I enjoyed running and winning races (which happened rarely once I transitioned from junior varsity to varsity), but it really was more about the world of track--the friends, the meets, and the pleasure that came from watching people who WERE really great.  I came to love the sport, and I will still yell myself hoarse at a high school track meet.

In my twenties, I almost never ran.  When I started college, hurdling and sprinting were no longer practical exercise options and I had long decided that I was uninterested in longer distances.  I also had noted, in chagrin, the superficiality that strangely runs through certain subcultures of BYU, my undergraduate university, and in rebellion I stopped wearing make-up and refused to work out because it seemed like many women's motivation was solely to make themselves attractive enough to be considered dateable.  As a result, while I always loved walking everywhere I could, the habit for regular exercise was completely gone for the better part of a decade. 

 Finally, at about 30, I started running because I could feel my body settling into middle age, and I wanted to fight it.  Unfortunately, I never shed the pounds that I imagined would melt away as soon as I was into a running routine, but I did finally find what it felt like to be in shape and able to run several miles comfortably.  What I learned was that while my body didn't physically change as much as I would have liked, as I grew stronger, I began to see my body as a tool, not an object.  It felt wonderful to feel my calves contracting as they left the pavement, my arms pumping, my abdominal muscles tight in supporting my form. That being said, I am not fast: my limited ability as a high school athlete was in hurdles and jumping, and I tend to be even more mediocre in endurance than in power.

Now I run as a prescription for an ailing and troubled soul.  I wake in the middle of the night and feel panic at what I have not yet achieved.  I feel fear that it is too late to make something meaningful of my life--that I've botched it irreparably.  I worry about things I've said, things I should have done but didn't, perceived or real offenses, professional inadequacy, and the fact that in worrying, I am missing valuable sleep and therefore less likely to accomplish all those things I feel I should.  For whatever reason, I find that running can somewhat mitigate that paralyzing rushing in my brain.  I don't know if it's the endorphins, the rhythmic pounding, the transfer of mental to physical pain, but it can bring momentary, sweet relief.  So for now, when I don't want to go I remind myself that it is my prescription.  Running: drug without side-effects?

Kafkaesque

Until this week, I had never read any Kafka.  Any.  Ever.  I had lived in Prague, Kafka's home town, almost daily walking past the apartment where he was born and the building where he had attended school, both ostentatiously advertised by historical markers, and yet I had only read a few pages of one story before deciding I found his work unsavory.   I finally read a collection of his stories this week, including famous works like "The Metamorphosis," "In the Penal Colony", "The Judgment", and perhaps less famous, but what ended up being my favorite group of stories, "The Hunger Artist."  I was surprised to find that this time, I not only liked Kafka--I liked him a lot.  I concluded this with a sense of relief because so many writers and thinkers I had long admired held Kafka in near reverence (I regretfully admit that I find I want to have similar opinions to people I admire).  In what way had I changed since my last attempt?  I'm not entirely sure, but for some reason I found the ambiguity, the darkness, the nightmarish strangeness, the abrupt non sequiturs in conversation, to no longer be off-putting and pointlessly bleak, but rather a powerful and uniquely bold manner of portraying what it means to be human--the alienation, loneliness, despair, hope, doubt--by abandoning realism as inadequate to the task.  With relief, now that I've actually read (some of) his work, I can finally wrap my head somewhat around the word "Kafkaesque".  Confronting what I bad previously dismissed as "unsavory" about human character, including my own (and there is something deeply ironic and self-mocking in his stuff), is no longer so daunting, although it has not ceased to be disturbing. 

Red or Blue

When I was a child of four or five, red was my favorite color.  I was even Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween one year in a nod to my enthusiasm for all things red.  One day, I asked my mother what her favorite color was.  To my chagrin, she explained that she really like many colors, but that her favorite was probably blue.  I was devastated.  I couldn't articulate it at the time, but I felt that our different opinions divided us somehow--that our inability to agree on what was most beautiful in color drove a wedge between us.



As I grew older, having the same opinions about things as arbitrary as colors became less and less important. Having friends with some divergent ideas became interesting.  But there is still something important about how we connect and feel tied to one another based on similarities of opinion: Our good friends like the same music or books we do, and it confirms a pleasurable feeling in our gut that this person is a good match for us--hence the expression "something in common", which describes that feeling of recognition you get when you find you have the right combination of similarities, like you're home, understood, and somehow not really totally alone.

A recent email conversation with a friend remind me of this recently with the Supreme Court's rulings on DOMA and Proposition 8.  People I love and care about are on both sides of the issue--and I feel a sadness over how divisive this has become.  Of course it is connected to something much more sensitive and profound than colors; those on one side feel a religious duty to protect the notion of marriage and society they believe is ordained by God, and those on the other side feel compelled to protect a marginalized group from injustice and discrimination.  It's hard--perhaps impossible--to reconcile the openly moral judgment of the former against the latter's stance that they deserve the same rights and freedoms.  But I still can't help feeling like there could possibly be some middle ground where the conversation should be somehow safer and more accepting of difference.  I don't think opponents of proposition 8 could entirely escape the hurt and anger they might feel, but perhaps they could see that the intent of all proponents of prop 8 wasn't necessarily discrimination based only on fear, and acknowledge that even those supporting it might feel conflicted.  Likewise, perhaps the proponents of proposition 8 could openly admit understanding for why the other side is so offended, explaining that the response would be justifiable when looking at homosexuality from a completely different stance.  (Because opposition to gay marriage is becoming increasingly unpopular, I actually feel like this second scenario is currently more common, not because of any inherent moral superiority on the side of the pro-prop 8 faction, but simply due to their situation as being in the minority).  This would buck the current cultural trend of bitterly divided political discourse, but how healthy and powerful would it be to actually talk to each other with the intent to understand; so much of public discourse now is merely posturing for one's own supporters--we love hearing our own opinions echoed in the most eloquent discourse, in a more articulate or artistic voice.

Back to the colors of my childhood--I gradually stopped loving red.  Feeling that the red/blue disagreement was an insurmountable obstacle to having a deep connection with my mother, I promptly convinced myself that I liked blue better.  I was so successful that to this day I prefer blue to red.  And I sometimes still wonder how many of my opinions I have arrived at because I have sacrificed, consciously or not, ideas I have arrived at independently for those of the people I most admire and love--not to impress them, exactly, but in order to feel like we are one, and that I am not alone.