Women's Work

Supporting learning

I waited until now to do my learning post, because I didn't want to talk about my learning, but about supporting learning through my favorite charity, Donors Choose.

For the past three or four Octobers, Donors Choose has run a blogger's challenge to raise funds and their visibility.  Sarah at Tomato Nation has pulled out the stops every year, raising truly awesome amounts of money through her blog and her readership.  I'm not organized enough to put together my own blogger challenge, but I do have it together enough to come on here and plug her efforts.  Plus, she has tons of cool swag that she's raffling off through the course of the month if you donate through her page.

Contest '09: Deal is your handy link to her page, which will let you get through to her challenge page.  If you happen to have any spare cash laying around this month, please consider throwing some of it towards DC.

If you don't know anything about Donors Choose, I can sum up.  It is a charity that allows teachers to get funding for projects in their classrooms that they do not have the budget to get otherwise.  The teachers submit requests for funding for specific projects, ranging from small requests that might cost $150 to fund to grand ideas that might cost several thousand.  Donors can search on the website to find a project that they would like to fund and then donate money specifically to that teacher and that project. 

The beauty of this is that there are all kinds of projects, for all age groups and nearly every state in the country.  You want to fund a project in your own backyard or in a rural are or in a big city?  You can find one. You think that the lack of sports in elementary school needs to be addressed?  You wish there was more music or art in preschool?  You want to see teachers make history or physics or literature or astronomy come alive for their students?  You can find a project from a teacher who wants to make the same thing happen.  You can give a small amount or you can choose to fund the entire project.  You get to choose exactly how your money is used, and you get to help kids have a learning experience that they might not otherwise get, and it feels awesome!

My favorite part is that if you close a project or are a major contributor to it, you get an actual in-the-mail thank you package with letters from and photos of the children in the classroom that you helped.  Nothing feels better than that.

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Learning To Let Go

It’s been a year of learning to let go.  I’m getting better at it.  With each moment or event that gives me the opportunity – wanted or not – to let go, I’m becoming ever slightly more graceful, just a teeny bit more gracious.

 

As I rapidly approach the half century mark, I liken letting go to the changing of the seasons: the bright, flashy, needy summer of my youth – when having more meant wanting more, when I constantly burned with desire to own and to possess – is slowly giving way to the softer, easier, relaxing comfort of a cool autumn, where letting go brings simplicity, where happiness lies in embracing less, where all I really need is a crackling fire, a steaming cup of tea, a good book, and possibly someone wonderful with whom to curl up.

 

Of course, that’s fantasy.  Reality isn’t that simple, and neither is learning to let go.  But I’m trying.

 

This is the year I learned to let go of my marriage.  By all accounts, we had a decent marriage and much goodness sprang from it.  But within the inner sanctum of our marriage, the foundation had crumbled years ago.  By last year, the walls had begun to cave in.  When the roof began falling this year, we knew it was time to get out.  I’ve been fortunate.  David and I managed to emerge from our marriage as friends, if no longer partners.  We did this by recognizing that we needed to let go.

 

This is the year I learned to let go of the notion of immortality.  Now that I’m almost 50, my contemporaries are getting sick or even dying.  One friend, age 52, died from a punctured colon after getting his requisite colonoscopy.  Another friend, 48, received a dire diagnosis of Stage 3 cancer.  Another friend, 50, needs a biopsy because of cancer concerns.  Still another one, age 56, died suddenly of a heart attack.  All of this happened in the past two months.  I’ve learned that I am becoming perilously close to touching my own mortality; I am becoming increasingly at risk of losing those whom I love.

 

This is the year I finally learned to let go of my idealism; I learned I had to play the game.  I’ve always approached work believing that good work breeds good results; that hard work is eventually acknowledged.  This year, under a new regime, I’ve learned that diligence and hard work don’t matter nearly as much as the illusion of diligence and hard work.  So I’ve begun sending the big boss emails before and after hours, copying everyone on everything, fostering the impression that I’m working as hard as...well, as I’m actually working. Silly me, in the past, I’ve usually been too busy working to pretend I’m working.  But I’ve learned, at least for now, to let go of that crazy idea.

 

This is the year I learned to let go of an attachment I wanted to continue.  After David and I decided to part ways, I fell in love with someone else.  I’m sure, when I look back years from now, I’ll recognize that I simply fell head-over-heels into a cliché.  But at this moment, still smarting from rejection and loss, it feels real.  But he lost his love for me, and I had to let him go.  The letting go was not terribly graceful, but in the end, I managed to do it, walking away shakily.

 

The flip side to learning to let go, of course, is learning what to keep.  And that’s a harder lesson, and one best saved for another time.

Commemorating my Jew-niversary

This weekend marks the anniversary of my conversion to Judaism. Judaism uses a lunar calendar, so I'm sure that there is another, more appropriate date by which I should be marking my years as a Jew, but for me it's always Martin Luther King Jr. weekend 2001.

I started the day with a drive to the mikvah, or ritual bath, with my rabbi, future husband and his sister as my witnesses. Before services that night, my future in-laws, as well as my sister and her then-boyfriend/now-husband, my cousin, and my father, joined us for a celebratory Shabbat meal. Then we went to synagogue where we were joined by a handful of close friends.

Much of the service that night is a blur because I was quite nervous. We watched a video of Martin Luther King, Jr's, "I Have a Dream" speech before I gave my own speech about my decision to convert. I  recited the Shema and received thepriestly blessingfrom the rabbi.

[Funny aside: The Hebrew name for the priestly blessing, actually means "Raising of the Hands." I was so nervous that I could barely focus on what the rabbi was saying, and when he raised his hands over my head, I thought he was giving me a hug, so I hugged him back. Heh. How was I supposed to know: no one had ever given me a blessing before!]

The other thing I remember most -- aside from Adam bursting out in tears in the middle of my speech -- was how overwhelmed and honored I was when the Rabbi placed in my arms a Shoah Torah scroll from Rakovnik, Czechoslovakia, and linked my conversion to the hope for the future of the Jewish people. It was an incredibly powerful moment for me. Finally, we celebrated with Israeli dancing.

My Jewish journey hit a bit of a derailment for a while as I struggled along without a Jewish home (we moved an hour away from my beloved Woodlands Community Templeand Rabbi Billy Dreskinright before my conversion). But I am so pleased to have finally found a synagogue that feels right for us. As I am getting to know my new community, and as I prepare to start studying for my bat mitzvah, it seems I've been talking a lot about my conversion lately. It seemed like a good time share the speechI made that night eight years ago:

I used to wonder how people could so strongly embrace religion. How did they know that theirs was the right faith? What made them so sure they had all the answers?

“God spoke to me,” they’d say. But they all thought God had spoken and that they had heard – even though He or She was apparently telling them all different things.

I believed in God, so why hadn’t God spoken to me? I was listening. I was asking God to talk to me.

Every time a friend invited me to church, I would go, hoping to hear the words that would ring true. I tried so hard to listen. But I never heard what I was listening for.

God never said to me “The Methodist are right, and the Mormons are wrong.” God didn’t tell me that the Baptists, Lutherans, or Episcopalians were right either, yet they all seemed so sure that they were.

“I must not be asking correctly or listening hard enough,” I thought, because none of these faiths seemed right to me. I could not believe that God was going to send me to Hell simply because I’d never been baptized. I couldn’t believe that a baby was born a sinner. I couldn’t believe that God was more interested in my faith than my actions.

I finally resigned myself to believing in God, but not in religion.

When Adam and I met six years ago and he said that thing – “I want to raise my children as Jews” – and I had to find out if that were something I could do.

I bought books and started reading. I was looking for something to which I could object – the subjugation of women, a demonization of homosexuals, an attitude of “We’re right and everyone else is wrong.”

My study started not slowly, but – as I do with most “new” things in my life – took off quickly. I sheepishly and in secret sought out the Judaism section of each bookstore and library I entered. I bought books about holiday observances, Torah study, mysticism, cooking, and even about wedding customs – though I hid that one for a long time. And the more I read, the more I realized that Judaism – specifically Reform Judaism – meshed with what I already believed. And as your basic American mutt with no real ethnic identity, I must admit to being excited about learning and absorbing the cultural aspects of Judaism.

Though I decided early on that I’d be OK raising my children as Jews, I was thrilled to learn that Reform Judaism accepted patrilineal descent and that Adam and I could have a Jewish home without my having to take any formal steps. I still didn’t consider myself to be religious, so why should I convert?

About three years ago, my sister Ashley was living in Venezuela, and she invited me to come for a visit. The only time that worked out for her was during her spring break, which, as usual, coincided with Passover. I was disappointed but thought, “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and besides, why should it matter if I miss Passover?”

So I went. I had a wonderful time. But one night during our SCUBA trip, as I was sitting on the deck of the boat, looking up at the clear sky and millions of stars, I realized that at that moment Adam and his family were opening their Haggadas and beginning their Seder. I realized then that it wasn’t someone else’s holiday that I was missing, but my own.

Soon after my return from Venezuela, Adam and I started searching for a rabbi with whom we could study.  After a few false starts I stumbled onto the Woodlands web site and we came for a Simchat Torah service. We both knew before we left that we’d found our teacher. And lucky for us, Billy was generous enough to share his time. Once a month for the past year we have met with him in his office and talked about what I was reading, what aspects of worship appealed to us and which didn’t, how we felt about a particular current event, ritual observance, or celebration. It has been a wonderful time for me and Adam to learn, explore, and sometimes argue about what Judaism means to us as individuals and as a family.

Most people assume I am converting for Adam, but I am converting for me. In fact, Adam was none too thrilled with the prospect of going back to “Hebrew School.” But whether Adam realizes it or not, and whether or not it was his intention, he gave me a wonderful gift when he agreed to join me in my conversion studies before asking me to marry him. By starting the process completely separately from our engagement, he let it be entirely mine. He allowed me to drink in every experience, every word that I read, each new thing that I learned and fully appreciate it.

My desire to convert may seem a bit strange to my friends and family who are probably a little worried that I’m turning into a religious fanatic. But it is not that at this moment I feel the need to go to services every Friday, or to keep kosher, or leave the car in the driveway on Saturdays. But I do love that I’ve found a religion that meshes with what I’ve always believed. I love the concept of tikkun olam, that the little things I do can repair a broken world. I love that I have found a religion that encourages me to be thankful for what I have and to sanctify space and time.

As Adam and I have studied and explored together, we have gradually added dimension to our Jewish home. On our doorpost is the Mezuzah that Adam’s parents brought back from Israel. On Friday nights we light Sabbath candles in silver candle sticks that, oddly enough, Adam gave to me last year for Christmas. We drink wine from an antique Kiddush cup -- almost identical to his family’s cup -- that we bought on eBay. I bake my own challah whenever I have the time, and I cover it with a challah cover that was a gift from my mother. We drop pocket change into the pushke I made out of a Pringles can and craft paper. During Hanukkah we have a party with his family and light a menorah that I bought the first year Adam and I were together. This year we celebrated Hanukkah with my family, as well. We also celebrated Purim, and Shavuot, and Israel Independence Day. We even built a sukkah and invited friends and family to join us for dinner.

This morning Billy, Adam, Cynthia and I met in Connecticut to go to the mikveh. And while my immersion in the mikveh marked the end of my conversion studies, it also marked the beginning of my life as a Jew. I am looking forward to a life of learning, celebrating, raising a Jewish family, and contributing to the Jewish community.

I’ve been thinking about my Hebrew name for a while now. I even bought a Baby-naming book so I could see all the choices and study their meanings. It’s a strange thing to pick your own name, and it’s not something that I took lightly. Some people suggested that I pick a name that started with an “A” sound to go with the name my mother gave me. Or that I choose Arella, meaning angel or messenger, for the same reason. Cynthia, my future sister in law, suggested that I pick something with “El” in it, something that spoke of my relationship with God.

I finally chose two names: Eliana Zivanit.

Eliana meaning “God has answered me.” Because it finally occurred to me that perhaps God had been talking to me all along but that I had been so busy trying to hear what God was telling other people that I didn’t realize what God was saying to me.

And Zivanit meaning Mayflower, with love and respect for the nickname given to me by my favorite aunt before I was born, the name whispered to me by my family while I was still in the womb.

By selecting these two names I do my best to honor my newfound religion, heritage, and community, as well as my family, who raised me with a love for learning and who taught me to question and to keep an open mind, always allowing and encouraging me to seek my own path.

Learning to Breathe

We begin life breathing instinctively: deep from the belly, chest expanding, lungs filling.  We inhale deeply, luxuriously, correctly. Our early needs are so simple: we want only nourishment of our souls and our bodies.

 

And then we grow up.  We begin to breathe shallowly from the upper chest – quickly and hastily – as if everyday life is so all-encompassing that we no longer have time to luxuriate.  We push and we persevere through our daily routines and our breathing reflects that: rapid and hurried; the bare minimum that will keep us going.

 

Learning to breathe has always been difficult for me.  My early bout with pneumonia left my lungs slightly scarred and at a compromised capacity.  My well-meaning parents never told me about this little detail.  I moved through childhood always wondering what was wrong with me: why I couldn’t run as far as everyone else without gasping for air; why a simple dance routine left me breathless; why I, the first chair clarinetist, could not sustain a phrase nearly as long as the person sitting in last chair.  Though I pushed myself harder and harder, I could not increase my breathing proficiency.  And throughout my struggles, my breathing mirrored my frustration: short and frantic; increasingly frequent, but hollow.

 

My first brush with proper breathing came in college, in the unlikely form of Mr. P., a gnomish, wall-eyed clarinet teacher.  He was a former hippie who had obviously fried a few brain cells; he was new age long before new age was cool.  He would darken the room, light candles, and have us – his students – sit in a circle, breathing deeply, visualizing rainbows.  We snickered self-importantly and self-consciously at his oddball, eccentric teachings.  And because my ability to sustain a phrase didn’t improve markedly, I began to lose faith in his instructions.  And yet...and yet...on rare occasions, I felt a twinge of...something?...stirring within.

 

I abandoned the idea of playing the clarinet seriously shortly thereafter, finally realizing that I would never fully overcome my physical limitations.  I raced through early adulthood like most other young people – eagerly, quickly, somewhat selfishly – and I didn’t think about breathing at all, until my first marriage.  Breathing through my first marriage became harder and harder, until finally I couldn’t breathe at all.  In fact, quite the opposite – I felt as though I were suffocating.  It was time to get out.

 

The next few years were a time for personal growth, healing, and freedom. I moved to Washington, DC, where I constantly roamed the noisy city streets, biked along the Mount Vernon trail, danced all night with my friends.  I was busy, but in some ways, life was simple: I attended graduate school, I worked, I played.  Those were the days when my breath seemed inexhaustible and expansive...a celebration of my independence.

 

When I met my current husband, I packed my bags and left DC behind for a new chapter in Florida.  Florida was a huge adjustment for me.  The unrelenting heat and humidity sat on my chest like a twenty-pound weight.  As much as I loved my husband, sometimes I wondered if I could ever breathe freely in Florida. 

 

And then I became pregnant.

 

Proper breathing is essential when giving birth.  As I puffed my way through Lamaze classes, my old sessions with Mr. P. danced through my head.  Belly out, belly in.  Same concept, different purpose.  When I went into labor, those early lessons abruptly clicked into place.  I could suddenly breathe correctly – deeply, surely, assertively.  This was, after all, a new life entering the world...I wanted to do it right....and so my baby was born on a rising tide of concentrated, focused breaths.

 

Over the next few years – years in which my family grew and my life often threatened to overwhelm me – I not only lost that momentary splendor of proper breathing, I also quickly succumbed to improper everything else: not eating, not sleeping, not caring for myself.  I became frequently ill with multiple bouts of pneumonia and bronchitis, coughing and hacking far into the night, often ending up on the sofa so I wouldn’t disturb my family.  Something had to change.

 

That’s when I discovered yoga, and more importantly, meditation.

 

For the first time in my life, I began breathing consciously – literally and figuratively.  As I sat in lotus, hands resting on my knees, I would close my eyes and feel my belly rise and fall.  With each deep, focused inhalation and exhalation, my mind would become quieter and quieter, until there was only the sound of my breath – my life force – moving through my head.  What had stirred in me long ago rushed back full speed; this time, finally, I was ready to listen.

 

The lessons learned while meditating have slowly crossed over into my everyday life.   I have gained a new awareness of my actions and reactions.  When my breathing becomes shallow and rapid, I recognize a need to step back and – yes! – take a deep breath. I’ve become more accepting of and comfortable with the limitations of my body.  And I especially relish those beautiful moments during yoga or meditation when my breath, my body, and my mind merge as one, and I become momentarily blessed with a state of meditative grace.

 

Learning how to breathe has been my metaphor for learning how to live.

 

The eternal student

It seems like I can only go for so long without going back to school. I got my first two degrees back-to-back, went back for another one two years later, and another three year's on I'm a student again. I told people to keep me from going back to school, but since I'm stubborn and mule-footed I went anyway. Why you ask? Well, I guess I've always liked being in school. Especially high school was great! And I truly enjoyed everything (except maybe the Latin exam) about my history degree. I met one of my best friends in library school. And the third degree was a good distraction in an otherwise difficult time. Now I'm studying knowledge management, hoping that it will eventually get me the job I want in the place I want. In the beginning I wasn't too pleased to find out that I would finally have to deal with Foucault and the likes, which I had managed to avoid so far, but even that turned out ok, since I didn't have to go into too much detail. Writing my first paper was harder. I realized that I'm not really used to that kind of writing anymore. It almost seemed like I had to learn it over again. I also felt like my language wasn't as good as it used to be -- probably also from lack of practice. So it feels good to get back into this.

The new thing I'm learning is how to study virtually. It's an online program with no onsite consultations. I'm a student at a university I have never sat foot in, in a city I've never been to. The software they use is pretty good, but at least so far I'm a little bit disappointed in the interaction between students -- or lack therefore. I take two classes, one is huge and a lot of people post all the time, but most of it is stuff I know already, the other one is tiny and hardly anybody ever posts anything, and this is the topic I'm most interested in. The teacher doesn't seem to be all that bothered, after all, the course leads up to a thesis, which you also write by yourself. But I've alway felt that I learn best from listening to others, from hearing their experiences and exchanging ideas, and I really miss this aspect of being a student. I hope things will improve over time... Especially since one big aspect of knowledge management is getting people to share knowledge -- if the experts-in-the-making don't do it, how are they supposed to get other people to do it?

I'm pretty sure that this is going to be my last degree until I retire, if I even get that far -- I can stop after a year and get a certificate or do another one and get a diploma. Once I don't work anymore, I might get a Ph.D. in history -- but from a German university, where I don't have to take classes anymore, but just write the dissertation. Or I might just end up doing the research without ever actually writing it -- that's what I've always liked best!

The Curriculum

I'd like to say that learning is one of my greatest pleasures because in some ways I always want to learn. New classes in photography or knitting or gardening never fail to capture my attention. If I cannot enroll, then I wistfully think about what I might be learning. Or, I spend hours on the Internet trying to learn that skill. Sometimes I even think of returning to school -- just to learn more. Learning is definitely a requirement for my work. If there weren't frequently something new to learn or figure out, I'd want a different job. But then, sometimes, enough has been learned. I'm tired. I want to do a victory lap and then take a nap. But if I let the lapse become more than a short break, I feel dull, tired and sluggish. 

This year was a tough year for me because I had piled on the challenges of learning. I signed up for some tough projects because I wanted to gain experience. I volunteered for things that would require me to gain new skills. I bought a new spinning wheel and five pounds of fleece for goodness sake! 

And then, I got a divorce which made every last adventure seem like nothing. And I was tired. I wanted to crawl under the covers in bed and hide. But I didn't. That was my single most courageous act this year. I had to learn to be a me instead of an us and to rely on friends and family for comfort and fun. I learned so much about myself and my friends. One of my friends, who is in a less-than-perfect marriage, has enviously mentioned that I have learned so much. She thinks I have grown. She seems to have romantic notions about my new found freedom.This might be true, but I don't have the perspective to know. What I do know is that I want a far less rigorous curriculum next year. Maybe a book club will suffice, and I'll still have time to reflect about what I've learned.

Behind door number three: robots.

Learning

Hmm, learning.  I've been having a hard time coming up with something to write about learning.  Do I concentrate on learning something about a close friend, that maybe leaves a sour taste in your mouth.  How all the educators I know don't actually like to do homework.  Or learning that my future husband is really into planning weddings apparently (I think that took even him by surprise).  

So, I'm going with option number three.  

My fiance made special note on the day he asked me to marry him that it was now my turn to labor over this thing (aka our wedding).  When he said that I  figured it was going to be the usual.  I've watched many friends get married over the last couple years and it was always their wedding, not their husbands.  I also think its very much assumed that the lady knows what she wants and the groom should stay out of the way.  But anyhow, how romantic...let me help you put this giant weight on your shoulders.

I was never really that interested in weddings.  They're fun to go to.  I wasn't that girl that had fantasies about your dream wedding.  So when all the bridal magazines told me to close my eyes and imagine...nothing, I got  nothing.  I've learned a lot about myself, my mother, and my guy during all of this.  

Things that I've learned:

I am not a decision maker.  I'm good at finding three really good options, but not choosing between them.  For instance, I bought the wedding dress that I really love, but part of me still wonders, did I make the right choice.

My fiance is really good at making decisions.  I give him three options that I'm ok with and he picks the one that we'll go with.  This has been really handy.

My mother really wants the whole thing, even if she has to pay it off for years to come.  This has been the one time in my life that she hasn't been able to hold back.  We actually got into an argument at a paper store because I didn't want to decide on a color scheme because that feels really feels rigid to me.  Argument, yes, about paper and colors. And she couldn't let got of it, which is unlike her.  At this moment, and during that visit, I learned how lucky I was that my mother never put any of her 'stuff' on me as a child.  She had never even mentioned to me growing up how much she wanted me to get married and how much she wanted to be apart of it. She's lucky my fiance is so excited about planning our wedding, because otherwise I would've taken him to City Hall and been done with it already. And I never would've known how much she wanted this.

I've also learned that everything in my childhood had a larger purpose for her.  We used to rotate weekend between the grandparents.  One weekend with my dad's side and the next at Yaya's (that's Greek for grandmother, but she was my great and not Greek).  I always thought it was because she needed time to herself, but now that I think about it I think she missed having that time when she was a kid and she knew how important it was to them to have us around.  But now I know that's how it has to be for my kids, whenever that happens.  It was some of the fondest times of my childhood, because, well, you get away with everything at Grandma's and I got to eat cookies every night before bed.  And most of all, I want her to have that too.  

I've also learned that my fiance, soon to be husband, future father of my children, is kind of crazy into weddings.  He likes to give me a lot of the credit, but really, he's been there through every decision besides my dress. He's been my sounding board, and I his. We've decided to put a lot of ourselves into this wedding, mostly because we've been to generic ones and they were aw-ful. He picked out the paper...yes, he picked out the paper.  I took him to the store that Emily introduced to me, where my mother and I got into the colors argument and he stepped up to the plate and picked the paper and colors.  He's really excited about making the invitations [he's having a comic book artist friend help us out, and yes there will be robots, many robots], buying a new suit, cake and food tastings, and hanging out with the guys in our families to get ready.  He also wants us to write our own vows.  I sh*t you not.  One night he looked at me and he said, 'I want us to write our own vows, because I really want to look you in the eye and tell you how I feel about you in front of everyone close to us.'  Seriously, he said that, and all I could think was 'he's crazy!'...overall I've learned that he's more like a woman and one of us needs to be in all this.  I'm going to let him have it, because otherwise my mom's dreams aren't going to come true, and well he's really excited.  It's adorable.  And truth be told, if it means that I get him for the rest of my life, then it's worth it.

I approach this as a list of tasks that need to get done in a timely fashion, mostly so when people pick my brain about what's happening I'll have answers for them.  I'm a librarian, it's in my nature to want to answer people's questions.  But he has a hard time following things through to the end, so I handle that and the organization.  But I've also learned that I'm not that patient, so all of it needs to be done now.  So you could say I've learned my place in this...I'm the middleman between my future husband, my mother, and making their dream wedding a reality, robots, favors, color schemes, and all.

Learning, Acceptance, and (hopefully) Action

I always thought I liked learning, but it turns out there are several kinds – the nice, cozy, pleasant kind when you’re in school, and then the unpleasant “learning things about oneself” that goes on for the rest of your life. Over the last year my husband and I have learned something big about ourselves: we aren’t terribly fertile. Kids have always been in the back of our minds, but we had a lot we wanted to do – travel, spend time together, get settled in our careers. Finally the time felt right. We got all excited, I ditched the pills, started taking a vitamin, and…nothing. We’ve been doing what we should, at the right time, and I’m just not getting pregnant.

Coming to terms with this has been difficult, and I’m not there yet. There’s an irony to waiting for four years, until we were absolutely ready to be parents, just to wait and wait some more. I can’t help but feel if I was 16 and in high school I would have been knocked up eleven months ago, but of course that wouldn’t have been a good thing either. There’s some shock – this is not how I expected things to go. Growing up, especially as a girl, you get the impression that if you so much as French-kiss someone without protection you’ll be instantly pregnant. However, for reasons I can’t explain, it’s not a total surprise to me either. Whether we knew it or not, this has been part of who we are as a couple for as long as we’ve known each other. We just didn’t find out about it until now.

Today at 3:30 PM, I have an appointment with my doctor for the “trying for over a year, no baby” conversation. We're hoping this leads to answers, after the requisite tests, pokes, prods, and calls to the insurance company to figure out what they will cover. We are eager for any kind of facts at this point; anything that could point us in a definite direction. I hope this is how it turns out – a clear answer, a clear solution, and the ability to move out of limbo and on in our lives, whatever direction that may be. I’m sure that’s a very optimistic hope. At the very least, if the last year has been about learning an unsettling reality, I want the next year to be about discovery and action. And acceptance of whatever comes our way, of course, which is the hardest part.

What I Wanted

This isn't what I wanted, I keep thinking, and that makes me mad. It isn't very Zen of me, I know, but then, I was raised a Catholic, and no one ever told me whining or dissatisfaction would keep me out of heaven. What is it that I wanted? That's a harder question to answer, harder than just complaining about what you have. I shouldn't complain, I know that, so don't even start in on me. I have a job, which is more than a lot of people in my line of work in my part of the world have these days, and it's even a well-paying job, and my boss even likes me, so, yes, I know, shut up already.

But I don't want to shut up. This isn't what I wanted, I keep thinking, and I mean it.

I'm having issues with my job lately, which happens, pretty much every two years for me, which will one day look bad on my resume, as if I were a serial job-dater, afraid of commitment, always wanting more, never content with what I have, unable to be satisfied. Maybe that's true – I tell myself (as do serial daters, I'm told) that it's just that my standards are too high, and I can't be satisfied with something less than, not Perfect, but at least Perfect for Me.

This mantra of discontent started about six months ago, six months of trying to remember what I wanted, when I started out. I wanted to understand development, comprehensively, entitlement to sales: urban form, transportation, high-rise construction, elevators, why people walk instead of drive, public space, the environment, drainage, water quality, pollution, environmental justice, landfills, and more—everything! Everything I can fit inside my head before I die. Instead I understand only my small portion of development: politics and bureaucracy. And the politics is small-town politics, politics of weakness and greed, not policy. And bureaucracy deserves every poniard ever stuck in its direction. I've learned a little, along the way, but ever so little. I feel like even to see it, I have to sweep up the bits into a pile with both my hands, and hold my breath. Even the smallest gust makes it look like nothing. This isn't what I wanted, I keep thinking, and that makes me mad.

What did I want? I have a couple of sayings that I mean, and even if they're clichés, I still mean them. One is that we only get to do this once, as far as anybody knows. Even if you think you'll get reincarnated, this, this you, this moment, this only happens once. So why waste it? That's what I feel like I'm doing, wasting curiosity and energy and learning on things I don't care about, learning how to fill out the form to get it accepted, which regulation in which subsection is the one that applies, whether the agency is likely to approve your request.

It occurs to me that what I wanted to be was an urban planner, because that sounded comprehensive, as if I could become a master mind who understands civilization itself. Instead, I became a planner, and when I tell people what I do, I have to explain, no, not a wedding planner, a different kind of planner. A bureaucratic kind. Sounds boring? Yes, yes it is.

This isn't what I wanted, and that makes me mad.

Ten things I've learned since graduating from college.

If you have enough clean sheets and blankets, then the cats are less likely to do foul things in your bed, and if they do, you will care less than you would otherwise.

It is okay for grown, happily married women to still get crushes on movie stars that make them squeal like a pre-teen reading Tiger Beat.  Repeatedly. 

If the very thought of doing something makes you want to vomit, die, or become a homeless person living under the tracks in Penn Station to avoid it, then it is probably not worth doing, even if you already paid a lot of money to do it.  It is okay to change your mind, and to change it more than once. 

A watched pot will boil eventually, but a watched pot of boiling pasta will never, ever reach the right consistency.

Guilt is a seriously overrated emotion.  Remembering this won't keep you from feeling guilty, but it might take the edge off. 

People who care if you dusted the knickknacks should not be invited back unless it is completely unavoidable.

Stuffed animals are comforting for adults, too.

If what you want to say might hurt someone's feelings, and you can avoid saying it, then do so.

Every so often, it's good to try things you thought you didn't like just to see if your palate has changed. 

Liver is still yucky.