Shyness, Bravery, and Compassion

I'm often struck by the perceptiveness and compassion that (comedian) John Hodgman shows in his rulings on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. The latest episode, The Right to Remain Silent, blew me away. The show is described this way: "Chris wants his daughter, Sophie, to get over her shyness and show more confidence in uncomfortable social situations. Sophie believes she is making progress in her own way and doesn't need any pushing from her Dad. Who's right and who's wrong? Only one man can decide." In these terms, the episode centers around a chance encounter Sophie and her dad had with comedian Eugene Mirman, one of Sophie's favorites (who happens to be one of my favorites, too). In an attempt to encourage his shy daughter to talk to Mirman, Chris pushes her forward, when she's already starting to cry from, it sounds like, sheer overwhelmedness. (It can be a word. Hush.)

Twelve year-old Sophie is much like I was at that age. She's the child of an outgoing academic type (difference: her dad is vice president of a college, my mom was a professor). She's shy. (I was incredibly outgoing through my early teens, and then took on shyness until early college. Now, I'm an outright extrovert.) I was firmly on her side for much of the episode, feeling like her father was pushing her too quickly and too hard to be someone she isn't sure she wants to be (yet).

Thing is, I do empathize with Chris. I can tell from what he says about his kid that he's genuinely proud of how smart and articulate she is, and how much he wants that to shine out for the world to see. (He also shares that he was even more shy than Sophie when he was a child - I wish he had elaborated on what that means.) His daughter writes poetry, and he wants her to participate in a poetry reading at his college. (As a faculty brat, I never would have submitted to such a thing. Even now, my poetry is winsome at best, and it's written for me, not for students six years my senior.)

What bothers me, other than the actual pushing, which Sophie said had gone too far, is his attitude that her shyness is something that can be "fixed." I'm not a parent, but as a formerly shy kid, what worked for me was having a parent who let me be who I was when I was it. My mom encouraged me to speak up and to try new things, but she also let me pull back when I needed to. The extrovert that I am today is shaped by the three decades of choice I got in that matter. I was never not enough for my mom. I don't think Chris' feelings about his daughter are that simple, by any means, but I think it's an important realization for any child to have. They are loved just as they are. They're encouraged to make changes, and to challenge themselves, but they're always loved, and the developmental stage they're in is (assuming nothing abnormally dangerous is happening) respected.

In the limitedly short glimpse I got of everyone's interactions with Sophie, I much prefer the way the comedians talk (to her) to the way her father does (about her). Mirman, in a surprise call-in appearance that initially breaks Sophie down, is gently funny in his typical deadpan manner, zeroing in on the problem with the pushing as he witnessed it. Hodgman puts it more bluntly - "Chris. Don't shove your daughter" - and talks to Sophie almost like she's a peer. He nudges her toward telling Mirman how much she likes his work, pointing out that "almost everyone in the world appreciates a polite, 'Hello, I think you're great. See you later.'" Bailiff Jesse Thorn, similarly empathetic to the girl, asks if she has "any plans to break out of [her] shell on [her] own time." The ruling Hodgman gives is in Sophie's favor, and in a lovely twist, the punishment Chris receives is just what he initially wanted his daughter to do: read poetry in public.

Moving (E)Motions

On NPR earlier this year, Sebastian Junger discussed the death of his friend Tim Heatherington, a journalist killed. He used a phrase to describe the pace of fear in combat - "[combat is] scary beforehand, the anticipation is very scary, and afterwards the fear catches up with you." The idea of an emotion catching up with you fits exactly with my experience of grief. I didn't have a lot of time to grieve when my mom was sick. I did it alone, at home, when I wasn't with her. I cried in hospitals, but I mostly tried not to, and tried to send all of my energy to helping her and hoping for her recovery.

Now, a little over nine months after her death, I'm grieving. (I could say I'm still grieving, but I hate the implication of "should be ending" that that little word adds. I'll grieve for the rest of my life - in healthy and productive ways, to be sure, but it will never end. The only way grief ends, I think, is if you don't love the person anymore.)

Compare Junger to this line from Fitzgerald's "The Crackup": "The world only exists through your apprehension of it." The first time I read that, I defined the second noun - apprehension - as understanding, as I think he intended. The second time, I thought of fear. Fear certainly creates worlds for some people. We talk a lot in yoga about letting go of fear, but it's not always so easy. When I was faced with the prospect of losing my mom's physical presence, I was more afraid than I've ever been. Now, just like grief, the fear is still with me - because the world without her is a scary place.

What fear and grief both do over time, rather than disappear, is shapeshift and change. They mold themselves to changes I'm making in my life. They shift a bit to the background, hovering, when I share happy memories of my mom or think of how earthshatteringly proud she'd be of me and all that I'm managing to handle without her.

Just as my fear and grief are unending, so does my mother surpass all boundaries. She is in the air, the sky, the sun, my smile. This isn't what either of us wanted, but it's what we have to handle, and I'm handling it in all the ways she taught me.

Research Errata

I'm currently going through citations collected by another research assistant. I'm also taking some time to add in new citations, and the process makes me think: how can we determine the search parameters of a previous person?

The answer seems obvious: from the results. I think it goes deeper, though. There's a kind of looking backward that puts you into that other person's head for a minute. Why did she choose this article? Did she overlook this other one, or did she just think it wasn't helpful? Which articles have been published since she worked on this?

I'm also getting into my professor's head a bit. Even though she encourages me to gather all I can, I'm trying to use what I know of the shape of her book to gather items that would be most helpful. Sometimes I come across something I think might give her a new insight - it will be very interesting to see what comes of those. She also encourages me to use the articles for my own research, which I deeply appreciate. 

The Shape of Surprise

I'm a schedules person, generally, and I set goals. I like to have plans and I like to accomplish things. I am not fabulous at relaxing without another person to motivate me. (Motivate me. See? Even relaxation can be a goal - even when it should, arguably, just be.)

To honor the beauty that I know exists in openness (as yoga and my upbringing both teach me), I'm setting myself some mid-fall non-goals. They're only goals insofar as that's how my brain works. They aren't check off-able, or schedule-able. They just exist.

Make room for serendipity - and room within time, really.
Breathe more deeply.
Know that most things return. Most experiences repeat.
This is the life you're living. Live fully within it.
Nobody's keeping score but you.
More people admire you than you even can imagine.

Blogging Thoughts

It's been about two months since I wrote my first public blog post for a class in my doctoral program. I have been blogging for personal edification for about a year, and I've used Blackboard to post discussion questions for my previous master's degree. Blogging as a community in a context that only that community is familiar with, really (those of us in the class), is a fascinating web of meanings, interpretations, and author/audience interactions.

Taking the last point first, it seems that if we have any readers at all, they are also CUNY faculty or graduate students. Just as in a seminar class, we are our own audience, constantly taking turns shifting the course of the discussion by what we choose to declare or to ask. The structure that surrounds our writing environment is pretty open, too. Our professor's RA, who is also in the class, posts a web of references for the works we are studying, and we are meant to engage with at least one reference per week and comment on it. In addition, we're free to post on anything relevant to the course, and then other students (and our professor) can comment on that as each of us sees fit.

This web of connections is very different from the way I write my personal blog. I haven't quite figured out how to tip over to an astonishing (or even respectable) number of viewers/readers, so I often feel as though I'm blogging to myself. One might argue that all blogging is like that, except for people like Nick Kristof. One might point out that I'm free from the often insidiously vilifying comments that some people seem to spend all day on their computer in order to post. What I would like is to develop a reading and writing community around my blog - perhaps even a network of several blogs where we all follow each other. I'd rather be in dialogue than monologue.

The Art of Fast Reading

I'm a fast reader. I've been one since I was a kid, and I swept the MS Readathon on an annual basis, toting home armloads of stuffed animals and trophies. (I'm glad to see it's still in existence - support it if you can.) The prizes felt pretty important them, but a quarter century or so later, I'm struck by the qualitative experience of reading (and writing) quickly.

There's certainly a balance to be struck - I notice that if I read too quickly, I skip words and sometimes meaning, and if I read too slowly, I get bogged down in unnecessary details. For me, reading quickly helps me navigate this disjunct, and it also assures that I'll find the curiosity and joy necessary to get through the hundreds of pages of reading required on a weekly basis in my PhD classes. 

Writing quickly isn't quite as slippery for me. I've been experimenting lately wi writing as fact as possible to see what comes out. My brain is usually a few steps ahead of my fingers, so that method works well for me. In a way, it does what Sondra Perl's groundbreaking notion of felt sense does when used in a writing classroom: it pushes away any overanalyses or fears or second guesses that can tend to hamper the writing process, and it allows me to explore my thinking more creatively than if my fingers are still. (There's an argument to be made here, too, for talking out loud, either as a writer at home or as a student in class.)

I'm exploring the power of speed and will keep it up in the coming weeks. After that, maybe I'll take another look at writing and reading slowly. I guess my stuffed animal days are over either way.

The Adventures of Axldemicat, Part One

Rest: She sleeps on the table my mom gave me that was once my great-grandmother's. that is where her sunbeam rests in the morning. I woke this morning to find her settled on my yoga blanket, something she usually only likes to do if I am already sitting there. 

Space: She jumps on the couch when I sit there, always on her side, and settles either on the New Yorker or a pile of citations I am working through for the professor I'm assisting. She is more than a paperweight - she is, as my friends say, my own research assistant. 

Projects: She burrows under the blanket draped on the back of the couch, then decides to sit like a turkey and purr even when I'm not petting her.