Zap!

And Zap!  Just like that August is over.  With today’s blog, I have completed my pledge to post something every day this month.  In hindsight, the month flew by, like the summer flew by, like last year flew by, like life seems to fly by.


I can’t remember where, but a long time ago I read a story about a girl who wanted to be an artist and she asked her teacher if she should move to another city to take a year-long art class.  The teacher replied, “It doesn’t matter, the year will pass either way.”   The month of August would have passed whether I wrote this blog or not and in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter that I did so.  Yet, I am very glad I did because somehow, daily writing made August  less ephemeral.  Time did not slow down, but I left behind concrete evidence of my thoughts and ideas. 

There is no way that I can continue to write this blog on a daily basis.  Soon my evenings will fill with University events, and the work days will be longer and more tiring.  On average, this blog has been taking a couple of hours each day, by the time I think of something to write, write it, then rewrite it in readable English, find a photo or two for fun, and post it.  Then,  look at it, edit it and post it again. Then, look at, edit it.  Ok, you get the idea. (As I told you way back on day one, I am just the tiniest bit type A.)  Al says he’s looking forward to having a little more company in the evenings, although he may change his mind when he actually does.

Yet, I really enjoy this writing project and I don’t want to stop cold turkey.  So, here’s the plan.  First, I am going to take a little break.  Then, my new pledge is to post something to this blog every Sunday, starting on September  12 and continuing through May 15. That will take me through an entire academic year and after that  I’ll decide what to do next summer.  Of course, I reserve the right to write more but never less.  My Sunday Pledge will require about 36 posts over eight months, which seems easy since I wrote 31 posts in just one month.

I don’t know if the format or style will change; I have 12 days to decide.  I plan to continue my list of those things I am grateful for and see how long I can go with no repeats.  Thinking regularly about gratitude reminds me how lucky and blessed I really am, a focus that improves my attitude and softens the edges of inevitable frustrations and disappointments. 

For a few days now, I have wanted to share a poem I did not write, but really I wish I had. I have already used this in other contexts, and some of you may know it.  But I love this little poem and it seems worth repeating:

What We Need by David Budbill

The Emperor,
his bullies
and henchmen
terrorize the world
every day,

which is why
every day

we need

a little poem
of kindness,

a small song
of peace

a brief moment
of joy.

So today I share this little poem of kindness and song of peace.  Today and every day, I wish you a brief moment of joy.

Today I am grateful that you took the time to read my blog, and even came back regularly. The knowledge that you were doing so helped me keep going.   I hope you found something interesting once in a while.  Thank you.

Soggy, salty sandwiches

Al loading all the gear on the bicycles

It was our first bicycle tour.  We were riding around the western half of Nova Scotia.  We began in Yarmouth, endured some heavy rains, and were headed towards Halifax.  We carried all of our clothes, camping gear and supplies for two weeks on two bicycles, which meant we packed light.  Very light.  

Rissers Beach (I think)

On that particular day, we had ridden about 70 miles along the south western shore of Nova Scotia, enjoying the quaint harbor towns and the lovely coastal scenery.  Late in the afternoon, we stopped at Rissers Beach Provincial Park and were trying, somewhat in vain, to set up camp.  Al was setting up our little orange pup tent, which was a K-mart blue light special and definitely NOT of the free-standing type and  was having a frustrating time as the stakes kept pulling out of the sand causing the entire thing to collapse.  I was trying to start our little one burner camp stove and, due to a leaky o-ring, was having trouble getting enough gas pressure to ignite a flame.  Things were looking bad-no tent, no hot dinner.

And we were very tired and very hungry.

Aside from the can of soup that I was trying to cook, all we had to eat were some stale, smushed, cream cheese sandwiches leftover from lunch.  After a day of hard exercise, we were hoping to supplement them with some hearty vegetable soup, but things were not looking good in the hot food department.

The sandwiches were in a bag on the seat of one of the bicycles and while we were engrossed in our respective tasks, an opportunistic seagull swooped down and stole the entire bag.  I don’t remember who first noticed this unhappy event, but while I stood there watching in disbelief as our dinner flew away,  Al took action.

He ran up one side of a sand dune and down the other side to the beach shouting, “Drop them, you stupid bird!  Drop them now!”  The seagull did not seem to understand his command.  I followed behind him and stood on the top of the dune laughing while he ran into the ocean all the while gesturing wildly and screaming at the bird.   He ran straight out into the water, wearing his only clothes and shoes,  and finally when he was in waist-deep water, the gull dropped the bag of sandwiches.   Al waded over to retrieve the bag, now floating in the ocean, and came back, soaking wet, but with our dinner in hand.  Our sandwiches were slightly soggy and slightly salty, but still edible.

That’s the kind of guy he is.  He does what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, to ensure the well being of his family. 

The seagulls took our sandwiches in 1981.  In the nearly 30 years that have passed since that night, Al has continued to do everything he could to ensure the well being of me and our kids.  Some days his protectiveness is irritating, sometimes really irritating,  but he is 100% behind us all.   I know I can count on it, the kids know they can count on it, and for that I am indeed grateful, today and everyday.

Imagine

In 1884, Edwin Abbott Abbott (that is not a typo, two b’s, two t’s and two Abbott’s!)  wrote a charming little book called Flatland:  A Romance of Many Dimensions.  Abbott cleverly intertwines seemingly dissimilar themes of social justice, resistance to new ideas,  geometry, and how we understand physical reality.  Flatland is occupied by two dimensional shapes--triangles, squares, etc.--that are constrained to skitter around in an entirely flat world. Flatlanders can move front to back, or left to right, or on a diagonal, but not up and down.  Think of sliding checkers over a game board, without lifting them, and you’ll have the right idea. (No jumping and no kings allowed here!)

However, there  is a third dimension even if the Flatlanders don’t know  it, and eventually, Flatland is visited by a sphere from a three dimensional place called Spaceland. The sphere descends into Flatland, appearing to our two dimensional friends as a circle of changing size that mysteriously materializes out of nowhere.  Because the sphere can move in all three dimensions it can pop in and out of Flatland. The Flatlanders have no framework for understanding this  inexplicible movement;  the sphere seems to be a supernatural being.

This really intrigues me. Most of us, most of the time, are like those Flatlanders.  Our thinking is very strongly constrained by our direct perceptions and  experiences.   Not many people venture far from these familiar boundaries.  Those that do are unusually creative people- some writers, some artists, and some scientists. 

Say what? Scientists?

Yes, scientists.  As a scientist, I know that lots of people think that science is boring, dry and difficult.  Not so.  (Scientists might be.  You’d have to ask the spouses and friends of some scientists.)   Before I go on, let me distinguish science from science, a distinction analogous to that between a best-selling novel and great literature.  Science is very interesting and important - it is what improves medications, creates new materials for solar or electronic applications,  identifies new species and so on.  In fact, there is much more science done than science; but it is  science that develops the grand ideas and understanding of our universe.

Science includes evolution, quantum mechanics, general relativity, atomic theory and so on.  The really big ideas.  Science tends to remain within the parameters of direct experience, but science requires a scientist to step back and imagine what isn’t there- possibilities that not only fall outside our knowledge, but that sometimes contradict it. 

This afternoon I was reading the current issue of Scientific American and saw a news brief about some new work on a science problem that has been around a while, specifically joining the physics that describe the teeny-weeny subatomic world with the physics that explain the ginormous cosmos.   Physicists can explain both the very small and the very large, but the two theories are not consistent with each other.  Very briefly, some recent work suggests that if we use a strange type of mathematics, things might work out and a ‘theory of everything’ could emerge.  This mathematics uses eight dimensional numbers called octonions that violate many of our usual rules of arithmetic. 

I don’t want to get bogged down in detail here (would that be blogged down in detail?).   Like the Flatlanders whose ability to understand reality was shaped by their direct experience with their two dimensional world, our thinking tends to be constrained by our three dimensional world.  It appears that to really understand our physical universe, we may need to embrace a multi-dimensional mathematics that is not only different and strange, but actually contradicts our current understanding.  (Don’t worry, it won’t affect how we do our tax forms, budgets or even calculus.)  

It is probably impossible to develop a true understanding of anything from within.  Someone needs to conceive of what lies beyond the boundaries, one of those very rare individuals with the kind of brilliant and creative mind that can imagine far beyond direct experience.

Just a thought.

Today I am grateful for the times we get to really relax with good friends, sharing food, stories, ideas and laughs.

87 %

27 down and 4 to go.  If this blog assignment were graded purely on completion, I would already have earned  87% of the points for a B+.  It is tempting to call it a day and take the B+.  A B+ is an honors grade, right?  To be honest, on a few recent days, I have not felt like writing anymore. Part of me is eager for Sept. 1st when I can skip a day or even a week, or for that matter stop altogether, and not feel like a quitter.  But I said I’d post an entry to this blog every day in August, and I will, in fact, post something every day in August.

I must be feeling exactly the way my students feel a week before final exams.  They know that the bulk of the work has been done, essentially all of the content has been covered, and it is really a matter of just finishing.  But, by the end of the semester, they are tired.  Very tired.   Motivation sags.  Their energy cannot be restored by any number of double tall nonfat vanilla lattes, no whip.  It is tough going, and they just want to stop.

Here is what I tell them:

If I were to plot energy level as a function of time for the fall academic semester it would look like this:

Everyone starts the academic year with a lot of energy and enthusiasm, ready for new challenges after a long summer break.   Energy remains fairly high in the early fall, with only a slow decrease as September rolls into October.   We experience a faster decrease through late October’s mid-term examinations and by the time we get to Thanksgiving, we are exhausted and  ready for a long weekend!  A few days off with family, lots of turkey, stuffing and apple pie boost our energy and our spirits but, the energy spike is very short lived. As soon as we get back from Thanksgiving, final papers, projects and exams are upon us.  This is the dangerous time.  This is the time it is easy to give up and try to coast in.

But here’s the thing.  You may get to the point that you think you cannot write one more paper and that if you have to do another chemistry problem you will just scream.  Go ahead and scream if you want, but the truth is that you can keep going.  You do have the energy you need to see it through to completion.  It is hard to believe now, but when you are done with the work that seems so insurmountable, you will barely remember being tempted to give up and you will look back at your accomplishments and  feel deservedly proud of yourselves.  So, just keep going... keep slogging it out.

I would like to say that the students applaud at this moment and thank me for my inspiring message.

Yeah, right.

In my dreams.

In fact, usually, they don’t say anything.  We just go back to our work and solve more chemistry problems.  But occasionally, after the semester is over, students will tell me that they did feel very proud of work they completed in my class and they thank me for reminding them that they could do it.

So, blog I will for at least three more days after today.  I will meet the August pledge, even though my energy for this project is a little low right now.   I have started thinking about what I will do with this blog after Sept. 1st, but haven’t reached a decision.  I do know that daily writing will become impossible as my professional responsibilities ramp up next week.  But we’ll see.

For today, I am grateful for those hidden energy reserves that get us through those tough times when giving up seems acceptable.

A really good book

The story goes like this:

During the Siege of Sarajevo (1992-1996), a bomb killed 22 people who were waiting in line for a loaf of bread.  After that, for 22 days at the exact site and the exact hour of the bombing, a cellist performed a piece called Albinoni’s Adagio in honor of the victims.  A sniper, referred to as Arrow, was hired to protect the cellist as he carries out this redemptive, but very dangerous act.

This is the premise for one of the best novels I have read in recent years, The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway.  The story is not really about the cellist, but rather about three characters who are struggling to survive in a very dangerous time and place.  I read this book about a year ago and was so drawn in that as soon as I finished it, I immediately read it again. 

The novel is based on some actual events.  There really was a bomb that killed 22 people who were waiting for bread. A cellist really did perform music for 22 days to honor the victims, but not at the same time or in the same place.  The real cellist, Vedran Smailović,  (who was infuriated by the novel, by the way) certainly recognized how dangerous and stupid that would be.  There actually is a piece called Albinoni’s Adagio. The piece has its own story.  A musician named Remo Giazotto supposedly found a manuscript consisting  only of four bars of a bass line in the rubble of the Saxon State Library after the Dresden firebombings,. He believed it was written by the Italian composer Albinoni  and spent 12 years reconstructing the piece, a piece of haunting beauty.   Apparently, it has little in common with other works by Albinoni and is now thought to be a fully original composition with no connection to the eponymous composer.

The book takes some liberties with factuality, but that makes it no less true.  That is what good fiction does;  through stories that never happened, fiction tells us the truth about who we are. 

The Cellist of Sarajevo is about surviving, resilience and ultimately redemption and hope. About the Adagio, Galloway writes, “..it’s this contradiction that appeals to the cellist.  That something could be almost erased from existence in the landscape of a ruined city, and then rebuilt until it is new and worthwhile, gives him hope.”  Maybe those four bars were not really “rebuilt” into a “new and worthwhile” Adagio after nearly being destroyed in WWII,  but communities of human beings do exactly that in rebuilding their cities and their lives in the aftermath of destruction.  This theme appears often in literature and I was reminded of it recently when I watched the movie Invictus.  In that movie, Nelson Mandela (played by the amazing and wonderful Morgan Freeman) emerges after being “nearly erased from existence“  by 27 years of imprisonment, to rebuild not only himself, but a nation.   

Back to the Cellist

Although the cellist does not know it, a sniper, called Arrow, is hired to protect him.  Arrow is a young woman, and very highly skilled.  She doesn’t miss.  We don’t know much about her, not even her real name.  The snipers use code names, ostensibly to protect their families,  “But Arrow believes they took these names so they could separate themselves from what they had to do, so the person who fought and killed could someday be put away.”  Eventually, it was the music that made her reunite who she was with what she did.  “She didn’t have to be filled with hatred. The music demanded that she remember this, that she know to a certainty that the world still held a capacity for goodness.  The notes were proof of that.”   With that understanding she finally reveals her true identity.  Arrow’s story does not end happily but it does give us hope that like the Adagio itself, something new, worthwhile, and beautiful can emerge after the  darkness of war and hatred.  That is what I call salvation.

Today, and every day, I am grateful that we don’t “have to be filled with hatred” and that I know “to a certainty that the world… [holds] a capacity for goodness.”

Sorry.  I really didn’t intend to write an essay about this book. I just wanted to record some of my thoughts  so I don’t forget this remarkable book.  I highly recommend it!  J

P.S. The quotes are all from The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway.  All of the background information is from various websites, including the academically reviled Wikipedia!  If this were an essay, I’d carefully cite them, but it is a BLOG!

The Warrior

The Warrior(rear) and Buddy (front)

Our cat, Y2K, better known as 2-kee, has been on the hunt for the last week or so.  Every morning we find a mouse, a mole, or a portion thereof on our back deck.  I am not sure what is driving these sudden nighttime escapades;  she generally  spends her evenings curled up on a soft bed somewhere.  Maybe it is the sudden change to cooler weather that has inspired her increased nocturnal activities. 

I really wish she’d stop.

However, there was one night, about 7 years ago, when her predatory prowess proved valuable.  It was in March 2003, right after the US invaded Iraq.  I had been up late grading papers.  Al, Eric and Ellen were all sleeping upstairs.   I got a glass of water, flopped down on the couch, and flipped on CNN to check into the most recent news on the war.  As I sat down, I noticed movement in my peripheral vision.

The dog got a bit agitated and I could see why. At first I thought a bird had flown into our home, but as I watched it zig and zag, I realized that flying around our family room was a bat. 

So, I did what every modern, liberated, independent woman would do under the circumstances.  I ran upstairs and woke Al up. “Al, Al! “ I shouted.  “There's a bat in our family room!” 

He opened one eye, sighed deeply and said, “No, Debs, there are no bats in the house.  You must have been dreaming.”

Dreaming?  I wasn’t even sleeping.  I insisted that there was a bat in the house and I insisted that he come downstairs to see, which he reluctantly did.  We went to the family room, where the bat had been flying just minutes before and,  of course, there was no bat to be found.  The dog was sleeping peacefully and it sure looked like I was losing my mind.

I looked around the kitchen. No bat.

I went into the living/dining room.  No movement.  No bat.

But there was 2-kee sitting on the dining room table (forbidden behavior) staring intently towards the ceiling. Sitting.  Very still.  I followed her gaze and there were two tiny ears poking out above the drapes.  “Ah ha!” I shouted.  “There it is!”  I shook the drapes and sure enough the bat started flying around the living room and dining room area. 

At that point, Al exclaimed, “There’s a bat in the house!”   I already knew that.

 We wanted to catch the bat and take it outside, preferably unharmed.  I ran upstairs to shut the kids’ bedroom doors, since the last thing we wanted was to chase the bat into those rooms.  I grabbed a wrapping paper tube, thinking it might be work to knock the bat out of the air, but not hurt it.  I handed it to Al and he started swinging at the bat. (I know, I  know.  A tennis racket would have been better.  It was 2 a.m. I’d been grading papers.  Al had been in a deep sleep.)

There are several things to keep in mind as you are imagining this scene. Our living/dining room has high ceilings- 12 feet in the center-- giving the bat plenty of room to avoid capture.  Al was…  um, well… in his underwear.  Our living room has a big bay window on the street side, the drapes were open and the sheer curtains gave little privacy.  So, if anyone was walking by, they’d see, only slightly obscured  by the curtains, a man wildly swinging what would look like a baseball bat… um, well .. in his underwear.   

Of course, Al ‘s wrapping paper tube was no match for the bat.  The bat zigged and zagged and very effectively avoided being whacked. 

Meanwhile, 2-kee sat very still on the edge of a chair.  Watching.  Silently.  Waiting.

Suddenly she sprang from the chair, leapt 4 feet into the air, and with astonishing accuracy, reached out and swatted that bat. Down it fell. Hitting the floor, it scurried under the couch.   We found a working flashlight and looked for it.  No luck.  I thought maybe it was behind the sheer curtains, so I opened them.  No bat.  Al thought it might be clinging to the underside of the sofa and started hitting the cushions with the wrapping paper tube.  Now passersby, were there any, would have been treated to a perfect view of a man...um, well...in his underwear, hitting something on a sofa with what would look like a baseball bat. This might be how neighborhood rumors get started.

Finally, we did find the bat, curled up in a tiny ball, behind a leg of our couch.  The bat was dead with one clean slash down the chest by our very own 2-kee, the warrior cat.  You’ve got to respect a cat like that. 

But she can stop now.

I am grateful for the absolutely lovely weather we had today.  It could not have been nicer for the SVSU Welcome Back picnic!

I have measured out my life in coffee spoons*

63 years

23,000 days

69,000 meals

138,000 cups of coffee

276,000 spoons of sugar

That about summarizes the life of my kitchen table.   It, along with four chairs and a hutch cabinet, was a  wedding gift from my grandparents to my parents in 1947.  It is solid maple, very traditional, “Early American,” and built to last.

I ate at this table every day of my life growing up. We moved a fair amount, so sometimes it was a dining room table and sometimes a kitchen table, but it was always a part of my life.  Since there were four chairs and five of us, the fifth chair never matched.  My family always ate dinner together and long after the meal was completed, my parents would sit, drinking coffee, telling endless stories; as kids, we were expected to sit patiently.  Exceptions were only made for homework.  Maybe that is why I worked so hard in school- it was the only way to escape what seemed like interminable reminiscing.  Of course,  now I really wish I had listened a little better. 

But a kitchen table is not just for eating.  I did homework and art projects there.  My mom used it to cut out fabrics to make my school clothes, at least as long as I would deign to wear homemade dresses.  Both of my parents did daily crossword puzzles at that table: the Hartford Courant, the New York Daily News.   My mom rolled out pie crusts and, once she took over the cookie baking responsibilities from my grandmother, Christmas cookies on that table.  We did puzzles, played cards and hundreds (thousands?) of games of checkers, Candy Land, and Chutes and Ladders.

There was laughter, but tears were also shed at that table.  Mine was a family that loved each other deeply, but erupted in anger a little too often.  Arguments broke out over that table, sometimes fierce and frightening, but reconciliations always followed, usually sitting around that table.

Of course, growing up, I never really noticed this table, it was simply there.  Like oxygen.

My Dad passed away a long time ago and the table remained in my mother’s kitchen.   When we visited her,  we usually sat at that table,  drank coffee, and talked.  And, boy, my mom could talk.  She and I would stay up late, just talking.  I can’t even remember what we talked about.  When I’d call her on the phone,  I knew she was sitting at the table, drinking even more coffee and surreptitiously working her crossword puzzle while talking to me.  (Occasionally, she’d forget herself, and ask “Hey, you’d know this.  What’s a six letter word for organic chemical, starting with k?”  “Ketone,” I’d reply, annoyed that I did not have her full attention.)

At some point, Mom decided she didn’t want the hutch cabinet in her apartment so it was moved to the damp basement and mildew damaged the wood.  With the passage of time, the table also showed signs of age- cigarette burns marred the top, lots of sitting derrieres wore the finish off the chairs, and the wood joints loosened.   

My mom died nearly two years ago.  When she died, I asked to keep the table, four chairs and hutch cabinet.  I am not really an “Early American” type, but I wanted to have  part of my family history in my own home.   Al asked if it would be too sad to have my family’s table occupying such a central space in our lives so soon after her death.   I wondered too.   But from the first day it was there, it felt like a warm blanket on a chilly night. Sitting in those chairs, I felt enveloped in comfort and very connected to my own history.

I sent the entire set out recently and had it refinished.  I told the furniture restorers to make the set look like it would have in 1947 when it was new.  They repaired cracks, completely refinished the wood and rebuilt those wobbly chairs.  I am certain that my parents would be glad to know that it has been repaired, refinished, and made ready for another 63 years.


It is solid maple, very traditional, “Early American” and built to last.   

Today I am grateful for my extended family that I see altogether too rarely.

*T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

Blogging on blogging

He gave me a wink
And he said it was funny
How mortals would pour all their blood, sweat and tears
Onto tape, onto paper
Or into the air
To be lost and forgotten
Outside of his kind employ

                      -Joe Jackson, "The Man Who Wrote Danny Boy" 

When I first started this blog, I had no expectation that anyone would read it.  I felt like I was just tossing words out into the ether that would probably be lost and forgotten.  Well, I knew Al would read them.  After all, it was in our marriage vows: “I, Al,  take you, Deb, to my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, and to read your blog, as long as we both shall live.”  Al has always made good on his promises.

I have been writing daily for over three weeks now and have a few observations.

• Al does read my blog.  Sometimes, I ask him to read an entry before I even post it.  Just in case it is really lame.
• I am really surprised (and flattered) that other people are reading this. Thanks!
• I write the blogs in Word and copy them to the blog site.  I always think that I have completed the writing and editing process before I post, but I always spend at least another 20-30 minutes futzing around once they are posted.  They read differently in the blog format and once posted, they just cry out for revision.  Once in a while, I’ll even make a change several days later.
• The act of posting to a blog site magically separates the writer from the words.  The entries are about my perspectives on things but once posted, they exist independently.  I think this paradoxical.  I may have put the words ‘out there’ but they come into your home on your computer and at that point, they are yours more than mine.  I am oddly disconnected, no longer part of the process. 
• I think it is because of that separation that there is a strange freedom inherent in blogging.  People who have known me for a very long time are finding out new things. Similarly, I know many faculty who teach online classes find that students are much more open in online discussions than they are in traditional classroom discussions.  This type of communication is infinitely more public, but seemingly more anonymous.

Another 'blog'-- the old fashioned way.

I still ask myself why I am doing this blog.  Well, ok, I know why I am writing for the month of August.  It began as a lark and a challenge to myself, but now that people know I am doing it, I feel strongly compelled to finish the job. (My greatest fear is failing publicly.  It is a very powerful motivator.)  But, in a more general sense, I am not sure why I spend so much time writing.  Maybe it has something to do with  the ‘malformed mess of creative ooze’ that I wrote about the other day.  Or maybe I need to get a life. Probably the latter.

Today I am grateful that Al is willing to pick up and dispose of all the dead mice and moles that our cats have been catching and leaving at the back door.   However, I am not grateful that the cats have decided to engage in nightly rodent murder rampages.

World, Are you listening to me?

I have been thinking a lot about children lately.  Every day, I work with people that have newborns, babblers, crawlers, toddlers, grade school kids, teenaged kids, college kids, and grown children.  No matter how old the children are, their photographs are proudly displayed on desks or bulletin boards, or parents will gladly whip out a cell phone to show some digital images. Even if the parents are not into pictures, there are stories.  Lots of stories.  And because children are people, the stories span the full range of human experience- pride, joy, love, sentimentality, fear, anger, worry… you name it, it’s in there somewhere.

Our niece has a six week old infant and not long after the baby was born, she posted a photograph on Facebook.  It was a picture her husband had taken of mom and baby and the caption said it all, “Whoa!  I made this?”   I remember thinking essentially the same thing when each of our children was born.   How could it be that ordinary people could create something as extraordinary and perfect as a new human life?  (Also being a scientist, I wondered how a few undifferentiated cells could develop into a working, living thing.  How do cells know whether they are supposed to be heart cells, or brain cells, or nose cells, or finger cells?  And how do nose cells always end up on the face?  How do internal organs and complicated networks of blood vessels form?  How on earth does it all work?  Ever think about that?   It really is a miracle, no matter how you define the word.)

The other day, I had lunch with a friend who is the mother of a preschooler and a toddler. I asked if she was down to one in diapers and she rolled her eyes and said that the older child, now 3 ½ , was just not interested in potty training. She’s tried all the usual ploys to earn cooperation and so far, none has worked.  I smiled with the wisdom of age and shrugged it off, telling her not to worry because they are almost all potty trained by the time they go to college.   She laughed, but, I am sure she really is worried at some level.

 We all worry about our children at various times, although the things we worry about change. I remember a year or so ago, I heard some horrifying news report about a pedophile and expressed my fears for our own children’s safety to Al.  He pointed out that I could stop worrying about pedophiles, because our kids were really no longer ‘peds! ‘    He’s right.  At least there is one worry that I can cross off my list for good!  

Like us, many of our friends are sending children out into the world.  The world has been pretty good to us so far and I hope it is good to our children.  So, world, are you listening to me?  We have spent the last 20+ years  loving these kids, caring for them, protecting them,  supporting and nurturing them,  worrying, fretting, and doing our very best to prepare them for adulthood.  Now we have to trust you. I happen to know that sometimes you can be a dangerous place.  So listen world, you’d better be good to those kids.  They mean everything to us!  You got that?  Everything.

Today I am grateful for our wonderful children, although I am not sure they will be grateful for this post! J 

Over easy, please

 I got the idea for this blog while cracking eggs for our pancake breakfast.  I am still intrigued by the title of the book on blogging, “No one cares what you had for lunch” and I understand that a corollary of this theorem is that “No one cares what you had for breakfast either.”  Don’t worry.  This blog is about eggs, but it is not even about food, let alone what foods I ate this morning.

The thing about eggs is that the shells are hard, tough, and smooth, but the vital part of the eggs are runny, gooey and very sticky.  When the simple beauty of the shell is cracked the real substance of the egg oozes out in a malformed mess.  It is the messy part that provides new life or sustains existing life.  The shell is the part we see initially and most commonly identify with the word ‘egg’  but the shells deceive us.  The appearance of an egg masks the real essence of egginess.   

A long time ago, probably 15 years now, I had an idea for an art project. The idea was to have a very polished eggshell cracked open with a sort of mixed media mess of stuff plopping out.   To give you a general idea of the project, I  put a quick (powerpoint!) sketch of the overall composition on the right. The egg was to be cut of plywood, painted black and finished to a high gloss. The mixed media stuff was supposed to represent all the messy realities of life- my own personal “monsters under the bed” that keep me awake at night. I got as far as painting the background and cutting out the egg.  I could never get the egg glossy enough, or so I thought. I really think that I let myself get stalled at the glossy egg step so I wouldn’t have to do the hard part of representing all those monsters.  I don’t know where the wooden egg is, but now I use the textured background for still life photography, so I guess some good came of it.

I still am intrigued by eggs and over the last year, I have been using them as frequent objects in still life photographs.  

This is my favorite.

Egg in Orbit

I  have been playing with the idea that if egg shells hide what is inside, maybe I can extend the deception by altering the lighting and composition until the egg looks like something else altogether.









Sometimes I think they look sort of celestial.

Crescent Egg

I have recently expanded the idea of visual deception in my still life photographs to include other common objects, arranged and lit in a way that the viewer is not sure what they are.  I have found that some people like the mystery and deception and others are really put off by it.  Interesting!

I think each of us prepares  ‘a face to meet the faces that we meet’ (T.S.Eliot), and hides a great deal behind a carefully crafted and often deceptive façade.  Like eggs, we each contain the messy,  gooey stuff of physical and creative life, and I think it is fine to keep it fairly protected, at least most of the time.  Maybe it is my New England reserve, but I am just not comfortable with public soul baring.   But it is also good to let some of the stuff ooze out once in a while and for me that happens most frequently behind the lens of my camera.

Today I am grateful that I can find time, at least occasionally, to let some of the creative ooze emerge!

Day-to-day today

I must admit, writing this blog everyday is becoming a bit  of a challenge.  I don’t want to write about day-to-day things, on the basic premise that ‘no one cares what I had for lunch.‘ ( I just found out tonight that there is a book with nearly that title that I will now have to read.)  However, writing about big things and big ideas would require more space and more time than a daily blog or my schedule allows. It is getting harder to come up with new ideas that fall in that middle ground somewhere between day-to-day minutia and those big ideas.  Tonight, I will give in to the day-to-day.  I promise to stay away from discussing my lunch menu (This will be easy, since I didn’t even have lunch) and maybe the rest of the day will be at least of modest interest.

We are hosting two young women from Japan for the weekend.  Mai  and Yoshiko  are visiting SVSU  and with Ellen’s recent Japanese language experience, we thought we could  provide them with English practice and provide Ellen with Japanese practice.  With communication covered, Al and I were responsible for the ‘sharing American family life’ part of the weekend.    We were told to do what we normally do on the weekend and sort of absorb the students in our usual routine.  The only problem is that we are insanely boring most of the time and spend way too much time on pretty antisocial activities- reading , writing, mowing the lawn, etc.   So, we thought we should do something else, something that doesn’t necessarily fall into the category of what we usually do, but rather something that would fall into the category of what we usually would do if we were cooler than we really are. 

So, we asked some of our cooler friends what they would do and one of my colleagues suggested the Alden B. Dow Home and Studio, which is a now open to the public as a museum.  Alden B. Dow was the son of H.H. Dow (who started the  Dow Chemical Company in Midland, MI) and a famous architect in his own (W)right.  In fact, he studied at Taliesin with Frank Lloyd Wright, an influence that clearly pervades his design.  There are many Alden B. Dow houses around the area, but in the 12 years we have been here, we never really looked into his work.  I am so glad our visitors inspired us to do so now. Alden Dow used a lot of rich wood tones, art glass, repeating geometric shapes and like Wright, he integrates nature into his designs and carefully scales each space to match its function.  Compressed spaces move you along to open spaces where you want to linger.  He was very playful and he makes use of vibrant color palette that I can best describe as ‘sherbet’ - raspberry, lime green, lemon yellow, and so on.  He loved to surprise and entice people and his home and studio have all sorts of little nooks and crannies to be explored.  The overall impression is one of simple space and light, but there are millions of tiny details and embellishments to be discovered.  How is it possible that we missed this jewel in the past?  I can see that we will be taking all of our out-of-town guests to this museum in the future. (Dear potential out-of-town guests.  This museum alone is worth the trip.  Really.  Hint, hint).

Nancy, my  blogging writer-friend  who I have mentioned before, and her daughter, Lizz, who has also studied Japanese, joined us for dinner.  Like us, they  enjoy cooking  interesting recipes and between all the cooks, there was enough tasty food for an army, really quite a feast!  Yoshiko and Mai know enough English and Ellen and Lizz know enough Japanese that communication was generally pretty easy and the conversation was relaxed and comfortable. We sat outside on the deck as daylight faded into darkness, blessed by an abundance of good food, good will and laughter. 

What kind of impression did this make on Yoshiko and Mai?  It is hard to say.  I am not entirely sure how much they understood on the  museum tour, but, hopefully  at the Dow home they saw balance and beauty expressed in a style that is uniquely American.  And hopefully, they felt warmth, welcome, good will and fellowship at the dinner table.  Sharing time with strangers reminds me once again how something as ordinary or even as extra ordinary as a Saturday afternoon in Michigan can become something quite extraordinary. 

Today I am grateful for friends in all categories- old friends, new friends, and renewed friends.

Not doing much....

Way back on August 1^st, I mentioned writing about instant gratification and how I don’t believe in it.  I planned to write some stories about times that patience paid great rewards and how waiting made the experience all that much sweeter.  For some reason, my attempts at those stories were just plain boring, like patience and waiting themselves.   The stories just didn’t seem to be going anywhere.  At least not fast enough. 

Recently, I've been hearing the term "slow food" bandied about and thought that maybe my love of cooking and bread baking could provide the vehicle I needed for discussing my dismay at expectations of immediate rewards.  So, I looked up the phrase “slow food” and hit paydirt.  Instantly! How gratifying!

It turns out the “Slow Food” movement has been with us a while.  It began in 1986 as a protest to the opening of a McDonalds near the Spanish Steps in Rome.  As you can see from this picture that Al took in Rome, Ray Croc must have won that particular battle, and now Mickey D’s can save you from the interminable wait for a risotto or freshly baked pizza at noon.

 The slow food movement includes a number of truly noble ambitions including promoting local and regional culinary traditions and preserving family farms.  But the fun part of my research came when I discovered an outgrowth of the “slow” movement called the “International  Institute of Not Doing Much” (IINDM).  Their motto is “Multitasking is a moral weakness” and they encourage their 3000+ members to promote a life of slowing down and doing less.  They are fighting a condition called gettingthingsdoneitis and I must confess, I suffer from this malady.  Fortunately, I am not a truly lost cause, because I have not yet tried to exercise and sleep simultaneously and I rarely take phone calls while in the bathtub  (the camera on my cell phone would make me nervous!)

Below I have quoted IINDM’s  10 rules of slowing down:

1. Drink a cup of tea, put your feet up and stare idly out of the window. Warning: Do not attempt this while driving. 2. Do one thing at a time. Remember multitasking is a moral weakness (except for women who have superior brain function.) 3. Do not be pushed into answering questions. A response is not the same as an answer. Ponder, take your time. 4. Learn our Slow Manifesto. 5. Yawn often. Medical studies have shown lots of things, and possibly that yawning may be good for you. 6. Spend more time in bed. You have a better chance of cultivating your dreams (not your aspirations.) 7. Read the slow stories. 8. Spend more time in the bathtub. (See letter from Major Smythe-Blunder.) 9. Practice doing nothing. (Yes this is the difficult one.) 10. Avoid too much seriousness. Laugh, because you're only alive on planet earth for a limited time.

The website is great fun and I recommend it for a good laugh.  If you look around for a while, you'll see that they have some good points.  I think they're on to something.   So, in the spirit of not doing much, I’ll stop writing this blog and let you check it out for yourself.

Today I am grateful for laughter. Sometimes, I can be too serious for my own good!

To the new faculty

Tonight I am posting the approximate text of some remarks I made tongiht at the closing dinner of  the Faculty Summer Institute, a teaching orientation of sorts for our new faculty.  Sorry if this is cheating, but writing two pieces in one day is too much for my feeble little mind!

I know that I am supposed to tell you all about the College of Science, Engineering and Technology.  But I also know that it is Thursday night.  You have just finished three long days of the Summer Institute.  I served you wine, beer and a big dinner.  As I speak, you are enjoying a luscious warm chocolate dessert.    I suspect your interest level in the details of  SE&T is fairly low at this moment.   So, I’ll give you a 30 second synopsis. We, that is the 75 or so faculty members and 8 laboratory technicians that comprise SE&T, offer coursework leading to undergraduate degrees in biology, chemistry, computer science, electrical engineering, math, mechanical engineering and physics.  We put a strong emphasis on research and design, especially when it involves undergraduates. The slide show that has been playing all through the reception and dinner presents some basic information about the college and highlights the types of student engagement and active learning that occur in SE&T.   I am not going to belabor these points.

However, you aren’t off the hook completely.  There is really no such thing as a free dinner and you are still stuck listening to me for a few minutes!

I was in your shoes 12 years ago when I attended the 1998 Faculty Summer Institute as a first year faculty member.  I found it, as I hope you did, to be extremely valuable--partly to assist me in thinking about my classes, but also as an opportunity to meet people from all over campus and begin to get acclimated to this institution. Hopefully, you have found all the important places, like Starbucks and Quiznos, and have had a chance to appreciate the beautiful campus we all enjoy.

As I was thinking about what I’d say to you tonight, I thought back to my own experience as a first year faculty member.  To appreciate this story, you need to know a little more about my background.  I came here directly from a 15 year stint as a research chemist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.   Pretty much everyone I worked with either had a Ph.D. in chemistry or was getting one, an environment not especially different from graduate school.  That means that for nearly 20 years prior to teaching my first class at SVSU, my professional life had been spent with no one but practicing research scientists. 

The chemistry department tried to give me an ‘easy’ first year load.  Basically, I taught two sections of the general education chemistry course for non-majors  and a few freshman laboratories.  I was very eager to shape and mold young minds and I carefully and enthusiastically prepared courses meant to challenge and excite my students.  It took about 5 minutes on the first day of classes to realize that I may have ever-so-slightly overestimated the students’ prior knowledge of and enthusiasm for chemistry.  ”Ever-so-slightly” as in "completely-and-totally.”   I was grateful for the long Labor Day weekend; it gave me some time to significantly revise my course to better meet the students’ needs.   We all have advanced degrees, and it is very easy to forget that our students are at a very different stage of their academic development.  I suspect you were all good students and while we have plenty of very good students, we also have those who will struggle. We may relate best to the former, but we need to teach all of them.    My advice to you is to remember that not all students are destined to be professors and that people are not born knowing the fundamentals of our disciplines. Apparently that is especially true in chemistry!

I am very proud of the work we do in SE&T and at SVSU in general.  We have a very good faculty, very strong programs, and an excellent tradition of student engagement.  We have high expectations of ourselves.  We have high expectations of our students and quite honestly, we have high expectations of you. 

The students are starting to arrive on campus and very soon our classrooms will be filled to capacity.  We have a chance, a precious chance, to inform, to instruct, to influence, to inspire and to improve the lives of our students.    Some of those students are ready and waiting to achieve their educational goals and some are still unsure of who they are, what they want, and even why they are here.  Yes, some students will drive you crazy and some may seem disengaged.  But those might be the students you influence the most.  Maybe it will be that kid in the third row who seems really bored all the time who will come back at the end of the semester, or at commencement, or five or even ten years later, to tell you how you helped her to do something that she never thought possible  and how that changed her life.   Maybe the student who pesters you endlessly in office hours will surprise you someday with a touching expression of his gratitude for your patience.  Maybe, at some point in the future, you, like me tonight,  will experience the pride of welcoming a former student back to SVSU as a new colleague.

SVSU is still young, at least by comparison to most universities.  We are just approaching our 50^th birthday.  We enjoy the stories of the pioneers that built this place but the campus culture and our history are still being formed.  This institution is big enough that we have resources to do innovative things, but small enough that every single one of us has the opportunity to significantly shape the future of the university.  I see my job as dean of SE&T is to create an environment where good ideas can come to fruition and  we can all make our college even better than it already is.

Since coming to SVSU, I have never been bored.  I have never wondered if my work is important.  How many people can say that about their jobs?  So, I encourage you to be important and help shape the next generation of students and the future of this institution, and if you do somehow get bored, give me a call--  I’ve got lots of ideas!  But honestly, I really don't expect to hear from you.

Thank you for joining us this evening, welcome to the university community and I wish you every success.

Today I am grateful that my whole family is together at home.  It happens too rarely these days, but always brings me joy!

The truth about mothers

There are lots of things that I would do differently given the chance.   I have made my share of mistakes, hurt my share of feelings, and misjudged the reactions of others.  An example of  bad judgment occurred when my son was in kindergarten and if I could do it over, I certainly would.  You must keep in mind that Eric has always had a good sense of humor and that we have always enjoyed playful teasing.  Here is what happened:

Eric was all agitated and excited one day after school.  He simply could not believe what he had learned that day and could hardly wait to share his new knowledge.  “Mommy, did you know that mother spiders eat their babies?”

My response was,  “Well sure, Eric, lots of mother animals eat their babies.  Even human mothers.”    (Please remember that fine sense of humor)

He looked at me, disbelieving and said, “No Mommy that can’t be right.  You didn’t eat me.” 

Continuing the joke, I said,  “You aren’t big enough yet.  You have to be at least six.”

I could see him contemplating this possibility.  Suddenly he looked at me with sparkles in his eyes and said triumphantly, “But Ben is six and his mommy didn’t eat him.”

I replied, “But Eric, don’t forget, Ben’s mother is a vegetarian.”  This latter statement was the first true thing I had said and it was at that moment that I realized that the shiny sparkles in his eyes were actually tears.  He started to cry, somewhat hysterically, and ran off into his room.

Of course I followed, hugged him, explained that I was only kidding, took a vow of vegetarianism, or at least  non-cannibalism, and he settled down.  If I could do it over again, it would go something like this:

Eric was all agitated and excited one day after school.  He simply could not believe what he had learned that day and could hardly wait to share his new knowledge.  “Mommy, did you know that mother spiders eat their babies?”

I would reply, “Oh my!  Really?   Good thing human mommies would never do that.”

But if that is what happened, there would been no story to laugh at when the family gathers. We would not even remember the day that Eric learned the truth about mother spiders, or the truth about his own mother’s bad sense of humor.   This story, while representing one of my worst parenting moments, has become a favorite in the Huntley family repertoire.  

I am generally opposed to scaring small children and I really would change the story if I could, but at the same time,  this story has become an important part of our family’s common history.   There are other stories as well;  some of these, such as the “Night of the Great Black Fly Massacre” or “The Day the Seagulls stole the Sandwiches” are stories that  Eric and Ellen begged us to tell over and over again when they were little.  “The Night Dad Kicked Ellen in the Head” (it isn’t what it sounds like) and “Mother Spiders eat their Babies” are stories that poke fun at parents who meant well, but occasionally  misjudged their audience.  My own parents loved to tell family stories, some of which may have even happened, and I wish someone had written them down.  So, while I probably won’t relate too many of them in this blog, one of my ambitions is to record our own family stories for future generations of Huntleys.

Today I am grateful that our children were resilient to our small foibles and grew up well in spite of us.

Attention, si vous plait!

I had a hard time writing yesterday’s blog.  The problem was that it was ‘hump day’ and I took a look at all my previous entries.  A theme jumped out at me that I hadn’t really thought of before and it struck a nerve.  I wasn’t willing to follow the thread because I was pretty sure I would not like the direction it would take.  So, I wimped out and pretended not to notice what was actually pretty obvious.

I appear to have a problem paying attention.

Seriously, when I looked back, I saw the following statements, only slightly paraphrased here.  Photography helps me pay attention to what I am seeing.  Daily writing forces me to pay attention to the world around me.  When I feel off balance, I need to pay attention to ritual.  My handwriting is bad because I am inattentive to detail.  I didn’t say it but my car accident was caused, you guessed it, by not paying attention.

Holy self-revelation, Batman!  You can see why I chose not to pay attention to this theme last night J

All day long today, I was hyper aware of attentiveness or lack thereof.  I had a lot of meetings, and I have to admit,there were several occasions that I found my mind wandering pretty far afield.  I had to force myself to stay with the discussions.  What is happening?  Have I always been like that?  I noticed that several times in my work day I began one task and somehow drifted to another.  I would set out to look up a piece of information on the web and find myself distracted into another direction altogether.

Am I too old for Ritalin?

It is tempting to blame this on technology- we are distracted every few minutes by emails, and the web is surely designed to make us click here, there, and everywhere.  Web designers will tell you that if a person can’t find the information they are looking for in 10 seconds, they will go to another site.  10 seconds!  Egads.

  

Last winter I read somewhere that there is something oddly addictive about technology and being constantly plugged into email, Facebook, twitter and so on.  It makes us feel essential and important. Some MRI studies have even shown that receiving electronic communications lights up the same pleasure centers in our brains as cocaine, sex and chocolate.  Really.  I am not making this up. (Well, I don’t remember for sure if chocolate was in the list, but it should be, don’t you think?) 

I suspect that the instant gratification of technology does affect my attention span.  However boycotting technology is hardly a viable option.

Another possible explanation for inattentiveness is that I (just like you, probably) have too many things on my mind.   Yeah, maybe, but I don’t think I am likely to stop thinking about things.   I care about lots of things and lots of people and I think about all of them and plan to continue doing so.

A long time ago, I read a wonderful little book by a Vietnamese Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hanh.  It is called “The Miracle of Mindfulness” and I think it addresses my particular dilemma.  He claims that if you practice mindfulness, you can learn to gain control of your mind so that it doesn't wander away.  Apparently, this mindfulness thing can even become a habit. That sounds pretty good.  I think I’ll go find my copy and see if I can pay attention long enough to learn something.

Today I am grateful for great books of all kinds.  How wonderful that the thoughts and insights of so many smart people are so easily available to all of us.