Health During Times of Stress

Transitioning from a full-time SAHM to having a part time job is stressful. I tend to stress more than is necessary, and believe me I've been thinking about how and when and where  I will get back to work since the day Seeley was born. This wasn't because being home wasn't what I wanted (I would make the same choice over again no question), I just knew that eventually I would want to resume my career.

Well here I am today; ready to work and grateful for being given a chance to teach again! I'm so lucky with the teaching position I've accepeted. I get to start working slowly and build the amount of classes I teach over time. I get time to prepare as it starts in September. I get time, period. That's one of the things that marks true success in life. Time. So many people have no time to rest, think, grow or develop as a person. I am grateful to be in a position where I don't have to take whatever job I can get to bring in money. The leisure to look for a job out of pure interest and professional development is something everyone should be able to do and which far too few people are able. Carrying this gratitude with me has helped me when I feel overwhelmed and then consequently feel guilty for being so privleged and whiny.

Along with practicing gratitude, I've been trying over the last couple years to channel my stress into productivity. I definitely try to prepare, prepare, prepare!! I've been reading a lot of great public speaking books in preparation for my class(I'm teaching a communication and public speaking course), as well as watching a lot of TEDTalks online (I'm obsessed). I'm definitely nervous about entering a classroom for the first time in three years, but the information I'm finding is actually really informative and interesting stuff! I always feel less stressed and more confident when I feel like I have a solid message behind me.

(p.s. And while I was at the library everyday getting books, of course I had to get some poetry books, a book on floral arragements and a book about traveling to Paris. I'll read them all, somehow. Tanya+books=love.)

 

 

Spring Reading

Spring is finally here, and with spring comes spring reading! Well, anytime is reading time really. I love books. I cannot remember the last time I wasn't reading at least two books. It's instinctual for me to grab a book and my poetry notebook anytime I have a spare second. Lately my reading has been almost all poetry. Most people I know don't read poetry or really even know of any contemporary poets, but it's a habit I recommend. You have to read poetry slowly, let it sink in. It forces you to figure out which style you like (confessional? modernist? free form? lyrical?) which creates helpful self-reflection. I also think poetry helps one see the world through different perspectives. In my own writing I like to read a wide range of poetry to help me find my own voice and stay motivated. You read a short, seemingly simple, effective poem and think, "how hard can that be?" The answer is, hard!
Doing anything while taking care of a toddler full-time is hard. But doing creative work while taking care of a one-and-a-half year old sometimes seems impossible. I've been writing consistently, which is awesome, but some days my mind is just...gone. The hard thing with creative work is that it's not just a matter of getting it done. It has to reflect the idea you had in your mind, make a statement. It's difficult because you're making something from nothing. I'm complaining but really I'm happy with my progress and trying to give myself a break. Enjoy my spring reading list, and head down to the library and check out some poetry!

One of my favorite confessional poets. Her poems are layered and fiercely moving.

My other favorite poet. The images, word choices and turns of phrase Louise Gluck creates are amazing.

My non-poetry book. Chef Samuelsson is a great writer who's had an amazing life and knows how to talk about food, family and drive.

I'm just discovering George Oppen and so far I love is short, powerful poems (I tend to write shorter poems so it's a great model.)

Life

Whoops! How did a whole week go by and I didn't write one word on the old blog?! It was a somewhat busy week, but I guess I've just been absorbed with this and that. The fall is finally here and we're loving it. Of course, we are also all a little sniffly (is it bad that we discovered baby cold medicine and that I'm maybe exaggerating Seeley's cold so we can use it to knock her out?) I've been quite busy starting several projects and activities that I'm really excited about.

Since I quite working (but plan to resume a career of teaching and writing) I've been really eager to stay involved with the world of education. Recently, I came across the ASPIRE program and decided to get involved. It's very similar to the Upward Bound program I grew up with and worked for in Montana. So last week I began training to become a volunteer advisor. The plan is to meet with three students one day a week and help them plan and prepare for college. Should be fun.

My other great passion is writing poetry and I've recently joined The Poets Studio at The Attic. I love it so far. I had to send work in and get accepted into the class and I'm so happy I did because the work of the other poets is fantastic and will keep me on my game. I definitely need a workshop environment to force me to find the time to write.

Other than that, I've been scrapbooking and reading. Scrapbooking sounds like such a mom thing to do, but it's awesome. I have about 2,000 pictures of Seeley so I have to put them somewhere! Sooooo, this post is all about me, but I figured there's only so much people want to hear about Seeley crawling and knocking things over and such :)


Wonderful poems by the new Poet Laureate Natasha Trethway. She is amazing at interweaving the autobiographical with the historical. Seriously worth checking her out.

 Another great writer, Joyce Johnson, recounts in her memoir her time with Jack Kerouac and other Beat writers and the sexism that often inhibited women Beat artists from being recognized.

"Storytime" at the library for one and two year olds. Basically, it's a big room full of bubbles and toys. Seeley loved it!

Mommy Stress

Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety by Judith Warner.

I've been occasionally having what I call "stress dreams". They always involve forgetting Seeley or not knowing where she is. It's awful! I wake up tense and terrified. And angry. I can't even escape all this responsibility while I sleep? I know I'm not alone in feeling Mommy Stress and I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse.
I've just finished re-reading the book Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety by Judith Warner. She hones in on "The Mess" that so many mothers deal with and are consumed by:

"These problems are really not so trivial, despite the trivializing forms we give them in our minds. They speak to serious issues: if you don't obsessively campaign to get your child into the ideal preschool, there is no adequate daycare in your area; if your toddler doesn't go to Baby Music Class and pre-pre-Olympic tumbling and Mommy and Me, you will go insane because you are at home all the time and your husband works till 8:30 at night...If you don't read every baby book cover to cover, scour the Internet for information, obsess on food labels, and put a cordon sanitaire around your child, you will wallow in ignorance and potentially allow your child to come to harm, since your pediatrician doesn't take phone calls and won't waste your ten minutes of appointment time answering questions. Because you have no family nearby...because you want to do things better than your family did, anyway...because the responsibility for absolutlely everything is on your shoulders, and this responsibility is so overwhelming that you have to shut the awareness of it down...The Mess steps in."

There's such a loss of control when one becomes a mother. I feel fortunate that most of the time I am able to relax, let go and enjoy and care for Seeley in a way that feels right for me. But that feeling of being totally out of control is never far away. And according to Warner, control is a huge issue for American mothers. The control we lack in making decisions about going back to work when affordable, quality childcare is so hard to find, in trying to find some kind of life for yourself and achieve personal and professional goals when staying home, is manifested in the efforts to become perfect mothers. We let motherhood become soul encompassing. This isn't necessarily a bad thing until we stop taking care of ourselves and start pressuring our children to make all the sacrifice "worth it". If you believe your kids are your "life's work" any flaws or disappointments they experience can feel like personal failure.

"By making them [children] the be-all-and-end-all of our lives, by breaking down the boundaries between ourselves and them so thoroughly, by giving them so much power within the family when they're very small, we risk overwhelming them psychologically and ill-preparing them, socially, for the world of other children, and, eventually other adults."

We live in a society where we have to be the very best. No longer is it enough to put a roof over your head and raise generally happy, well adjusted kids. The quest for perfection has been wreaking havoc on American women and is destroying one of the most wonderful roles life offers: motherhood. I sincerely believe in the adage "happy mother, happy baby" and I believe that with support from spouses, family, friends and community there can be a happy medium where you can give your best to your child and yourself.

Good Reads: The Maternal is Political

The Maternal is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change. Edited by Shari Macdonald Strong. Seal Press. 2008

In the 1960s and 70s second wave feminists coined the phrase "the personal is political". They were telling society and women specifically that our personal lives and our political lives cannot be seperated. What happens at home is shaped by and shapes what happens in the world. The idea has lasted and remains today, most notably in the local food movement which encourages us to view purchases as political acts.

Becoming a mother is life-changing. Not only do you see the world through the eyes of your child, your role in society shifts. It doesn't take long as a mother or talking with a mother to realize how political or personal lives are. The wonderful book of essays, The Maternal is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change includes essays from a diverse range of women including Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Kingsolver and Benizir Bhutto. Topics include pay inequality (in 2008, when the book was published, women without children earned 90 cents to a man's dollar, mothers earned 73 cents and single mothers earned 60 cents), healthcare, paid leave and professional barriers to leadership roles. The book also has more emotional stories about mothering with disability, being a step-parent, raising children outside of gender stereotypes and post-partum depression. The reoccuring theme of the book is that mothers need to work together to achieve social change. I couldn't agree more.

When I decided to have a child and later decided to stay home to raise her, I could feel the weight of my choice and my connection to society at large. I could see the lack of affordable, quality childcare and could imagine the difficulty of trying to achieve my professional goals in an 8hr plus workday system not designed for families. For me it wasn't worth it, but boy do I have unending respect for those mothers trying to navigate that world. My choosing not to work for pay doesn't mean I get to ignore my responsiblities to other families and mothers. Regardless of our differing choices and opinions, all mothers want the best for their chlidren. So let's come together through dialogue and books like this to create the world we want for our children.

Last Fall Walk and Winter Reading

Looks like fall, feels like winter

Checking on Seeley. Good papa :)

Wes and I bundled up yesterday to enjoy the last of the fall leaves and sunshine before winter comes and Portland turns gray and rainy. It still looks like fall outside, but it is coooold and my mind is turning towards all things winter.
I love to read and winter is the time when I like to tackle my growing reading list. Here's my book list for winter 2011/2012!

The White Album by Joan Didion
Joan Didion is an amazing author with a unique writing style. I love nonfiction and Didion, in my opinion is one of the most talented essayists alive today. The White Album is a book of essays about Didion's life in Los Angeles and politics in the 1970s.

The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
This historical novel about ancient Judaism looks amazing. Dovekeepers takes place 2,000 years ago in 70 C.E. when 900 Jews took refuge from the Romans in the mountain fortress called the Masada. Out of 900 people, only two women and five children survived. Hoffman imagines the story of how those seven survived.

The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry
I've been reading this giant anthology for a while. It's important to me as a writer to understand the classics and standards of poetry. When I have a moment to focus, I enjoy picking this up.

Quote

From an interview with writer Nicholson Baker in The Paris Review:

"When you have a child, you get a surge of ambition, or a surge of hormonal urgency, to get something done worthy of your new station in life."

Quote

From "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety" by Judith Warner.

"Our selfhood was wrapped up in [. . .] control-not empowerment. And control through what means? [. . .] self-control, personal achievement, self-perfection [. . . ] For instead of using whatever tools of self-empowerment we had to gain control of our surroundings and change our world, we turned them inward and used them to police ourselves. Rather than become rebels or poineers like our baby boomer predecessors, we became a generation of control freaks."

Like Art? Read This Book!

Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet by Jennifer Homans. Random House. 2010.



I've just finished an amazing book by dance critic Jennifer Homans. Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet captures the flow and intersection of ballet with music, poetry, painting and fashion as well as politics and national identities across the world. Angels is a long read (550 pages) but, even as someone with no experience in ballet, I was hooked from beginning to end. I've never read a book that so smoothly combines dance and art into a historical timeline. Dance and art as a whole have been judged by their accessibility and Angels expertly describes the role art plays in the lives of those who have access to it and those who do not. National tragedies and triumphs, the rise and fall of monarchies are all told through the story of ballet. The attention to detail and intense discipline and fluidity of ballet is reflected in the discipline and fluidity of Homan's writing.

If you have an interest in art, history, and culture I recommend you read this book!

A Bob Dylan Children's Book!

Forever Young by Bob Dylan and Illustrations by Paul Rogers. Simon and Schuster.2008.

"May you stay forever young/Forever young, forever young/ May you stay forever young."

"Forever Young" is one of the most touching and beautiful songs out there and Bob Dylan is an amazing, one-of-a-kind songwriter and artist. So when I recently received the book "Forever Young" as a gift (thanks Ari:)) I knew I had to let everyone know that this gem exists. Dylan's lyrics accompany Paul Rogers' illustrations which are inspired by other classic Dylan songs as well as parts of his life. I cannot wait to read the lyrics to "Forever Young" one by one with the accompaniment of a beautiful illustrated story to my little girl.

Enjoy your weekend and "May God bless and keep you always/May your wishes all come true/May you always do for others/And let others do for you."