Category: Essays

My Current Semester

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

Things I am currently learning:

1)  Self-denial always has an expiration date.

2)  Being alone doesn’t have to feel lonely.

3)  Sometimes, though, it does.

4)  Humans are generally afraid to be alone, but perhaps we are only afraid that we will get so good at it that the universe will stop sending others our way.

5)  Bravery is doing the thing that looks right to everyone else.  Courage is doing the thing that may only look right to you.

6)  Absolute bygod honesty is not easy, sometimes not kind, and in rare instances not even desired.  But, its consequences, even in its most horrible form, are easier to face than the consequences of dishonesty.

7)  Reading and writing are the ibuprofen and caffeine of my soul.

8)  Dogs are not people.

9)  Starting the day with yoga helps just about everything.

10)  Transformation is a glorious, frightening, intense ride that can make you feel truly alive if you give into it completely.

Mything the Target

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments

This just in: The Great Wall of China CANNOT be seen from the moon.   It’s not even all that visible from closer realms of space, and where it can be seen via a space shuttle flight, so can other human-made objects.   Trying to see the Great Wall of China from the moon is like trying to visualize a human hair from two miles away.  Besides, the terrain around the Great Wall is so similar in color to the wall itself that differentiating it from such a distance makes it even more implausible.

Up until yesterday afternoon, if you had asked me, “What is the only human-made structure visible from the moon?” I would have promptly and confidently answered, “The Great Wall of China,” likely followed by a smug look subconsciously requesting that you recognize my immense knowledge of all things.  I had heard this my entire life.  It is such a part of our collective consciousness that this “fact” had even made its way into textbooks at various times.

So, what intense desire drove me to look up this information?  My students, of course.

Last week in class, a student put forth the “known fact” that the word picnic came from the phrase “pick a nigger,” and that it was related to the days of lynching when white folks would pack a basket, grab a blanket, round up the kids, and head to a local meadow for some lynching entertainment.  I had a faint memory of having heard this before but was not up-t0-date enough on my etymological studies to be able to refute the claim.  But I are smart, and I knowed how to look stuff up.  Turns out this too is a “know that I know that I know” piece of information that just ain’t true.  Picnic derives from a 17th century French word and predates the horrible era of lynching in the United States.

Well, YOU KNOW that I had to share this with my students.  The thought of not correcting their belief in a false contention is the stuff of a teacher’s sleepless nights.  Urban legends abound; hence, the need for Snopes, not to mention universities.   Teaching people to research and ferret out the truth is at the core of what I do.

I would purport that a large portion (maybe in the 90th percentile) of what people believe falls into this because-that’s-what-I’ve-always-heard category.  Politics and religion are two areas particularly susceptible to this.  I remember when I first read Gilgamesh, an ancient Sumerian tale that includes the story of a great flood.  In several ways, this story echos the story of Noah in Genesis, including sending out a raven and a dove to see if the waters had receded.  The parallels are not nearly as interesting, however, as the fact that Gilgamesh predates Genesis by about 800 years, and it had been an oral tale long before it was actually carved in cuneiforms on clay tablets.  (Gilgamesh reigned as a Sumerian king about 1,500 years before the writing of the earliest parts of the Old Testament; his legend had been told for centuries even before it was finally written “in stone.”)

There are (many) other examples which might create the logical conclusion that the Old Testament should be approached by a metaphysical understanding at best and by a mythological understanding at least.

As I tell my students, I don’t really care what you believe as much as I care that you know WHY you believe WHAT you believe.   I encourage them to question preconceived notions, even when at first glance it might seem to shatter the foundations they once thought to be rock-solid.  What they just might end up with is an understanding of the world deeper than they could have at first imagined.

Either that or they could just say “Screw it,” and spend their summer vacation at the Creation Museum.    Their choice.

Saying Goodbye to Working at Home

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments

     For the past five years, I’ve been primarily working at home.  In the fall, I am returning to full-time teaching and will be once again joining the river of commuters on I-40.  I’m immensely excited about this change, and yet I know every change, even a good one, has a period of adjustment.  Here is a partial list of things I will no longer be able to do at the end of this month.

  1. TUI.  No more typing under the influence.  Although, some professors I’ve known make me wonder if this is not altogether out of the realm of possibility.
  2. Work in my pajamas.  Again, see the disclaimer on #1.
  3. Sleep until 8:30 if I damn well feel like it.  (I have an 8:00 class every day this fall.  45 minute drive-time, 10 minute get-from-parking-lot-to-office time, 20 minutes to make sure I have a clue what I’m teaching that morning, and 15 minutes to check e-mails adds up to leaving the house by 6:30.
  4. Take a break to play with my dogs.
  5. Stop work to throw a load of clothes in the dryer.  (No, wait, that’s a good thing.)
  6. Eat lunch with Susie.
  7. Use Facebook as my personal water cooler.  No more keeping it open all day long on my second screen so I can watch all you people come and go (i.e., “walk by my office door”).
  8. Brag about how green I am because I only put an average of 10-50 miles on my car in a week.
  9. Bitch that I never have time to read.
  10. Complain that I’m not doing anything useful with my life.

                                                      

But, Then Again . . .

~ Deb ~ 4 Comments

(A sister post to my most recent.)

I’ll be honest, sometimes I wonder if I’m part of the problem.  (Side note – if you want to test your own level of self-assuredness, type that sentence sometime and see how it feels.)  If there is a devil on my shoulder, then I blame him (of course it would be a “him”) for my eagerness to leap into the verbal fray.

But there is an angel on my shoulder too.  A Jekyll to my Hyde.  A Cher to my Sonny.  And every now and then she gets my attention.  And, of course, it would be a “she.”

I’m in a constant hop-scotch between the two.  On the one hand, hey, knowledge is power.  Study, analyze, research.  Pack the brain until it feels mighty damn important.  Be an informed voter.  Read the paper.  Read the encyclopedia.  Read Trivial Pursuit cards. . . for fun.

On the other hand, sometimes I wonder if I really need to know any of that crap.  Perhaps I should trade in a few cable news anchors for 13 indigenous grandmothers.   Information overload eventually and inevitably sends me running to the woods to commune with the oaks and listen to the scuffle of squirrels in the leaves and the caw of the raven.  For a few days I avoid the Comcast home page headlines and start my day with sacred moon incense.  I pause to acknowledge the wisdom of the west, the north, the east, the south and shake the flame to embers with a silent appeal for the health of our planet.

It’s an age-old war that is not at all unique to me, I know: that war of wills between the aggressive mind and the passive heart, the assertive brain and the silent soul.  My mind uses fear.  It tells me I’ll fall behind, that something really important will happen, that I must stay informed with the world’s comings and goings.  It tells me that if I’m not careful, I’ll become like my sister, Donna (“We have a black President??”).

My spirit uses . . . well, nothing.  It just sits patiently and accepts me home every time I return.

My brain is like an academic playground.  Politics are the video game I’m addicted to.  And when I get really still and centered, I realize just how insignificant it all is.  There really are more important forces at work in the universe.

I don’t want to be part of the problem.  I want to be part of the solution.  And I have a feeling the solution will come from the heart.

Guess I’ll have to think about that for awhile.