BJ's Blog

I thought February was bad. March blew in the novel coronavirus. From the east and the west and up through the middle of the country, it landed, disseminated, and killed. I’m reminded of the language used to describe immigrants to the US at the turn of the 19th/20th/ century: invading hordes, the dregs of humanity, vermin washed up on our shores. Cruel language that marked immigrants as less than those already here, those entitled to this place, those privileged to receive America’s bounty.

Yesterday, I ventured out to Costco. While waiting in line to get in, a family of young adults jostled behind and around me. They stood too close–not even 2 feet away from me. I kept moving either closer to the person in front of me or to the side in order to create space. I as soon as I did, they moved closer. I tucked my chin into my vest and fumed. Said nothing, did nothing, but silently berated them. Once in the store, we spread out. Their group dispersed. As I shopped I’d see them in pairs then as a group–their movements like birds leaving a nest: they’d fly away, tentatively a first, not going very far, then venturing further out, but always returning. Young people still doing what they do, bumping through their world, touching, laughing, oblivious to the hushed fearful isolated older people around them.

Why didn’t I ask them to move away from me? I thought “I shouldn’t have to say anything, they should know.” But maybe I didn’t want to scare them, or make them angry, or reinforce the stereotype now playing out of the elderly who are scared of everything. Or maybe I simply had no energy to speak, teach, engage. I’m exhausted.

somehow every year, each February presents itself as the toughest month. it should be the easiest, as the shortest–though this, the Leap Year, means an extra day–and the month my children came into the world, and the month when spring appears in fits and starts, and the month when love blooms, and the month when Mardi Gras pops its bubble and the party recedes for another year.

but each year February brings sorrows, turmoils, angst–extreme emotions; faltering health; recurrent nightmares. is it the extra light at the beginning and end of each day, whispering to us of warmer days ahead, even as the cold persists? is it the relentless rejuvenation that the plentiful birthdays represent? or is it the shroud of memories: the deep days of dissertating, the heavy heartbreaks? (I can’t keep up the alliteration)

has anyone written a poem about February? a sonnet for the shortest month? perhaps someone should.

so much focus on the physical and mental improvements I/we need to make, but Joy Harjo reminds me of something deeper, clearer, simpler to tend to:

http://www.dailygood.org/story/2447/for-calling-the-spirit-back-from-wandering-the-earth-in-its-human-feet-joy-harjo/

especially this:

Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.

You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.

Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.

Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long

and finally this:

Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.

It would be the gift of not knowing the curse of addiction/alcoholism. Either in themselves or in their loved ones. I see the pain and worry and fear that come from watching a parent struggle. I know that pain and worry and fear intimately, though I’ve learned to manage it over the last 11 years. At least manage it a bit better.

But I know I cannot wipe away that pain and worry and fear. Like the tunnel of grief, my children must pass through it, suffering the scrapes and bruises, enduring the days, weeks, and months of darkness until they emerge battered and tired yet ready to face the future. I can’t put them on a train that will speed through that tunnel, or carry them on my back over the mountain through which that tunnel passes, or fly them around the globe and drop them on the other side. This is their journey. I cannot go with them.

I dreamed that I visited the vet, Sharon, about my medical condition. Although she didn’t address my concern, which I don’t remember (of course), she mentioned that I had an issue with the soft tissue beneath my chin. She proposed elective surgery to fix it. At that point, we adjourned to the hot tub, where my brothers and their family were waiting. I prepared to undress but found myself hesitant to display my overweight body in a swimsuit.

Last night before bed I marveled at the folds in my back, the pouch of my belly, and the way my midsection needs space in the bed. I’m struggling to recognize these aspects of my body as *mine* and not the excess pounds of flesh they feel like. I’m trying to love this expanded version of myself, who takes up more space, wears bigger clothes, and flops when she rolls over in bed.

I keep hoping that I can blame the SIBO and that once the antibiotic cleans me out, I’ll somehow shed all of the bloat I’ve acquired. Excess air, excess water, excess food. And the fatigue. The ever-present tiredness. I need to close my eyes.

I took two days off: catching up on sleep, dreaming, trying to figure out what I can write about. Today, another Monday, I don’t really have anything. Lots of details I could share about my physical health…but I don’t feel like explaining. TMI. TLDR. Ugh.

So yeah. I could spin around some words: nothing, no-thing, not a thing. Or make lists of the things I didn’t do, need to do, wish I’d done this weekend, last week, last month, last year. I could read the news and write angry responses. I could stop at 100 words and call it good.

The Chronicle of HE yesterday described a university that was struggling with morale. The university hired Disney to teach employees how to feel better about themselves, how to get along, etc.–more on Disney as consultant later–but what caught my eye was mention of the problem some employees were having:

Last year, the university paid the Disney Institute, a consulting arm of the Walt Disney Company, to administer a climate survey to faculty and staff. The results shed light on what the institute called a major disconnect between managers and their employees, a lack of transparency, and a “debilitating fear” of making a decision or a mistake.

We learn that the culture at said university was very risk averse. Furthermore,

Disney concluded, from the survey results and also from in-person interviews, that a “pervasive, long-held, and debilitating fear of making a decision or a mistake” grips “most everyone in their daily routines — staff, leaders, and faculty alike,” according to a January internal email that summarized the feedback.

The diagnosis caught my attention, because I find I frequently feel that “debilitating fear” of making a decision. Until now, I’ve assumed that my fear stems from a character flaw or a chemical imbalance. But the idea that its cultural–part of the organizational culture in which I work–gives me pause.

I found a Forbes article, Four Reason Leaders Are Too Afraid of Making the Wrong Decisions. The four reasons are:

1. Afraid of losing control
2. Lack courage to challenge status quo
3. Too much change management
4. Playing it safe is their security

The article concludes:

Everyone wants to be the hero. No one wants to be the scapegoat. And so no one wants to risk making the wrong decision. But that’s what real leaders do every day – automatically. If instead they give in to fear and uncertainty, they risk so much more. They risk not seeing the opportunities that are right in front of them.

Back to that risk aversion, which leads to that debilitating fear of making a decision because it may be wrong, you may fail, you may not convince everyone that you made the decision for good reasons, to capitalize on an opportunity, to change the culture. The safe road or the new path? That is the choice.

more on this later, when I have time

A woman’s greatest enemy? A lack of time to herself

I started this post in July. Not sure why I felt I had so little time then, because I have even less now. Priorities? New medication to combat depression? As I recall I was pretty low in July.

Still, the fact remains that women writers have always struggled to find time to themselves to write. Right now, I’m writing at 6:23 a.m. when I really wish I was still sleeping. The time change helped me wake up early. That and the cat. So for the next week or two I’ll take advantage of my messed up sleeping schedule to arise early and write a few words.

But then what? When my body and cat adjust to the new schedule, when NaNoWriMo is over, will I continue? Surely part of the struggle is priorities. Because unlike some of the women Brigid Schulte writes about, I have a supportive family who would help protect my writing time if I simply asked. I think part of the dilemma for women is this ingrained sense of “neededness.” That is, we need to feel needed. As mothers, wives, bosses, daughters, aunts, colleagues…our relationships with others dominate our lives. So we drop whatever we’re doing to help someone else. I interrupt my grading to feed the cat; I shorten my writing time to check email; I pause my Netflix show to listen to my daughter; I stop reading to talk to my husband; I walk back from yoga with a colleague rather than enjoying the post-practice peace. Choices sure. Priorities yes. But also a culturally ingrained sense of needing to be there for others.

at someone’s beck and call – available to do things for another person whenever they want

My parents take their coffee black; my grandparents did as well. Perhaps it’s a Norwegian thing–stoic Scandinavians drinking undiluted hot drinks. And coffee was not simply a morning beverage. Afternoon, evening, night time. Any time of day invites the question, “Would you like a coffee?” Or for Pop just “Coffee?” My great-grandmother Johanna kept a pot warm on the wood stove throughout the day. She took that stale stuff black. Before the automatic coffee machines that make espressos, cappuccinos, and lattes, my parents made drip coffee with a Melitta carafe and filter. They drank it swiftly, as the coffee quickly cooled. Whatever was left, mom drank later. Cold and stout. There’s ethnic pride in announcing to the flight attendant: “Coffee, black.”

11 Myths About People Who Drink Coffee Black

How Norway is changing the way we drink coffee

Caffeine (Coffee) Consumption by Country

When all of the oxygen gets sucked from a room. A question barely emerges from a student’s mouth before the teacher opens hers, snatches the dangled query, closes, chews, swallows, belches–but no, that analogy doesn’t quite work. Because there is no pause to chew or belch. The question dangles is snatched then is absorbed into the already ongoing talking. No room to breath. A student must be bold indeed to slip into the gap of a proffered moment: “Do you have any questions?” Be ready! If you’re not, the door slams shut and you’ll wait a long time before another opportunity presents itself.

“Word edgewise” = get a word in edgewise, to succeed in entering a conversation or expressing one’s opinion in spite of competition or opposition: There were so many people talking at once that I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

What causes a teacher to talk so much that students cannot get in a word edgewise? Nervousness? Fear of running out of time? So much to say that students absolutely must hear? It bothers me more when women do it. Because it sounds desperate, like someone will take away their microphone if they pause too long. Or that if others speak, their voices will be drowned out. Perhaps because they’ve been on the other side too often–they’ve been interrupted, their voices have been silenced, they now fear interruption and silence.