Love

Periodically, I engage in this little exercise with my children. Tonight, I played with my daughter.

"Does your mommy love you?" I ask.

"Yes," The Babydoll replied.

"Well, how do you know?"

"Because you take care of me. And keep me alive. And protect me."

That's all I ever wanted to hear, especially that last thing. Reflecting today on the immeasurable love of Christ, I'm hoping that I (and Hubby) reflect that love for our children. Yay for (at least one day of) getting the mommy thing right.

Resurrection

So . . . I've been gone awhile, and I thought that the season of resurrection is as good a time as any to renew, revive, and revisit my blogging self. I've been in a weird headspace, searching for pleasure in my life. My children are so clear about which activities bring them happiness. They swim and play sports and dabble in music, and the raw joy seeps out of their pores. They are so expressive that it's never hard to know what the giggles and happy dances mean. I had a conversation with a colleague, and we concluded that men also make no bones about what brings them pleasure. Whatever else is going on in the world, men make time and space for what they want to do. But for me--maybe it's that mom thing--I feel like a personal assistant, facilitating the lives around me and serving, serving, serving. When I thought about what I wanted to do and considered my options--learn a new skill? try a sport? join a group?--I could hardly even give a name to the kinds of things I like to do. And then I started to feel really pathetic.

As I've discussed to death, my career is on life support. I've been thinking about the 18 year old girl I used to be, and wondering if she'd be disappointed that I'm not all fabulous in the ways that she expected. After all, she imagined that at this point, we'd have a couple of books somewhere, and we'd be vacationing in cool, exciting places, and we'd have an impressive title. The Diva told me not to listen to her--she's young and knows nothing! All I can say is, "Sorry girl! I tried." It's just not turning out like we thought. And so, we probably--no, definitely--need to come up with an alternative plan to the bill of goods somebody sold us in graduate school about how this was going to work. We need to make some new connections and try some new projects so that we can travel a different road. One that might get us closer to that impressive title. And perhaps a vacation in Paris (hey--dreams are free, right?!) But more importantly, we need to feel pleasure. We need to be creative and focused in ways that have nothing to do with being someone's mommy or wife or instructor. A colleague suggested that blogging does that for her, so I'm making that my first step to a less depressed me.

I'm reading a devotional centered around the Lenten season. It's from the perspective of depression (the author is a scholar and minister who lives with bipolar disorder). One of the last entries I read was about how, for her, cycling helps her feel more human and full of life. How she knows that sadness rises up to suck her into an abyss, so she needs to be intentional about participating in her life. I don't have a diagnosed mental illness, but the cycle she mentions has been sapping me, too, in a way. It's been hard lately to keep myself from thinking about how much I suck, to remind myself that I've done some things that other people think are pretty great. I need to be intentional about meditating on the good, even while disappointment and fear and calamity threaten all around me. Otherwise . . . it's just too much.

So, returning to the blog is the first step. Another is to make some moves toward something tangibly good. I think I'm going to take a sewing class. I've been wanting to do that for years. And maybe I can go from there to learning to quilt, something else I always thought would be cool. And I think I'm going to take another swim class this summer, now that I've moved past my suspicion that my body won't float. I'll let you know how it goes!

Morning After Reflections

 I always knew that Bill Clinton was problematic. With his welfare reform and Three Strikes law, I could hardly say he was the best friend a black girl could have. But I still loved him. In spite of his philandering ways (which I've come to expect of powerful men anyway), I still loved him.  He was an intelligent, down-to-earth Southern man who could play a mean saxophone. He chose to love a woman who was just as intelligent and ambitious as he was.  And he had so much swagger. How could I not love him?

Then in 2008, the Democratic Primary happened, and I fell out of love.  The way they ran Hilary's campaign--with the not-so-veiled racist attacks on Obama's character among other actions--was disappointing and heartbreaking. I know Bill was fighting for that intelligent and ambitious woman he chose, and that fact deserves a measure of respect, but they could've fought differently.  And even after Obama was chosen and won, clearly, there was still bad blood that reared up in Bill's discourse from time to time which reminded me of my initial heartbreak.

But last night at the Democratic National Convention. . . . It was like when you run into an old boyfriend on the street and he's looking really good and he says he's missed you. For the life of you, you can't remember why y'all had to break up in the first place.  So you accept his invitation for drinks and after.  And the next morning, you know you won't get back together, but it was really good to see him again.

Bill's speech was amazing!  It was substantive, it was clear, it was witty, it was forceful where it needed to be.  It laid it out plain for regular folk.  He did the darned thang!

Last night wasn't enough to make me fall back in love, but it sure was good to see him again.

Popping my head in

So, truthfully, I thought we might be finished here at Everything Over Rice. I wasn't sure if anyone even noticed that we had faded into the carpet. Perhaps we had run out of things to say, and besides, several blogs that I love had come to the end of their roads lately.

But I had a thought today (!) and had a real urge to blog about it.

I was looking at a website about alternate careers for PhDs, and I followed links to several other blogs about how to leave academia, how much the academy sucks, how many other things you can do with yourself. I read the site because it's thoughtful and smart and creative. However. As I've mentioned, I get into jags when I feel like a fool for being in the academy. I start to think that I must be as pitiful as everyone keeps saying. That I really am being paid like a ditch digger and that I hate all manner of committees, students, professors, and administrators. And that the holy grail is never coming to me--well, okay that's probably true. But, what if your particular holy grail isn't exactly what hoity-toity ivory tower folks somewhere decided? What if my entire professional goal is not to be the big enormous star weilding a fiery torch of all things intellectual? What if you don't exactly feel tricked by the system? What if you don't think it's evil and soul-sucking?

So that's the thing. I don't hate it. I'm (logically) concerned that a tenure track job won't ever be available to me unless I move, which is unlikely, and maybe not even then. And that's why I check out these blogs and websites about working outside of academia. If I'm being honest, though, I don't know if TT is the only professional thing that will make me happy and satisfied. The work itself--the teaching and the students and the research--I'm pretty cool with that. And I have most of that even without the TT.

The other reason that I stay in this field is that, while I could probably find other kinds of work, I don't know that I'd want to actually do other kinds of work. I mean, every thought of sitting at office desks with stacks of files makes me quesy. There's also my sense that the perspectives of those who see the academy as the third circle of hell hone in on issues that I just don't believe are absent from corporate or other arenas. My husband is frequently stressed by office politics that seem more intense and at least as illogical as the ones in university hallways. I see how people are mired in work that absolutely must be done right now, lest they trigger the apocalypse. How they are working on laptops all night or arguing in meetings or staying late at the office. And for what?

There's my dirty secret: I like it.

So, I'm going to try to avoid getting bogged down in the blogosphere of "academia sucks" just as I'm trying to avoid googling people I know to see how fabulous they are. Both make me feel like I'm failing.

And, besides, I have syllabi to write. The semester's starting soon.

Just Thinking

There's a new book coming out in June that will include journal entries and letters from President Obama's ex-girlfriends.  These two women were in relationships with him in college and soon after.

Whether the thoughts are good or bad on the part of the women, it is disturbing to think one's romantic life can be open to the public to this degree.  Although most of my young adult relationships ended amicably, I would hate for those guys' journal entries about us to go public. Some moments should be just yours and the (ex-)beloved's.

Not suspicious

I wanted to share this perspective from NPR on the horrendous Trayvon Martin killing. It is one of many salient, reflective, and sorrowful commentaries by a wonderful writer.


http://www.npr.org/2012/03/20/149003647/trayvon-martin-the-lingering-memories-of-dead-boys

And because it apparently needs to be said: My son is beautiful and funny and bright and brown. And NOT SUSPICIOUS.

Linking Love

Just wanted to share a thoughtful piece from Racialious. It's worth a read:

We are not invisible: Five African Women Respond to the Kony 2012 Campaign