Comic on the mental load: "You Should Have Asked"
https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Resource List: The Situation
This picture
If anyone can find me the artist and origin of this picture, I want to know. The earliest I have been able to trace it to so far is 2015 out of Malaysia.
Thursday, June 15, 2017
We Are All Living History
So, yesterday, I was teaching boichik his tunnel stops (Westlake is the monorail, University is Hammering Man...).
An Asian American student who was pure effervescence overheard us and launched our section into a rollicking conversation about the public transit experiences no one talks about. (Like when the person sitting next to you has fallen asleep, and you don't know if letting them stay asleep it is the best thing you could possibly do, or if they are going to be totally screwed by missing their stop if you don't do something…)
Then I said to boichik, "And International District means-"
And he said, "Mochi! Mochi!"
And I said, "Daifuku mochi!"
And he said, "Daifuku mochi!"
And our bubbling student *squealed*, "Daifuku mochi! You have made me homesick! I grew up with my grandmother making daifuku mochi for me!"
And as we pulled into the station, she added, "They lived right here-- before the internment camp."
-------
Being a citizen is like... it is like being born into a collective body. And to live well in that body, you need to know its triumphs and its injuries, what it has overcome and what it is struggling with.
You have to know what you are a part of now, and what is a part of you-- the monorail, Hammering Man, daifuku mochi, the internment camps.
It's not trivia. It's a difference in consciousness. And differences in consciousness are what make differences in conscience.
An Asian American student who was pure effervescence overheard us and launched our section into a rollicking conversation about the public transit experiences no one talks about. (Like when the person sitting next to you has fallen asleep, and you don't know if letting them stay asleep it is the best thing you could possibly do, or if they are going to be totally screwed by missing their stop if you don't do something…)
Then I said to boichik, "And International District means-"
And he said, "Mochi! Mochi!"
And I said, "Daifuku mochi!"
And he said, "Daifuku mochi!"
And our bubbling student *squealed*, "Daifuku mochi! You have made me homesick! I grew up with my grandmother making daifuku mochi for me!"
And as we pulled into the station, she added, "They lived right here-- before the internment camp."
-------
Being a citizen is like... it is like being born into a collective body. And to live well in that body, you need to know its triumphs and its injuries, what it has overcome and what it is struggling with.
You have to know what you are a part of now, and what is a part of you-- the monorail, Hammering Man, daifuku mochi, the internment camps.
It's not trivia. It's a difference in consciousness. And differences in consciousness are what make differences in conscience.
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
Shame on You, Rabbi.
"But issues like slavery and civil rights are very rare, once in a generation, and invoking them for everything from social welfare policy to Dodd-Frank to the methods of vetting immigrants is both dishonest and cheapening a great moral legacy. If you are using the march on Selma to religiously validate your views on the minimum wage, shame on you."
One of the best loved and generally most thoughtful rabbis of our time wrote these words.
They are a shattering, clarion indictment of the level of privilege, comfort, and blissful ignorance taken for granted in much of the American Jewish world.
In point of historical fact, when slavery was the leading issue of the day, synagogues were overwhelmingly silent. When Rabbi Herschel marched by Rev.Dr.King, he was ostracized and roundly criticized by his peers. The priority of the rabbinic pulpits of the day was to be polite and quiet and avoid rocking the boat. The most obscene and obvious of injustices were normal in their day.
The very statement that such issues come along once in a generation is a statement of faith in the status quo, of confidence and complicity in the current normal. It is not a statement rooted in social analysis, historical aptitude, or moral or intellectual rigor; it is a statement rooted in comfort, and a desire to keep things comfortable.
It is not acceptable for a professional who has never had to choose betweeen food and heat, who leads a community that take for granted the ability to own their own home and eat regularly in restaurants, to wish shame upon those speaking for the lives warped and lost to the travesty of working poverty. It is not acceptable for a parent who does not live knowing their child has double, triple, quadruple the chance of dying of violence to dismiss current identity issues as special interest politics.
It is not acceptable for spokesperson of an ethos whose single most emphasized commandment is to welcome the stranger-- to actively consider and care for the well-being of the outsider-- to advocate for "The Gentleman's Agreement" of valuing the camaraderie of the complacent above the inclusion of the marginalized.
Monday, June 12, 2017
Brain Fog Log
I am trying to sit with myself, and watching thoughts fly apart.
There's a fine line between self – awareness and self – analysis, like the fine line between medicine and poison. Quantum physics introduced the concept that observation itself is an action that impacts the phenomena observed. I heard that for the first time at 10 or 12 years old and understood it instantly; I have known that truth throughout the duration of my emerging and mature adult lives.
And yet, we cannot stop looking.
------
This quote came across my feed today:
"To explain – there was a talk at the SohoCreate festival in London, in which artist Yinka Shonibare was in conversation with other leading figures from art and architecture. The panel discussed what they understood creativity to mean, and how it can survive in an increasingly cut-throat and capitalist London. Somebody then asked how the panel spent their days. At which point Shonibare mentioned, dead casually, that he only works three days a week "because I need at least one day a week to just stare into space and achieve absolutely nothing". At this point, everyone went a bit quiet.
Here we were, at the heart of a hungry, competitive city, finding out that one of its power players, who has been awarded an MBE, an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art, and been made a member of the Royal Academy, was all for having a bit of a rest. It stopped me in my tracks."
The quote is from a Guardian article, the rest of which is not worth quoting because the author goes on to make fun of the concept and herself in an oh so British fashion. Can you say white Anglo-Saxon Protestant work ethic?
The part she missed, and misunderstood, is that "rest" is not the same as doing whatever you want to. To "do nothing", you first need to know how to do nothing. Which is why so many detailed proscriptions come with Shabbat.
But then, I don't know how to do nothing either.
------
At Girl Scout hiking camp, we found ourselves the sole users of a small valley campsite. After half the day had passed with no sign of any other groups, one of my counselors took off all her clothes.
Within 10 minutes, a set of 20-something young men hiked into the valley on the path that took them within 15 feet of where she was trying to take a nap on a log.
They asked if she was Swedish.
It took me years to figure out why anyone would ask my olive-skinned, bucktoothed counselor with the butch brunette hair chop if she was Swedish. Truth be told, I am still not quite sure.
She raised both eyebrows at them, succintly and clearly said, "No", and put her head back down on the log and closed her eyes.
I have made enough progress, in the 30 years intervening, to be in awe of that young woman's "don't give a damn" self-possession. At the time, it was just incomprehensible, the sort of thing a kid can't even think about.
I still remember that valley. I go back there every time I'm put through another useless meditation that tells me to remember being a child in a place where I felt at peace.
There was a tree branch there big enough for me to stretch out my legs on, and I was hidden alone on it for about 40 minutes.
No one among us was supposed to leave sight of the other girls. I did it twice.
The first time, I just went walking and got lost. It could've been bad. I knew how bad it could've been. I found my way back on my own before I was missed.
So, the second time, I went for a destination. I went for the tree we had found the day before as a group.
I got myself up on that branch.
And, for about 40 minutes of my young life, I was unaccounted for with no danger or consequences.
So that's where I go, when someone wants me to try going to "a safe place I remember being." Because they sure don't want me to visualize being drunk, which is the other option.
Visible Disability / Invisible Disability
I have this comic idea stuck in my head, because I can't draw right now.
First frame is labeled, Visible Disability, and shows a person in a wheelchair facing flight of steps and saying, "I can not do this."
There's a group of cheerleaders on the steps chanting, "Yes you can!"
An onlooker is staring up at the cheerleaders with a thought bubble that reads: "Jerks".
First frame is labeled, Visible Disability, and shows a person in a wheelchair facing flight of steps and saying, "I can not do this."
There's a group of cheerleaders on the steps chanting, "Yes you can!"
An onlooker is staring up at the cheerleaders with a thought bubble that reads: "Jerks".
The second frame is labeled, Invisible Disability.
It shows a person standing facing a flight of steps and saying, "I can not do this."
There's a group of cheerleaders on the steps chanting, "Yes you can!"
And the onlooker is staring over at the disabled person with a thought bubble that reads: "Jerk".
It shows a person standing facing a flight of steps and saying, "I can not do this."
There's a group of cheerleaders on the steps chanting, "Yes you can!"
And the onlooker is staring over at the disabled person with a thought bubble that reads: "Jerk".
It is a bad day for anxiety-related brain fog. A significant anxiety attack kept me out of shul Saturday morning.
The last time I was forced to go in to DSHS, I saw an immigrant mother with an actual Stars and Stripes hijabi, like the famous picture, only a much larger pattern.
That's the image I'm hanging on to right now.
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Ashkenonsense
I give up.
Folks, there is already an established sociological term for the weird place position Ashkenazi Jews hold in American race relations. That term is "Ethnic Whites". It includes other groups, such as the Roma (aka "Gypsies", which by the way is a racial slur).
Folks, there is already an established sociological term for the weird place position Ashkenazi Jews hold in American race relations. That term is "Ethnic Whites". It includes other groups, such as the Roma (aka "Gypsies", which by the way is a racial slur).
And I know, I know-- there are a whole heaping lot of very good people just starting learn about race in America since BLM and Pantsuit Nation who cannot be expected to know these terms. (Except for everybody old enough to remember, we used to routinely specify WASP instead of just saying "white".)
BUT-- the fact that the people being paid to write up their opinions on this matter aren't familiar with the term?
Is just plain *embarrassing.*
Irrelevant of the position they are presenting or how many cherry-picked historical facts they trot out, it means their interest in what race is and how it works is narrow, shallow, and gadawful johnny-come-lately.
Is just plain *embarrassing.*
Irrelevant of the position they are presenting or how many cherry-picked historical facts they trot out, it means their interest in what race is and how it works is narrow, shallow, and gadawful johnny-come-lately.
Reading, Persistence, & Trauma-- Stack Attack Against the Poor
Three articles linked by three different friends on three ostensibly different subjects-- reading, persistence, and trauma-- that actually fit together like three jigsaw puzzle pieces.
http://www.booksourcebanter.com/…/…/reading-achievement-gap/ from Nancy O'Leary Pew talks about low income kids not reading over the summer from a simple lack of access to books. YES, and… this is one of those places where "low income", term that seems so objective and unbiased, is incredibly misleading, because it points the mind toward the old idea that poverty is a simple lack of money, instead of grappling with the reality that poverty is a complex lack of resources. Such kids don't just have fewer books, but also thinner walls, greater stress, less space and more people packed into it. These kids are not going off for the summer to an intact nuclear family in a freestanding house with a treehouse in the yard and a well-recommended babysitter on call. Less reading happens if you are keeping your younger sibs out of trouble, if you are scratching together mac & cheese so your mama has a meal ready to eat in between her two shifts, if your time is not your own. Nobody's pulling the flashlight under the covers trick with an aunt and uncle crashed out on the floor beside their bed after a long day of looking for work. Let's not get into the sirens wailing down the street, the bottles smashing in the back alley, the grown-ups pushing to a window to check if that was a real scream or a play scream. Is this a reading environment? Poverty means less security, fewer options, less peace and less quiet. Not even getting into the issues for kids who need glasses. Not even getting into the social issues, the way having your head down in a book makes you literally physically more vulnerable to bullies of every kind.
That heads straight in to this powerful article on persistence from Julie Shusterman https://www.theatlantic.com/…/when-grit-isnt-enough/418269/… . The capacity of schoolchildren to lead and succeed is being judged from strictly white-collar assumptions about what "grit" should look like. Even more, it is not only that kids in poverty may be using their persistence in ways that are academically invisible... it is vital to understand the very specific way in which poverty works against persistence, period. Poverty teaches you not to put the few resources you have into anything that is not a *sure* thing. Trying new things in a way that is healthy "experimenting" if you are middle-class is flat-out dangerous **gambling** if you are poor. Even trying to cook a different kind of food is a whole new level of risk when you understand, there is not going to be anything else to eat if this does not turn out. Recently I wrote about watching myself actively teaching our four-year-old *not* to persist, because the ability to give up and move on quickly is key to our very survival. https://m.facebook.com/story.php…
And that brings us to this heartbreakingly indepth examination of how in depth children process from Kristie Walker
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…/run-gunfire-on-a-school-pl…/ . The critical, huge take-away here is that trauma impacts kids in completely unpredictable ways. I am going to spell out what "trauma" is here, from the work of Peter Levine: trauma is the mind-body break that happens when you are simultaneously aware that what you truly need most is in immediate jeopardy and that there is nothing you can do about it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…/run-gunfire-on-a-school-pl…/ . The critical, huge take-away here is that trauma impacts kids in completely unpredictable ways. I am going to spell out what "trauma" is here, from the work of Peter Levine: trauma is the mind-body break that happens when you are simultaneously aware that what you truly need most is in immediate jeopardy and that there is nothing you can do about it.
So, where does trauma come into it? The article illustrates trauma at its most recognizable: the single, obscene disruption to otherwise safe and comfortable lives. But that is not the whole picture of trauma. The question of how much strain one's muscles are under while holding a container of water depends not only on how heavy the container is but also on how long one must hold it. Research such as the CDC's ACE studies are confirming that trauma, like every other kind of damage, comes not only from the horrible sudden shock but also the wear and tear of the ever-present danger. "A two year old can't wait when hungry," says a friend at synagogue, and I stare in shock at words that would have been a joke in my neighborhood. Oh, yes, a two-year-old can wait when hungry, an 18-month-old can wait while hungry-- all it takes it regularly being in a position where you cannot feed your child and your child knows it. My synagogue hosted a workshop on how to buffer our children from our own fears at a time when current events have so many adults in a state of alarm. The key, according to the invited expert, was to make sure your children feel like you, the parent, have the power to take good care of them no matter what. My child has known better since 18 months old.
What one must keep in mind reading all this, is that from all indications, the college-educated parents of the rising (millennial) generation are raising their children in a level of density and unpredictability and daily compromise that the receding generation (boomers) would have considered low-end blue collar circumstances.
The class privileges a larger upper-middle class set in cement ( https://mobile.nytimes.com/…/stop-pretending-youre-not-rich… from Rachel Jacobson ) are now posed to crush their grandchildren.
The class privileges a larger upper-middle class set in cement ( https://mobile.nytimes.com/…/stop-pretending-youre-not-rich… from Rachel Jacobson ) are now posed to crush their grandchildren.
And all I can think is, my dear lord, NOTHING else is so important for the longterm than more parks and more libraries and safer streets for free-range children to be out on.
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
This morning I woke from a nightmare in which two assailants had me on the floor, kneeling on my chest and trying to choke me while I tried to fend them off with one hand while pushing away the hand gun pointed at my head with the other.
Woke up and found my lungs spasming with asthma.
On a directly related note, I love making mental health professionals laugh like today.
Monday, June 5, 2017
It Was Warm Today
Before I was a parent, I thought parents tweaked out about naked people in public because of some superstition about their children being instantly traumatized by the sight of human genitalia.
Now that I am a parent, I understand, we are just looking to get back home with all of the articles of clothing that we left with, and every time our child encounters naked people in public, the odds of that happening decreases exponentially and permanently.
Sunday, June 4, 2017
Friday, June 2, 2017
Maggot-Slug
OK, we have hit our first real snag with the "go ahead and let our home go to hell while staying away and healing" plan.
Maggot-slug.
Because hell hath abundant insect life.
Horrified Child: "How did this happen?!?"
Calm Adult: "This is just a normal part of life."
Tweaking Adult: "Not in clean homes, it isn't!"
Calm Adult [wisely switching horses midstream]: "And that's why we all need to work together to keep things clean."
Calm Adult: "This is just a normal part of life."
Tweaking Adult: "Not in clean homes, it isn't!"
Calm Adult [wisely switching horses midstream]: "And that's why we all need to work together to keep things clean."
Calm Adult: "Now that you've pointed it out, how about leaving it there and I'll see if I can figure out a way to deal with it sometime later?"
Tweaking Adult: "... That is so not even an option."
Tweaking Adult: "... That is so not even an option."
Calm Adult [leaning in the kitchen doorway]: "So, how has the rest of your day gone?"
Tweaking Adult [in the middle of dealing with maggot-slug]: "This is not the time."
[Sixty seconds later]
Child: "Could you please-?"
Calm Adult: "Learn from my mistakes, son. Don't go in there right now."
Tweaking Adult [scrubbing frantically]: "Maggot-slug! Not the time!"
Tweaking Adult [in the middle of dealing with maggot-slug]: "This is not the time."
[Sixty seconds later]
Child: "Could you please-?"
Calm Adult: "Learn from my mistakes, son. Don't go in there right now."
Tweaking Adult [scrubbing frantically]: "Maggot-slug! Not the time!"
Epilogue:
Calm Adult: "So, what do you think it was feeding on?"
Still-tweaking Adult: "NEGLECT."
Calm Adult: "So, what do you think it was feeding on?"
Still-tweaking Adult: "NEGLECT."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)