If You Stick It on the Dining Room Table, They Will Use It

Not quite as lyrical as If You Build It, They Will Come, but just as true and wonderful!

* * *

Have you seen my dining room table? (You know, like, before COVID...) It is quite a sight.  A good percentage of it is covered with paint, marker, glitter, colored pencil, hot glue, and more.  Since COVID, graffiti has also popped up, including "Tallulah Likes Cake" in black sharpie.  We rarely enjoy an actual dinner or any other meal on this table, because it's typically full of art and projects of all kinds.  From where I sit in the next room, I spy a large mirror frame that needs to be fixed, a half-finished clay fairy world, and several rocks in various stages of being painted.

I have often yearned for a dining room table at which I and my family actually dine. It is a yearning, in part, for normalcy, a wish for something that feels like what "normal families" have and do. But of course, we should always be careful what we wish for, and today I was reminded of this nugget of wisdom.  Here is the story of how I came to be thankful that we do not have a normal dining room table. 

A week or so ago, Rick announced that he was going to put one of his manual typewriters on our dining room table, in the hopes that our kids would use it. In typical Rick fashion, he outdid himself, with not one, not two, but THREE typewriters!  As I write, there is one on the table and two on the floor next to the table. His timing was endearingly typical of us, in that the machines landed in the dining room just as one of my Normalcy Yearnings was ramping up: I had been eyeing the dining room longingly for the last couple of days, plotting to finally and yet again clean it, organize it, transform it into a place where people eat their meals and give thanks to the chef and then get up and cheerfully do all their chores without even a reminder.  So I had that moment -- perhaps familiar to some of you -- where you like an idea your partner has suggested, but it means you won't get to make your idea a reality, at least not for awhile, and so you just sort of roooooollll with it.  I rolled. I like typewriters. I like my kids. I love Rick. So yeah, sure, let's put a typewriter on the dining room table and see what happens.

What happened was this: after threatening for days to become another place for mail and dust to collect, today the typewriter got its moment to shine: Tallulah decided to learn how to type. As with All Things Tallulah, there were many questions:  "How do you put the paper in?" "How do you do capital letters?" "Can I make it type in different colors?" "Can you come get my hair out of this round thingee where the paper goes?" (At least she got to learn the word platen!) 

Once her head was no longer stuck in the machine and she had the basics down, her imagination began to flow and her fingers started to dance on the keys.  In no time at all, she had a story!  I am proud to present her breakthrough type-written work, entitled, simply: RICK.

I'm sure that's hard to read, so here's the text, exactly as typed:

This story is Called : RICK

By tallulah Alatorre

There once was a little man named rick.  He love d food, poetry, his five kids (although he loved his youngest the most) books, art, soccer, and so much more. HE was really really really short.

THE END

P.S. His shortness was charming.

That right there is straight up literary art, and today I love my dining room table and the creativity that emerges from it, and I don't care if I never eat another meal there if it means I can have more of this fabulosity in my life.  I say PFFFT to yearning for normalcy, and YAY to embracing the little wierdnesses of my family, and I say we are all weird and that is as it should be.

Also, if you would like to try a little experiment of your own: Put stuff out.  Leave it there. And watch what happens. Perhaps one day, your experiment will bring you great delight. 

Enjoy more bounty from our table:

And yes, I have a tablecloth that works nicely for the very rare holiday meal where I make everyone sit down to eat and they all look at each other like I'm conducting some weird psych experiment and no one knows how to act.

Embrace the Face

Every wrinkle, a memory.

Every crease, a story.

Every line and bump and spot and blemish, part of the soulful journey of my life, the trips around the sun and to the grocery store, the steps taken in joy and in pain.

Every imperfection a testament.

I embrace them all, and wear them as badges of my strength, power, resilience, and capacity for love.

Age, I embrace the lessons you have to teach and the joy you have to cultivate.

* * *

Whatever. I don't believe a word of that, but my teenage daughters are all about manifesting shit, and what the hell, it's free, I thought I'd give it try.

If you need me, me and my wrinkles will be over here waiting for transformation.

* * *

image source 

Recipe for a Happy Life

image source

For Rick on his birthday. 

Find someone who delights in words, marvels at them, picks them up like precious stones, turning them this way and that to see colors and variations.

Someone who sees possibilities in angles and spaces and movement, for whom patterns are beautiful.

Someone who protects and curates your bottle cap collection, even if you don't have one.

Someone who wears work shoes for work purposes.

Someone who speaks, who gives voice to what needs to live out loud; you won't always understand, but you will be more grateful with each passing day, week, month, and year.

It also helps if he loves — truly loves, with deep devotion — a tree. 

Find someone with the gift of thrift, who will discover perfectly soled sambas, sturdy backpacks, the sweetest little ceramic bowls, more glassware than any kitchen cabinet can hold, and endless treasures you did not know would bring you joy.

Someone -- that special someone -- you can't wait to annoy for the rest of your life.

Someone who is interested in the world, in art and ideas, culture and stories, in how things get made and how beauty is created.  Someone who knows that books, poetry, and music are essential, and introduces you to sounds you've never heard before. 

Someone of faith, who knows that endless mercy has the power to see, understand, and bring us home.

Someone who will be present and steadfast on bumpy roads, in sickening pitches, and through sudden, harrowing turns. You’ll need it. 

Find someone who will heal, perfect and exalt you, and for whom you will do the same.

Stir yourself with this person, day by day simmering and changing with the pressure and intensity of being alive, and together you will lay the table of a happy life.

10 Things I Am Still Grateful For, Plus a Few More

 Seven years ago I wrote a post on Thanksgiving with a list of the things I'm grateful for.  Today, I am grateful for that list, because in this crazy mixed up totally effed up year, it's nice to see that some things remain true.  Actually, it's not just "some things" but the most important things -- those remain solid, constant, more true than ever.  I am still grateful for every single thing on this list, so I am reposting it, and adding a few wonderful things I am newly grateful for, since 2013.  Here's what I wrote in 2013:

# # #

I have only 16% power left on my laptop and I'm too tired and comfy to get up and find the power cord, so I better rip off a thankful list right quick.  And so:

1. NPR.  My life would be less than it is without everyone at NPR.  Thank you from the bottom of my well-informed heart.
2. Coffee.  My children would be in danger without coffee.  Thank you for keeping me sane, which in turn, keeps them safe.
3. Good pillows.  Nothing feels better than laying down my weary head to rest each night.  I usually sleep with two pillows, but one of them has been missing for weeks.  I finally found it in the dolly crib today, and I'm back to pillow bliss tonight.
4. Friends who give pie.  Every Thanksgiving, some friends of our give us pumpkin pies from Bake Sale Betty.  This year, I am especially grateful for these pies because we are not hosting Thanksgiving, and I get to bring the pies to my sister-in-law's house tomorrow, meaning I did. not. bake. or. cook. a. single. thing.  I like to cook, and I've enjoyed hosting in the past, but this year?  It's a blessing of monumental proportions that I don't have to do a damn thing.
5. This blog.  Because I get to write about whatever I want, silly, fun, serious, thoughtful, boring, or sentimental, and it's MINE ALL MINE.  And I like it when people like what I've written.  That's pretty awesome.
6. My awesome job.  I love my job.  I have a job I love, doing things I am good at, learning things that are helping me grow, with people I respect, in a family-friendly environment, for a good cause.  See?  Awesome.
7. My kids.  Seriously, yes, even the kids.  They are impossible.  But I guess that's why I'm grateful because they show me that the impossible is possible, every single day.  Sometimes, that runs more towards the "Is she REALLY going to refuse to put away the Rush Hour game, just to mess with me?  Is she REALLY going to take the smallest possible steps between here and the bathroom to brush her teeth, just to see my head spin around on top of my neck???"  Sometimes, it's more of the heart-catching variety, where I see a child of mine do something good and generous, or I get to the end of the day and realize I did more good than harm (score!), or the questions they ask challenge and stretch me as I try to answer them and then the gift of a great conversation comes my way…all of it seems impossible.  All of it happens anyway.
8. My husband.  Not because he makes delicious pizza, and delicious hot toddies, and awesome old-fashioneds; not because he vacuums like a maniac; not because he makes sure all the doors are locked and lights are off each night.  Because he is the other half of me and I know he's mine forever.  We are not a fairy-tale husband and wife; we annoy each other greatly pretty frequently and his snoring alone makes me want to rip my ears off my head and serve them to him for breakfast.  But he's not going anywhere, and I'm not going anywhere, and I'm grateful that he is my constant.  
9. My mother and father.  Five days ago, we moved my mother into a board and care facility; it was one of the hardest days I've ever had with my parents, one of the hardest they've ever had themselves.  I am grateful for the privilege of being present to them both during the past several months of struggle.
10. The ability to change the wi-fi password.  Because nothing says I love you to my sons like turning off the wi-fi in the middle of an Instagram post so they can get some sleep and keep growing strong and healthy.  

# # #

For 2020, I would add that I am grateful for:

1. Fiddle: Playing it, listening to it, seeing the beautiful instrument in my house, sometimes on a pile of laundry.  And for Maria, who made my life long dream of being a real live fiddle player come true.
2. Kids who drive, because it's every mother's dream to get actual real help, even if that actual real help also comes with a side of terror.
3. My fingers.  They do a lot of good things for me, including typing.
4. My dog Zuzu, who is proof positive that happiness doesn't come from things being perfect: happiness comes from love and messiness and neurotic pets who are way more work than even you --the mom, who should know better-- anticipated.
5. Friends, so many friends, who save me every day, which has never been more appreciated than in this whacked-out cluster of a year.

What are you grateful for?

My First Beautiful Thing

Cold kitchen, whistling kettle: the water is ready, the ground awaits.

Now for the pour-over: watching steam rise, Chemex fill, and sparkly diamonds dance as the water settles and filters – suspends me every time.

I lift the good, heavy pot from the gleaming chrome and pour.

The warm, puddle-y sound, quiet but lifting, rising in pitch as the mug fills, is dark and swirling.

A splash of cream and voila! At this early hour, 

I've done my first beautiful thing.

I Recommend Remember When

Parenting is hard.  There are many things I’ve gotten wrong over the past 20+ years, and I feel those failures acutely and often.  Some days, these people I am raising seem like a pack of cynics, a swarm of pessimists, a horde of disaffected youth.  My 16-year-old daughter said just yesterday: “We’re all just riding around on a giant rock. Nothing matters. There’s no point to anything.”

Parenting Fail?  Teenage angst?  High School junior feeling deep in her core that final exams are cruel and unjust?  In weaker moments, I’m sure their negativity is all my fault.

But on this fine, cold morning deep in the heart of 2020, the Marx Brothers might just prove me wrong.  Last night, the kids hopped on one of those fabulous memory trains, riding “Remember when…” moments endlessly through the evening.  

Remember when all the girls slept on toddler mattresses lined up on a futon frame in their tiny bedroom not fit for three?

Remember when the boys accidentally locked themselves in their own closet?

Remember when dad would make us fires in the morning before going to school, back in the days when we actually WENT somewhere for school, and we would have hot chocolate in the wee hours?

“Remember when” usually includes a few confessions, things the kids experienced together that we, their parents, weren’t aware of at the time.  Case in point: Remember when Elizabeth and Tallulah wanted to be in the older kids’ club, and the older kids said OK, you can but first you have to eat dirt and walk barefoot over these thorny brambles, and when the two youngest screwed up the gumption to do both, the older three abandoned the clubhouse and went on to other pursuits?  

Ahhhhhh, good times.

Remember when makes us laugh.  Remember when turns family lore into an exquisite cloak of nostalgia, the shared experiences of recalled moments wrapping us in love and hilarity. Thankfully, the ride continued:

Remember when Tallulah used to think yogurt was a finger food?
Remember when Sam made fun of us for pretending we were wearing jetpacks?
Remember when we used to eat paella by the backyard firepit?

And then this: Remember I Love Lucy?  And the original Batman series?  And Annie Get Your Gun?  And the Carol Burnett show and Tim Conway and the airplane sketch?  Remember Groucho and Harpo?

Watching them laugh as they remembered Marx Brothers and Carol Burnett sketches, I felt a certain pride that we had shared those particular American treasures with them when they were small.  That laughter will serve them well throughout their lives.  Surely, children with these memories to sustain them, with those particular cultural references embedded in their psyches, cannot help but emerge into adulthood with some joy and optimism!  Hooray! We did something right!

And so, on this fine, cold morning, deep in the heart of 2020, while teenagers sleep late and another pandemic day stretches out in front of me, Remember When is giving me hope.   

I will admit, however, that that confessional memory I didn’t previously know about makes me glad we didn’t have a wood chipper back in the day.  Who knows what backyard club membership would have entailed! 

* * *

Note: My inspiration for this post came from Katherine Grubb of 10 Minute Novelists and this tweet, although I'll admit that writing this took me longer than 10 minutes.

Maybe Messy is What I Need Right Now

Let’s face it, we are all exhausted at this point.  I call it the Coronelection Complex, and it’s hitting me hard. Texts from friends, zoom calls with family, and tweets from strangers all indicate that I’m not alone.  We are a weighed upon people, are we not? 

One way Coronelection Complex is showing up for me is that I often feel like taking to my bed.  All I want to do is go to bed early and wallow.  Sometimes I read.  Sometimes I stare at a blank page with a pen in my hand. Mostly I doom scroll, against all my better judgment.  Very little feels like what my restless heart is actually looking for, but my bed and pillows keep calling. 

And when I answer that call, all I want to do is shut the rest of the world out.

My family has other ideas.

It’s as if my lying down in a stupor sends a radar signal throughout the house: BUG MOM.  IT’S TIME TO BUG MOM.  The dog gets the signal too.  It doesn’t take long before beating hearts both human and canine descend on my bedroom to create mayhem.

This may sound sweet, as if they are wanting to wrap me in love and care in my time of need.  It does not always feel this way.  When they descend, they do not leave their own stress and anxieties at the door. They don’t put down their grievances or their needs or their rivalries.  They stick all that detritus in their pockets, swarm into the room in droves, and lay it all out on the comforter. Arguments rage. People talk over each other and get louder to make themselves heard. The dog decides to go mental and bark at the mirror.  Someone (looking at you, husband) decides it would be fun to wrestle with her and rile her up even more.  People dive into bed next to me to “cuddle” precisely when all I want to do is lie there by myself and flip the pillow to the cool side every few minutes.

Like everything else about family life, self-care is messy.

My 14-year-old daughter, especially, hones in immediately.  She’s usually the first to the party.  She burrows under the covers next to me, demands that I face her (instead of spooning), and commands: “HUG ME.” 

I groan internally. OK, sometimes also externally.  Because I know that thus commences a good 20+ minutes of this forceful little being thrashing around next to me, talking incessantly, playing games (“squeeze me as hard as you can!” “can I please just tickle you?? PLEASE?” “what am I tracing on your back?”), and asking for hug after hug after hug.

I’m not a monster, I promise, and I do love my children, but when I take to my bed it’s because I’m saturated with interaction. I need the downtime. I can hardly muster the energy for this level of play.

Poor me.  All this love is crushing me.

Ten years ago, that same 14-year-old said this to me, in a conversation about whether I would be going to the grocery store after her bedtime:

"Well, if you leave tonight, and you think I'm asleep, and you leave without giving me a hug or a kiss?  Well, you can still hug and kiss me, even if I'm asleep, because I really don't ever want you to leave without giving me a hug and a kiss.  And sometimes, when I wake up and your car is gone, I think you should have given me a hug and kiss before you left." 

I was reminded of this conversation recently because I wrote about it in a blog post that showed up in my Facebook memories.  Reading it felt like a sign from God intended to combat my growing resentment over having my “me time” infringed upon. 

Message translation: the kid needs hugs. The kid is a teenager and spends most of her time expressing her complete disdain for you, skirting her chores, or otherwise developing her fledgling independence. The kid will not always be under your roof, or under your covers, and will someday fly the coop for good.  Right now, she is also suffering from Coronelection. Plus, she told you a decade ago what she needs. Listen to her. Believe her. And hug her while you can.

I got the message.  I am now rethinking my attitude at those moments when all I want to do is retreat and all my family wants to do is swarm.

I still need solitude and I still get saturated. But my new 2020 project is to welcome the messiness as best I can and find the me-time another way.  Doom scrolling and other forms of wallowing are not better than 20 minutes of thrashing with and hugging my 14-year-old.  They aren’t even better than listening to teenagers fight over clothes or whose turn it is to clean the kitchen.  We are together in this time of anxiety, and under this roof, that’s better than being alone.  We will thrash our way through 2020.  And when we get to the other side – of the virus, the election, the divisions that will take a long time to heal – we will remember, along with everything else from this time, the hugs that got us through.

So Today Was Hard

Today was hard, which started two days ago. 

Two days ago, we spent $1400 on car repairs. All needed, all good, all regular wear and tear, and we did a whole bunch of things all at once. It still hurt. 

Last night, someone stole the catalytic converter off of one of our cars. This is the second time this has happened to us, the first was several years ago. I was awakened last night to the awful sound of the saw bad guys use to snatch the catalytic converter from a car's undercarriage. One quick growl-whirr got me up and to the window, wondering who the hell was using machinery at 2 am. On my way to the window, I heard the second growl-whirr, for just a bit longer, and realized what was happening. Pulling the curtain back, I couldn't see anything right in front of the house, but then a car sped past my window coming from the left, from where our two Priuses (Pri-ii?) were parked out of my line of sight. 

Rick went outside and started all of our cars -- successfully. So we went to sleep thinking that the theft had been foiled somehow. But alas, Prius cars start just fine on battery. When Rick started his Prius again this morning, and it kicked over from battery to gas power, the telltale sound of a car without a converter echoed through the quiet, smoke-and-ash-filled street. 

Yes, smoke and ash, because we are in California, which is currently battling over 300 wildfires. The air is thick, with a yellow tinge, and the girls' pod-style soccer practices (thanks COVID) are canceled because of air quality. We are also experiencing a heatwave, and our only respite from that is to open all our doors and windows and catch whatever breezes may come. But in wildfire season, that means inviting ash and smoke into the house, along with headaches and sore throats. So our house is sealed up tight and hotter than hell. 

For weeks and weeks, the only safe place to go (thanks COVID) has been outside – walks, hikes, soccer practices, socially distanced cocktails on decks and patios. Now, with the fires raging, the open air is also a health risk. Even the outdoors is closed to us. 

Oh, and I'm worrying about friends who are being evacuated in Napa County and other places. Again with the Nixle alerts and consulting maps for air quality and checking on dad in Sonoma, and generally experiencing the clutching fire-anxiety that is now an annual, weeks or months-long experience. 

Also eighth grade started today for Big T (formerly Little T but that's just not descriptive anymore). It was bumpy, not gonna lie. Distance Learning is just plain hard: teachers and schools are doing their best to do it right and do it well, and it's just a beast of a process. Today's Distance Learning experience featured three or four utterances of "I can't get into the Zoom," a few of "I don't have the right link," one of "My teacher keeps calling me Jimena," and several "I HATE THIS" blood-curdling screams, while on mute of course, or during the five-minute breaks between classes. I've got one extremely perturbed 8th grader on my hands, who I am trying to support and encourage while also attending to the demands of my own work. Also, we've got this very cute and very restless dog (no walks for us today) tearing through the house barking and burrowing into our legs and laps as we sit at our laptops.

Are you sensing the chaos?  I can't wait for the 11th grader to start the same process in few weeks, followed by the UC Santa Cruz frosh beginning her college days here at home, in the room her sisters desperately want her to vacate so that they no longer have to share. 

Today's kicker -- the thing that has me crying UNCLE -- was logging into my health insurance portal to pay a bill and discovering A SECOND BILL for over $1,000 that we didn't know existed and that NO ONE had mentioned to us as we were deciding on a course of treatment for my migraines. That one expense was for the first of four total treatments, and no one thought it might be important for us to know that we were accepting a $4K+ total expense? And I asked SO many questions about having this treatment done in the first place...except for how much it would cost and I'm kicking myself now.

So, a recap: 

• Distance Learning going awry, with more in the forecast;
• Speaking of forecasts: heatwave;
• Then we've got the fires fires fires and the worry worry worry about where they will go next; ash and smoke and hazy skies pressing in on us; 
• Expensive car repair;
• Stolen converter, which is going to be hella expensive to fix; 
• Outrageous health care bill; 
• A global pandemic raging unabated (thanks Trump); 
• Oh, and that guy is still our president. 

2020 hates us all. 

I figure there's really only one response to this cluster of a day: pour myself a stiff drink, pull out my violin and drunk fiddle until Obama's address at the DNC.  If I get nothing else out of this day, at least I can torture my teenagers.

Simplest of Things, Lost and Found

Last night, I made dinner!

One might think, what with a pandemic on and all, that I'd be doing this a lot.  One would be wrong.  In the beginning of this...oh, words escape me...let's go with DEBACLE...I did alright with the whole planning meals and shopping for them and cooking them steps.  All that has fallen off dramatically.

This is not to say we are not eating. In fact, in a stroke of genius brought on by laziness (perhaps the true mother of invention), I roped my daughters into each cooking once a week, and they are mostly doing it, and doing it incredibly well. So we are at least eating good meals two to three times a week, plus our usual once a week take out.  Add in some leftovers, and we're easily covered for about five nights a week.  Cereal, toast, and grazing take us the rest of the way, so what do they even need me for, right?

Well, after several weeks of shirking all cooking duties, I must admit, I was feeling a little...shirky.  So, I waded back into the rotation last night with a delicious meal, selected primarily by googling recipes that contained ingredients I had on hand. Here is what we ate:

• Crisp Curried Chicken Fingers with Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce (from whence also comes the lovely photo at the top of this page)
• Basmati rice (just plain; a staple here). Some of us, dare I say the smart ones, drizzled the dipping sauce on the rice, and ate the chicken, rice, and sauce all together.  I highly recommend this course of action.
• Arugula Apple Almond salad, with balsamic dressing: so quick and simple. I made this up on the fly, because all the salad recipes I googled were fancy and had too many things not in my fridge. So I just chopped up the almonds and apples, and tossed everything together.  

This was a really good dinner.  It made me remember that sometimes cooking is a very, very gratifying activity.  But the best part was when Tallulah and Rick came home from playing soccer tennis, while I was still cooking, puttering around my kitchen with NPR on the radio.

Like everyone, we in the AIRY5 household are missing our routines, perhaps most especially our soccer routine.  For 15 years, we have always had evening soccer practices to go to.  For most of the past 10, this has meant every single weekday evening and some combo of kids and Coach Rick coming home between 8 and 9 o'clock.  Sometimes exhausting, sometimes hell on family life, the beloved routine was ours. When COVID-19 hit, all of that changed, and we haven't had that routine in months. 

Recently, we have started having some soccer trainings again, "pod-style," where the girls work on individual skills in a clearly marked space, distant from other players. They must take their temperature before stepping on the field; they wear masks until they are in their pod; all equipment is sanitized before and after, and never shared.  It's strange, but it's something, and our soccer clubs are working hard to provide quality training and a shared experience to families and players.   

But last night, Rick took Tallulah to play "soccer tennis," a favorite family activity.  They stayed out until dusk, and got home about the time they might have if they were returning from regular ol' training of days gone by.  Tallulah bustled into the house, smelling of the outdoors and sweat and carrying her soccer gear, with Rick a few steps behind her and the evening light fading behind them both.  

She stopped, took in a deep breath, and said: "THIS is what I miss! Coming home, just like if I were coming home from practice, and the house smells so good because you're cooking dinner, and NPR is on the radio, and I come in hungry and eat, and it's just like this!"

I hugged her tight in our warm and aromatic kitchen, so grateful that she gave a voice to those thoughts.  I didn't even know I missed those evenings too.  The virus has, these past many months, taken away the simplest of pleasures from our lives, but would we have recognized this mundane family moment for the joy and treasure that it is, but for missing it?

I'm quite glad I felt shirky enough to make that dinner.

Three Minutes

My friend Janelle texted me the other day: "Do you have three minutes?" I did not, at that precise moment, because I was driving.

When I got to my destination – a soccer field, of course, where Little T was experiencing the joy of "pod" training (thank you COVID) – I texted Janelle to let her know that I now had three minutes.  Next, she asked if I was in a quiet place.  Yes, I told her, for once, I was in a quiet place, not surrounded by my boisterous, busy family.

I was in for a treat. She sent me a link to this video and told me to listen:

Three minutes of sheer beauty and joy! Such a treat, so welcomed in this time of chaos and anxiety.

I have listened to it several times since and shared it with friends and family.  But in addition to bringing me real joy, this brief three-minute video has also taught me some uncomfortable truths about myself that are not at all joyful.  

The first time I listened to it, I couldn't focus on it. I immediately loved it, to be sure, but I was also distracted. Less than one minute in, I was already thinking about sharing it, already crafting a tweet or a post about it, already thinking about how MY take on it would be received (by my very, very few followers, no less). Mere seconds had gone by, and the beautiful music was already competing in my head with noisy thoughts about who I should send it to, who needed to hear it, why it was important, why my kids should listen, and what kind of moral decay the world was in if they couldn't appreciate music like this.  It was unsettling to recognize that I couldn't simply sit still and listen to two incredibly talented musicians for three tiny minutes; instead, I was neurotically scheming about how to use this piece of art for myself.

Thankfully, I forced myself to quit that nonsense. Don't tweet. Don't post. Just listen. Just enjoy. Just be with the music. I am out of habits like that. I am in the habits of curating my responses for social media, thinking in sound bites, and anticipating notifications. Creativity cannot compete with such foolishness: I need different habits of being. 

Today, I deleted Twitter and Facebook from my phone, the number one places where I get sucked down into the valley of scrolling death. Yes, I'm writing this reflection on my blog: irony is a bitch in heels.  

The task in front of me is to figure it all out: figure out how to enjoy art and beauty, and how to create whatever it is I'm going to create, and how to do it authentically, and how to share it authentically. I think it starts with stopping: stop being on social media for awhile, stop scrolling and reading one-liners and hot takes and having nanosecond reactions to things that barely register before I'm on to the next thing, like some never satiated hunger that grows larger with every swipe. Stop being horrified by Trump, and racists, and DeVos, and anti-maskers, and whatever new horror comes along. Scrolling is numbing me and depressing me; it is lulling me into imagining that my outrage is my activism. It is not.

We must be able to take in beauty, deep inside: it is an act of self-preservation.  I wasn't able to do that with The Swan the first time I heard it. I will keep trying.

 

Listen

In my work, we talk a lot about the importance of listening. I write about it in grant proposals; we talk about it in team meetings; we hold it up as a core organizational value. We know that the act of listening is essential to the processes of teaching and learning: transformative education isn't possible without it.  

As a parent, I know the importance of listening. Easily 80% of all family arguments are, at their crux, essentially about someone not listening to someone else. Mom gets mad because a kid didn't listen to her instructions and therefore didn't do a chore right for the fifth or fiftieth time in a row (hypothetically speaking); siblings fight with each other because one of them ignores the other's wishes or rights.  The wise observer can see that if these people would stop and truly listen to each other, the tension would ease, hurt feelings would heal, love and kindness would have space to grow.

Right now in our country, listening is more important than ever. Between the cacophony of the media -- social, mainstream and otherwise -- and our human tendency to shout ever louder to make our own voices heard, there isn't much true listening happening, even if we feel like all we do is take in information all day long. The world has never been louder; it's never been harder to hear each other.

I keep learning more about just how radical listening can be. It might just be the only thing that can change hearts and minds, the only thing that can move us from intractable defense to open-armed community. We may not know how to do it very well, but the good news is that we can practice that skill and make it stronger: the more we listen, the more we exercise those muscles, the better we'll get. So that's what we need: listening practice. Hours and hours of practice.

In that spirit, I offer three voices I have been profoundly moved by recently. They have things to say that are not comfortable and will not be easy for white people to hear. They also have things to say that every white person -- every human person -- can relate to, can understand on a deeply personal, visceral level.  So I ask you to listen, without first deciding how to respond: your job is not to, at first, respond. Your job is simply to hear what these three people have to say. Listen and sit with their words. Listen and invite these three people into your world. Cook them dinner, share a meal with them, stay with their voices while they speak. Let their words do what words can do: shape, build, connect and create.

Just listen:

Kimberly Jones: How Can We Win

Dave Chappelle: 8:46 

Catherine Pugh: There is No Such Thing as a White Ally

* * *

Last night, we were talking about some of our favorite movies, and of course, Shawshank Redemption came up.  Rick used to show it to his students back in his teaching days. The line that stays with him and that students-now-adults-with-families-of-their-own still repeat when they see him is "Get busy living or get busy dying."  I went to bed with that line rattling around in my brain, the same brain that has been consumed lately with how much we need to listen to each other as a culture. I woke up with this on my mind: 

Get busy listening, or get busy denying.  

* * *