Donne said that no man is an island

Recently a friend wrote this sentence in an email to me: "I used to be a HUGE oversharer before social media was a thing." I thought about social media. Lots of people just put up pictures of their vacations / parties / marriages / children at their finest moments and call it a day. I actually know of numerous people who have deactivated their Facebook accounts b/c the competition got to be too much. They feel like everyone else is saying, I have the best vacation, the best husband/wife, the best baby. With the implication of, and you don't. I got the feeling that this friend who emailed me feels like sharing their life, in all of its dimensions, is frowned upon.

I have a problem with the term "oversharing." Also, the word "needy." "Oversharing" assumes that no one wants to hear your personal stuff, that it's impolite or socially wrong to share your personal stuff, that we should all walk around projecting only positivity and the more shallower dimensions of our lives.

Everything looks shiny; no one allegedly has to feel anything except YAY YAY YAY.

When really, I think it's a continuum. At my old job, I sure as hell would not share personal things with certain people. Especially administration. Most jobs are like that. But I think it's okay to share things with people who are your friends or close colleagues. Because what the heck are friends for if you can't be there for each other during the positive *and* negative times?

My friends are some of the best people ever because they have listened empathetically to me and really been there for me, especially over the past year-and-some-months, when things happened with my mom. Or they have distracted me with wonderful things like coffee and Indian food and visits and children and simply the beauty of their presence. I never feel judged by them. And I in turn feel special and honored when they come to me with important emotional things. Like: wow, they trusted me enough to ask me to listen. I feel capable and strong when I can support them.

The word "needy"gets kicked around a lot, just like "over-sharing." "Needy" pathologizes the idea of interdependence. As a culture, we live under this delusion of self-sufficiency, like that's the ultimate thing to strive for. It's very American. Or United-States-ian, I should say. But when you dissect it, the idea of INdependence is fundamentally impossible unless you decide to become a hermit on top of a mountain. And then what happens if you break your leg or need to go into town for food?

Each in their various ways, my mom and dad raised me to believe that self-sufficiency was the ideal. In  reality, they were not self-sufficient, but I was raised to believe that I should strive to be. I think they thought they were doing me a service. This created a schism in my thinking which still continues. On one hand, I feel the old emotional pull: do it yourself at all costs. Appear strong at all costs. If you can't, that's bad. Other people will take advantage of you OR You're weak. Incapable. Less-than-adequate. 

On the other hand, I know my reality, and I try really hard not to judge myself for it. Ahem, I'm not saying I succeed in being nonjudgmental, but I try. Yeah, sometimes I need. Everybody needs. And sometimes I NEED. And everyone in their life goes through a period of that NEED too, whether they admit it or not.

I think about need, and sharing, and interdependence also as it applies to teaching. I think about it a LOT. When I went through teacher training in grad school (ages ago… yikes!) I was taught that students are people, that learning is collaborative (students learn from the teacher, students learn from each other, the teacher learns from the students), that each student will have a different learning style, that it's okay to be honest with your students when you don't know the answer, that it's okay to be vulnerable and to expect (and accept) your students' vulnerabilities.

Then… I taught at a certain place for awhile and it really made an impression on me. The culture was rather the opposite of the way I'd learned to teach. Not necessarily through word but through example, the ideal classroom was presented as: the teacher makes the rules, the students follow the rules, the students get punished if they don't follow the rules, each student is an information bucket into which you deposit key skills, and then they somehow translate those skills into a well- or poorly- written paper and then you grade them. Nobody needs to be feeling their feelings all over the place b/c there's no room for that in the syllabus.

I really tried to be that latter teacher and I did not do well being that teacher, and it burned me out. I had colleagues who taught at that place, and still do, who somehow managed to be a combination of the former teacher and the latter teacher. Or colleagues who were so untouchable (some concept called tenure of which I know not) that they could be the former teacher and the administration could go… fly a kite.

If anywhere I thought I could succeed as the former type of teacher, it would be in the teaching of writing. Whether you are writing poetry or a thesis-based argument, the idea of empathy is important. The ability to accept  and not vilify emotions is important.

Now that I'm feeling a lot better, I'm going to start revising / submitting my own work again in January. I'm also thinking about teaching (as a concept), because I really miss it. But, especially given my geographic limitations, I don't know where the right place is for me, if any.

Day 3 oh my

So the first few days in A-town have been eventful. Maybe a little too eventful. What I need right now is some calm and happy instead of intense and OMG, OMG. But the latter seems to have followed me from Pittsburgh.

In good news: I just got tapped for an amazing opportunity in the realm of disability poetry. Like in my lap, out of the blue, and all the other cliches. And at first I thought I wasn't going to be able to do it, but my dad, of all people, provided the help that I need to make it happen. And by help I mean he can drive (unlike me) and he's going to drive me a long way to do this thing. It's seriously one of the kindest, most generous things he's ever done for me. I don't know if I'm allowed to blog about it until it happens, but I'll fill you in more later. This not-allowed aura comes from all Mike's classified projects at work. It makes me think about what I say and to whom very carefully. As if things I did were so important that they had to be classified. Poetry espionage! 

In not-so-good news, our middle cat Ravi got out yesterday when Mike was having some haul-away guys move junk out of our house in my absence. Mike is a trusting, optimistic person. It's this quality that made me fall in love with him. It balances out my more cynical, skeptical nature. He stood by the door and carefully guarded each item on the way out. Also he told the moving people to watch out for escaping cats. I would have locked the little devils up. But Mike is doing seriously everything-and-more to try and get our boy back and I'm so sorry this had to happen on his watch. It is a rather bizarre scenario. If you know Mike, he can tell you all about it. 

This is Ravi: 

He's not really an escaper, anymore. He's more of a hider-from-big-scary things. They searched through the house and porches and all around outside and put up posters. I feel so powerless that I'm "stuck" here when my boy is gone missing, but honestly my eyesight sucks. The only thing I could add would be my familiar voice calling to him and my presence, which would probably be comforting to Mike and Luna, who is following Mike around crying. She is Ravi's cat-friend and misses him greatly. Also, she is probably wondering... first Jill, then Ravi... wtf wtf wtf??!!

The two of them (Luna and Ravi) eat together upstairs away from Ruskin who is a hoover while Luna and Ravi eat more moderately. It's a game to actually get them up the stairs. Which means it's a pain in the ass for us and super-fun for them. They resist coming when called and then chase each other up the stairs and get distracted by The Cat in the Mirror and invisible things floating through the air. Often Ravi will be more resistant than Luna because he doesn't get as hungry for the wet food. Also hiding is one of his favorite games. So often I will go through the house calling Ravi Ravi, and Luna will follow me around meowing. I wonder if she is calling to him too. I think she did that with Mike last night (at least while he was searching the house) and it's heartbreakingly adorable. 

I wish I could be there for them.

I wish I could be there b/c I think my presence would somehow magically bring Ravi back, ha.

Anyway, safe travels, boycat. And come home soon damn you.

PS this has not really helped my stress-related skin crawling / itching from going away. I think I'm gonna need more Neosporin soon. And some bandages. And a giant bath full of oatmeal. I know they say "oatmeal bath" is soothing to people with skin irritation. Of course my imagination interprets that as boiling up a cauldron of Scottish steel-cut and dropping it in the tub, then climbing in after.

20 things : after

1. Ok so welcome to after.

2. it's thin like a napkin, friable, leaves crumbs in the couch

3. he said he still has scabs on his mouth and tongue from the fucked up intubation

4. the feeling I have when I hear this / is part of after / of what comes what comes next / next meaning the rest of our lives

5. want to stick that feeling down down subzero down

6. wake up time to not think about this

7. two wandering poems that I've found homes for in the last few weeks, for example

8. ... and yay and lunch. 

9. right out of the hi-def bright blue sky a ribbon of canaries and they each fall flat on their little conical faces --and black droplet eyes --and brown & yellow fluff --and wings amputated--

10. immediately I fell too into deep sleep and my face hit the sand and the sand filled every opening

11. who is going to pull me / us up the laughter of babies and sand in my mouth

12. she sent me one of those memetic surveys where you have to talk about yourself in the most inane way / I'll answer like I was him instead I'd rather be / I'd rather put my throat in the way instead / busted throat not really you are being melodramatic chakra

13. ... and tonight I'm supposed to have a beer and be all smiley at the reading.

14. it is true that I'm glad to leave the house even though hi-def sky even though canaries

15. feathers curl up like fur I think that one is a mutated color he's so cute

16. zip the mouth up and tap tap tap tap head held proudly

17. while all the lower beings cogitate on our worst punishments 

18. no I've forgotten about it by now don't remind me

19. So how are we feeling today?

20. the cage is white metal bars / pleasant / the fluid upward arc of the roof

20things : Home Defense at Ten

1. One day at fourth grade assembly they spook us about house fires, air films of flames digesting shingles and professional actors overwhelmed by incendiary shrapnel from the ceiling.

2. The third-nicest thing my dad ever did for me was go into the backyard and discharge the fire extinguisher. 

3. A loud flume arced between the night sky and the flood light's penumbra.

4.. I had told him I was scared of a fire.

5.. The whole truth: I was scared to be blind in a fire.

6. I had dreamt for several nights of throwing myself on the ground, belly-crawling down the hallway with the 70s carpet.

7. I needed to know could I secure the heavy tank by touch, pull the pin, squeeze the trigger, but I was too anxious to try.

8. I think his demonstration was to show me it was safe, not unconquerable, or that he could protect me. 

9. In my heart I did not receive these things as true.

10. I did try.

11. But he dreams continued. To flee the boiling canopy—elbows, knees, elbows, knees inch forward.

12. In school the facial tics got worse. No one said / did anything. 

13. I was starting to grasp that normal children didn't behave like this.

14. There was no way to stop.

15. My face was raw from the damage my fingernails did to it.

16. Things happened at school that I don't like to talk about.

17. But I was so young (ten) and who can blame anyone? Now, when I stand in tadasana, how can I blame---

18. The birr of my blood thrums in through my feet, up through my thighs. Up still further.

19. Until my crown is ablaze or—.

20. I'm still afraid of burning.

[I wrote this late last night to post this morning. Ironically, I poured boiling kettle water over my hand before I managed to get the it in the french press.]

20things : Dream Cake

1. In my dream there was cake. 

2. Dream cake is better because you can eat as much as you want and not get sick or fat.

3. I should mention it was in a ballroom or banquet hall with small clothed tables, each set with a tiered cake.

4. The cakes like small castles constellating the room. I walked carefully, afraid I was going to tilt into one of them and knock it over.

5. Along a long wall, in front of a bay window, was the biggest cake. It looked, perhaps, like a wedding cake to feed overflowing guest list.

6. It was taller than me. No way could I touch that top tier.

7. The icing was sort of a champagne color, and there were sugar bows (the color of hammered brass) rivering up and down. 

8. I didn't say it was pretty, just impressive.

9. The piping was also impressive.

10. And then a waiter came, magician-like and tugged the corner of the cake (I was beginning to see the illusion)...

11. ... and whipped it off like a blanket, to unveil a coffin.

12. The bottom tier of this cake was in fact a coffin.

13. I read the script on the side. My mother's coffin. 

14. I turned to my mother and instead of asking why have you picked out your coffin already or why have you picked out such an ugly coffin I observed your name is spelled wrong. They left out half the letters in your name. She has a long first name.

15. She kept her usual stubborn, impassive face on. 

16. I was like, Mom, you gotta send it back.

17. She did not puff her lower lip out, but if she were a child, she would have.

18. She just said it doesn't matter what it's spelled like and huffed off.

19. I turned away from her. What else could I say? After all, this had happened so many times before.

20. I wish I could state that then I went and sampled the other, more cake-like cakes. After all, dream cake is so much better.