Courtney Martin's TED Talk

I read this article in Slate recently and my thoughts drifted back to Courtney Martin, whose TED Talk I've listened to four or five times since last September.  See, when I read that Beyonce says, "I think I am a feminist, in a way. It's not something I consciously decided I was going to be...," I think I can relate.  Part of me wonders if I am feminist through osmosis, growing up female in America--in New Jersey under Christie Todd Whitman, Governor--and as a member of Generation Y.  A part of me wonders if that's the only reason because, after all, I also grew up with less subtle influences: I am Christian, Latin American, foreign-born.  These are historically less-than-"feminist" positions, and even now heritages I still cling to.  But the truth is that the juxtaposition of all these worldviews has lead to greater wrestling in me, the "rejecting of the past and promptly reclaiming it" that Courtney Martin talks about.  And after so much wrestling, I must admit, I am a feminist.

I told a friend recently, "I didn't marry Michael in order to keep his house and raise his children"--though I would gladly do so--"I married Michael because I believed that we could do more good together than we could each do on our own."  This isn't the kind of feminism we learned about in high school, the kind that perpetuates the burning bras, the kind that unsexes women.  Nor is it Beyonce's brand, a celebrity-inspired feminism, stumbled onto because there are little other options for women of her notoriety.  My feminism probably isn't Courtney Martin's feminism, either, not in the details.  But I do love what she says at the end of her talk when she says, "My mom and so many women like her have taught me that life is not about glory, or certainty, or security even.  It's about embracing the paradox.  It's about acting in the face of overwhelm.  And it's about loving people really well."

Here are some of my favorite moments from her TED Talk (I do hope you'll listen to it!):

The first paradox is that growing up is about rejecting the past and then promptly reclaiming it...my feminism is very indebted to my mom's, but it looks very different.

The second paradox [is] sobering up about our smallness and maintaining faith in our greatness all at once.  Many in my generation--because of well-intentioned parenting and self-esteem education--were socialized to believe that we were special little snowflakes who were going to go out and save the world...We walk across graduation stages, high on our overblown expectations, and when we float back down to earth, we realize we don't know what the heck it means to actually save the world anyway.  The mainstream media often paints my generation as apathetic, and I think it's much more accurate to say we are deeply overwhelmed...

[My mom] said, "I will not stand for your desperation."  She said, "You are smarter, more creative and more resilient than that."

The third [is] growing up is about aiming to succeed wildly and being fulfilled by failing really well.  Parker Palmer writes that many of us are often whiplashed "between arrogant overestimation of ourselves and a servile underestimation of ourselves."  I learned that...I can't judge [people] based on their failure to meet their very lofty goals.  Many are working in deeply intractable systems...but what they managed to do within those systems was be a humanizing force...what could possibly be more important than that?

Cornel West says, "Of course it's a failure.  But how good a failure is it?"

This isn't to say we give up our wildest, biggest dreams.  It's to say we operate on two levels.  On one, we really go after changing these broken system of which we find ourselves a part.  But on the other, we root our self-esteem in the daily acts of trying to make one person's day more kind, more just, etc.

[My mom] was talking...[doing] all these acts of care and creativity...and surely, at three and four years old, I was listening to the soothing sound of her voice, but I think I was also getting my first lesson in activist work.  The activists I interviewed had nothing in common except for one thing, which was that they all cited their mothers as their most looming and important activist influences.

My mom and so many women like her have taught me that life is not about glory, or certainty, or security even.  It's about embracing the paradox.  It's about acting in the face of overwhelm.  And it's about loving people really well.  And at the end of the day, these things make for a lifetime of challenge and reward.

Physical Therapy

My mom has taken to saying, "We live in a fallen world, Elena, things are bound to go wrong."  She says this when errands take longer than they should, when things fall or break, when people aren't as nice as we'd like them to be.  "I'm too old to be cranky," she says.  "I've decided to enjoy the rest of my life and I'm not going to let silly expectations get in the way."

I was thinking about this new attitude my mom has adopted during my recent physical therapy appointments.  About two years ago, I woke up one day to a severe pain in my left shoulder.  My doctor gave me an anti-inflammatory and pain medication and the pain subsided to a slight, but persistent soreness.  Because my shoulder never really healed and because we happen to have it in our budget right now, I started going to physical therapy.

I have always loved physical therapy.  When I was in 8th grade, my hips began a tug-of-war with my knees that damaged my knee caps.  That was my first physical therapy experience.  I liked learning those funny little exercises that would teach my thigh muscles be kinder to my knee caps.  When I was in college, I sprained my right ankle during taekwondo practice and found myself back at physical therapy.  My favorite part this time was the ultrasound therapy, "So that you don't have scar tissue inside your joint" or something like that, the tech explained.  I loved physical therapy because, to me, it meant that if you work intentionally and persistently according to an intelligently designed plan, you can restore something broken to its original (unbroken) condition.


So I was excited to go back to physical therapy, especially after two years of discomfort and pain.  With all my recent health issues, I've been working on eating better, resting more, taking vitamins and medicines on time.  I've felt like my lifestyle, at least as it relates to health, has been spiraling out of control in the last five years or so, and I'm working on reigning it back in.  This is great, I thought to myself as I arrived for my first appointment. This is what I need to get my life back in order.

I've met a lot of wonderful people during my physical therapy.  This particular facility maintains a very open environment--moreso than any of the others I've been to.  Three or four therapists work simultaneously in an open room with three or four patients each.  So there are several of us there, stretching, contorting, grunting, struggling together through our respective injuries.  I am often the youngest one there, barring the occasional high school athlete.  Most of the other patients are older men and women, with knee and hip replacements, folks with car accident or work place injuries, lonely elderly women who fell in their kitchens.


My mom is right.  "We live in a fallen world, Elena, things are bound to go wrong."  No one means for these injuries to happen.  No one goes to work thinking, Today I am going to do something that will incapacitate me.  But there we are, all of us, reporting our pain levels on a scale of 1 to 10, describing what we used to be able to do and what we can't do now.

I was deeply startled after my first visit about the extent of my injury.  It comes from a combination of things: naturally loose joints, a sedentary lifestyle, stress, bad posture.  I have been complaining about being out of shape for a long time, but I figured it would amount to high blood pressure and diabetes in my 50s, not a shoulder injury at 25.  "Two years is a long time to be injured," the therapist told me.  "It's going to take a while to heal."  If I am in this poor a condition now, what will 50 look like?


On Monday, I'll be going in for my twelfth visit.  I've been going twice a week for six weeks, and overall, I have to say it's been helpful.  Those funny little exercises are making my back stronger and correcting my posture.  My pain on most days is at a 3 or 4 instead of a 6 or 7.  But I am realizing that I am going to have to adjust my expectations.  There is no going back to 19-year-old Elena, no going back to 25-year-old Elena, that I can't click an "optimize" button or a "auto-restore" button.  Surely, the steps I've taken to reel-in my health habits are important and valuable and will help decrease my chances of further illness or injury.  But I can't fix me and lock my settings and expect to live illness and injury free for the rest of forever, no matter how persistent, intentional, or intelligently designed my plan is.  And even if I could click that "optimize" button, I can't keep from car accidents or work place injuries or falling in my kitchen.

"We live in a fallen world, Elena, things are bound to go wrong," my mother says.  "And I've decided I'm going to enjoy the rest of my life and I'm not going to let silly expectations get in the way."

I am learning to let go of silly expectations.  I am learning to set realistic goals instead.
I am learning to be pleased with progress and to relish Grace and Mercy.
I am learning to hope and long for Heaven, where there is no pain and no decay, only Glory and Peace.
And I am learning to enjoy my life.  I think I'm too old to be cranky, too.

Pacing

Thanksgiving Day, I made cranberry sauce, stuffing, and pumpkin cheesecake bars.  I also hand-squeezed 29 limes to make Honduran-style limeade.  Not the best idea I ever had, but I was proud of myself nonetheless.  Michael worked a full day.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, while Michael was away at work again, I studied for the GRE, I picked up around the house, I updated two of the remaining bank accounts that still had my maiden name, and I caught up on the flex spending account reimbursement applications.

Saturday, I went with Michael and our friend D to Atlantic City to volunteer with a non-profit called Hope 4 AC.  We met up with some other volunteers to clear out a couple of houses that had been flooded during Hurricane Sandy.  We mostly tore up the existing floors, took out some kitchen cabinets, pulled down some drywall, carried out a lot of moldy-wet wood, and swept up the dust and debris.

Each night ended with a get-together: Thursday with the Viera extension, Friday with the primos, and Saturday with an old friend.

Sunday, we were exhausted.  There was plenty more to do: laundry, dishes, schoolwork... We came home from church and found Signs on TV.  We decided to sit down and watch that for a little while.  Michael fell asleep.  I found a game to play on the iPad.  And I was thankful for a Sabbath, a day of rest.

Sobrinos

Post-wedding, I got to spend three glorious days enjoying the company of my nephews and niece.  The boys, S and L, are 11 and 9 respectively.  A, the littlest, is 4.  ("I'm four," she declares, "What number are you?")  Three glorious days with my sobrinos.

At the beach, I taught them how to jump waves and let them carry you.  S, who is strong, punched the waves when they tried to push him over.  L, who is adventurous, sprung forth into them and over them.  All of us played in the tide, digging holes for the water to fill and wash away.  A laughed and laughed, tumbling in the sand, until her fingers and lips turned blue from the late summer ocean winds.

At the park, we played pirates on the unearthed tree roots from July's storm.  We were fierce pirates, masters of strange seas, as we took turns making the others walk the plank.  When we were done being pirates, we climbed backwards on the slide and took a spin on the merry-go-round.  I was 4, and 9, and 11 with them, reliving my visits to the same park with my aunts and uncles and grandparents.

At the house, we drew elaborate hopscotch-obstacle courses on the driveway.  We played "Hug-zilla," a tag-you're-it kind of game with hugs instead of slaps or pushes.  Later, S read to me as I fell asleep.  My heart was full as I listened to his mouth form the words on the page.  I remembered when he was small, when we would cuddle over his board-book copy of Go, Dogs, Go.

What delight, three whole days with S, L, and A.

Three days after my 27th birthday

On February 8, 2006, I wrote the following poem:

The life I was carving out for myself read a lot like a poem

Sounded like a Lisa Loeb song.

It would play itself out in Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment,

iBook et al.

My bathroom would have two doors,

I would sit around in my underwear writing stories and poems and novels.

On Friday nights I’d go dancing, and Saturday mornings I’d wake up to your light snoring.

The life I was carving out for myself would peak 3 days after my 27^th birthday.

It would be a Saturday morning, almost noon,

And I would roll over to find that for the first time in the past 7 years, you woke up first.

I’d find you in the kitchen, eating standing up over the sink, reading the paper.

“Bitte, ein kuss.”

You would smile at me, kiss me, point at the paper and say,

“It’s a jungle out there.”

I was twenty years old, a junior in college at the time.  Being the modern woman that I had convinced myself I was, I was in a not-relationship--you know, the kind where you are in a relationship, but you don't call it a relationship because the word "relationship" is too cliche and oppressive and...whatever?  Anyway, I was in a not-relationship with J at the time.  We did eventually agree to a relationship, sometime in March, only to break up on Palm Sunday a few weeks later.

So, needless to say, the future predicted in this poem did not come to pass.  This Thursday--not Saturday--marks the third day after my 27th birthday.  (Clearly, I did not consult a calendar when making my predictions.)  I will not wake up after a night of dancing--especially because I have to go to work on Thursday--and J will not be standing at my kitchen sink eating and reading the newspaper.

This poem, even then, was written in a minor key; it set my expiration date at 27.  The best moment of your life, my 20-year-old-self told my my future-now-present-self, will be you waking up hungover after a night of partying to a man who for the first time in seven years will exceed your expectations, and the two of you will have a superficial conversation over the kitchen sink about the world that exist beyond you.

Of all the alternate glories I could have imagined for myself: living in a mansion in the south of France, being co-founder of the most successful publishing house in the world, being press secretary of the President of the United States, sitting at the dinner table with a husband and children and a well-balanced meal...of all the alternate glories I could have imagined for myself, hungover and eating over the kitchen sink is the one I penned.

I'm not sure what all of that says about my 20-year-old-self, though in J's defense, I do think this poem has more to say about me-then and him-ever.  Thankfully, both for J and for me, we will both be waking up to a different reality on Thursday.

It would be nice, though, to have a bathroom with two doors.

Cousins

My cousin, G, is getting married in less than a week, so for her bachelorette, we headed up north to T's house for a mini weekend getaway.  We ate food, we drank wine, we giggled, we talked, we played games...we even went for a morning hike, and a indulged a midday cooking class.

When we were little, in our recent-immigrant skin, with parents that worked too many hours because life in this country is hard, G, A, and I spent a lot of time together.  In the years between 1992 and 1997, we ran a lot of races, climbed a number of backyard obstacle courses, took a lot of trips to the public library, watched a lot of PBS, buried at least one time capsule, and put on at least one fashion show.

And then in 1997 a lot of things began to change.  Eventually, I moved away.  I arrived back to New Jersey two weeks before A's wedding.  I'd been gone for seven years, traversed three continents in that time, crossed international borders 15 times, slept in too many airports.  Sun-burned and jet-lagged, I returned just in time for A to walk down the aisle to the man she'd fallen in love with.  A lot happens in seven years.

I had planned to stay in New Jersey only a few weeks.  Wanderlust is powerful, and we had planned a journey through the Midwest and the Southwest, eventually reaching the Pacific coast.  But the love of family is powerful, too.  As we sank into the comfort of familiar faces, Michael and I realized we were travel-weary, too many years of too many planes, and the wanderlust faded.  We decided to stop, to rest, to learn to be family with these people who do it so well.

In these three years, there have been weddings, births, and deaths.  Some have graduated, some have started new degrees.  Some are launching careers, some are mastering managing homes.  All of us are settling into our adult lives.  This pace is different than the pace we used to keep when we were kids.  Things keep changing and we don't get enough long, lazy afternoons eating ice cream cups and watching cartoons.  So, our mini weekend getaway, as the youngest of the Viera-Flores girls prepares to march down the aisle, played out--inadvertently I think--like a "throw back" to the mid-1990s.  We changed the locale and added some new faces, with T and L and the little ones, Ab, E, and R, but we still overate, we still laughed too hard, we still shared secrets, and managed to include one obstacle course in the form of a morning hike through Tillman's Ravine.

How wonderful, after fifteen years of too many changes, to arrive back to the glory of childhood: adventures with cousin.

The Dream of the 90s is Alive on this Post

I loved (and still do love) the 90s and being the lover of music that I am, the thing about the 90s that I love the most is the music that the decade produced. So, here's a list of (and an ode to) my favorite albums from the 90s.
Disclaimer: I did not discover several of these until the 2000s or even later but because they came out in the 90s they go on this list.
Disclaimer 2: I recommended 2 songs from each album for you to get a taste of what the album sounds like but try think of them as just parts to the whole of the greater albums that they belong to.

1990: An off year in music? I was listening to Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em by MC Hammer and To the Extreme by Vanilla Ice so it was at least an off year for me. 

1991: Achtung Baby, U2    
          Listen to: So Cruel and Love is Blindness

1992: Automatic for the People, R.E.M.    
          Listen to: Sweetness Follows and The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight

1993: Pablo Honey, Radiohead    
          Listen to: Thinking About You and Prove Yourself

1994: Weezer, Weezer    
          Listen to: In the Garage and Only in Dreams

1995: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, The Smashing Pumpkins    
          Listen to: Here is No Why and Bodies  

          The Bends, Radiohead     
          Listen to: Planet Telex and Just

1996: Odelay, Beck    
          Listen to: Hotwax and Sissyneck

1997: OK Computer, Radiohead     
          Listen to: Let Down and Exit Music (For a Film)

1998: It's Hard to Find a Friend, Pedro the Lion    
          Listen to: Bad Diary Days and Secret of the Easy Yoke  

          In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Neutral Milk Hotel    
          Listen to: Ghost and Two-Headed Boy

1999: The Soft Bulletin, The Flaming Lips    
          Listen to: The Spiderbite Song and The Gash

Other Great 90s Albums:
Sixteen Stone, Bush
Fashion Nugget, Cake
Prolonging the Magic, Cake
Collective Soul, Collective Soul
A Boy Named Goo, The Goo Goo Dolls
Dookie, Greenday
Insomniac, Greenday
Throwing Copper, Live
Clarity, Jimmy Eat World
Nevermind, Nirvana
(What's the Story) Morning Glory?, Oasis
Ten, Pearl Jam
Vs, Pearl Jam
Vitalogy, Pearl Jam
No Code, Pearl Jam
Out of Time, R.E.M.
Monster, R.E.M.
Blood Sugar Sex Magik, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Californication, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Siamese Dream, The Smashing Pumpkins
Superunknown, Soundgarden
Rubberneck, The Toadies
Pop, U2
Zooropa, U2
Pinkerton, Weezer
A.M., Wilco
Being There, Wilco
Electr-O-Pura, Yo La Tengo