There it is.

Tonight I gave my presentation in Ethics and Educational Decision Making, a very cool topic in its own right, and one that is at the core of my philosophical inquiry. 

 

I've spent the last several weeks on this, and the whole of the course knowing that this topic is where I needed to dig to find my dissertation. The readings and conversations each week were excellent and pushed me in just the right directions at just the right time. The syllabus has an elegance that can only be understood by looking back, and I'm glad I took the time to really delve into this for real answers.

 

The magic happened yesterday evening, that moment when all the side notes of analysis and the structural bits of logic and craft came together to create a fertile tendril of its own. I spent five hours letting the flower unfold, and then this morning I trimmed and shaped until it was a bouquet.

 

All sorts of stuff is happening in my so-called real life, and lately it's been a struggle to do even small things. Some days thinking is too much. the last couple weeks I'd begun to worry if it would ever come back.

 

The success of the last 24 hours was restorative, and I was fine until I started making tea ten minutes before the presentation. Not a crisis of confidence in the work, but a deep shaking desire not to be seen. I leaned against the wall, letting the undeniable tears have their way until the kettle boiled. 

 

I washed my face and changed my blouse while the tea steeped. There were four whole minutes left yet, and I moved slowly through each one, tying my hair up, fetching the pages of the presentation, opening the laptop, stirring sugar into the freshly poured tea.

 

The structure of class took over, and I barely noticed the shaking in my core -- reading a strong work is settling for me, kind of the opposite of stage fright. I didn't give any preamble about why this is the line of inquiry that spoke to me, I simply looked at the top line and let the words on the page take me, as they always do. When I got to the last line ten minutes later, I was kind of sad to see them go. I muted my mic.

I looked up at the quiet zoom room, wondering if I'd muted them instead, and then the professor spoke. I don't remember his first statements, and didn't really come back to reality until I was reaching for my pen to take a note on his suggestion for long term considerations of the avenue I had recommended. I had forgotten to bring my notebook and pen. When does that ever happen? I fetched the almost dead marker from my desk, the only writing instrument in the room, and scrawled "educational long term strategy" on the back of the presentation.

 

By the time the next presentation began, I was nearly human again. All of the presentations have been so great, and I feel honored to have had the wisdom of these fellow scholars this term. I felt solid about my work and the presentation. After class I poured the rest of the tea into my mug and talked with a friend, not realizing how keyed up I'd been until the drop came, ten minutes into the conversation, a warm weariness that oozed down through my bones and rooted me to the chair, to the floor, to the ground. I'd be asleep in thirty minutes or less, so I heated up some leftover Golden Noodle Heal All, brushed my teeth, and headed to bed.

I was drifting off when my phone chimed with a text, and I blearily realized that meant it wasn't on the charging stand -- the charging routine goes into do not disturb, possibly my favorite technological feature ever. 

 

The message from my professor made my whole day.

 

 

 

Onward, friends.

But You Laugh Inside, Remembering

Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way.”

― Charles Bukowski

Ever since joining the Druids, my approach to the Challenges has been to use the dates as bookends, identify the pieces of my life that are in play during that time frame. In the process, what I'm worried about or excited about, or fearful of always shows up, and those are the real challenges: to navigate my life peacefully and with contentment, mindfulness, and presence in the moment even when there is chaos, conflict. Goodness knows my life certainly knows how to bring it in heapfuls. 

In the past decade, but especially the past five years, there was so much to be overwhelmed by that there were days I had no idea what to do or which way to turn. In these moments I learned to be still and sit with the uncertainty. This is a magnificent tool and it continues to serve me well. 2018 was the darkest year of the lot, and I don't think I will ever be so beset again (or at least I hope not), but if I find myself in even that level of hell again, I know that the answer is to stop, breathe, and be in hell. Last year I survived the hell of 2018 only to find myself in the literal dark and suffering from a head injury that has resulted in a permanent TBI. I found myself physically off-balance and unable to read, a manifestation of spiritual imbalance and illiteracy. I was absolutely incapable of doing anything other than sitting some days, sometimes for days in a row. I learned to be non-productive, a lesson that was brutal -- you would think that it would be easy to simply accomplish nothing, but it almost felled me spiritually. I had to confront my inability to say "no," and to learn how to value myself for myself, irrespective of what I accomplish or produce or do. While I still have days of suffering and periods of imbalance, I have learned to value myself as a spiritual being having a human experience, and a frail one at that. As the days unfold with opportunities, I am learning to choose carefully and mindfully, opting for a few quality endeavors with built-in accommodations for my own care needs. Rest assured, my ability to get excited at each and every opportunity that comes along is not diminished. The lesson has been to learn to act in the belief that the Universe loves me and wants me to be happy -- there is no scarcity of wonderful things ready for me if I am willing to be available for them. This is so hard for me!

Anyone who has been part of this journey has gotten accustomed to the Court-date-per-challenge routine, and this challenge is no different. [For the record, I've been on this treadmill with my daughter's dad for over four years, and I know there's a day that it will end, but -- like being on a treadmill at a fast walk and having the power go out suddenly -- I have a feeling that it will be unsettling and weird and might feel like a bit of a faceplant.] The court date comes at the very end of the challenge this round, and her dad has already started with his annual autumnal tug of war. What is it with him and September? Anyway, I have learned well how not to play this game; my focus remains on healing my relationship with my daughter. All the rest is immaterial line noise.

The challenge starts out with classes beginning, a Writing workshop starting, and the commencement of my new position as an editor. Remember when I said the Universe had a million high-quality opportunities for me? It totally does. And now that I have an armload of them, it’s time to practice some of that balance and boundary setting that I spoke of, too. I can get panicky at new things that matter to me -- what if I’m not good enough??? I have (finally!!) begun to know that I am enough. I am kind and good and worthy of love and compassion. I am pretty good at what I do, too, when I stop shooting myself in the foot with panic. So there’s a weekly rhythm to be found, and if I let it unfold, the Way will open.

The first official week of the challenge I’m moving house, and that’s always a beast. I’m looking forward to it -- expect pictures, since I have no idea where everything is going or how it’s all going to fit. Maybe it won’t fit anywhere and I’ll go through another Druid-esque round of minimizing my earthly possessions. Stay tuned.

Through all the struggles, insults, and injuries, I have found that nothing matters except how we treat ourselves and each other. Thanks for being along the path with me. Having a place to be honest about everything is huge. Successes are all alike, and their universality makes them meaningless, in a way. Our sufferings and struggles are unique to us, though, and unique to a particular time in our lives; they individuate us, and in sharing them, we get to know each other. This is what community is for me. Thanks for being part of mine.

Some dates

September 14 Pack Sabbatical House stuff into Jeep

September 15 drive to Virginia; pick up new key. Unload the Jeep while I Wait around for the Cable Guy.

September 16 counseling with Vivian; communication counseling with Vivian’s dad

September 17 drive to North Carolina; clean sabbatical house, pick up Little Dog Tiu, pack the jeep of Very Last Things

September 18 Walkthrough of Sabbatical House; drive to Virginia

September 19 move stuff from storage.

September 21 Paper Due: Marriage, A History, Coontz

October 6 Paper Due: Becoming Dad, Pitts

October 16 Court

Every Week

Monday: The Republic

Tuesday: Demography of Families Response

Wednesday: Visit with Vivian

Thursday: Demography of Families article; 8 pm Writers Workshop

Friday: Enter posts for the coming week for the APA Blog; Republic response paper; 3:30 pm Philosophy accountability zoom

Saturday: Visit with Vivian; APA Posts

Sunday: Workshop pages

The Color of Destruction and Power

It must be uniquely difficult to be a Black Man in America. He is not seen as having a family, but as being a threat, a walking, breathing cornucopia of violence, lust and theft. Everything you have, we are told, will be taken away by the Black man if he comes near. He will take burn your home, steal you money and screw your women as he passes by. We are so threatened by adult Black men as a culture that we feel justified in shooting them, caging them, rejecting them.  When a Black man comes into the office, we subconsciously clutch our wallets or purses a little tighter, pull our children a little closer, find a reason to have him leave or to leave ourselves. For those of us in the dominant culture, we might only feel that way once or twice, if ever, but for Black men, they feel it everywhere they go -- it is in the air they breathe, and it smells of mistrust and ostracization.

And Black communities don’t provide much solace. Even at home they are suspect, given the label of ne’re-do-wells, junkies, baby-daddies. The American Black family in the twentieth century and thus far into the twenty-first, has formed around the absence of the Black man, coming into its own as best it could with their adult men behind bars or dead when they weren’t running around with the gangs that would seal their fate.

Is it any wonder that Black men, and the adolescents who look up to them, adopt the cool pose? Stripped of economic and educational opportunities, unable to secure housing for themselves let alone for a family, they are seen as parasites on the women-run Black community. How attractive it must be to take the accusations and condemnations and make them claims, reveling in the destructive power that every Black man carries with him, no matter where he goes, even when he sleeps. I imagine a hurricane reveling in the destructive power and glory of itself, sweeping all before it, laying waste to the little people with their little buildings and crops and schools and cars and laundry on the line as though life is normal, ever, anywhere, as if it ever could be, laughing in pure joy of unleashed power, never apologizing.

When we crafted this hostile narrative of destructive power, we left the Black man only one option for defining himself in relation to society and the world. America in the twenty-first century can do better, but only if we hold our eyes firmly on the truth and acknowledge our role in the violence that continues without much to hold it back, pervades every aspect of civilized interaction, from the manufacturing floor to the classroom to the boardroom, survives us all, generation after generation.

All of us have reparations to make to the Black man, those of us in the dominant culture and those in the Black communities as well. We owe Black men a safe space to release this image, to lay down the tools of destruction and relax out of the cool pose he has adopted for survival. We owe it to each other to change the narrative to one of inclusion, trust and the real possibility of being husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, uncles, instead of rapists, thugs, killers, junkies, and thieves.