a PhD poem

I found out today that I have been accepted into a PhD program. 

So I bought a ring.

It is actually an old spoon. 

An old spoon that has been shaped into a ring.

It is one of the most inspiring pieces of art I’ve seen in ages.

It is dented.

It is old and reminds me of my grandmother stirring her tea.

It has an impression of a rose on it.

And it is tarnished--reminiscent of the days when “go tarnish the silver” meant something to every female under the roof.

It has been repurposed into a delightful little piece of jewelry.

If not, it may have ended up in a dump somewhere. 

Or worse. Maybe tucked away neglected in a drawer. Or left to hang on a wall for decades in a decrepit home.

Or maybe if it was lucky, it could have existed on a thrift store shelf for several years.

I told my boys what my ring was in its past, and they were in awe. 

They were more in awe of my ring than of my announcement about my acceptance.

And Myles said, “Do you think people actually used that spoon?”

“Yes, undoubtedly.”

“That’s so gross!”

“Gross? Why?”

“Imagine the mouths that thing has been inside, that’s just nasty.”

“It’s not the mouthpiece anyway. Nevermind.”

Nevertheless.

I will wear it proudly. 

I may not take it off for quite some time.

Maybe I will take it off when I finally earn the PhD.

Which will take me four years.

If I’m lucky.

I will be re-entering the world of academia.

For four years.

And I am thrilled that I get to do what I love most for the next four years.

I get to read. I get to research. I get to study. I get to listen to brilliant thinkers. I get to discuss. I get to try out some ideas on other people. I get to think. And write. And create.

I will wear my ring as a reminder of my gratitude for an opportunity to do something I never even dared to dream of in the past... I will wear it as a reminder of the potential that each of us has if we only dare to re-imagine our purpose. I will wear it to keep me rooted in the knowledge that we are all deeply loved by our creator...who reshapes us constantly out of our sinful nature into the humans he designed us to be.

Tainted Perfection

ISWG: Happy First Wednesday. I haven’t been writing as much here because I’m focusing my efforts on some articles for publication, and it seems that I cannot write them in public blogosphere if I desire publication. A shitty catch. 

However, today I offer... 
A confession: I read Gwnyth Paltrow’s online ridonkularity... Goop. Mostly because I want to look like her. But also because I want to be her. Or at least be friends with her. Or at the very least I want to be friends with people who think I look like her.
And in her latest article, she hijacked one of my recent favorite thinkers, yup, took it right out of my brain: Brene Brown, and another favorite person of mine, Jesus. Together. But I don’t think she did so intentionally. At least she didn’t do it to intentionally piss me off. But it did. Somehow even though I admire her, I don’t want her to be a deep thinker or be real or like the same things that I do. And I like being able to harbor at least a little bit of resentment toward her (until we become friends) that empowers my thoughts of, “oh, well, you may be super skinny and hot and rich and fabulous, but you don’t listen to Ted Talks like I do, or study the Bible, or know much about Jesus...” which sounds absolutely contrary to what Jesus would want me to do...
The other night I was on a lovely afternoon walk with my 8 year old (yes, I had to bribe him to accompany me) and we were discussing the challenge of making friends. Well, to be honest, I was asking a lot of questions, and he was mostly grunting in varying tonalities.
I was trying to encourage him to be a friend to people without expecting much in return. And that if he does this, eventually, someone will want to be his friend back. And that even if people act mean to him, he still needs to be kind, even though this can be super hard. It sounded a bit like this: 
“Myles, even if *Bob tricks you and shoves you into the dirt while you’re playing Manhunt in the playground, you don’t have to write him off as a possible friend (Though you can tell Bob that he hurt you, and if he hurt you real bad, you need to tell the playground supervisor).”
“But Mom, he’s mean.”
“Well, we can all be a bit mean sometimes. It is usually a sign of something else. Maybe somebody hurt Bob’s feelings, and then he started taking it out on you in the playground.”
“Mom, (grunt) I am not supposed to be nice to someone who’s mean to me.”
“Actually, you are. Jesus asks us to. He tells us to love our enemies and turn the other cheek when someone hurts us. He even asks us to be perfect.”
“Mom! (loud grunt) why would Jesus ask us to that? That’s impossible.”
“Ya, I’m pretty sure he knew it was impossible, but he wanted us to try our hardest. What if he had just said, be okay. Or be average. Or be pretty good when you feel like it? What kind of goal would that be for us? Instead he asks us to be perfect, even though he knows we will fail. But. He promises to help us and to forgive us. And you can ask him for that help anytime, you know, even on the playground. Even during Manhunt.”
pause-grunt-pause
“Ya, well, I guess at least I have one friend.”
But Gwynth had a different take on perfection. She claimed that trying to be perfect stifles us and suffocates us and causes depression, divorce, eating disorders, etc. She didn’t even know that she was quoting Jesus, and I don’t know if she knows him or not. 
I, too, struggle with the fine line between the challenge to “be perfect” and the tangle of perfectionism. I suspect Jesus wasn’t talking in Matthew 5 about being perfect in the ways that I all too often get obsessed with (perfect body, perfect home, perfect manners--that’s a particularly huge challenge for me) rather I like to think Jesus asked us to “be perfect” in our little sad souls, as in: be honest, be truthful, be fearless, be vulnerable, and be willing to take a risk and trust that he will show us how and when and why.
And to be perfectly honest, I'm thinking about killing this little blog--it has been a false fantasy of mine that deludes me into thinking I have any actual readers... My apologies to the 1 - 2 of you that actually read this. I guess my son's insecurity is reminiscent of something we never quite get over.

*names have been changed in this story to protect the innocent, and clearly there are no humans under the age of 50 named Bob, even in Canada.

Cheesy Christmas wishes

Thys wrote a poem for school the other day for Remembrance Day. In Canada, this is a day where everyone remembers the soldiers who died protecting our country. It was a very sad day for us... rather, a sad day for us pretending to be sad with everyone else. 

Here you go:

Peace

Peace smells like cookies.

Peace looks like a kiss.

Peace sounds like a waterfall.

Peace tastes like pizza.

Peace feels like puppy’s fur.

Myles wrote one too. It was an acrostic. Remember those?

His “M” line: “Men and women fought for us to protect us.” 

And I confess: I am so proud that he is clearly already a feminist. 

And I can’t write anything better than that. 

But I haven’t done an acrostic in years, and I’m tempted... 

Oh... so... tempted.

OK! Here it is. An Acrostic Merry Christmas! 

My gift to you: Things I’ve learned the hard way this year that I share with you so that you don’t have to learn them the hard way, (as if this ever works).

Men need to be told exactly what we women are thinking. They really don’t have a clue, and it’s okay to tell them. Exactly.

Everyone has problems. Everyone. Even Jennifer Anniston and your minister and your grandmother.

Right when you think you may have arrived, enjoy it, it won’t last.

Remember the good. Forgive the bad.

You don’t have to be important to matter. (I haven’t actually learned this one yet. But I’m trying)

Change either strips us of our self-delusions or reinforces them.

Humility is invigorating, and sometimes embarrassing. And often both.

Rarely do people tell you if you’ve hurt their feelings. You must ask them, and then apologize. Even if you meant to hurt them. You can apologize for that too.

If your edges are harsh, like mine, allow them to be softened, even it requires painful sanding.

Sometimes when I say things out loud they get ruined from the way they were in my head... brilliance may be delusional.

Tears are okay.

Men need to be told exactly what women are thinking. They have no idea. And it’s okay to tell them. This is worth repeating.

Almost everything in life that is worth something, doesn’t cost real money. Everything except all of those things that you can buy at Nordstrom.

Sometimes love is simply cleaning up a mess.

Well, that was fun. For me. Really, an acrostic for adults is about as pathetic as me texting my husband from bed. When he's downstairs.

I hope you're all enjoying all the gimmicks that are supposed to make us feel cozy and heartfelt toward Jesus and our families! 

A writer's craft

Good Morning my fellow writers. Thanks for dropping by. I have some exciting news to share: One of my articles was selected to appear in The Adoption Magazine--A support group for families of adopted children. Pop over and pay them a visit, and please leave a comment there if you are inclined--share with friends of family members who have adopted children....put a bow on it and give it as a gift:)
I'm looking forward to popping around to read your latest word experiments.
-K

My Expired Password: A Eulogy

For the past 13 years, I have used my dog’s name as a password for all of my technological needs (it was original when I started it). And, yes, you too can now sign in to see the results of my latest pap smear or peak at the negative balance in my savings account. But now, our old lab is well past her expiration date. And like other things that we keep too long (milk, some clothes and decorations, and drawings that I created in 1978) she is getting stinky, difficult to watch, and oh so frail. 

The biggest clue was when a passerby in a vehicle pulled over and rolled down (yes, rolled, we live near a lot of elderly folk, don’t judge) his window to ask if she was alright. You know something is bad when people pull over to address it. Pull-overs usually only happen when you need some serious first aid (story for later) or child services (another story for later).

I mean, she’s just a measly dog. But. I have listened to her snoring, smelled her farts, and endured her loud barking since 1999. I remember listening to Prince with her 7 pound body curled on my lap (in my garage, smoking cigarettes... story for later) “I wanna party like...” Nevermind. If you can’t finish that, go change your diaper.

It was 14 years ago in San Diego, early in my teaching career, when a student of mine brought the runt of his latest litter to school one day. The tiny cutie stole my heart and the hubs didn’t stand a chance at talking me out of her. My student told me that they almost “drowned” her (which is farmer talk for something normal, though it surely can’t involve actually drowning?!?! PETA? Am I correct?) In fact, this “runt” outweighed her own mother at only a few years old, not something I think young ladies should necessarily aspire to, but in her case it was a cause of pride. 

She was a strong, steady presence in and staple of our lives for many years. 

And this is a tough one for me, I confess... I’ve had many changes in my life lately. I am not sure just how to weather this one. 

None of my the recent changes has involved disrupting the family unit; in fact, they’ve all worked toward strengthening it. But this silly dog was our first child. We have a freakin photo album of her, for God’s sake. Our Christmas cards used to have her as the focus (she was much cuter than we). I’m not sure I’m in a safe enough place yet to endure such a jolt.

CS Lewis once said that “animals that have enjoyed a positive personal relationship with a human have a better theological chance at immortality.” And I like to think that she’ll be in heaven to greet us. With a big lick and a jump. That jump she just can’t do anymore in this life.

We are all that she has known of life. She never even went to a kennel. We always took her with us or manipulated our neighbors and/or former friends into keeping her when we were away.

And even though I’ve only very recently re-connected with her after the tumultuous years of raising young children (those years when I really wanted her out of my way and out of the house) she did not harbor a grudge. In fact, it was like she never even noticed. She accepted my love in whatever way she could get it. The sadness for me is that she finally became my walking companion, now I don’t have a dog-excuse to justify my night-time meanderings.

There is something to be said about a loyalty that harbors no guilt. It’s a beautiful portrait of unconditional love. Julian of Norwich once said, “In God’s voice, I never hear a hint of blame.” Not that I’m comparing my dog to God. But I am. Sort of. They share the loyalty thing. And the blamelessness. I never had to worry what Daisy thought of me, or had to apologize for three hours about all the ways I let her down. She had so few expectations of me. She taught me how to lower my own expectations of other humans. 

In the end, dogs end up teaching us about our own capacity to love--they are willing receptacles (or dumping grounds) of all our leftover emotions. Sometimes they get the best of us, sometimes the worst. 

This morning, we had Daisy put down. 

She enjoyed a long, beautiful life. A life full of adventure: snow and ocean and lake and hills and dead bodies (story for later) and mountains and parks and lots and lots and lots of walks. We let her leave this life before her suffering became too unbearable to endure. She was always such a tough gal, I’m sure she’d have lasted even longer in her mind than her failing body would allow; however, it’s a strange choice to make...now I’m about to compare myself to God. No, I won’t go there. 

I will always picture her running on a path just ahead, or snoring at my feet millimeters away or wagging her tail violently. For who now will tell me when someone is at the door? Or walking in front of our house? 

It will be eerily quiet here. 

RIP Daisy.

The whores of the Four Nations

As a student in Grade Three, my son Myles received the honor of reading at an all-school Mass that the Grade Three-ers were in charge of leading. My first response: nice. I confess, I gave myself the metaphorical “good mom” pat on the back.

(New readers: My boys go to the local Catholic school, but we’re not Catholic; it’s a good school and they talk about Jesus, whom we like. And here in Canada, it’s free like the public schools, which we like too.)

Then he came home with the two pages (not double-spaced) of lines he needed to memorize. Yes, memorize. In two weeks.

And they were from the book of Revelations. The scary one in the back of the Bible that I don’t even want to read at night. Or alone in a room. Or ever, really. And now my son needed to root them into his brain.

It’s okay, I thought. I can go with this. I’m a casual, non-dramatic, non-crazy, non-reactive parent (these are things I tell myself in order to fake it til I make it, which will hopefully happen by the time I have grandchildren).

We chanted Revelations in our house all day, every day, for two weeks. Sure did.

Even Thys (the six-year-old) was walking around singing things like, “In my vision, I saw another angel, coming down from heaven, who condemned the earth for its evil and rapturous ways.” It was just like the Nursery Rhyme songs that he usually sings, but with an Iron Maiden twist. It was catchy, sort of, in the same way tampon commercial songs are. I was thankful that our walls are well-insulated, and that the in-laws were not visiting.

Then. The Mass.

I went. To watch, of course. Not to see how good of a reader my son is. Not to listen to how clearly and crisply he enunciates his words. Not to notice if he remembered the inflection I taught him to use. Not to verify that the $300 we spent on speech therapy to get rid of his lisp was a good investment. Nooooo. Of course not! 

I went to kneel on those fold-out benches that Catholic Churches have (which I couldn’t do because I did an unintentional “Plank” on the pier recently which shaved two inches of skin off my knee, a story for later) and to see if I can cross my chest in the right direction when I did the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” thing*.

Myles approached the stage. And the two robed, elderly males in charge of the service were sitting in the giant chairs toward the back of the stage, smiling at him very sweetly, and looking very important. 

Myles stood behind the podium, looking at them. They looked back. For what seemed like hours. I couldn’t tell what he was whispering to them, but I wanted to run up to him and remind him that Catholics are very formal and you can’t just TALK to them in a service (but since his grandpa is a pastor and we’ve always gone to quite casual services, this was lost... I was that parent in the back of the room, trying to ESP my son, and trying not to scream or run or worse. It was that helpless, horrible feeling you get when you realize that you can’t control absolutely everything--a reality of parenting, I know, but it still catches me off guard at times). Finally, one of the robed giants got up and walked behind the huge statue of this desperate looking Virgin Mary and then reemerged with a small, plastic stool for Myles to stand on so that he could reach the microphone.

We have no self-esteem problems in our house. My boys know that they are important enough to be heard.

Myles began, “In my vision I saw...”

And if you can be fabulous at such a thing, he certainly was.

But then he got to this part that his teacher warned me about. Apparently, she tried to get this taken out of the reading, but after weeks of dispute, the Priests wouldn’t let her “alter scripture.”

Standing on the plastic stool, beside Catholic importance and underneath the yearning virgin, Myles proclaimed the Word of God: “For He judged the great whores who corrupted the earth with their four nations.”

With inflection.

But. The four nations that did all that corruption may or may not have originally been called “fornications.” 

But we’ll just save that word for at least Grade Five.

Who says we can’t alter Scripture, just a little bit? 

*No disrespect to Catholicism. I just don’t get it. I’m attempting to mock my own ignorance, not the Church itself. Sorry.

Cheers to a few doozies!

To the 70-year old man whom I have never met who gave me the once- over after Church today and asked me in a befuddled voice: "What is that? Is that American?"... I say, “Yes, we’re all signed up to substitute for the circus and have to be prepared to go at any given moment. Oh, and we have more stores there than you have maple leaves.”

To my unnamed family member who scoffed when I declared that I possess the virtue of acceptance (it was a game, I wouldn’t just shout that out of nowhere) (okay, maybe I did) and then shot a chicken wing out of her nose and onto my dining room table, I say, “You married my brother who is just like me but with the boy parts, Sara.” Oh shit. I wasn’t going to say her name. Sorry.

To the crazy imbecile who decided to market the “charming tradition” of Elf on A Shelf, I say, "Family tradition my ass. $39 for a book and a tiny, stuffed, creepy looking little dude? You're a genius--this must be at least $37.90 in profit. My youngest talks to the freak all day long and has been shockingly well behaved. So well behaved for a stuffed 5 cent figurine someone constructed in China that I'm starting to think of marketing a January - November elf (can I have the name of your sweatshop?) But I'll have to make up a sappy family tradition story, like you did, to convince people that this is not a 'how to purchase a well-behaved child' gimmick, but rather a 'how to make me a millionaire' one."

And finally, to the gentleman who wagged his finger at me in the grocery store parking lot, I say... "Maybe I was cutting through the parking lanes, just a little bit, oh-so-slightly, but it was not affecting you one little bit. In fact, my slight error was no more offensive to others in the lot than your ugly head was to look at. Wagging a finger at someone is as bad as flipping them off or flashing them your ugly junk. And I'm going to send you a bill for my therapy session this week since you forced me to recall horrible events from my childhood. So please send me your address."

See Sara? I'm accepting as hell.

And since the one or two of you who read this probably want to know what I was wearing at Church this morning, it was my favorite patterned tights. Yes, they may look like they belong on a 4-year old, but I love them. And they have a lot of pink in them. There.