True Kindness

I appreciate kindness in my life, but am finding more and more that, without truth, kindness loses its charm.  

I recently participated on a graduate student's exam committee when on exam day, the graduate student simply appeared to be having a bad day.  She did not answer questions in the usual specific, articulate, and inspiring way which I had come to expect from her.  Behind closed doors, the conversation among the student's committee members reflected this same sentiment.  While otherwise a strong and intelligent student worthy of a PhD, on this day, the student wasn't quite performing at or beyond the bar.  While the committee decided to issue a pass to the student, I was surprised when on returning to the room, she was greeted with "Congratulations" (accurate and appropriate) and "Great Job" (not so accurate or appropriate).   I agreed with passing her, as there was no point in delaying her degree or punishing her for an ill timed bad day.  But, the effusive bouquet of top-notch compliments that followed the congratulatory remarks seemed out of place and confusing.  What good could possibly come of telling a student she did a great job when neither we nor she believed it?  

As a professor, I spent years receiving annual merit reviews that were replete with favorable remarks about my work and productivity.  The positive far outweighed the negative, yet year after year, I was passed over for promotion.  The net result of more than a decade of this pattern is that I no longer believe what my colleagues tell me about my work, good, bad, or in between.   While academic culture may believe the best thing for me is a hearty dose of sunshine pills doled out on an annual basis without regard to circumstance, I beg for something a little simpler: the truth.   

I welcome hearing the truth about who I am and what I do, when such truth is delivered in a basket of kindness.  When kindness follows in the wake of words which may not be what I hoped for, my defensiveness, anger, frustration may still follow, but will ebb much more quickly, allowing me to move on to tasks of a more serious nature.... figuring out how to fix and improve this problem named Denise that I often become in my journey through this world.

So, whether you like me in the littlest or the biggest of ways or not at all, may I appeal to you to share those ways with words embellished only by true kindness and nothing more?

Ha Ha....

Let it be said that, for the record before the rest of this blog comes rolling off my tongue pen, in general, I strive to avoid being obnoxious -- that is, at least in front of other people... what my dogs know about me, they'll never tell.

But, here I may make an exception.

On Sunday, January 18, 2015, for 57 minutes of regulation game time, the Seattle Seahawks orchestrated one of the most unexpected and discouraging strings of fumbles, interceptions, three-and-outs, and assorted other foibles that caused the steepest rise in the use of TUMs ever recorded in an American football game.  Dread filled the heart, nausea the gut, and defeat the mind of the collective 12th man, as never before, even in Seahawks history.    Some plays were so awful that even the eyes of Green Bay Packer fans must have filled with pity for the blue and chartreuse team roaming across Century Link Field in Seattle.

While I don't presume that any member of the Green Bay Packer football team was actually laughing at the Seahawks, I do have my suspicions.  These suspicions are especially strong for the young man, Mr. Clinton-Dix, who intercepted two of Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson's passes in the first half of the game, a half which at one point was so horrible that the Green Bay Packers had caught infinitely more of Russell Wilson's passes than Seahawks receivers.   Each time that an interception from Mr. Clinton-Dix was announced, I heard a subtle "Ha Ha" in the background.   My husband tried to tell me that "Ha Ha" was Mr. Clinton-Dix' first name, but I continued to believe, in my NFC championship game induced despair, that the sound I heard come from the sportscaster's mouth was instead the entire city of Green Bay, Wisconsin laughing at our poor struggling Seahawks.

Ha Ha.

As the game marched relentlessly on, I sank further into the couch, tempted to drink yet another beer, but too riveted to the unfolding trauma on the television to go to the refrigerator and get one.  The minutes of the game ticked away, and I kept hearing:

Ha Ha.

Finally, the last four minutes of the game came and went.  Overtime came and went.   As I watched this funny shaped brown thing with laces on it sail threw the air and land in Jermaine Kearse's hands (this time with no Mr. Clinton-Dix available to intercept), I no longer heard:

Ha Ha.

from the sportscaster.

Yet, a moment later, when the game was over and the television volume muted during a seemingly unending string of commercials, I heard it again:

Ha Ha.

Strange.
I looked at my husband, who was looking at me strangely (which is not at all uncommon).
I asked:  "Do you hear that?"

Ha Ha.

"What is that noise?  Where is it coming from?"

My husband's eyes rolled back into his head as he responded:
"My dear ...
that noise is coming out of your mouth"

Ha Ha.

The author of this blog wishes to acknowledge that she makes no assumptions whatsoever about the outcome of the upcoming SuperBowl, recognizing that the opposing team could quite possibly do a similar number on the Seahawks as was done on the Indianapolis Colts... only this time with properly inflated footballs.   

Some Assembly Required

Whatever happened to the phrase "Fully Assembled"?

Did it disappear with the twentieth century?

Is it simply old-fashioned and out-of-date?

Did it get lost in China?
(No, I  don't have anything against China, but shipping anything halfway around the world even marginally assembled seems to be as impossible a feat as my surviving a week without coffee).

I often wonder which corporate entity first decided that the ordinary consumer needs to be greeted, right after purchasing a new piece of furniture, with the ominous words "Some Assembly Required."?

The phrase "Some Assembly Required" is itself replete with half truths:

"Some"
Hmmm ... seems to be all that lies in The Box is the raw materials and that ALL assembly is actually required of whichever poor member of the household first gets tired enough of looking at the box, breaks down, and opens it.

"Assembly"
This word implies that the pieces actually fit together as designed, and the use of a supplementary hammer and related force fitting tools are not at all needed during the course of assembly.

"Required"
It'a amazing how long our household can leave all those parts all by their lonesome selves in the big (ominous) cardboard box.  Assembly becomes optional, a task to be done only when a rainy day arrives and when patience indoors is as plentiful as the clouds are outdoors.

This time around, with our purchase of what appeared to be a very simple wall unit, I had high hopes in Costco.  After all, The Box looked just about the right size to contain the fully assembled version of the desired furniture.  But, as I gave in to the impulse to peek inside The Box, my hopes were again dashed, my renewed faith in corporate America, however slight, was quickly doused as I opened The Box, and a seemingly endless stream of wood slices, metal pieces, and jingling hardware bags issued forth, equalled in part only by the equally endless packaging from which they were to be extracted.  An hour passed, and finally all the pieces lay on the carpet, chuckling among themselves.  Another hour passed, and the assembly progressed:

Even after the rain ceased outside, the assembly marched on inside:

Finally, as we marched stubbornly and determinedly toward the finish, we found ourselves at Step 21 of 21 in the lengthy, multi-lingual instruction manual (in retrospect, the language in which the instructions were written didn't seem to make much of a difference).    Step 21 read "Adjust the leveling foot until the top shelf surface is level."   The designers of said furniture had included every tool and piece of hardware in creation EXCEPT a level.   So, we did what all exasperated consumers do.  We looked all over the garage, in every toolbox, storage container, and crevice for the level that we don't own. After 20 minutes of searching in vain, we gave up, and like any other self-respecting homeowner, hacked a solution:

Welcome to the latest design of a level.  Formerly, a favorite cat toy, it has now found a new purpose in life.   After some adjustment to ensure the ball ('level') did not roll off the top shelf without provocation, our latest Some Assembly Required project became complete:

Amazing, how much more grateful we are for this piece of furniture than if we had just pulled it out of the box, stood it up, and plugged it into the wall.

Do you ever wonder what your mother would have done if you had come forth from the womb with the words "Some Assembly Required" tattooed on your arm?

Yesterday, by Job

Modified from a well-known Beatles song, without permission...

Yesterday, all my troubles weren’t so far away.

They were close enough to put me in a crazy way

Oh, I don’t long for yesterday.

Suddenly, I’m not half the train wreck I used to be

There’s a ray of sunshine hanging over me

Oh, yesterday left so suddenly.

Why my troubles finally had to go, 

I don’t know, He wouldn’t say

I prayed something right

Now, I don’t long for yesterday

Yesterday, faith was not such an easy role to play

Now, I have it renewed along my way

Oh, I don’t yearn for yesterday

In my simple ways of thinking, these are words I imagine Job strumming on his ancient guitar once God decided to restore blessings into his life after trauma after trauma, affliction after affliction, crisis after crisis.  Job’s train wreck of a life combined with his unbelievably enduring faith amounted to a joyful ending in one of the Old Testament's most difficult stories.   Why did God allow so much to be taken away from Job, year after year after year?…the answer is a key piece of Job's story that is never fully revealed.  

Our adult Sunday school leader reminded us this morning to hold onto hope and faith as we walk through the struggles of the present and face those of the future.   She directed us to find some of that hope and faith by remembering the steadfast presence of God in our struggles of the past.

Unfortunately, if I look down that road into my past,  I see a decades long train wreck that tempts me to stick my head under a pillow and never get out of bed again.   If I look behind me, I will see long years where at best, I failed to notice God's presence, hand, and purpose in my life and at worst, they simply seemed not to be there at all, even as I searched and searched and searched.  If I look too long in the direction of the past, my faith will start to crash and burn as my fear of returning to those dark years creeps in along the edges of my spirit.    

I, like a few others I know who have an extended train wreck etched into their life resumes, have spent many moments perched on the edge of hopelessness, pleading for a God who seems to remain silent, crying for Him who seems unreachable, and continuing to believe only by the merest shred of faith.   Years and Years of stepping into the day on only a whisper of hope and ending it in a dark flourish of deep, lonely fatigue... suddenly end.   A God who seemed to not hear, nor see, nor remember this little sheep named me .... suddenly turns despair to joy.  Suddenly... within a few weeks' time... the whole pathetic story of my life just abruptly turned from train wreck to sunshine, surrounded by whatever lies opposite to dark, lonely silence.

That's not to say that my present life is not without its struggles nor without grief.  But, the train now remains on its tracks. Only, sometimes, on mornings like this Sunday and moments deep into dark nights, I wonder if those painful years will return once again.

Since I don't know why the dark times suddenly disappeared, I am faced with the fear of their reappearing.   I am not anywhere near as good as Job in my faith nor as steadfast in my hope.   So, to have hope for the future, I can’t look back.  I just can't.

The prospect of returning to times like those of the past... is more than I can bear.

Childless on Facebook

In my not so humble opinion, being childless on Facebook is on par with:

 Or:

Or, even:

That feeling of being out of place is one of the biggest reasons I delayed setting up a Facebook account, much less posting to it, for a very (very) long time.   Once I finally appeared on Facebook, several "friends" called me a late adopter as if I would have been far more proper or polite to have started my Facebook journey earlier in life.   Alas, I was (and likely still am) unaware of The Rules.   Hence my late coming to the grand social media stage.   

One of the reasons I delayed entering the life-changing world of Facebook is the stunningly high percentage of posts that involve children.   My children. My grandchildren.  My nieces.  My nephews.   And, so on and so forth.  Having none of the above to show for my sorry life, I delayed entry into Facebook, not because a woman of my age could not withstand the social stigma of not being like one of the others, but for the lingering pain of being childless not-by-choice.   

As a side-note, someone should identify a clever acronym to describe those of us female types wandering around the globe longing for children and unable to have them, in biological format or otherwise. Then, such women (including me) could purchase T-shirts with said acronym emblazoned upon them and more effectively make light or fun of one of life's greatest disappointments.  

Back to the matter of Facebook.  I decided to get over my Facebook phobia one quarter in the life of teaching.  I attempted to bargain with students in my advanced technical writing class.  On the first day of class, I said "If you put your heart into learning to write this quarter, I will get over my issues with Facebook and jump into the mainstream, not only setting up a Facebook account, but finding a way to participate productively in this fascinating social media."  Thereafter, I pleaded with my students to befriend me upon Facebook, so I would not find myself with few friends and no place to post.  In response, only one of 75 students friended me.  But, I digress.   

As I attempted to fit into my Facebook shoes, I thought that if nothing else, seeing a plethora of cute children and happy moms would surely desensitize me to my own loss, deficit, and heartbreak.  It's not that I have anything against happy moms or would wish anything but happy parenthood for their lives, but the feeling of a knife into my gut every time I see a pregnant woman, a happy new mom, a whole family.... just never seems to go away.  I wanted to grow past the heartbreak.  I wanted to learn the art of quickly ripping the knife out of my gut, throwing it away, and taking another step forward in life, all wounds aside.  

And during my first three months of being active on Facebook, I perused many a photo of children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, godchildren, and munchkins of all shapes and sizes.   I read posts, I "liked" photos, I responded to some comments, I tried.   And the desensitization program worked to some extent, as now the feeling I have when I am initially reminded of my childlessness is akin to only a steak knife in my gut rather than a full blown butcher's knife.   

Until one day.  I was perusing the page of an acquaintance, an ex-coworker, whom Facebook had named friend without my permission.   I liked my coworker and missed him in the workplace, but friendship was still a word I reserved for few, not many.   

As I scanned posts, taking seriously my new endeavor to modernize my interactions and relationships, I came across the coworkers's latest thought mixed in with a dozen or so photographs of his new baby:

"You are only as good as the pictures of your kids that you post on Facebook"

Ugh!  Back to the butcher knife experience.   

I can definitely see how Facebook can make some feel like less.   Thank goodness I am now at the age where that feeling is increasingly short lived and inclined to be ridiculed (by me) rather than taken seriously.  

Even Nowhere is Somewhere

While traveling across the country, we often find ourselves "in the middle of nowhere."   What makes nowhere different from somewhere seems to have something to do with (a) the absence of gas stations; (b) rest areas where the nearest bush or shrub serves as the community restroom; (c) a lack of any measurable annual precipitation... or some combination thereof.    These criteria add up to an abundance of "nowheres" in the middle of the western states, especially Nevada, Idaho, and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.   Most may be content to pinpoint these barren landscapes as nothing more than 'somewhere out west' but a closer look shows abundant differences among: 

Nevada:

Arizona:

and Texas:

The interesting thing about driving through nowhere is that, as long as there is plenty of gas in the car, a few water bottles in the cup holders, and no urgent cry from bladder or other bodily function, the middle of nowhere easily transforms into a beautiful somewhere:

By its very nature, nowhere is absent of the crowds, the pollution, the struggle, and the chaos of the city.  Some may think such places abhorrent for their lack of theater, arts, entertainment, or other traditional city fare.   I like to think that the arts, the entertainment, the music... are still all there, but mostly on a geological rather than human timescale.  And, while driving miles and miles along these deserted roadways, my mind may slow to the pace of geological timescales, allowing me to be more than content to experience all the drama of nature... slow, vast, and breathtaking... at its natural pace.

The judgement of somewhere as nowhere reminds me, on this Christmas day, of the moment when Jesus Christ chose to turn to the well,  to reach out to a woman who most thought of as no one.  Yet, Jesus spent time at the well with the woman, extending a hand, listening, guiding, and teaching, as if she were someone of the same value as the most powerful king or the richest merchant in the land.

These are just more reminders to me to push my judgements aside and remember that:
Even nowhere is indeed somewhere, and
Every no one is very much a someone.  

Merry Christmas!

Road Kill

Something about the desert prompts animals to run across the road... a lot.  I have to wonder what is so fascinating on the other side that drives them to this risky behavior that results in one million vertebrates run over on the roads every day in the United States (yes -- I wonder too who counted them all and how they came up with this statistic, but I digress).   A large percentage of these poor critters must lie victim along desert roadways:

Today, my soft heart and I endeavored to avoid contributing to this statistic.  As we travelled along long, lonely, gasoline-free stretches of U.S. Highway 93 today, I tried my best to keep from running over one of the many critters sticking its nose out from the sagebrush to gaze at the passing minivan:

Alas, hundreds of miles passed and no strange sounds emerged from the underside of the vehicle.   No abrupt spray of red splashed along our mint green paint job.  No sickening crush of bones could be heard from the Michelin man below.  But, as I began to relax, paying less attention to the shoulder and margins of the highway and more attention to simply staying awake, the unthinkable happened....

Drum roll please....
Tragic music begins....

Thwomp went the right front bumper, and in a single moment, my no-kill day became a road-kill day:

R.I.P.  my tumbleweed friend.
Rest in Pieces.