A "get through" life

On most days, I have a "get through it" mentality.  I count off the task of my day in hours.  Despite my future-oriented nature, I'm paradoxically amazed by how quickly time passes. I have a concern for "getting through" the very hours I should recognize as my life.

Especially on the days I teach, the clock is simply a wheel of 50 minute increments.  I can create and attend to a to-do list only when I'm not in class.  For some reason, my very schedule seems to prevent me from accomplishing a lot of work.  I aim to just "get through" one thing so that I can (with keen hopes) "get through" another, all in the name of productivity and virtue.

Thank you, my Protestant past.

For the past few years, I have not been consistently "living."  I have been "getting through."  I survive pretty damn well, but I do not think I always come close to what many would call living.  I think survival and perseverance seem to suggest an underlying dread.  Living should suggest enjoyment, clarity, diligence or focus, and present-mindedness.

I would like to live, even if that means I don't perform my best.  I would like to live, even if that means someone thinks me irresponsible or too emotional or even unprofessional.  I would like to live because, at the end of it all, I don't want be left with one thought:  "Well, at least I got through it."

To be tuned to the present means that we must release some of our desperate need for survival.  For those of us who must bear grief, or desires, or heavy workloads, or intense addictions, or extreme loves.....we cling to survival as "what we do."

We aren't called to survive or "get through" but to live.

There's always another Day One....

I've been teaching for 17 years.  I started as a high school English teacher, and then I moved on to "part"-time teaching while I completed Masters and doctoral degrees.  I've now held my job as an English prof at a small college for nearly six years.

Seventeen years really isn't very long, but in recent months, I have felt myself tiring of the routine. I've found that the energy required of me to teach seems greater. The mental diligence needed to teach four different classes in a row seems more challenging. The material that I must know inside and out seems more difficult to master some days.  In short, I'm on a road to burnout that I'm trying to exit.

Thankfully, in teaching, there's always another "day one."  There's always another "first day" to start with clean sheets of note paper and new rosters.  It is like renewing a habit you want to continue. My new "first day" was last week, and it went well.  In fact, the first few days went well.

Whenever I feel uneasy or sad about teaching, I think of a phoenix.  By the end of each semester, I am the burned out mass of feathers, much like the phoenix Fawkes when Harry Potter first encounters Dumbledore's mythical bird at Hogwart's.  But by the next term, I renew and resurrect for another cycle. I wish the burning didn't have to happen again, but at least I can trust in the time to put myself back together and live on.

Thankfully, I get to live as a teacher with some really great people.  I also have fun, wise, and usually sensible students. Through much time and experience, I've learned how to troubleshoot and problem solve to make my courses stronger.  I plan and I check off the days and I get through classes.... over and over again.  With each new semester, I breathe and aim to focus on the present of each class and student. I don't always succeed, but I try, over and over.  A phoenix always gets another chance.

Buttons

I don't know when I learned to sew a button.  I was rather young when my mom taught me to do it. I recall every step just as she showed me -- the doubling of the thread, the multiple knots so that the thread won't slip through the clothing, the choice of needle, the lick of the thread to slip it through the eye.  I especially enjoyed the loop knot you create at the end to hold the button in place before snipping the thread with sewing scissors.

To sew a button is a simple act.  Finding the time to do it? Not so simple.

I have a reserve of buttons in my sewing kit and assembled in various drawers.  Many of them are still in tiny ziplock pouches that once attached them to their original article of clothing.  These were the extra buttons of clothing past.  I still locate many of them from clothes I have long since lost or discarded.

However, the more important buttons are the ones that await reattachment.  Some of them wait for a long time. For months, and even since last winter, my favorite black coat has been missing a key button right at the bottom.  Thankfully, I saved it in a drawer, and after many days, I sewed it back in place, along with another button that had ripped from the pocket. Tomorrow, I will have a whole coat to wear again.

What I learned is that I should sew buttons more often.  Each step in the process slowed me down and calmed my mind.  The careful focus on thread and needle allowed me the chance for meditation and precision. I don't really like crafts, but tonight, I was very attracted to the simplicity of sewing a button. It's rather Zen, really.  Just sewing one button and then the next, dipping the thread up and down, sticking the need in and then out.

I may have found a new hobby.  Maybe my buttons won't be awaiting use much longer.

"Oh, it is only a novel!"

I'm just starting to read Northanger Abbey, and tonight, I got to Austen's "defense of the novel".  Here is my favorite little bit:

" 'And what are you reading, Miss --?' 'Oh! it is only a novel!' replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. 'It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda'; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language."

Northanger Abbey is the very novel that Austen writes to chide and satirize many contemporary novels of her age, but that aside, her defense here reminds me of the truth in fiction.  

You see, I have been struggling to answer a very basic question for myself: why read novels?  After all, as an English professor, this question is what I must answer for students, but certainly not for myself, right? After years of struggling to communicate the answer, I woke up one day and realized I was the one asking the question.  Cue vocational crisis. 

I should know why novels matter, and they matter for all the wonderful reasons that Austen mentions  -- the powers of the mind, the knowledge of humanity in all its varieties, the expressions of wit and humor, and all the lovely uses of language.  But, but, but....

It is like wanting to believe in Santa, but deep down, you know that the fantasy isn't real.  I need a pillow that says, "I believe in reading novels" so that I will inspire others to believe as well.

I often think we are reading all the wrong novels.  We force Orwell down high schoolers' throats when -- good God -- we should just let them read Collins.  Or we assign Bronte when Rowling would do.  Who needs to read it all, anyway?  We can't.  Only some of us will see the Louvre in person. Others of us will just see images online and survive. Let us choose our battles.  Let us choose our pleasures.

I will continue to read novels, and I will continue to ask why.  Perhaps I will not be ashamed of reading them, but I desperately need to seek a reason I can believe fully -- with heart and mind.

Cold hopes

Last weekend, I was in Alabama, and the temps were in the 50s. It was glorious. I left my coat in the car one day as my friend and I walked to lunch.

Clasping her own coat snugly, she thought I was crazy.  For her, in the South, the mid-50s mean cold.

Now, back in Illinois, I stayed inside today as more snow fell and the temps didn't clear 20 all day. Everybody is tired of it, naturally.  My aches and pains return after (I swear) they disappeared in the South.

The whole body just feels tight and dry and brittle in the cold.  It is hard to breathe and expand. We have short memories that do not recall the sweat of summer.  In fact, it seems impossible to think of walking outside in fear of heat, even though we did that just a few months ago.

We wrap ourselves in layers, piling on garment after garment until we are warm.  It takes longer to dress and get out the door each morning.  It is harder to move.

But all of this cold just means that when we move into spring, we will emerge like Lazarus.  We will peel off the death shrouds of layered sweaters and scarfs and breathe again.  When we get our own -- our very own -- mid-50s, we will get to leave coats in the car. It will be glorious.

I'm going to be thankful for this bitter cold from now on so I can simply increase my hope for spring.

What if I really like your boots?

I recently saw this blog at Slate.com that tells women how to talk to other women. I'm half-kidding.

Basically, the writer Katy Waldman believes that a cultural problem exists in the way we talk to girls and women.  It seems that we overwhelmingly compliment female appearance in small talk or conversation.  Rather than ask about her ideas or her plans or her food preferences, we tell her we like her boots.

This is very true, and I get why this is problematic, I really do.  We tend to call little girls "cute" and tell them that they have "pretty dresses/shoes/sweaters/hair" as a way to open conversation with them.  However, I know I'm just as likely to tell a boy baby that he has a "cute smile" as I am tell a girl.  I think we are just programmed, generally, to call children cute, even when they sure as hell aren't.  (You've been there, too, haven't you?)

I do know that girls are more negatively influenced by our tendency to compliment their appearance.  A friend of mine makes sure to tell little girls that they are "smart" or "clever" before (or after) she compliments their darling pink bracelets or their cute boots.

Still, what if I really like your boots, girlfriend?  What is the matter with me telling you so?

I enjoy clothes, shoes, and outfits.  I don't think it makes me less of a successful, professional, or educated woman to enjoy how I look or how I dress.  In fact, it helps me in all of those areas.  When I feel as though I look good, my mood improves, my productivity increases, and I speak more readily and clearly to my friends and colleagues.  Vanity be damned, it works.

So when I see someone, especially a woman, wearing a nice blouse or sporting *amazing* knee boots, I tell her.  I stop her on the street.  I look up from my magazine in a waiting room.   I take time to say, "hey, I like what you are wearing. You look nice."

Just the other day, I heard a woman working in a store tell a female customer that she liked her boots.  The customer's face brightened, they smiled at one another, they compared notes on the features of boots, and they left the interaction happier for it. There wasn't any hint of commission attached. I think the language of fashion is a coded language that some women can share, a way of affirming an aspect of our styles, choices, and creativity.  So why should we squelch that?

If I like your boots, I will tell you.  You've been warned.

Home Alone

The snow continues to create cancellations.  Schools have been closed all week, I think, resulting in some exasperated parents.  As for me, I'm not sure what people mean by "cabin fever" or being bored at home.  I have no idea what it feels like to be bored anymore, especially when I'm at home.  If anything, there are more things for me to do at home than I could possibly finish.  "Bored" is a word I used as a child, moping over a long summer break.  I'm sure "bored" left my lexicon by the time I was a teenager.

Simply put, I love being at home, especially when I'm alone.  It's probably not entirely healthy.  I could putter for ages.  I could organize and reorganize closets until I memorized everything in them.  I could read books or watch films or clean or cook or mend clothing or try new hairstyles or take baths or.... well, you get the idea.  I just enjoy time in the space where I am most free to be myself.

This week, I realized that I needed the extreme time alone, in my own space, to mend from an overwhelming past few months.  This was my true vacation week. Sometimes, the only way you can really re-set yourself is to shut everyone else out. The snow did one better -- it shut me in.

Many people love to travel and explore faraway places on vacation, but not me.  I've spent much of the past decade apologizing for this "defect" in my character, and I realized this week that I'm done with that.  I don't need to feel ashamed for loving the time I spend at home.

After all, there's no place like it.

Ain't nobody here but us chickens (and me and the cats)

These are frigid days.  The snow came by the foot on Sunday, and bitter temps will keep it here until at least the weekend.  How can we imagine spring or summer in days like this?  I suppose it is good for us, in a way, when we have to tangle with nature.  It reminds us of what is really in charge.

As the temps plunged, however, I had one concern: our 8 chickens.  Our backyard coop has provided us with eggs all year, and our 3 New Hampshire reds and 5 brown leghorns have become a surprising joy and worry to me.  When I wake up a night suddenly, my first thoughts go to them -- did I shut the coop door?  are there any predators around?  do they have enough food?  My husband Jesse reminds me without even asking: "The chickens are fine."

This week, Jesse braved a train journey through the snow to go to Michigan, and I am enjoying some much needed downtime after the holidays.  As the weather worsened, I checked on the chickens every few hours -- replenishing water after the heated fountain couldn't keep up, checking food, giving them scratch corn an hour before bed, gathering eggs before they freeze, and even cooking them some hot oatmeal.  I read countless articles on protecting chickens from the cold. Some said to heat the coop, others said no. Some said use vaseline on frostbit combs, others said no. I now know a lot about chickens -- and I want to learn more.

The fact that I don't know very much about chickens is odd.  I grew up with them at home, from the time I was in third grade.  My parents got our first chicken, and I met her in our garage.  I named her Mrs. Peepers.  She was the first of many that soon inhabited our family's farm.  I never remember my mom buying store eggs.  In fact, I didn't buy my own eggs until I moved too far from my parents to get them on a regular basis.  When I did buy them, I didn't think they looked like eggs -- too large, too white, with yolks too pale.  The farm fresh egg is a treasure.

And now we have our own treasures!  I am happily picking up this hobby of having chickens.  Of all the interests I have right now, I am most interested in chickens -- the different breeds, personalities, building different shelters, and how to tame them.  Even as the cold moved in this week, I learned about how hardy chickens are against the cold, how they hold their feathers to stay warm, and how their bodies acclimate to colder temps than humans can bear.  What marvelous creatures.  My mom always told me that chickens were smart, and I believe her.   And like her chickens, none of ours are on the menu.  When we say "chicken salad," we mean the scrap greens and vegetables from our dinner that they happily peck through on the compost heap.

Even as I worried for their comfort this week, I also relished being attuned to their needs and focused on the present.  I marveled that they continued to lay perfect eggs in below zero temps, producing a dozen over the course of the weekend.

Nature wins, every time.

Downton Day

Today, it snowed. A legitimate blizzard.  I've been tense and worried all day. Winter weather kicks us all into primitive and instinctive survival mode. Each decision we make, in the deep of winter, ultimately determines whether or not we live. 

And it isn't just our life we value - it's the lives of all the creation we care for.  For example, my husband and I have backyard chickens, and even though they are cold hardy birds, I've spent the day checking their water, giving them additional food, putting up more insulation for their coop, and even making them oatmeal.  The temps have dropped, and yet those little miracles are laying eggs like it's summer. Like all creatures, they are wired to choose life.

I was so preoccupied with the critters that I nearly forgot that it was Downton Abbey premiere night for series 4. A few friends braved the snow to sit and watch with me.  (I finally calmed down and recognized that the chickens would be fine.)  Once again, I became lost in the story of Lady Mary, a widow now facing either a grim future without her husband or a new promise of leadership of Downton.

In the midst of the blizzard and the show, I paused and saw my own life as a choice.  Each day, really, is a choice -- to live or to die. We get up and engage ourselves, or we drift away, into despair and cold. When I was widowed suddenly over five years ago, I saw my life as two paths.  One showed potential, bright lights, peace. It wouldn't be easy or immediate but it was life. The other was dark, twisted, leading to error.  There were days that the choice seemed easy, days when the choice was less clear. Days when you have that simple choice: I will live or I will die. 

On Downton Abbey, Mary's grandmother tells her, rather sternly, that she must choose death or life. There is no in between. 

In winter, it is death we encounter. The cold would take us if it could, but we shovel ourselves out, we thaw the frozen water, we care for those we are responsible for. It would be easy to hibernate and wait for sleep to swallow us, but instinctively, we find ourselves rising in the cold and choosing life. 

It is the miracle of a warm hen's egg in the middle of a sub zero day. 

To the universe

Years ago, a friend and I sipped martinis in a bar and talked about God. Or, at least I talked about God. My friend talked about the Universe.  When I asked her, point blank, why she said "Universe" instead of "God," she answered directly and with no qualms. "Because it's all so much bigger than that." Huh, I thought. Bigger than God?

Well, not exactly, but yes. Bigger than God.

What she meant was that our experiences and everything we aim to understand is much, much bigger than the way we have constructed "God."  God on earth is not a reality.  At the time she said this to me, I was alarmed. I couldn't possibly think of things being "bigger than God," could I?  Wouldn't that be doubt?  But what my friend understood was that God was constructed.  We would/will never really know, despite our best theological and intellectual efforts, the nature of God.  For me to acknowledge the limitations of human knowledge might actually be the reversal of doubt.  Even more, Anne Lamott's words ring as my favorite truth: "The opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty."

I'm sick of the certainty I hear.  I'm also jealous of it.  When I hear people speak with such assurance and belief, I'm both frustrated and enamored with them.  I will never achieve any sort of certainty when it comes to God.  So I'm going to stop talking about God.

Today, I also think in terms of "Universe" instead of "God."  I do pray to a "Creator" -- because I still do believe in a higher being that is creative and powerful -- but I am trying to edge away from the constructions of God that exist in churches and classrooms.  Many will say that makes me an atheist, but so what?

It's better than talking about things you don't know.

Coffee and oranges?

As a foolish undergrad, I never truly understood Wallace Stevens' poem "Sunday Morning," but I always loved the first two lines:  "Complacencies of the peignoir, and late / Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair."  It is a minor goal of mine to work through this poem in bits and pieces throughout this blog.  There is something about that woman in the poem that has always reminded me of myself.  My own Sunday mornings also remind me of that poem.  But more on that later. Much later. And much more.

Coffee and oranges.  That's where we are. Maybe it's because I just love those two things, but that simple phrase tunes my senses.  The orange is the most poetic fruit, as my first husband Topher always loved to say.  Eating an orange is incredibly sensual, bittersweet, bright, enlivening, tart, and risky.  You never know where the juice will fly. And coffee? Well, little needs to be said about how coffee is completely connected to our senses.  Thank goodness for it.

I want this blog to live in the present, tuned to the senses.  And that's the only reason I name it "Coffee and Oranges."  Thank you, Wallace.  

A call to silence

Over a month ago, a class of college freshmen was reading Henri Nouwen.  Not an unusual assignment at the small, Christian liberal arts college where I teach -- everyone here reads and quotes Nouwen.  In fact, Nouwen is now the favored reading in the honors seminar I team-teach with a colleague.  I have to admit, Nouwen's In the Name of Jesus does issue a compelling call for humans to be needy and not, as we would assume, successful, spectacular, popular, or even relevant.  Non-Christians can gain as much from considering Nouwen's call to vulnerability as Christians can -- yes, really.   In short, it's worth reading, especially during the holidays, a time that requires all of us to receive the vulnerability in ourselves and others.

I am sort of obsessed with vulnerability -- even though I'm still learning what it is and why I need to embrace it.  Brene Brown's writing on this topic inspires me on a daily basis to set aside the demanding "shoulds" of perfectionism and turn to the "choices" to accept vulnerability.  When I accept my vulnerable, needy humanity, I no longer think that I "should" have a sparkling house to receive everyone for a bazillion holiday parties or the perfectly wrapped gifts for everyone I've ever met.  I no longer have to complete the impossible to-do list of a thousand dances.  I remember that I am enough. You are enough.  It is a complex and significant shift in thinking.  It is a liberation that requires a lot of work....like most liberations.

It also requires me to shut up.  Words are a powerful thing, and if I am to be vulnerable, I need to be quiet. The call to vulnerability is a call to silence.

Take Cordelia, the silent daughter of King Lear.   My students struggled to make sense of her silence when her father demands that his three daughters tell him how much they love him.  The other two know the drill. They give brash, flattering speeches.  Cordelia does not speak any more than necessary -- a risky and vulnerable act.  This time through the play, I thought about how much people talk only to be heard by others, to perform for others.  We are desperately afraid of being thought dumb or indifferent if we remain silent.  It's why my students fear a low participation grade just because they don't talk a lot in class.  We are all Lear, valuing the noise, pomp, and pride of speech.  Speech covers up a multitude of sins, right?  Just talk your way out of a bad situation, into a good idea, or through a lie.  At least you weren't the quiet one.

But to be vulnerable, we have to drop the armor of words and language.  The present moment doesn't often require words at all.  It may just require awareness and a refusal to say what we think we "should." To be vulnerable requires saying nothing at all.

What if we listened this year?  What if we received silence as sufficient?