Conundrum

Stepping up, and in, again.

I was writing an email to a friend last week. She asked about my mom's breats cancer story and I answered in a way that inspired me to revisit the blogging habit. Her reaction to my email made me think that we all could benefit from hearing others' stories about life when it gets it's toughest--not sentimental stories of success and overcoming great odds through faith and love, but the times when it just doesn't work, when it isn't loving, when it rips a new space in your thinking because it has to, whether you'll let the thoughts come or no.

]]> Mom's breast cancer diagnosis and this last year is one of those moments. My friend Hetty's death was another, and there have been quite a few in between of a less dramatic and earthshaking nature. For now, I feel I have a catagory that will hold my interest for long enough and matter to me enough that I'll work blogging into a daily practice. That's the pragmatic part of me. For now, I have women to write about, including myself, that I need to write about in order to reassemble--or is that rearrange?--my world in healthy, rich, dynamic, and sustainable ways.

My new catagory is not necessarily what you might think. I'm not really into romantic notions about Mom knowing what's good for me and such. Most likely what you'll find here are the ways I have moved and grown from my often contentious relationship with authority and societal rules, Mom being the most obvious keepers of those rules and often the embodiment of what I push(ed) against.

Emails between new friends

Yeah, you got it. This is the email that made me think about blogging some of this. Rereading as I post it here, I am still stunned by the fact that until this woman who I barely know wrote me and asked I had not yet shared much of this with the friends I see everyday. I can't explain that---and I have great friends with whom I share a lot of deeply emotional and complex intellectual do-dah, you know?

In any case, Thank you, Paula. I'm so glad you asked. :-)

]]> >Hi Dianna,
>I'm so sorry I forgot your name, but once Dawnelle mentioned it, I knew it was you. I hope I'm not overstepping any lines here, but you had the most emotional and inspiring story during the race last year, and I've often thought of your Mom and her plight. Please tell me if you'd rather not share this, but I'd love to know how you all are doing almost a year later. I do hope everything is going well for you all. Will you be participating with the SU team again this year?
>Paula

>>> Dianna Winslow 03/01/06 11:46 AM >>>
Hi Paula,

I'm really glad Dawnelle forwarded your note, and even more happy to connect with you directly! No worries about overstepping, I'm happy to share my story with you. I do plan to participate with the SU team this year...will you send me the team info and schtuff?

Mom had her surgery just after the race last year, on May 10, I think. It was an amzaing thing to have signed up for the event, get Mom's call two days later, walk the event, and then fly home for her surgery. I stayed with her for the summer, taking small breaks off and on to visit my kids and other family in CA.

The very short version here is that she had a double radical mastectomy, which has been successful, and that she is a coming up on her 1-year survivor date. The longer story has more to it, of course. There were five or more infections and setbacks of various kinds throughout the summer that scared us all a lot. One systemic infection nearly claimed her life, but a week in the hospital on antibiotics worked. Two months in convalescent care/rehab was amazingingly simple, since the rehab place was right across the street from their apartment and my dad could walk over there every day. I came back to Syracuse to continue being a ph.d. student last fall after getting her settled back in her apartment, and feeling good about her recovery progressing right along.

It's hard to desrcirbe all of the ways her cancer has changed us both--not to mention all of the other people it has changed as well! Just the conversations around how to wear a swim suit, what to do with the beautiful new bra she had not even taken out of the package--the sexiest I've ever seen my mom buy, I have to add here! I've journaled many of these funny, heartbreaking conversations. I learned to love my mom on a new level through all of this. She isn't the super mom of my teen years, she isn't even particularly strong or amazingly courageous by typical feminine heroine survial story standards. She is just who she is, and this "just being" has become incredibly dear and adorable and perfect to me.

I realized how many gifts she gave me just being herself, and not how much I didn't get from her because she wasn't like my best friend's mom. I learned to see her differently, to not be angry because she is not the kind of gal I am. And I figured out that in spite of what I thought, she didn't have any trouble loving me even though I am not like her! ;-)

I got to look through all of the old photos from her wedding and early wifehood, and young motherhood, and even though I have looked at those photos many, many times, I saw them completely differently. I found myself mourning over the fact that for all these years I haven't ever really *seen* my mom. The photos were right there for me to see, but I think this last year I have *actually* seen her. You know, like the fact that her eyes are hazel and not just brown?

I haven't spent too much time greiving over that "unseeing," and have spent much time celebrating the fact that I *can* see her now, and that she is still with me in real time still to continue seeing. I know that it isn't always the case when parents age, get sick, and die. Right now I'm feeling incrdibly grateful and lucky.

I'm really glad you asked me about this. Not many folks know how to ask about the sensitive stuff, and I didn't know how much I long to tell people about it in terms of the gifts and not just the difficulty. So thank you! I'd love to have coffee sometime--after the craziness slows down! I'll actually be here most of the summer, with my exam process starting up and all, so there is time for summer hikes in my schedule!

Take care, and I'll see for sure on May 13, if not before.

Best,
Dianna

Alternate Universes

I woke up this morning thinking about alternate universes--not some science fictiony alternate universe, but the ones we (at least I) live in all the time, right here, right now. I live in them all the time with not much attention, but at the moment, my alternate universes are too far apart to ignore easily, to pretend they don't exist or that I have some kind of handle on a unified existence. Kinda reminds me of trying to take away the messiness and contradiction in order to create unity and clarity in a piece of writing.

How do we live in the contradictions fully and presently without conflict? I code switch between tightly orbiting worlds pretty easily and authentically, accessing certain language, behavior, interactions, costumes for all of the different flavors of work and play worlds I do with all of the different friends and family that inhabit them. I'm having trouble a the moment doing the same with my east coast-west coast, rarely overlapping worlds.

What would social network theory say? Am I trying to boundary span unrelated networks? But they aren't, or can't be unrelated because I'm in all of them--so at the very least I am what these worlds have in common. (Scary thought, huh? *hee*) Is this a futile effort? Should I simply float between all of my creations and enjoy whatever is in front of me? (The definition of hedonistic?)

Strange to feel like I don't quite "belong" anywhere, me, who has worked all my life to create a sense of belonging, for my family, my close friends, my community--and especially for myself. What's it mean to "belong?" If it means to feel a part of, I do, anywhere I am. But right now I feel a part of, and apart simultaneously, and I'm not sure how to negotiate this feeling.

Late Night Conversations

My friend Charles and I had a late night conversation about how we become who we "are." Funny. I never really think about "being" as either static or fluid, but somewhere inbetween. C. and I are fascinated by what parts of our socialization have the most impact on who we become, i.e., mothers--the topic of my week, clearly.

]]> Is there something more about us that makes us us than the things with which our mothers and everyone else with whom we come into contact shape us? All kinds of things about me change as I develop and learn. Preferences emerge and wan, understanding increases and then gets bashed by new information, the lives and struggles of real people, (familially close or a separate continent away) when I pay attention, rock my tidy world and move me in new directions.

What doesn't seem to change is this thing that seems ever present and unidentifiable--a spiritual teacher (click on 'teachings') I respect calls it "the thing that can't be named." It seems to be a mix between being in love with being in this human appearance that we are making at this time on the planet and dancing in the no-need place of transcending it as some kind of cosmic joke--a ridiculously sublime dance that deeply values the "nobody-ness" and the "body-ness" simultaneously.

Some years back I had the revelation that nothing matters and that there is no purpose to living. Harsh I suppose, but I didn't, and don't, think of it like that. What I actually uncovered for myself is that there is no way to nail down whether anything matters or has a purpose, so in light of that, what will I choose to do and be?

It has seemed to me for sometime now that to choose compassion and kindness, for a confident, yet humble, existence is the greatest act of faith I can perform in the not-knowingness of it all. My mom doesn't really understand how I came through her traditional Christianinty to the Zen-like choices I gravitate toward, but when I enact my choices, her love understands my love without any problem. Her love, at least in part, has brought me to where and how I do the dance. It feels pretty good to go into this next season with her, knowing and appreciating our co-constitution.

Life and such part 2

I have a girl friend who has known me for 32 years (she reminded me last night). We grew up together, "hating" our own parents and loving each other's. We've watched each other heal our relationships with our own parents and move into adult life as strong, powerful women--strong and powerful enough to dissolve into puddles when life ushers in a new era. When Juliet's dad struggled through a multi-year dying process with his cancer. When I got the call from my brother about Mom.

After a cry that came from the deepest place I know, I called my girl.
Juliet asked me how I was feeling about Mom.
"Not scared, not in anguish, just deeply quiet, softly sad."
"She will likely get through this just fine, you know."
"Yeah, I know. But it feels odd, like something is ending."
"Like an era is ending?"
"Yeah. Kind of like that. I really love her finally, and I have for a long time now, you know?"
"Yeah. I know."

Life and such

It's really amazing how life can be one way one minute and then just completely not the next--not the same, not happy, not sad, not whatever it was before, it's not that now and, ok, Now, and ...NOw, and...NOW.

Last night I was a grad student with four courses coming to completion, slogging my way through another piece of another project at the end of the semester. In one minute of one phone call I was a puddle on the ground unaware of where I was on the planet. Life's funny that way.

My mom has breast cancer. The call came last night. Ironic, that I just joined the Caring In Motion Team to walk/run for breast cancer research. Ironic? Maybe a better word is perfection. I joined to support, honor and remember women I love who struggle with breast cancer, and my mom, well, she's a woman I cherish and love in the core of my being. So I think perfection is the word.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Moving, powerful, and inspiring

Yesterday I attended the eighth annual Talented Tenth Leadership Institute of the African American Male Congress (AAMC) baccalaureate at Syracuse University's Hendricks Chapel. This time of the semester it's always hard for me to justify anything that isn't about getting end-term projects done, but I had been invited by friends to meet them there, and I told them I would.....even so, as I hurried with two minutes to spare, I had no idea how refreshed and inspired I would be at the end of the event.

]]> Yes, I knew who Cornell West was, and yes, his keynote address to the men graduating was amazing. But it would be a mistake to take any of the parts of the event and extricate them from the whole gift that was created by their coming together. It was a great opportunity for me to be a teeny part of that whole, to witness the intelligence, pride, commitment, courage, and grace of the African American Male Congress, its members new and old, its founders, its alumi, the phenomenal music and poetry and ceremony.

Against odds I have never had to consider from my privileged social positioning, these young men are stepping up to become leaders and role models, not just here at Syracuse University, but in the larger Syracuse community, nationally and internationally. As Dr. West put it, their goals are not just for personal successes, but for greatness of spirit, generosity, compassion and love, in the active construction of positive social change.

I'm left today wondering what to chose as my next path toward continued understanding of our very racially complex and violent American culture, so that I, too, can become an active participant in its reshaping; so that I can work in solidarity with these amazing human beings.

Getting in motion for the Cure

(This team logo was designed by A.E.Originals--visit their site, they have cool stuff!)

I have joined the Syracuse University Caring in Motion team and I want to invite you to visit my Race for the Cure site and make a donation before the May 7th run/walk to support breast cancer research.

There is something incredibly wonderful about pulling together with other people towards a common goal. I'm doing this run/walk because I have amazing, beloved women in my life that greet each day with the courage it takes to be a breast cancer survivor, and because I have lost beloved women from my life who would run/walk with me on May 7th if they could.

But ultimately, I do this for myself, as a celebration of the gift of my current able-ness, and for the possiblility that at some point we will be able to unravel the breast cancer mystery and save women's lives.

The Real R.R.

The REAL Ranger Rick? Ok, Ok.....And a few photos of his amazing summer domain.

On vacation at a friend's mountain home

]]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~Two views on the walk into his summer station~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Son and joy at the station~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Local flora and fauna

On patrol...rough, eh?
Sometimes, though, the moutains bite back...like when a boulder gives way and you go down slope surfing on it...

This last one justifies the Sick Ranger tag, I'm thinkin' ;-)

Gypsy boating!

So this is what the Family's up to over my May break before I dive into my summer class and Ranger Rick (remember him?) returns to the mountains.

(from Midlakes Navigation)
This sweet little (41') bohemian is my ticket to chill and float away on the tide of good family and friends. We can float along the Erie or Seneca/Cayuga canals, stopping over in little towns along the way. We haven't planned out our route yet, but I leave that to my very capable kids to figure out for me. Me, I'm just along for the relaxing ride!

Ranger Rick

Today my buds taught me how to do some fun new things! Derek showed me how to have fun with South Park imitations and Collin taught me how to upload and embed images to my blog. So I thought I'd start with a picture of my lover-ly California boyfriend.

This is Ranger Rick (no lie!) and he's a National Park Service backcountry ranger in the summers, and an avid South Park fan. (While he's away from technology, his buddy Alien, um, I mean Alan tapes the shows for him.) He wanders around in the wilderness, enjoying the views and the solitude, and protects the great national treasures that are our undeveloped wild lands in the High Sierras. If you swap the first letters of his first and last names you get "Sick Ranger," which his close friends obligingly call him.

Maybe tomorrow I'll upload a real photo of him...maybe...
;-)

Is She Addicted to Sex in the City now or what?

OK. I'll admit that I'm still chasing this thang down. I am fascinated by the reactions I have to different episodes--sometimes I roll my eyes, sometimes I get way involved. What is it about these issues, hence this show, that compells me to watch it?

In my last musing, I questioned whether or not Sex in the City challenges or reinscribes sexual/love relstionship/gender stereotypes. I began wondering if the series had any intention, originally, to do particular work with love and lifestyle issues. The obvious place to look was the web...

]]> Yep, 533,000 hits for the title of the show. Sorting through them, here's a few bits:
The first thing I learned from the official homepage is that the actual title is "Sex and the City." My bad. That's a different title, eh? A quick look at the site and I found no explication of the show's creators' mission except that it is clearly designed to talk gossip, peek in on/live vicariously through the characters and the actors who play them, promote the fashions they wear, and , of course, sell fan trash at the Shop Sex and the City link. (Notice it's Shop Sex and not Sex Shop? Sorry, twisted I know). Of course, if you're way into "being" one of the girls, you can always take the quiz and start acting accordingly.

So on I moved, and found this German (dually translated) site. If you can get through some of the IT translation issues, it's a fun read, and speaks to the themes in the show--particularly the empowerment of women to remain single, make their own fun, and be happy in themselves, no need to add men. Of course, when you get to this site you'll have to follow the link "sex and the town center." :-)

On I moved, and, (why didn't I think of this first ?!?) found that when I Googled the show's actual name along with "rhetoric" I got...Clancy! Yeah! She has links to a new collection of essays edited by Kim Akass and Janet McCabe. Judging by the table of contents, I need to read this book, which discusses the series in exactly the terms I've been trying to articulate.

Of course, if you are interested in the ultra-conservative religious view on the show, you might find this, uh, er, um, interesting? Amusing? Frankly scarey?

So what am I trying to rewrite?

Don't believe I want a Happy Meal.
Don't believe blonds have more fun.
Don't believe those pills will make me feel loved by everyone.
Spin that radio dial around and hear nothin' but we've only just begun.
Oh, yeah, I swear some guy in a suit somewhere is laughin': we're his fun.
(from Patty Larkin's album "Stranger's World," track 3, 1995)

]]> So I'm in the second seaon of Sex in the City and I like it. It's fun and funny--mostly because I can see myself and my friends trying to work out and work through all of the cultural conditioning that we have learned about love relationships.

But at a certain point I begin wondering how much the show is raising issues for rewriting and how much it reinscribes hetero-normative romantic notions: finding "Mr. Right" and living happily ever-after; being in relationship is "normal" and being single is hard; love, sex, and intimacy collapse into one idea and become indistinguishable from one another; monogamy is virtuous and being polyamorous is not--or worse, it makes you a whore.

Even as I write, I know that these notions are playfully challenged (usually with humor, sometimes more poignantly, all the time in the show's script. If I'm going to analyze this thang, I'm going to have to start paying more attention as I watch....

A Sex in the City Virgin

Alright, I admit it. Until last night I had never expereiced Sex in the City...er...um...I mean, never watched a single episode of Sex in the City. (Sorry,that title begs to be messed with, don't you think?) So, ok. I know it hasn't been on T.V. for at least a couple of years, and that when it was it ran five or six seasons, but hey! What do you want from a television-resistant gal, anyway?

]]> What better to do on a Friday night when you don't have a date, but you do have a movie rental card with a hankering for a chick flick and a bottle of wine? I rented the first four episodes and tucked in.

Watching the first episode I thought, "Well, that's mildly entertaining. Not as good as Seinfeld; perhaps better than The Simpson's." After the second episode I was thinking that the show concept and the writing are really pretty clever. By the end of the third show I was beginning to care about Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte, and by the end of the fourth I felt like I had girlfriends; I wanted to find out what happened to them next. I was a little disappointed I hadn't rented the next set of episodes! Sometimes I crack myself up with how predictable I am.

What makes this show complelling enough for some of us to watch every episode made? I suppose it's tapping into the cultural formulas on relationships and selfhood I've been exposed to and learned by heart. But then the conversations in the script seem to be taking on what I've been actively working on all of my post-adolescent life--the possibility of shifting those formulas.

Maybe, anyway.

I'll have to watch a few more and see where the writers take this. You all probably know what comes next, but I don't yet...don't tell me the end of the book just yet, 'k?

And now, the conference...

Did I pick the wrong sessions? Not entirely. But I did notice that some of the sessions I selected were typical of the ones I usually select...and these conversations seemed...spent, old, done-that-already-ish? Heck! I don't know. What I think is that I picked on overdrive and not from my newer interests, and what I found out is how much my focus (foci?) has (have) changed in the last two years.

]]> For some reason the topics at conference seemed tired to me this year. That could be an artifact of how tired I am this year, trying to juggle four seminar classes per semester, fit into a new program culture, and relocate across the country by myself. It could also have been the conference venue, which was enough to make us all tired--no place to congregate and lounge and talk, big echoey spaces that defied human-scale interactions, no convenient watering holes, snacks, or coffee that didn't empty the wallet damn fast.

I found it heavily ironic that the conference was relocated to the Moscone Center in support of the hotel workers' strike at the Hilton, but that no particularly new insights were forth coming on our own discipline's employment and compensation dilemmas. [Not that we shouldn't support the hotel workers, and yes, I know there are folks working toward equitable working conditions and living wages for adjunct employees in composition]

But in any case, I realized that something was missing for me in the conversations about first-year writing classrooms and textbook and handbook choices and academic assessment. What were groovy to me were the conversations about community engagement and urban literacy centers, network theory with its centrifugal/centripetal mix, politics of part-time hiring and adjunct exploitation, WPAs and collaborative administrative models, "The Academy" providing its "public goodness" on the undertheorized platform of something we still call service learning.

But perhaps I'm just tired and jet-lagged...