musings

Glamour

If you are not an intellectual snob (and I am not), you can find insight everywhere. Glamour magazine spoke to me today.

In the September issue, Glamour published this picture of Lizzie Miller, who is a stunningly beautiful size 12-14 model. There was an avalanche of support that surprised even Glamour. To date there have been more than a million views of the photograph on glamour.com. The outpouring of emotion from people who wrote in – not just the women readers you imagine but mothers, daughters, men – was extraordinary.

My favorite comment that the editor shared was a mother from Louisiana who emailed, “When I showed my six-year-old girl, she said, ‘She looks like you, Mommy … beautiful'”

But Cindi Leive’s editorial had one line that I think has resonance far beyond body imagine. She asks, Why are we so hard on ourselves, when the people who love us are so much more forgiving? I don’t know. But it’s an excellent question, and one worth spending some time with.

Physics, MIT, Poetry, and Vietnam. All in one man.

Sea of Clouds

The time has come to brave the sea of clouds,
To bear away though aching young and hardly made,
Rolled down in dark and brooding seas.

Soon gone from sight, our faces lost in waves,
Our cries no longer heard,
We finally slip into a wind-blurred far away.

Till we are gone – a small and slanted line
To bravely cut that endless edge,
Where dark and boiling clouds wedge down
To meet the sea.

– Kirtland Mead

Preface to Finding Pete: Rediscovering the Brother I Lost in Vietnam, a new book by Jill Hunting. Peter Hunting was a fraternity brother of my father’s at Wesleyan. He was killed in Vietnam in 1965. After Pete died, my father wrote a letter to his parents expressing his condolences and included the poem above.

Jill believed that her brother’s letters were destroyed in a house flood. Many years later, Jill found 175 letters from and about Pete. The letters and recollections inspired a dedicated search for her brother’s memory: she reached out to the friends from the letters (including my father) and she travelled to Vietnam in search of strands of his story. The book is the result of this odyssey, and she apparently asked my father if she could use his poem as the preface.

I am blown away by everything to do with this story. Not least by the fact that it was not dad who told me about this, but a man on my Planned Parenthood committee. By the idea of my college student father having the sensitivity and thoughtfulness to write a letter to the parents of his tragically dead friend, to pen this poem in the first place and to send it. By the beauty and subtlety of the words.

My father. The man who has a masters degree in Physics and a PhD in Engineering. Yes, I’ve always known he loved the written word. He reads voraciously, in English, French, and German. Usually he reads non-fiction books that I would describe as textbooks: thick and dense and academic. He also reads substantial classics (the ones I think of as particularly user-unfriendly) like Dante’s Inferno and recently transfixed me with a discussion of the Bible as a literary work. Because he was reading it. Now. One of my very favorite images is of my parents reading to each other from the Norton Anthology when they were dating and newly married.

Still. I find it astonishing that the same man who has a binder of hand written ( always in fountain pen) mathematical derivations (for example, the angles between the streets in the Arc de Triomph roundabout) could also pen that beautiful poem. I’m touched by the maturity and generosity of spirit he showed way back in 1965 when he chose to reach out to Pete’s family with heartfelt condolences. I’m reminded, again, that my Dad is an engineer with the heart of a poet. I’m proud, Dad. Actually, I’m in awe.

What does the heart hold?

What does the heart hold?

The heart holds love, of course. The many, complex manifestations of love in our lives: fierce devotion, fiery ardor, well-worn attachment, profound connection. The heart holds our faith, which flickers and dances depending on the day. The heart is striated with our scars, from times that people have hurt us consciously or unconsciously. These remnants of pain can surface when we least expect them, like long-buried sense memories that come back with power that can overwhelm. The heart holds our fears, which we face down with varying degrees of courage and conviction. The heart holds our dreams, the things we hope for. When we reveal these dreams we unveil our tenderest, most vulnerable selves. The heart holds the things we are sure of and the things we are confused about. Certainty and ambiguity coexist in every cell of the heart.

Yes, the content of the heart is immeasurable, both ineffable and concrete. The heart is nothing less than where our humanity lives. The essence of our human spirit, which is at once the determining factor of what our life experience is and the sum total of it.

No wonder it hurts so much sometimes.

Fear and Fearlessness

I’m a little late to the Chris Guillebeau bandwagon, but I’ve jumped on wholeheartedly.

I love his post about fear. Love it. Love the honesty of admitting that he is afraid and love the M. Scott Peck quote he cites: “The absence of fear is not courage. The absence of fear is some kind of brain damage.”

I am very afraid. Of a lot of things. I’m far from fearless and in many ways I think I do precisely what Chris says he hates, which is let my fears drive my decisions. I have blogged before about my own weakness and lack of faith in myself. But today I’m thinking about what I’m really and truly afraid of. What the fears are that animate my choices, that have propelled me into the life I have. I guess I hope that naming them is the first step in staring them down?

What I am most afraid of is of being alone. Now, I love being alone, so this is a little counterintuitive. But I am afraid of being abandoned by those who I love and need the most. There are only a few friends that I’ve truly let inside, and I’m afraid that they will decide to leave me.

And this is inextricably linked to my other big fear. I struggle to be honest and scrappy, to peel back the layers of pleasing and of making the world like me. But even as I pursue authenticity with all my might, I am deeply scared that there is nothing inside me. What if, when I shut out all of the world’s affirmation and the celebration and the achievement and look deep within and see … nothing? What do I do then? What if there is no internal voice, if I’ve screwed my own compass up so badly that it’s broken for good? What if I really reveal myself, in all of my darkness and complexity, and people see that void, that ugliness, and judge it and leave me?

These are my fears. And I’m really scared of them. I’m nowhere near facing them down.

The Alphabet of Right Now

I was in a sound sleep last night (a rare occurence) when I turned my head and opened my eyes to see Whit standing about six inches from me. No idea how long he had been standing there. Hi, buddy. Turns out he was complaining about his ears hurting. After I gave him motrin and water and a whole lot of back rubbing and snuggling (no complaints here, though his body is starting to have that lanky kid feeling now too, which is alarming to me) I went back to sleep and lay there for a while. As I lay there alone with my racing thoughts I considered that since I often do lists and things with numbers, it was high time for the Alphabet of Me Right Now.

Anxious – Not so much right now as permanent baseline throb, regular as a heartbeat. My anxiety pulses in my veins along with my platelets and red blood cells. I don’t love it but am not sure if I could ever change this inherent part of me. Also: American Girl dolls.

Blogging – I love my little blog. Random and meandering as it is, I am truly glad to have this record of my childrens’ hilarity and growth and of my own mundane introspections. Also: books, bacon.

Cashmere – As the days turn cool the uniform shifts from tee shirts to J Crew cashmere long sleeve sweaters. So comforting. Also: Cambridge.

Dog – Big family debate over a dog. All three of my family members are desperate for one. I actually love dogs as well, but feel quite sure that the responsibility for the pet will be mine and am a little leery of this. Also, not in this house that we are already bursting out of (there is violent agreement that any dog will be large, not small). Also: Diet Coke.

Elegant – Something I am most defiantly not and deeply wish I was. Getting less elegant, sadly, rather than more, as I get older. Also: exhausted.

Frantic – Too often I feel as though I am running around with a thousand balls in the air, dropping approximately one per hour. I tell myself this will be ameliorated when I make X or Y lifestyle change, but I’m starting to suspect this is a state of mind more than anything else. Also: French fries, flip-flops.

(the) Ghostie Dance – Something I have to do for Whit before bed every night to assure that he does not have ghosts in his room. Also: geek, godmothers, Gossip Girl, Goldfish.

HBS – A school I sort of can’t believe I went to.

iPhone – The focus (and locus) of my life. Camera, video, web, email, text, and phone. Also: insomnia.

Jeans and Juicy sweats – what I am wearing 90% of the time.

Kindergarten – Have one kindergarten graduate and one child one year away from it. Still can’t believe I have children this old.

Legos – These are a big part of my life. Whit is utterly obsessed, Grace partially. I find following the diagrammatic instructions to build something complex from small blocks deeply satisfying. Also, I walk on discarded Lego pieces almost every day and always shout obscenities and hop around as though a toe has been amputated. Also: lunches to pack, laundry, leather bracelet that I never take off.

Magic Treehouse books – Grace’s current fixation. She cruises through them. I love the little tidy row they make, lined up by number, in her bookshelf. Also: mess (literal and figurative), magazines.

Neatness – A fixation, and one that is fighting a losing battle against the inexorably encroaching tide of stuff that children bring with them: art, plastic toys from birthday parties, toys with lots of little pieces, and other assorted flotsam.

Overwhelmed – Often.

Princeton – Still a place I love dearly, and the place where I met most of the people who are dearest to me to this day. Also: pizza, photographs, panic.

Quotes – Refuge and inspiration, the words of others often make me feel like I am not alone and help me understand the world more clearly. I’ve kept quote books since I was in 6th grade and am now on my fourth book. I treasure these hand-written compilations that trace the words and sentiments that spoke to me in various parts of my life.

Running – My only exercise. Except I haven’t done much in the last few months with the knee injury/H1N1 one-two punch. I love to run in the cold, the rain, the snow, so am looking forward to getting back into the groove this fall. Also: robots.

Sauvignon blanc – Key beverage in my life. On the rocks. In a stemless wine glass or (arguably better) water glass. Also: Sweet Dreams Head Rub (for Grace before bed to assure no nightmares).

Twilight – I may be the only middle-aged woman I know who decided this series is lame. I thoroughly enjoyed #1, found #2 bearable, slogged my way through #3, and quit 50 pages into #4. Plus I think Robert Pattinson is creepy looking, I really do, sorry. Also: Tabblo, where all of my photographs live, toy train tracks, time passing too fast.

Underneath – The internal, essential me that I am trying to excavate. Underneath the pleasing, underneath the achieving. And the fundamental fear: what if, in truth, there is nothing underneath that?

Venn Diagrams – I often think about the world this way, about how categories overlap. I imagine venn diagrams in my head as a way of understanding situations. Also: vegetables (I’m trying).

Worry – All the time. Often ridiculously, about things totally out of my power. Somehow I believe that if I fret and fear and hold on until my knuckles are white I’ll be able to control whatever it is I’m worrying about, believe that by sheer force of will I can determine the outcome of things.

X-ray – Also: xylophone. Neither has any relevance to my life whatsoever.

Yelling – Way too much of it happening with my kids. I know. It is not helpful to shout at them to keep quiet. Yes, I get the lunacy and hypocrisy of this. Still, hard to stop!

Zithromax – Whit’s on it now for an ear infection, I’ve taken two z-packs this year because of my terrible immunity. Also: zoo (life is one).