pilgrimsteps

I should mention...

2010-10-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

As part of building a new online identity-space for myself, and also as part of the realization that I've needed to get off blogger and over to wordpress, my new content can now be found here:
http://janaremy.com/pilgrimsteps/

Soon enough I'll be pointing the pilgrimsteps domain name over there, too.

better than coffee

2010-09-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up at an all-too-early hour to join a before-work outrigger practice on my one-person canoe (she was more than a little dusty when I pulled her out of her berth, having sat unused for the past few weeks). It was still dark when I was assembling the connecting pieces between the main part of the boat and the outrigger. I fumbled because I couldn't see what I was doing, and some of the other paddlers gave me a hand. They commented a bit on my boat (she's older, but a classic).

When I launched into the water of the Back Bay everything was glassy and quiet. The moon was full and high in the sky, and Orion was overhead. I paddled out about a mile to the PCH bridge before I joined the other early-morning stalwarts. I was the only female and the only morning-practice n00b--so I knew I'd be a lot slower than the others. We did 3 sets of pyramid sprints around Lido Island (my very favorite loop in the harbor), pointed straight at the moon as she was setting on the horizon. By the time we came around the far end of the island, the horizon was all aglow with the sun rising on the other side of the sky. The view of the palm trees and hills framed by waves of deepening color was breathtaking. I counted the white heron that flew directly in front of me as I passed Spider Island a good omen.

The guys gave me a bit of a lead on all the sprints and we finished nearly every piece together (I suspect that they were being easy on me, and I am grateful for that). As I washed my boat and headed back for a shower, I realized that my love for outrigger paddling just grew to whole new level.

I now have the best reason ever to get out of bed early every morning (and a paddling wake-up call is so much better than coffee).

Bullsh*t Feminism

2010-09-20T21:01:00.000-07:00

Just for the record, I'm a big fan of bullshit. In fact, I buy huge bags of it every spring to use in my garden. Sure it's stinky, but it gets the job done.

Recently, the Feminist Hulk (a tongue-in-cheek twitterer) sent out a tweet about bullshit and it was widely "re-tweeted" (or copied, with attribution) by many users in The Exponent community.* It read:

When I first saw this tweet I bristled a bit at the profanity. These words carry more weight and are somewhat more offensive when in print than when heard in casual conversation. However, that's precisely why I liked the tweet. I felt uncomfortable and it caught my attention. And that discomfort made me think about how feminism is portrayed on The Exponent blog. The look of our blog is organic and feminine: pastel colors, the leaf motif, subdued fonts. The photos in the sidebar are artful--all of winsome smiling young women. Not a scary old hairy feminist in the bunch. I'd say that we sit squarely on the "softer side" of the feminist line when compared to mainstream feminist blogs like Feministing, Bust, or Pandagon.

So when the bullshit post from above was re-tweeted on the official Exponent channel, several of the bloggers protested on the private permablogger listserv. And when the week's aggregate feed post went up, the bullshit tweet was removed because it was considered too vulgar for an Exponent post.

I'm shaking my head here, as I ponder whether feminism is best served with a wink and a smile. Our sisters who fought for the 19th amendment weren't afraid of a little discomfort. I'm not necessarily suggesting that profanity be used in every Exponent post--just the opposite. When used judiciously, the discomfort that results from a smartly-used swear word can serve to illustrate an important point. Because if the Hulk tweet had said simply "RESIST THE PRESSURE TO DOWNPLAY FEMINISM TO MAKE PEOPLE MORE COMFORTABLE. DISCOMFORT CAN BE PRODUCTIVE," I seriously doubt it would have had even half the intended impact. Discomfort can be productive. But when we carefully sanitize our writing so we don't push boundaries or let things get a bit ugly, are we missing out?

In fact, not one reader even mentioned the Hulk tweet or the profanity in the twitter blogpost. If someone had been offended, I'm sure they would have let us know--the fact that the profanity passed unnoticed by our readers makes me wonder if there was even any cause for concern in the first place.

When I use steer manure in my garden I have to be cautious to ensure that it's been properly aged or it can burn young seedling plants. Similarly I can see why profanity needs to be used with caution, because of the possibility of "burning" those blogreaders who are only just barely acquainted with feminism or who might be turned-off by a bit of bullshit. But at the same time I can't help but wonder if the discomfort is really our own, and not that of our imagined audience--and if it is, then what are we really afraid of?

*Note: For new readers of my blog: I'm a founding member of The Exponent blog, which focuses on Mormon feminism and other topics that are relevant to progressive LDS women.

on Walden Pond...

2010-09-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

While I was in Boston, I has just enough time (and some willing friends) so I could squeeze in my annual jaunt to Concord and Walden. It was a bit chillier this year than last, but I still had a fabulous swim across the pond.

As I swam I reflected on my many joys of this past year. It's been a good one. I feel so fortunate.

Boston, Boston, Boston!

2010-09-13T19:42:00.001-07:00

my henry, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

In just a few days I'll head to Boston for an adventure & some time with the Exponent women. I'm not yet sure what lies in store for me there, but Boston has never disappointed! Will it be cemeteries and Harvard tea? Or will it be another grand leap into Walden Pond? Or will I connect with Friends? Or will there be time for communing with the sea?

Perhaps it will be all of the above!

Catalina Crossing!

2010-09-11T13:06:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again, when all of my thoughts are focused on the U.S. Outrigger Champs race. The picture above is from last year, where I am sitting in seat 5 (just in front of the steersperson) on the last leg of the race to Descanso Beach.

I'll ride the Catalina Flyer over to the island early tomorrow morning and then paddle my way home with a Masters Coed team. Three of us paddled together in this race last year, and it was a great experience. I'm looking forward to making more memories!

If you're local, you might want to head over to Newport Beach to watch the outriggers cross the finish line! We'll come in at the Newport Harbor mouth, come straight down the channel, and finish in front of the turnoff for the Newport Dunes, probably the first boats will arrive around 2pm and the rest of us will trickle in over the next few hours. I'll be texting my location to John occasionally (if I have a signal) and hopefully he'll forward any interesting updates to twitter (@johnremy). If I can, I'll send over some tweets and pics myself while I'm taking a rest on the support boat! :)

vulnerable

2010-09-07T14:13:00.001-07:00

hospital gowns make me feel vulnerable., originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Among the many remembrances of my cancer experience that I carry with me daily is the constant fear of my cancer returning. Though there is little chance that my bone cancer will recur, statistics show that childhood survivors of cancer have high incidence of other forms of cancer as adults. We seem especially prone to breast cancer. Which is why I get screened regularly despite having no family history of the disease.

So last week when I had two scans show up with something questionable, I started to get awfully nervous. I couldn't decide if it was a good thing that I had an anniversary getaway planned already to get my "mind off of things" or if it was a bad thing, because it was so hard for me to relax.

On Friday afternoon I had more thorough diagnostic scans taken at UCI's cancer center and I just received word that I'm clean.

Such a huge sigh of relief. Such a weight off my shoulders. Such a thing to celebrate.

comfort

2010-09-07T06:03:00.000-07:00

Last night John walked into our bedroom and found me with the bedcovers covering part of my face. It wasn't until he said something that I realized my hands were pressing the layers of quilt and sheets over my mouth, in an act of self-comfort.

I think I'd told John before that when I was younger I slept with the covers over my head. Especially on nights that I was scared. Because the warm cocoon of blanket seemed so much safer than whatever loomed in the dark night.

weekends

2010-09-06T12:04:00.001-07:00

splash, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

It feels so luxurious to have a long holiday weekend! I'm loving the time with family and friends--I even played a board game last night for the first time since April! Such indulgence! :)

However, this morning I actually got up extra early snuck back to work for a few hours to do some much-needed furniture rearranging. It felt so good to make the changes that I'd been planning for months. Now I just need a few good plants, some artful color on the bookshelf, and some pictures on the walls. It's amazing how much it's starting to feel as if my office is actually mine now.

I also am knee-deep in one new web-based project that I'll be debuting soon--it's the culmination of many months of thought and planning. I can't wait to share it with you...

So tell me, what are you doing this holiday weekend?

simplicity

2010-09-05T14:48:00.001-07:00

pale pink camellia, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

This morning in Quaker Meeting we considered the value of simplicity. I thought my readers might enjoy seeing the queries that go along with that value:

Simplicity

Life is meant to be lived from a Center, a divine Center… a life of unhurried peace and power. It is simple. It is serene. It takes no time, but it occupies all our time.
~ thomas r. kelly, testament of devotion, 1941

A life centered in God will be directed toward keeping communication with God open and unencumbered. Simplicity is best achieved through a right ordering of priorities, maintaining humility of spirit, avoiding self-indulgence, resisting the accumulation of unnecessary possessions, and avoiding over-busy lives.

Elise Boulding writes in My Part in the Quaker Adventure,
“ Simplicity, beauty, and happiness go together if they are a byproduct of a concern for something more important than ourselves.”

Do I center my life in an awareness of God’s presence so that all things take their rightful place?

Do I live simply, and promote the right sharing of the world’s bounty?

Do I keep my life uncluttered with things and activities, avoiding commitments beyond my strength and light?

How do I maintain simplicity, moderation, and honesty in my speech, my manner of living, and my daily work?

Do I recognize when I have enough?

Is the life of our Meeting so ordered that it helps us to simplify our lives?

made in China

2010-09-05T09:29:00.001-07:00

IMG_2437, originally uploaded by mind on fire.

My favorite travel bag is the one that I'm carrying in my right hand in this photo. I bought it in China the morning before I returned to the States. It was $6. I didn't haggle. It says "ESPBIT" on the logo, which looks just like ESPRIT unless you take a moment to really think about it. It was hard to choose between a red one and the green one--I'm glad I settled on the red.

I needed an extra bag to bring home some trinkets: a wooden dragon for GameBoy, turquoise silk pajamas for Catgirl, a black cheongsam for me, as well as several pouches of jasmine tea. For John I brought a delicately carved "chop" engraved with his name in Chinese.

Now I carry my ESPBIT bag to my outrigger races, to conferences, and just about anywhere else I travel. It's outlasted nearly every other suitcase that I've purchased.

escapade

2010-09-04T15:04:00.001-07:00

IMG_2300, originally uploaded by mind on fire.

To celebrate 18 years of being married, we escaped for a night to a hotel near the Huntington Library (where I had some scholarly meetings the next day). It was bliss to have an evening with John: to relax in a shwanky hotel lobby and chat, and then to retire together to piles of pillows and a ginormous cozy bed...The next morning was even better as we indulged in a fancy breakfast.

If someone had told me on September 2, 1992 that 18 years later I'd still be married to John, that I'd be nearly finished with my Ph.D., that our children would be such outstanding people, that I'd be paddling on the ocean several times a week, and that I'd be ambulating on a bionic leg...I would probably have believed them. Because ever since I met John the magic of our lives has just continued on and on...

#genderd

2010-08-31T19:08:00.001-07:00

a proud papa, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

As I mentioned a few blogposts ago, my #genderd experiment is tomorrow! What I didn't know when I rather randomly chose Sept 1 as the date for this experiment, was that it would involve the celebration of my wedding anniversary.

September 2nd is official 18th anniversary of the day I agreed to tie my life to John's, but we'll be doing part of our celebrating on the 1st. Which means that my tweets might end a bit earlier in the day than I'd originally planned (ahem).

So as a bit of an advance on the actual #genderd, this evening I'm posting this picture of John from not-quite 18 years ago. It was taken the day we brought our son home from the hospital, and it shows an aspect of John that I've adored over the years: he is an excellent parent to our children. And while various gendered expectations for men in our society might prescribe a role of a passive or an authoritarian parent, he is neither of those.

one step at a time

2010-08-31T07:09:00.001-07:00

On the wall at the ARC, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

I'm horribly afraid of heights. So much so that when I find myself in a high place, I'm tempted to just jump because I want the fear to end. Completely irrational, but that's how it feels.

So given my fear, rock climbing is just crazy. But I kind of love it anyways. When I'm up on that wall and my heart is pounding so hard from fear, and every muscle is straining...it gives quite an adrenaline rush.

But I never look down and I never look too far ahead. I stay focused on the place where I am and the next step. I look for the nearby holds rather than looking back or down.

Though as a historian I tend to have an obsession with the past, in my own life I'm learning the importance of being present in the here and now. Rock climbing is a good reminder of that important lesson. When I concentrate on the very place where I am, the fear of what's below or ahead just drops away.

Note: Catgirl is on one face of the wall and I'm on the other. :)

perhaps

2010-08-27T20:05:00.001-07:00

europe trip, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

I'm posting this picture simply because I wanted to post something today that just makes me happy. And seeing this picture of Catgirl feeding the birds at Notre Dame cathedral, it's pure happy. :)

A friend mentioned, in an email, conversation to me recently that she's a 'workaholic.' I hadn't heard that word in a long time, and it caused me to think for a bit. I suppose I've rarely heard that term applied to women--usually it's a term used to denote a man who spends more time at the office than at work. But I began to wonder if maybe I'm a bit of a workaholic. Or, maybe, all of us in academia suffer a bit from the workaholism simply because our work is never done. It never gets left at the office. There are always journals to read, and articles to write, and studies to conduct, and conferences to attend. And all of that on top of our teaching and administrative activities.

I think about work nearly all of the time. I can sometimes turn it off if I'm paddling or with my family, but even then I tend to yammer on to my teammates or to John about "something that happened at work today."

Surely some of this is the novelty of my new position at Chapman. I have had to learn SO MUCH in the past few months and my brain is constantly spinning on the various tasks associated with my job. And then there's my dissertation, which is congealing much more these days, and as it does so it's just hard to step away from--my subjects are living right alongside me all the time.

And I'm certainly happy with my job. So far it's offered a healthy mix of deadlines and projects. That there is no space for complacency is actually a good thing for my personality. I like challenges.

But every once in awhile I remember that my current lifestyle is definitely...odd. That I don't just hang out with friends anymore...makes me a bit wistful for the days that we had friends over for games nearly every weekend. That I've only read one poem in as long as I can remember seems....so unlike me and there is this part of me that craves words as juicy as oranges.. That I haven't planted anything new in my garden since May....makes me wonder if some part of me is dying on the vine.

I don't know. Perhaps it's just a temporary thing. And next year when that dissertation is filed and my job becomes more routine, then there will be time for poetry and friends and flowers once again.

why I am probably the wrong person for my job...

2010-08-26T16:39:00.001-07:00

she likes the asus, too, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

At Chapman I spend a lot of time coaching faculty on how they can use technology in the classroom. This past week--the first week of the semester--numerous times faculty have told me "I just don't want to learn one more piece of software." This usually happens after I've gushed about some type of tool that would help them solve a problem.

I gush far too much.

What the faculty need is not someone like me who loves to experiment with new software, who thinks a great weekend is one that involves a fresh install of WordPress, or who dreams about digital tools (yes, I'm embarrassed to admit that many of my dreams have involved magical plugins). They need someone who thinks they way they do.

at the beach

2010-08-23T21:41:00.001-07:00

girls at the beach, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Our neighbor took this gorgeous picture of our daughters at the beach. I'm posting it today because my hands are exhausted from a full day of typing and my head is overwhelmed at the way my "little ones" are growing up so quickly.

At Chapman all of the freshmen are arriving this week for Orientation. They are wandering all around the campus with their parents in tow. It won't be so very long before that is me, launching my kids into the next phase of their lives...

Follow along with #genderd on Sept 1st

2010-08-20T21:30:00.001-07:00

Put Your Gender in the Blender, originally uploaded by Peter John Chen.

About ten years ago began to think deeply about the ways I was gender-typing my children. Though I've always been a fairly open-minded parent, I could see that my gentle teasing to my son about his interactions with the cute girls in his class, or my suggestion to my daughter that she style her hair a particular way were based on the gender stereotypes that I didn't necessarily agree with ideologically. And while I saw that my academic language was evolving to me more gender-neutral, sometimes I had to work hard to be more inclusive with gender-based ideas in my parenting and other daily interactions. This wasn't because I held gendered expectations about my children per se, it was more due to the pervasive way in which it was unknowingly embedded my behavior and speech.

When I recently went through the SafeSpace training for Chapman University, we participated in an exercise that caused us to reflect on the many ways our society creates and reinforces sex-based binaries. Since then I've made note of each time I've been forced to declare my gender and wondered how awkward it might feel if my gender assignment at birth and my gender expression were different. I've marveled at how frequently those Male/Female questions are asked on forms for travel, medical care, employee benefits, and financial records. When possible, I've stopped declaring my sex, but I rarely see this as an allowed option (and I hate that word "other" on sex-based questions--how dehumanizing that seems).

Because I think so much of the way we experience gendered expectations on a daily basis is subtle--so subtle we don't even notice it--I am going to try an experiment in a few weeks and hope you'll join in. On September 1st, I'm going to tweet every moment in my day that I experience a gendered interaction. Whether it's the choice of a restroom to use, an interaction where I'm callled "ma'am," a time when I'm forced to make a choice on a form that asks for F or M, or any other moment where I feel that gender plays a role in my day. If you're willing, I'd like for you to join me in this exercise, and also participate in reflecting on the experience either here in the comments of this post or on your own blog. For easy searching I'll be marking my tweets with the hashtag #genderd (shorthand for "Gender Day"), and will collect all the tweets into a twapperkeeper for archival purposes.

go-walla

2010-08-19T21:15:00.000-07:00

Just a few days ago, I joined up with gowalla.com. I'm feeling a lot like I did a few years ago when I first joined twitter--the possibilities of this new platform aren't yet apparent to me. But I have friends who really enjoy geo-tagged games (so I'm convinced I just might, too), and I have to admit that there's something kind of fun about "checking in" at different places and seeing other people who have also frequented those same spaces.

But I have to say, probably the main reason that I joined, is because I'm bringing my phone along with me to when I canoe to Catalina this year. And you can bet that as soon as I've paddled all those miles over, I'm going to be celebrating by broadcasting my geolocation far and wide.

Today I came across this video of last year's Oceanside outrigger race. In this vid I'm steering a coed crew and I appear at around 55 seconds from the right side of my boat, and then a few seconds later from the left side (I'm wearing a green baseball cap). Can't you just see how exciting the race is from this video! The waves were particularly rough that day and several boats tipped over. On the 28th I'll be paddling in Oceanside again, and then Sept. 11th will be the big Catalina crossing. Woot!

Oceanside Women's Race from Andrew Waldron on Vimeo.

open

2010-08-19T07:10:00.001-07:00

365:83 Uncaged; Taking Flight, originally uploaded by mind on fire.

The picture that John posted today, "Taking Flight," resonates on many different levels. Not only does he look as though he's hovering mid-air, but his posture also brings to mind the images of Christ hanging on the cross.

For me, however, what I first noticed about this image, was how his chest is open to receive the world. When I do yoga, many of my favorite poses involve opening my chest in this same way. It's an exposed feeling to lead with one's heart like this. It's vulnerable. But given that so much of what we do in our lives involves holding things close, shoulders hunched over and arms grasping, it feels good to open up and let go. To let the world take us where it will.

One of my favorite things is to float on the ocean in this posture--arms outstretched and heart filling up with the sun.

ghostly

2010-08-17T21:52:00.001-07:00

ghosty laundry line, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

A few days ago I saw someone on Twitter poking fun at the Hipstamatic filter for iPhone that's so popular right now. They were saying how ridiculous it is for 'hipsters' to use an app for creating poor-quality photos.

I agree that the Hipstamatic is a wee bit over-trendy right now, but I completely understand the addiction. The pic above is one example of a random picture that I took that turned out to be surprisingly interesting. It's of clothes hanging on a laundry line in a local history museum in the Lake District. I love how ethereal it looks because of its blurriness.

Of course, you might disagree.

What Has to be Done, redux

2010-08-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

Many of you might remember my blogpost from two years ago, "What Has to Be Done." That post, and the talk I gave alongside famous blogger Heather Armstrong (of dooce.com) brought over 30,000 new readers to my blog. What a hard time that was. As I suffered through the pain of my surgery and the side-effects of the intensive antibiotic therapy, I wondered whether my plans to finish my PhD were evaporating. I questioned whether my mobility might be forever impacted by the surgery and the persistence of the infection. I marveled at the support of my family and my community even as I worried about John's ability to hold together our lives while my health was so fragile.

About a year ago, I faced another moment of "what had to be done" when local LDS leaders chose to summon my spouse to an ecclesiastical court. I attended that event to testify on his behalf, and also to observe the events closely. It was a time when my own relationship with the church was tenuous, and seeing how this event proceeded was a significant step in my realization that I could no longer be an active adherent of the Mormon faith. Lately many of those feelings have been bubbling up again--I drive past the temple and the local LDS meetinghouse almost daily, which serves as a constant reminder of the church's impact on my life. Even now I remain cosmically disappointed in the Mormon church and its leaders (on all levels--local, regional, and global), despite supporting my friends who are members. I feel a rather irrational amount of anger at the group of men who conducted John's church court proceedings, especially because they were people in whom I'd once placed a great deal of trust. Distancing myself from the church wasn't because I was "offended" by these leaders, it was that I could no longer put my faith in an institution where leaders could wield so much power (such as the power to sever my sealing to my spouse) so irresponsibly. Choosing to walk away from my LDS community was hugely difficult for me, given all that I had invested in the church through the years.

On July 25th this year (in sharp contrast to July 25th two years ago when I was being re-admitted to the hospital for my leg infection), I was in Fairfax, Virginia meeting with a group of twelve digital humanists to embark on a radical tool-building experiment. My colleague Effie, described our process on her blog today as "doing what needs to be done" (see the last paragraph). I loved that she said that, because I hadn't thought of our fast-paced development process in that way until now. That phrase helped me to see the connective threads in my life from a point two years ago when I was purely in 'survival' mode, to the point that I'm at now with an abundance of opportunities ahead. I feel as though the lessons I've learned since then continue to serve me in my scholarly and creative work, as well as in my spiritual life. For now, "what needs to be done" is to focus on my dissertation while juggling an exciting array of side projects and the needs of my family (as well as squeezing in plenty of time out paddling on the ocean and time for quiet contemplation--sometimes simultaneously). I feel so fortunate to have the health and confidence to move forward with my dreams. These past two years have taught me much.

artful

2010-08-11T16:06:00.001-07:00

catgirl self-po, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

This self-portrait by my daughter is so gorgeous to me. Because it's such a perfect rendering of her, and because of the skill used in making it so.

That it won a Silver Medal in a prestigious art competition is just icing on the cake. :)

dreamy

2010-08-10T22:42:00.001-07:00

IMG_0440, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

The other day I had a cardamon-rose cupcake (sprinkled with real rose petals--so pretty!). I kind of can't stop dreaming about how much I enjoyed it. But I seem to do the same with just about anything rose-flavored. I think I love the way the sweetness and the scent travel from my tongue to my nose. Just like all those roses in my garden that are so fragrant I want to dig right into them with a spoon! (yum)

goal-setting

2010-08-08T15:51:00.001-07:00

Recently I heard someone make a funny comment about blogs. They said that every time they'd ever seen a blogger write a post saying that there were going to start posting more often, it never happened. I suspect that I am guilty of that myself. Not so much in this space, where I seem to have a compulsive need to spew my thoughts out over the keyboard, but much more so on my History blog. However, as much as it might not work that blogging about the need to blog more does not actually inspire one to blog more frequently, I believe that blogging about goals can introduce a level of accountability that really can work. For example, an exercise blog that I participated in a few years ago is what got me into shape after my leg surgery.

So this afternoon I just made some calculations about the biggest looming-out-there goal that I need to accomplish. I want to finish my dissertation. Sooner rather than later. By that, I mean that I want to finish it by my next birthday. At the end of May. I have all kinds of motivation to do so. There's that UCI tution that's costing me $12,000 per year. There's the knowing that the longer it takes to finish, the less likely it is that I will finish. There's that wild crazy dream of have of putting those little letters by name to show that I finished. And, there are these history stories that I've been wanting to tell for too many years now.

So....my rough calculations tell me that I have 45 weeks to knock this thing out. I think I can do it. I've just learned what I can accomplish in One Week, and now I have 45 of those!

But can you help me? Can you offer advice and ask me how things are going? I'm going to post many of my daily and weekly goals on Twitter. If you hang out in that space, can you follow along and give me some support?

the Quakerly process of 'One Week | One Tool'

2010-08-05T20:15:00.000-07:00

One of the things I realized towards to end of my experience at "One Week | One Tool" was how very Quakerly it was. This might have been why I felt so comfortable with the process. Some of the main points of comparison:

The group came together on even footing, with no assertion of personal or institutional authority. In that same vein, everyone was given the opportunity to give input on our process. Ironically, it was some of the youngest of us who held the 'lead' positions. And, each of the three sub-teams had female leaders (a rarity in the IT and DH world).

Though we had a defined goal (to create a tool), there was little sense of how exactly we would arrive at that goal. Much of it was left to personal and group inspiration.

We worked together by seeing the best in each other--through identifying each others' strengths and leveraging them.

When we sat in meetings, it was often in a circle of chairs, facing each other.

People dressed comfortably (not to impress each other). We ate simply (though well). We were more focused on the task at hand than on our personal needs (including our needs for sleep). We lived mostly communally--sharing each others' space and company for the whole week (with the exception of those few hours we retreated to our individual hotel rooms).

Both documentation and code-writing were done collectively.

At the end of the process, we discussed whether a our "One Week" experiment was something that we could apply at our home institutions. For the most part, we realized that the power structures of our workplaces would make it nearly impossible to replicate such an experience. Likewise, within Quakerism it is an ongoing struggle to combat the tendencies toward hierarchies and to weigh everyone equally. And there are times that this fails (especially when no one is willing to take responsibility for something that needs to get done). Though I realize that a decentralized communal process is not appropriate to every project, it's nice to see just how well it can work in the Digital Humanities.

In general I find that the web-based world is a good space for challenging traditional notions of authority--especially when no one knows who really is behind that string of text that appears on a computer screen. For this middle-aged, one-legged female, it's an asset that my online presence often precedes peoples' acquaintance with my 'real' self, because my ideas/writings/skills become more important than my non-normative body. I've heard it suggested that the internet is a 'democratizing' force that has the potential to disrupt many of the structures of contemporary society. I don't know if I wholly agree that that's the case (especially with the problems of the digital divide) but it's satisfying to know that there's now a solid workable model for decentralizing the work done by tech-minded humanists, and that the tool we created, Anthologize, will also create possibilities for those of us who do primarily online writing--to have an open-source method for refining and packaging our ideas.

a bit of shell-shock

2010-08-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

Last night my plane sat on the tarmac for more than 30 minutes before getting gate clearance. And we ended up being unloaded rather far off to one end of the airport so I came in a side door on a far gate rather than the regular JetBlue terminal. This meant that I exited the airport and walked down to where John awaited me at baggage claim. Seeing him from afar, I almost didn't recognize him! Those six weeks of unruly uncut curls! But what was truly awesome was that he was positioned at the gate, watching the door, with his back to where I was. So I came up behind him and watched his body shift (almost in slow motion, like a movie) as I whispered. Love, I'm here. And then he took me in his arms and I buried my head in that strong shoulder of his and let the tears fall.

The past week has, of course, been one of the most exciting times of my professional life. Working with the brilliant and affable people of the One Week | One Tool team exceeded my expectations in every which way. I especially loved that it was a diversion from the challenges of the weeks that had preceded it. Even though we were working super-hard on our project, it was actually far less stressful than the weeks that had preceded it...

I'd had a perfect storm of DH experiences over the summer--such amazingly rich conferences. But I'd also been solo-parenting the kids while John was at Clarion (managing all of the end-of-school-year busy-ness along with their personal and outrigger team schedules), had just started a full-time job where in the space of four weeks I rolled out two major web projects and oversaw a large-scale courseware migration project, was in training for the time trials for the adaptive team for the Outrigger World Champs, and was managing the health needs of a critically-ill cat. And throw into the mix the care of a 450 sq ft summer garden, various household projects, a car that broke down, a dissertation-in-progress, a broken prosthetic leg (temporarily fixed so I could travel), 3 major trips (including two across international borders), etc. And I think....it was just about too much.

I feel now, a bit shell-shocked at all that has happened the past few weeks. I'm terribly behind on emails and thank yous and stuff. I have a mountain of laundry. I have plenty of stuff to do to prepare for Tuesday's OneWeek software launch. I'm also finding that I just can't seem to turn off my brain. I keep yammering on about work to John and can hardly enjoy the pleasures of home. I'm not trying to complain--really the magic of all I've learned and done leaves me with no regrets. But I am...exhausted and raw. I need some time, some ocean, my lover's arms, and some good deep sleep...

The Capitol (i.e. we rock DC)

2010-07-24T16:25:00.001-07:00

The Capitol (i.e. we rock DC), originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Heading to the DC-area once again, this time sans family and sans winter coats, hats, mittens, etc...

I've heard it's been pretty hot in those there parts of the country lately. :)

embodied

2010-07-22T13:39:00.001-07:00

self-po, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

In one of the more important Mormon temple rituals, your body is washed with water and anointed with oil. This washing and anointing is mostly symbolic--water and oil are only touched to a few points on your skin as sacred words are repeated by the officiants. However, what is most memorable about this ritual, is that the interaction happens after you remove all of your clothing.* The only item allowed to be worn is a wedding ring. For modesty's sake, your body is draped in a white sheet throughout the washing and anointing process.

When I received this ritual, it didn't occur to me to remove my artificial limb. Most likely that was due to the fact that I wouldn't have been ambulatory without it, and also because I was not sure exactly what the "rules" were about such things and no one clarified them for me (for the most part, these rituals are not explained beforehand, due to their sacred nature). Since then I've learned that women with breast prosthetics can choose to wear them during the ritual. I've never heard any definitive word on the wearing of artificial limbs, but I suspect that it is allowable.

Because of the staging of this ritual, it was not evident to the recipients that I was wearing an artificial leg until it was nearly completed, when the officiant bent down in front of me to bless my legs (while I was seated on a throne-chair). After undergoing the washing and anointing a few times, I learned to catch the gaze of the officiant as she reached out to touch my not-real leg. There was often a pause. Usually a knowing glance was exchanged between us as she continued on with the script of the ritual (were she to speak words other than those prescribed, the ritual would be deemed ineffective and would have to be repeated according the prescribed pattern).

In the moments after the ritual, as we waited for me to be escorted by an officiant to the next step in the process, there was often a moment for some whispered conversation. Usually the officiant would mention something about my leg, asking how did I lose it, or commenting that my prosthesis looked very lifelike (which was back in the day before I chose to let my robotic innards hang out).

Those ritual moments, are, for me, emblematic of how I view my relationship to my prosthetic leg. It seems as much a part of me as my tongue, or my eyes, or my liver. That I take it off at night and lay it next to my bed, doesn't make it any less "me." That it is a thing of metal and plastic and vinyl, doesn't make it any less familiar than my other leg and foot. That it sometimes makes an audible whirring adjustment sound when I walk through quiet spaces, is no different than the familiar creaks of my organic joints. That its parts are fabricated from components that come from all over the globe, and are assembled by workers in Germany and are fitted to my body by men in Orange County, doesn't make it any less me. Perhaps what makes it feel the most 'foreign' is the attention that my leg garners as I move through public space. It is the reaction of others that reminds me that I am different.

I suppose that being a cyborg comes "naturally" to me. I couldn't live my life normally without the microprocessor in my knee, or the metal crutches that I use when I'm not wearing my prosthetic. These tools are so much a part of my life that they are my life. They are familiar in the same way that my hands are on my keyboard. I don't think each time I type that I am sending letters from my fingertips to the screen and out to you. I just do it. Like that, I just walk. And stand. And move. The way that I do.

*Note: recently there were some changes to this ritual that include less physical interaction between officiant and recipient, and also how much clothing is removed beforehand. I am discussing how it worked back in 1992, when I first participated.

on pain...and memory

2010-07-20T19:39:00.000-07:00

A conversation with a friend about surgical pain prompted me to resurrect this older post that never made it out of my drafts folder. It's a rather stream-of-consciousness piece, a musing on my own relationship to pain.

"It's kind of freaky the way you smile when you tell me these things," he said, stopping me mid-sentence. I was telling the story of my leg infection and had just launched into the part where I was explaining the surgery. I had lifted up my left pantleg to show the scar and was explaining the debriding of the wound.

I was silent for a moment, rehearsing the last few moments in an attempt to find that spot in my story where I'd left off. I dropped my pantleg.

I'd chosen him as my therapist purposefully. A Jew (not a Mormon or a Christian). A musician. One of the few people whose library could rival mine, books stacked in piles on cinderblock shelves. Older than my father and nothing at all like him, with curly hair going every which direction. So I sat on his couch with my legs crossed, not even sure why I was there except that it seemed I had work to do. A black fog inside my head. Fragility. Fatigue. A desire to put some things behind me. And to figure some things out. He had a swimming pool in his front courtyard and yet he confessed to me during our first visit that he didn't even know how to swim.

I felt my smile widen on my face again and wondered when it would be appropriate to continue my tale. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to continue, though. Maybe we were supposed to stop here and talk about something else. Something deep. I waited for him to signal me, to tell me what was supposed to happen now.

"Why are you still smiliing?" he asked. I didn't know. The smile went with the story. Hand-in-hand.

I curled my body into a tight ball, fitted into the hollow of John's body as we lay next to each other in bed, the layers of comforters over my head. It was one of those cold nights. When no amount of clothing would keep me warm. He took my icy fist in his and tried to spread out the fingers to alternate with his own. But my instinct to ball my fingers made me resist. As I shivered he pulled at my various layers of clothing and uncovered the stump of my right leg, knowing it would be the coldest part. He clasped the soft tissue in his warm hands and held firmly, passing heat from his body to mine, so I could sleep.

"Jana's complaining of pain again," I read at the top of the next page as I turned the microfilm knob. I recognized my nurse Penny's handwriting. Larger and loopier than most of the other writing on the records in the medical files that I was perusing in the microforms room of the Children's Hospital. After reading page after page I realized how much I liked when the nurses used my name: Jana slept all afternoon, Jana seems in good spirits today, Jana took a bath. Jana's friends from church came to visit. Jana's in pain again. So much better than The patient slept all afternoon, The patient took a wheelchair ride outside. The patient says she wants more demerol.

There was one common refrain in nearly every entry: Jana's in pain. Jana's in pain again. The patient is complaining of pain.

I recalled the various landmark events of that time: the surgeries, the emergencies, the bloodcell counts, the benchmarks, the dirty scans, the clean scans. And that horrid wallpaper. The ridiculous pastel pattern of abstract llama-creatures with knees slightly bent, marching in static rows across the walls. I remember grabbing the cold metal railings of the bed and staring at that wallpaper. Screaming, as the needles go in.

some days...

2010-07-19T20:42:00.001-07:00

Lake District by train, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

As I'm transitioning into the life of a university administrator (wow, that still feels so odd to say), I'm learning that there are some days that are just plain difficult.

Over the weekend we had a major and necessary change in our university's courseware system. We'd run two thorough and successful tests of this change over the past two months and yet, today, we learned that some significant things had gone awry anyways. It fell on my shoulders to smooth the frustrations of staff, faculty and students, even as I was troubleshooting the system and searching for solutions. I tend to take these things personally. When people are frustrated with the software, I feel as though they are frustrated with me, or I feel as though my incompetence is revealed by the problem.

So today was hard. I spent a lot of time sighing deeply at my computer screen, wishing that I had a magic wand to make it all better.

And then I came home to my two eager (but ever so slightly teen-whiny) kids. And I was able to entice TobyJoy to eat a few small meals and take her pills (an ongoing battle in the Toby-saga). And we had a long and silly vidchat with John. And we had some tasty pizza slices from our old friend Ray. And we stopped by Trader Joe's and saw our neighbor-manager Carolyn and picked up a few grocery staples to get us through this week.

When I checked my work email just now, I learned that the fix the IT team ran on the servers seems to have worked. My fingers are crossed that it is truly so, and that tomorrow will be an easier day for all of our users. In the meantime, I'm trying to relax a bit and pull things into perspective again.

turning

2010-07-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in seat two of the orange and blue canoe in this picture. We're making a turn here, fighting with a slew of other boats to get the best position (not on the outside). Turns are so exciting and scary--bumping up against other canoes and trying to get the timing just right! I love it when we get the chance to see photos that reflect some of the craziness of those moments!

ruins

2010-07-13T06:51:00.001-07:00

Furness Abbey, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Furness Abbey was one of my favorite spots that we visited on our trip. It's much like the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey and Peel Castle that we've visited on past trips to the UK. I don't know why I enjoy wandering around castle ruins so much more than real-life working castles, but I do. A ruined castle has so many more stories to tell, perhaps. Wordsworth seems to agree with me on this point, too (note: a railway runs along one side of the abbey):

AT FURNESS ABBEY

WELL have yon Railway Labourers to THIS ground
Withdrawn for noontide rest. They sit, they walk
Among the Ruins, but no idle talk
Is heard; to grave demeanour all are bound;
And from one voice a Hymn with tuneful sound
Hallows once more the long-deserted Quire
And thrills the old sepulchral earth, around.
Others look up, and with fixed eyes admire
That wide-spanned arch, wondering how it was raised,
To keep, so high in air, its strength and grace:
All seem to feel the spirit of the place,
And by the general reverence God is praised:
Profane Despoilers, stand ye not reproved,
While thus these simple-hearted men are moved?

~WIlliam Wordsworth
June 21, 1845.

our dreams

2010-07-12T07:43:00.001-07:00

Lake District by train, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

We returned home last night after an absolutely wearying day of travel. It was a day where we where often singled out of for "extra " security checks, where we stood in lines for hours at each transfer point, where the ridiculousness of it all nearly pushed me over the edge a few times. All in all, a good sign that it was time to be home and to return to some semblance of our own daily rhythm.

Waking up this morning in my own bed and the exact time (even w/o an alarm clock) that I usually do each morning...just felt so right! Irvine's humidity is so delicious. the familiar birds chirping outside are my birds," and so forth.

So...

We came home to something so important I'm not even sure that I can write about it cogently (and if this doesn't make a whole lot of sense, you can chalk it up to jetlagged delusion). Two weeks ago, just as we were preparing to leave on our trip, our beloved kitty TobyJoy had a severe neurological incident. So severe that she needed round the clock care. And as our lives were completely derailed by concern for her, we knew that we were also about to leave the country on this trip to England that was so super-important to my kids--both of whom are Anglophiles, and one whose biggest wild dream is to start boarding school in Wales next year. We were faced with this horrible catch-22 situation. TobyJoy needed to be brought to a quiet controlled environment if there was any chance of her healing, because over-stimulation was causing more seizures of the kind that initially caused her brain damage, but she was in such a state that she could hardly be cared for by anyone other than a family member. Boarding in her in a kennel simply wasn't a good option. It was super hard for us to see Toby so ill (if you've never met her--it's hard to imagine a cat with a more whimsical quirky character), and we were just aching with seeing her hooked up to tubes and so deeply drugged that she wasn't aware of her surroundings. We wondered if it woudn't be more humane to put her to sleep than to continue her medical trauma (and at that point it wasn't even clear that she would ever eat or drink on her own again).

So..as all of these ideas were on the table and I was trying to make decisions, a dear friend who is studying neurology, whose research is specifically on small mammals, stepped in and offered to care for Toby so we could go to England.

She (along with her partner and some other friends), developed a round-the-clock schedule for caring for Toby once she was released from the ER. She ferried Toby to vet appointments, cleaned up after numerous toileting problems, prepared a specialized diet, and administered a dizzying amount of meds every day. All while we were traipsing the British countryside. Our friend wrote daily updates, sent videos, and worked with our vet to troubleshoot problems.

When we came home last night and met Toby, we found a kitty that's still suffering from occasional seizures, but recognized Catgirl, held her tail high as she explored, vocalized pleasure at being around our family again, and now remembers how to use the litterbox. In short, she seems happy. Certainly a bit different than before, but happy.

As I tried (and failed) to express to our friend just how much it meant to us to have her care for Toby, she simply replied, "Your family had this summer planned where you were all out pursuing your dreams...I wanted you to be able to do that..."

Anything I try to write now, can't even touch the goodness of that gift.

cream tea!

2010-07-09T15:07:00.001-07:00

cream tea!, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

because he's a rockstar to me...

2010-07-09T15:05:00.001-07:00

because he's a rockstar to me..., originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Though this is their first time at the Bodleian, I'm sure it won't be the last...

2010-07-09T15:04:00.001-07:00

Though this is their first time at the Bodleian, I'm sure it won't be the last..., originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Catgirl worships at the shrine of 9 3/4

2010-07-09T15:02:00.001-07:00

Catgirl worships at the shrine of 9 3/4, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

England

2010-07-08T08:38:00.001-07:00

Lake District by train, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

We're still enjoying our England tour, moving madly from one site/event to the next after having a few leisurely days in the Lake District.

I especially enjoyed our long train(!) tour up the Cumbrian coast to Carlisle and then back through the center of England. So many rolling hills, small plots of lands dotted with rock walls, sheep, and so so so much green. And trains. Did I mention trains?

As always, the kids are excellent travelers. They've survived some bad food, some awkward sleeping situations, and several long marches wearing heavy backpacks. But they aren't complaining one whit! Their enthusiasm for this adventure is keeping me going--even when I'm exhausted and a wee bit grumpy (especially those times when I think I can hardly stand one more moment without a wireless connection)...

our TobyJoy

2010-07-04T13:53:00.001-07:00

Toby's improving!
Originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl

A few days ago, our Toby became very ill. Though we don't yet know the mystery of why or how this happened, it appears that she suffered some neurological damage.

Every day since then she's made leaps in recovery, and while she might never be the ladder-climbing mouthy kitty that she once was, we are hopeful she will recover many of her former abilities and her quirky personality.

Our friends who are caring for Toby sent this video of her eating--a remarkable moment considering how difficult it's been to entice her to food.

Joy, indeed.

it's the little things...

2010-07-04T11:22:00.001-07:00

afternoon tea & cake, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

I love how tea & cake is part of the everyday ritual here...

adventure

2010-07-03T13:46:00.001-07:00

IMG_0165, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

30 hours without a night's sleep is a long time! But, hey, we are super-travelers. :)

Some highlights from today include a walk-that-took-forever from the train station to our B&B, a ramble down a random footpath that led precisely to the place that we wanted to be, meeting an emo cow who insisted on sitting in the shade to write poetry, and wandering a ruined Abbey that inspired Wordsworth. Gameboy tried vinegar on his chips (did not like), Catgirl is eating salad everywhere because of so few vegetarian options, and we opted out of scones & cream this afternoon because we were too tired to really appreciate it. Oh, and did I mention trains? A gorgeous train ride through central England and into the southern Lake District.

We are on the top floor of a charming inn, and our view looks across a row of backyards. A clothesline with sheets flapping in the wind is so utterly charming. It's just like Catgirl said when she ordered some tap water with her lunch...she took a sip and then smiled ear to ear. I asked her if the water was particularly good an she replied, "It doesn't matter how it tastes...it's England water!"

pre-trip panic

2010-06-27T20:14:00.001-07:00

IMG_1794, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

I'm sure you know what I'm talking about--those moments where you're gathering all the loose ends and wondering if you're really going to be able to pull it off...I typically hit this place just before a trip where the small frustrations of packing and itinerary-making cause me to wonder if it wouldn't be easier to just stay home?

There are so many unknowns with travel, so many connections to make (or not make). And I'm afraid. So much could go wrong!

Here are the three of us in Rheims, France. We're behind the Basilica de St Remy, just after the Jean d'Arc parade in 2004. Isn't the lavender gorgeous?

play

2010-06-24T20:53:00.001-07:00

hipstamtic me, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

I crave a regular creative outlet. So even though my work has kept me incredibly busy lately, I still need a bit of space for "play." The past few days that space has been filled with a bit of artsy photography with the Hispstamatic filter. I know it's awfully trendy of me (it seems like everyone on twitter is Hipsta right now), but it's been a great way to keep my creative juices flowing...

perspective

2010-06-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about the impact of "perspective" on the way we view our lives. For example, if viewed through a particular point of view, my life would look like this:

-i had cancer and lost my leg. i'll never run again, and walking is often painful. people stare and say rude things to me, especially if i'm not wearing my prosthesis. the simplest of things can be hard. i fall sometimes, which is embarrassing. it's not easy to get health insurance. it's also quite difficult to be employed with a visible disability. everything is harder for me than for most people. the chance of me getting cancer again is high, due to the types of treatment that i had. i feel unattractive because my body is scarred and assymetrical.

Or through a different lens, I could view it this way:

-Having cancer and losing my leg hasn't held me back in any significant way. I'm still healthy because I can exercise and eat well. I have medical insurance that allows me to buy hi-tech prosthetics to increase my safety and agility. Having a disability helps me to meet more people than I would otherwise, and has enriched my life as a result of a wider-ranging social circle and new opportunities. There's rarely anything I can't do if I put my mind to it and try hard. I have a good parking space nearly everywhere I go & strangers tend to help me if/when anything goes awry with my leg.

My days tend to be a mix of both ways of viewing my life. Sometimes I get stuck in feeling sorry for myself, and other times I feel as though I could conquer the world. I think I tend to the latter perspective--life feels very fragile and brief, so I don't want to fritter it away feeling bad about the ways things have turned out for me.

rappin'

2010-06-21T20:34:00.000-07:00

This video is so chock-full of great amp-humor, I hate to even write much to accompany it. Those who know me well will really "get it."

my ride

2010-06-20T08:03:00.001-07:00

my garden ride, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Last night I got out my bike and went for a ride. It's been a really long time since I've ridden, and I have good excuses for not riding: most of all, that my current prosthetic leg tends to come off after about half a mile of pedaling.

I only went about 1/3 of a mile when my chain locked on me. I had to walk the bike home. But I persisted--I riffled through John's bike supplies and found some chain lube, which I applied liberally. Then I spun the wheels round and round until they stopped sticking. Then I got on and cautiously (just in case the chain froze again) went back and forth between my place and my garden. Then I wheeled up and down the nearby hill and did donuts in the parking lot.

I was pretty oblivious to anyone around me as I was biking in the dark. And I suppose I did look rather strange on my red tricycle in the dark, smiling from ear to ear. So when a car-full of college kids sang out to me as they drove slowly past me in the parking lot, I was rather startled at first. They intoned the slightly-altered chorus of a Queen song, "I want to ride your tricycle...." (btw, I do love me some Queen). I suppose they might've meant it rudely--after all I was quite an odd sight out there. But I took it as a compliment. :)

After I got home I realized that I haven't really biked much at all since my surgery two years ago. My lower leg was burning a bit around my incision, which wasn't an entirely-comfortable feeling. I suspect that there some scar tissue in there that's getting a good stretch.

But it feels great to be back on three wheels again. I'll be getting a tweak to my leg soon that will hopefully solve the falling-off problem, so I hope to be biking more often from here on out! :)

send-off

2010-06-19T16:07:00.001-07:00

Park pose, 1990, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Just finished handwriting my first letter to John in Seattle (where he's studying SF writing this summer). But before I wrote to him, I read through many of the weekly letters that I sent him while he was in Japan on his LDS mission. He left for two years just shortly after we met. Those 20 year-old letters are so embarrassingly sappy to me now, and have moments of discomfort that make me cringe. How do you negotiate sensitive topics while halfway around the globe from each other, with a lag of weeks between correspondence (we weren't allowed to talk on the phone, nor could we have afforded it)? There was so much unsaid, so much reading between the lines...so much wondering who we would find when we reunited...

And even though we have many ways of keeping in touch now--it's still gonna be one long summer apart from my love :(

Picture above was taken the Sunday before John left for Japan, following his missionary "farewell" meeting at church. We were so silly & dramatic back then!

With the Yeoman Warders

2010-06-17T12:58:00.001-07:00

With the Yeoman Warders at the Tower of London, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Methinks that if GameBoy takes a pic with the Yeoman Warders when we're in England next month, he might just be taller than they are :)

(Oh, how I miss my cuddly little boy, and oh how I adore the one who now looks down at his mom!)

Seattle-bound

2010-06-13T08:14:00.000-07:00

My plans for this trip had to change at the last minute, due to my confusion over the ferry schedule back to Seattle. So instead of an extra day to explore Vancouver Island, I gained a day to explore Seattle (how odd that it is, really, considering that in just a few days, John will be settling into making this city his new temporary home…). One of the joys of such a spontaneous change is that I was able to quickly make contact with a Seattle blogger that I’ve followed for several years. She and I shared a friend in Sara, but have never met. We also share a love for gardening and the Japanese culture, as well as experience with cancer.

The change in travel plans has meant less time as a tourist—I never did even make it to a tea shop in Victoria—but more time talking with fellow travelers at my conference. Last night I ended up sharing dinner with a woman that I’d just met, after we learned that we had children of similar ages and temperaments (and we’d bought similar take-home gifts in the UVic bookstore). As we walked on we realized that both of our spouses build/manage databases and we also share a passion for 19^th-century women’s history. Sharing a cab to the ferry this morning I had similarly provocative conversations with scholars from California,New York, and Illinois.

As I write this, I’m looking out over the rolling waters of the Juan de Fuca strait and dreaming about paddling those waters someday. My very small taste of the Pacific Northwest & Vancouver Island has me convinced that this is a place to return to again soon. A place that I could even call home someday. But even more than the connection that I’m finding to the cities and structures of the area, I’m feeling full of the conversations and connections that’ve emerged in the past few days. I’m coming home full of ideas and possibilities, ready for even more such experiences at the conferences coming up in July, and for my research projects.

As busy as a...bunny?

2010-06-10T21:47:00.000-07:00

I'm working on gathering the statistical information for the maps that I'm making this week, and I just encountered the image above in a scanned googlebook from the 1870s. It actually gave me the creeps--like those goosebumps that I get on the back of my neck when there's an odd breeze blowing through an empty room. And it sort of reminds me of the creepy nineteenth-century spiritualist images, too...

PS: The bunny reference has to do with the overabundance of the creatures on this campus. Being very careful of the ones with fangs, I promise!

Something old, something new...

2010-06-08T23:06:00.000-07:00

There are parts of my life in which I'm extremely old-fashioned, and others that I'm completely hi-tech. For example, I'd choose a turn-of-the-last-century house, a vinyl album, and vintage clothing over the same items new. But I'm an early adopter of most social technologies--first using BBSs, email, geocities, and listservs back in the early 90s, blogging for nearly a decade, and now an avid twitterer.

I don't see much of a pattern in my proclivities. But it does seem that I prefer old *things* and I prefer new *methods.* So my car is 13 years-old and my laptop is seven and my SIGG bottle wears its battle scars proudly. But I usually know whatever the "new big thing" is on the web, follow twitter trending topics avidly, and enjoy discussing the latest tech news.

The old and new are on my mind today because I've gotten several comments lately about the fact that this blog still lives on blogger (an artifact from the day when blogspot.com was the latest shiny tool). I've actually re-built this site several times on wordpress, and yet each time I've started the process of migrating the content, I've changed my mind. It's likely that I'll actually move forward with it soon, as part of my online portfolio project--but it's hard to move on from a space that's been 'home' for so long. It feels like that comfortable pair of jeans that just keeps emerging from my closet even though it's well past time for them to become quilting materials.

Picture above shows the bunnies congregating at the University of Victoria

sailing away...

2010-06-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I sailed away from the United States and entered Canada. This is my first trip to Canada that was more than a day-long jaunt or a layover. I love the variety accents. There were French-speaking teens surrounding me on my ferry ride. The restaurants give me "evidence" rather than a credit card receipt. It is not cold here, but it did rain yesterday.

Perhaps the best part of my travels is meeting several online friends in real life--I especially appreciate the 'taxi' service from @leisurelyviking and @jcmeloni. Traveling tends to reaffirm the faith I have in the connectedness of our world, as well as the deep-down beauty of stranger-friends.

I am here for an intensive summer workshop. I'd kind of forgotten what it feels like to be a student and take lecture notes. But it's all coming back very quickly...And I love that my instructor's recent research focuses on literary journeys through the Lake District of northern England. I am now scheming a jaunt to that region either before or after my conference in London next month. Such scenery. Such history. Such adventure! :)

PS: This journey marks my first out-of-the-country trip on my own. Also, my first by-myself ferry ride.

transitions

2010-06-05T16:15:00.001-07:00

under the rose arbor, in the sunshine, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

This past few months have been full of unknowns for me and my family. For example, we learned that there was a strong chance that our apartment would be demolished this summer, but were given no certainty or specific timetable for that event. A few months ago I'd also received word that a job offer was imminent from Chapman University, but then time marched on with nothing concrete happening on that front. And so forth...

Well, many of those unknowns have recently become decided. Our apartment will not be demolished but my beloved community garden (also on university property) will. I received my formal job offer this Friday. I also learned that I received funding to travel to an international conference in England later this summer, and the issues with my health insurance company were recently resolved in my favor. And I received word that I earned only one fellowship to support my studies this next year (at the Huntington Library--lucky me!).

Whew, there's something so very comforting about having fewer unknowns looming on the horizon. I like to think of myself as someone who sees the world in a rather rosy light, but there are times when things seem so uncertain that it's difficult to not let that overwhelm me...and eclipse my daily joys.

Last night I sat in the garden with two dear friends and started remembering all of the stories that are held in that soil. There are memories from when my kids were small and we saw fairies in the dew that gathered at the joints of the cornstalk leaves. There are times with sunflower houses, bean teepees, spontaneous potlucks, and BLACKBERRIES. There are bumblebees and gophers and rats and those damn peach-thieving squirrels. There are plants that just keep growing, and some that don't make it after all. There's mud and sweat and tears. There's silence and birdsong. There's the smell of lavender at dusk. And there is knowing that no matter where I go, I will always have a garden.

Walden, the game

2010-06-03T21:43:00.000-07:00

I am so in love with Henry David Thoreau and his beans, that when I heard today about a project to build an interactive video game to replicate Henry's experience, my mind just kind of exploded. And now I'm beginning to imagine immersive virtual reality in a whole new way.

changes

2010-06-01T23:00:00.001-07:00

peaches-in-the-making, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

My life has been full of unknowns this past few months. And then this past week, thing after thing has been falling into place--or at least reaching a point of certainty.

For example, we learned tonite that our apartment will not be among those that will be demolished this summer. We can breathe easier knowing that a move of our household is not imminent.

However, our Community Garden will be moved. This space that has nurtured student gardens since the 60s will never be the same in a new space.

So now I'm wondering if this will be the last year that I will see the blossoms on my Mother's Day tree (gifted to me when Catgirl was a toddler)? I doubt the new Garden space will allow trees, so perhaps it can be moved to a home with a backyard that has a perfect spot for it...

water-therapy

2010-05-24T21:23:00.000-07:00

This post is one of a series to support my 39th Birthday Wish.

After my amputation, the surgeon put a cast on the stump of my right leg to protect the wound as it healed for the first few weeks. He replaced the cast occasionally as the swelling decreased. The day I got the cast off for the final time, the first thing I did was head to physical therapy in the hospital's swimming pool. What an amazing feeling that was to float in the water after weeks of being confined to hospital beds and wheelchairs...

I still feel more at home in water than on land. Here's a picture of me taking a leap into Walden Pond last fall:

Having lost my leg at such a young age, there have been some times I've felt the loss very keenly. It's hard to explain what it feels like to have such a significant part of oneself gone, but there's an ache that's similar to what I've experienced when a loved one dies. Last fall when I was in Denver for an academic conference, I did something rather unusual--I visited the hospital where I had my cancer treatment, and asked to view my medical files. I learned many things from going through those files, but the most profound moment was when I received the pathology images that included pictures of my leg after the amputation surgery. The images showed the extent of the tumor, via cross-section of bone and tissue.

To work through the complicated emotions that I felt about those pictures, I went to the pool for a long swim, taking the laps slow and hard while my mind chewed on what I'd seen. As the light cast dappled patterns in the water around me I felt past and present collide: I was a little girl with two legs, I was a young teen swimming for the first time after her surgery, I was a grown woman who was still making sense of her loss. I was swimming, stretching, remembering, and moving on.

On Turning 39...

2010-05-24T12:01:00.000-07:00

This post is one of a series to support my 39th Birthday Wish.

Turning 39 feels awfully old. And I know most people, especially women, feel wearied by this number--with 40 looming just around the corner.

But here's the thing: For a few years I doubted whether I would even make it to see my 15th birthday. That I'm still kickin' at 39 is nothing short of a miracle to me.

Picture at left is of me during chemo. I'm wearing a wig and a favorite purple sweatshirt that a friend personalized for me.

The Ocean & Me

2010-05-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

This post is about my experiences with the ocean, and is one of a series to support my 39th Birthday Wish.

My maternal ancestors come from the Isle of Man, a peculiar piece of land that's situated in the Irish Sea. My ggggrandfather and his kin were ship captains, and were certainly smugglers like most who hailed from Manx ports. A few years ago when we visited the Isle we saw his warehouse in the main port city. We also saw the ancestral farmlands and the parish cemetery where nearly every headstone had a familiar name.

I didn't see the ocean myself until I was 14 years old, having grown up in Oklahoma and Colorado. I'd just completed a year of chemotherapy treatments and my family planned a HUGE trip to California. My first glimpse of the ocean was from PCH, driving towards San Diego from LAX. By that time I'd already lost my leg and was ambulating rather precariously using crutches and an ill-fitting prosthetic limb. I don't recall actually dipping my toes into the Pacific during that trip, though it's possible that I did. Much of my memory of that era is long gone--which may be a blessing given how tough a time it was for me.

Shortly after that trip to California my family relocated from Denver to Bakersfield, which meant that we lived close enough to visit the beach a few times every year. However, because none of my prosthetic limbs were water-proof (or even water-resistant), I had to use crutches when I wanted to be on the beach. And the logistics of trying to "crutch" in the waves was so frustrating, I never went more than shin-deep in the ocean until about two years ago. Isn't that crazy? My first swim in the ocean was at age 36! That summer John & the kids helped me do so by fetching my crutches back and forth as I needed them to enter & exit the ocean. And I had the opportunity to swim in both the Pacific and the Atlantic ocean that year because of our family vacation to the outer banks of North Carolina.

When I decided to take up the sport of outrigger canoeing, I met with my prosthetist and discussed the possibility of crafting a waterproof leg that I could wear in and out of the canoes. He'd never made a leg like the one that I wanted, but was willing to see what he could come up with! He ended up cobbling together a "pirate" pegleg with an ankle joint at the knee (the only waterproof joint he could find that could be locked into both straight and bent positions). There's a little knob that I turn at my knee when I transfer from walking to sitting in the boat, that locks the knee in either position. Perhaps the most questionable part of this leg was whether it would stay on when I fell out of the boat or needed to jump into the ocean (such as in 9-man season when we change seats for the long races). The first time I tried was on a "huli drill" where I had tip our 6-man canoe to practice the recovery process. I was in charge of tipping the boat because I was the steersman. I can't tell you how scared I was about that--not even knowing if my leg would stay on once I fell into the water, much less knowing how it would work to swim in the ocean with it attached to my body!

But what I learned from my huli drill & from the other times that I wore it in the ocean, was that leg does stay on and that it's quite a gift to be able to walk autonomously from beach to water. Each time that I've jumped out into the waves and started swimming is a miracle to me. I don't take it for granted even for a second! It took me 36 years to swim in the ocean and when I did, it felt so "right."

I suspect that my love for the ocean runs gene-deep, coming from my island ancestors who sailed the seas. But whatever the reason, when I'm in the ocean I feel connected to the universe in a way that I've never felt in any other space. With the water buoying me up, the rhythm of the waves rocking my body, the sun warming my skin, and the thrill of the unknown below...it's there that I feel the complete perfection of my life and this world.

Picture of me in the Atlantic Ocean with GameBoy and my little sister.

My 39th Birthday Wish

2010-05-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

Many of you probably remember my birthday wish last year, where we raised over a thousand dollars for HandReach to purchase prosthetic limbs for Huang Meihua, a survivor of the Sichuan earthquake. What a wonderful experience that was, particularly because I was marking the 25th anniversary of my cancer diagnosis with that event.

I wanted to do something similar this year, and have thought a lot about what might be an appropriate organization to support with birthday donations. Because here's the thing: I have everything I need and want. And my birthday would be so much more meaningful if we could "gift" something together. So I've got a plan...

But first, a story: Nearly two years ago when I was just starting to recover from my leg infection and wanted to "get healthy" again by exercising, I was chatting with my neighbor. I was telling her how frustrated I was with nearly every athletic activity that I'd tried, because I always had to 'adapt' the activity to me--to do different poses than the rest of the yoga class, to ride a heavy 3-wheeler instead of regular bicycle, and so forth. I told her that I wanted to find a sport that I could do without having to alter it for my different body. She then told me about some of her friends who had lower-limb issues (from amputation to blown out knees to nerve damage) who were outrigger or dragon boat paddlers. She then suggested that I try it out and told me about her team (IMUA Outrigger Canoe Club).

Well, most of you have already heard what happened after that...and you have been all-too-kind in indulging my paddling passion in the meantime...

So here's how this is relevant to my birthday:

First and most importantly, I want each of you to think about someone you know that should know about paddling, and share my story with them. Tell them about the one-legged 39 year-old blogger that you discovered through the magic of the internet and let them know that paddling is the perfect sport for someone who has lower limb issues (or for anyone who loves the water and wants to move their body!). Send them the link to my website. Spread the good word of the paddle far and wide. Really, truly, this is what I most want for my birthday. I want to reach the folks out there who need to know that outrigger canoeing just might be the perfect sport for them. Here are some relevant links that you could send them:

My first race--when our boat tipped over just after the starting line

Learning to steer the canoe

On Cancer, Canoes, & Connectedness

My thoughts after racing from Newport Beach to Catalina Island

So share this with your friends and drop a comment below to let me know how it went. I can't wait to hear about it! To know that others might find paddling as satisfying as I have, would be the perfect gift.

Second: As I've become more involved in the outrigger community, I've learned that there are some "Adaptive" racing opportunities out there for those of us with disabilities. For example, you might remember that originally I'd planned on spending birthday #39 in New Caledonia, paddling for an Adaptive team at the World Va'a Champs. But our racing division was canceled because there weren't enough Adaptive teams signed up for the event. What I've learned from this is that I don't really need to paddle for an Adaptive team. Outrigger is a sport the 'levels the playing field' and I can compete with bipeds just fine. And this is where the second part of my wish comes in...

My Team, IMUA, has three lower-limb amputee paddlers. When I showed up on the beach for practice for the first time, no one suggested that I wasn't "able" enough to compete with the team. Though team members were more than willing to make sure that I could get in & out of the boat okay (which, before I got my waterproof prosthesis, meant stowing my crutches on the beach above the tideline as we launched), there was never a moment where anyone suggested that I needed to be on a different team because of my disability. And the fact that IMUA has three amputee paddlers when I don't know of any others in our league says a lot about our team's openness. Not only do we have amputee paddlers, but we have paddlers with bodies of all shapes and of all ages (from 7 years-old to 70 years-old!). Some of us are elite athletes and some of us are just keeping fit. The diversity of the team is its biggest strength!

So if you'd like to give a donation to celebrate my birthday, I'm asking that you donate to IMUA in my name, to carry on the good work of the team that has embraced me this past year. Our team is doing so much good in the world of paddling--from sending a Senior Masters Team to race in Hawaii this week, to developing a full-fledged Children's program that includes 3 groups at different age levels (my kids' teams), to being the most enthusiastic group at the local races. To sweeten the deal, for everyone who donates $39, I'll take you out on the water for your own personal outrigger lesson! We'll go out for a few hours in the Newport harbor on 1 or 2-man outrigger canoes. If you're not local, we'll take a raincheck for the next time you're in SoCal (because everyone tends to get down here for one reason or another!). My birthday goal is to find 10 friends who'd like to donate $39 for a personal paddling lesson. (Note: If you want to donate, send me the funds via PayPal to janaremyATgmailDOTcom. I'll have a button up on my site in a day or two where you can make direct donations to the team, but until then, just send the money to me and I'll pass it along to the team).

So it's really simple, friends. Don't bother with birthday cards or cake or anything like that. Just tell my story to someone that you know and pass along the link to this post and/or some of my other outrigger posts. And if you're ready to join in the fun, pledge some money and we'll get you all set up for your very own lesson. By doing this, you'll give me a super gift. Because if we can share this sport with just a few friends and friends-of-friends who really need to hear that there's the perfect mode of exercise out there for their particular body, then I'll be thrilled! That will make my day and my year just perfect!

some lessons from the sea

2010-05-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

Just returned from a family adventure to the Santa Barbara coast. Catgirl & I had races launching off of Leadbetter Beach on Saturday morning, so it seemed a great excuse for the family to "get away" for a couple of days. [Note: Why does "getting away" in LA necessarily mean hours of time spent fighting traffic (sigh). Next year we will plan better so we can take the train instead of driving...]

Our campground was one of those where there is more space for cars and RVs than for tents (hello, SoCal), and our campfire was only about 10 feet away from that of our neighboring site. But the location was incomparable. On the other side of that campfire was a chainlink fence and on the other side of the fence: traintracks! (oh, how I do love me a train!). Periodically the Surfliner and freight trains would come crashing through--so loud that the ground shook and it felt like they would soon come barreling into our campsite. Perfect! Oh, and on the other side of a row of RV campsites was the water--the waves crashing loudly against cliffs of natural bitumen. Scrambling along those cliffs was quite the adventure for us! Amazing shells, rocks and other wonders. Because we arrived at dusk we mostly explored the cliffs (at high-ish tide) in the dark that first night. As I sat on an outcropping with my legs dangling down far enough to catch the spray of the waves crashing beneath me, all was right in my world.

Saturday morning we arose before dawn to prep for our race. Catgirl launched with her canoe into the ocean around 8am. It was their first surf entry and their first paddle in the open ocean. When we could see that about a mile out a boat huli'd, we quickly asked some race officials whether it was the Keiki girls. But it wasn't and they were quite safe and invigorated by their 4mi paddle! They hardly even look weary in this post-race photo!

Just after they returned, I set out for my own race, a 13mi triangle out on the open ocean. I was slated in an "Open Coed" boat with a new-to-me crew. I'd only paddled with the other two gals a few times and the three boys I met for the first time as we hopped in the canoe. My past experience with new-to-each-other crews is not so good--often it means that you don't blend well or know how to support each other. I had resigned myself to having a tough (meaning: long and frustrating) race. On top of that, I'd been asked to sit in seat #1, which I'd only done a few times at practice, and never for such a lengthy race. Seat one is particularly tough because you set the pace for the entire boat. And every time you set your blade, you're putting it into 'dead water' because you're out in front. It's hard to sit up there and keep a good rhythm for any length of time--especially out on the open ocean where you're often taking the full force of the wind and waves and having to "keep time." Adding to the difficulty is that you often can't hear what's happening in the boat behind you, because you're sitting so far forward of the rest of the crew.

The race started and we were dead last. Last. In a sea of 50+ boats, that is pretty discouraging news, indeed. I tried to remind myself that I was paddling for the fun and experience and not just for medals. I was looking at the scenery. I was trying not to focus on all of those other boats out there in front of us, getting smaller by the second...

And then somewhere between mile three and five, something changed. Other crews that had started out fast were starting to fatigue. But I could feel that my boat was just getting warmed up. We'd figured out each other's rhythms. Things were starting to gel (and, especially, the guys in seat 2 and 3 were keeping us all motivated). And then we started passing other boats. Two, then three, then four. More than I could keep track of. Seat #2 kept pointing out to me how tired those crews looked and how strong we were. We kept going. We neared one of the oil rigs off the coast--our first turning point. Kathy, our steerer, took that turn beautifully and we gained more ground. By the second turn at about mile 8, we were gaining on the other crew from our own team. I whooped as we passed, knowing that we weren't supposed to be passing them. But...wow! In those last few miles the wind picked up and we started to get catch some bump. We were surfing the swells and then we saw off the left hand side of the boat a group of about 40-50 seals, all frolicking around us--undoubtedly curious about this odd group of canoes crossing their kelp beds. That sight alone was enough to give a second wind, but then I also heard the train off in the distance. It whistled as it sped by us on the coast (or was this just my dazed imagination? I'm not even sure now). I let myself feel that sound--the sound of an engine on its tracks--and kept my arms going, even though I realized that the paddle was feeling so heavy I wasn't sure that I keep hold of it!

Heading into the finish line we were neck-and-neck with another coed crew--so close that I'm not even sure which one of us crossed first. We didn't place in the top three boats of our division, but I do believe we were 4th or 5th--a huge change from dead last! After we crossed the line and slowly turned the boat around, one of my teammates pointed out the dozens and dozens of other boats still crossing the line behind us. We had passed all of those. It was more than I could wrap my head around.

I was so sore, I needed help getting out of the boat and walking thru the surf to the shore.

In a daze I wandered back to our team's camp and ate and drank and curled up on the grass for a nap. I can't even express just how great it feels to have worked so hard, and especially to have worked so hard as a team. I'm glad that they all believed in me, and that we kept powering through the race even though we had such a rough beginning. And I'm learning that that's exactly what it means to wear the IMUA jersey.

Later that night we returned to the beach near our campsite and I had lots of time to think about what I'd learned.

Note: all of these gorgeous pictures were taken by John Nakamura Remy. How fortunate I am to be tied to a man with such vision. A full set of pictures from the race day are here.

chamomile

2010-05-13T13:10:00.001-07:00

chamomile, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

My garden is such a happening place right now! I've got tomatoes setting fruit, zucchinis bursting out in every direction, and my roses are still a-blooming! (oh and did I forget to mention BLACKBERRIES? I'll probably have my first early next week. Yay!)

This chamomile is in a few random pots in a berm of flowers in the center of my garden. The red behind them are some crazy-prolific geraniums. If you ever want some geranium starts of your own, I am your gal!

good luck kiss

2010-05-09T07:56:00.001-07:00

IMG_6363, originally uploaded by mind on fire.

It was hard to see Catgirl shove off & race yesterday--her first "Ironman" outrigger canoe race at Crystal Pier in San Diego (ironman means that it's a long course without any seat changes). Here I am giving her one last kiss before she leaves.

Of course everything went well in her race and her boat took second in the Girls' division. And my boat took second in our race later in the day--what was my most competitive and exciting race to date. What an awesome beginning to the summer race season!

moody

2010-05-07T07:50:00.001-07:00

orange, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

I'm in the mood for orange today. How about you?

climbin'

2010-05-06T16:24:00.001-07:00

climber, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

When John and I were carrying on our epistolary courtship across the Pacific (me in SoCal, he in Japan), back before the days of email (yes we are that old), we had often signed our notes with the phrase "Keep Climbin'." Perhaps that's odd, but it was our way of motivating each other to keep striving and working hard, to keep reaching our goals, etc. This was often interchanged with the Japanese phrase "Ganbatte!"

We don't say either of those phrases to each other much anymore, but when I snapped this picture of my climbing rose yesterday, it reminded me of those days when I used to tell John to "keep climbin'." This rose is a crazy climber--bursting up and out towards the sun. It's a homely rose, but it thrives and blossoms more brilliantly than any of the others in my garden plot. I dug this plant up from a flowerbed elsewhere on campus where some gardeners kept whacking it down to the dirt and it just continued to keep sending up new green branches.

There's a metaphor there somewhere, I suppose. :)

So here's to roses that seem to thrive wherever they are planted...and who keep climbin' towards that bright sun.

sail away from that safe harbor...

2010-05-02T20:16:00.001-07:00

Harvard graveyard in the late afternoon, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

There are some choices and adventures that lie ahead for me--if I'm willing to move out of my comfort zone a bit. There's something exciting about that initial creak of the wheel when a plan is being set into motion! But it's also scary. The "what-if's" can loom so very large.

John & I were, at the last minute today, offered some tickets to an afternoon of art with the students at the Laguna College of Art + Design (we skipped out on an afternoon paddle to do so, but with no regrets!). It was incredibly inspiring to see the artists at work and to discuss their process. I was awfully tempted by a few items, until I remembered that I already have more art than I do wallspace. So I walked away empty-handed, but with a resolve to tackle my own life with more creativity & passion.

For some reason there was a moment at the art show where I remembered something a friend said to me awhile ago. She was lamenting that when she was young she was so insecure about her body that she never dared wear a bathing suit in public. After having given birth to several children, she was wishing that she'd been more bold when she actually had a body worth showing off. Her comment has stayed with me for numerous reasons. I was sad that she couldn't go swimming with me because of her discomfort about wearing a swimsuit. I was sad to think of the times that my own inhibitions prevented me from having fun. And I was sad to think that someday I might look back on my current life and wish that I'd been more unafraid and adventurous...

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
~Mark Twain

vintage

2010-04-26T21:53:00.001-07:00

dancing shoes, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

I'm fortunate to be working within a few blocks of a several charming antique stores, that I can wander on my lunch hour. I love looking at the wares and imagining who they belonged to in years past. The hats, gloves, and lacy linens are particularly enticing to me. They have such stories to tell.

As much as I embrace the modern, I'll always be the kind of person who longs for aged wood, impossibly wrinkly lace pillowcases, the scratchy whisper of needle hitting a vinyl record, the crack of an old book binding, and the clothing styles of an era-gone-by.

Wordless Wednesday: Quince Bough

2010-04-21T10:05:00.001-07:00

quince bough, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

reflections

2010-04-17T16:06:00.000-07:00

Life has been moving at such a brisk pace, I've hardly had time to reflect lately. But I just couldn't let April slip by without a nod to just how good I'm feeling these days. It hardly seems real to me that it was just two years ago that I had the injury that started with this, then developed into this, and then turned into six months of trauma that ended in surgery. I still have the shiny pink seam on my lower left leg as a reminder, but the muscle tissue has filled in nicely since then.

At the moment I don't have anything terribly profound to say in addition to marking the time that's passing. Except that I still don't take it for granted. Everyday I'm grateful for my leg and for my healthy body that just keeps getting stronger and stronger.

These roses are blooming up a storm in my garden right now. Such beauty!

a bit of poetry

2010-04-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

I encountered "The Raised Fist: A Cyborgian Tale" while attending the virtual HASTAC conference this morning. Embedded in the video were the words of Allison J. Harrington, speaking at the 1999 Berkeley Ethnic Studies Strike:

This poem written on my body will not stop.

You cannot arrest this poem without it growing bolder.

I wanted to give you a poem, but I offer my body instead.

Her words made me think about the poems written on my own body. I have no actual words on my body, but the scars of my life experience, the laughlines around my eyes, the dirt from my garden embedded under my fingernails, and the tanlines from my paddling jersey...these all are poems. Poems that speak themselves to everyone around me.

(photo by Jessica)

such a big boy!

2010-04-08T14:26:00.001-07:00

with mommy, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

GameBoy is turning 16 years old today, which seems unbelievable. I know, parents always say that. But...wow!

As an example of the fine human being that he's evolving into:

The other night we were having a dinner conversation about cheating at school. GB was saying how hard it is to ignore the rampant cheating on quizzes that happens in many of his classes. Occasionally, he explained, he will hear the "right" answer to a question inadvertently when his friends are sharing such info with each other. So then, when he gets to that particular question on the quiz and comes up with the same answer as he overheard, he will purposefully mark it wrong--just to prove that he didn't cheat.

Can you see why he blows me away? Not only is he an amazingly compassionate taller-than-me teen, but he also works terrifically hard to do what's right. His moral compass is true. It's an honor to be his Mom.

And I love him so. Always have and always will.

Happy Birthday, buddy!

my life-square

2010-04-07T07:44:00.001-07:00

me & Frida, in the graveyard, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Recently I signed up for Foursquare, thinking that it would be groovy-cool to join in a real-life location-based game. However, I haven't actually played along yet. It seems that I'm already more-than-visible to the world through my various internet presence(s), and I'm not sure that I want to add to that. At least not yet.

It anything, I've been feeling rather exposed by having so many online venues, clamoring for my attention. For example, I'm on Twitter under various aliases: @janaremy, @MHpodcast, @theexponent, @ATChapman, @PDP2010, @dhsocal. Granted, several of these logins I share with other group members....but it's still a lot to manage! Blogwise, I can be found in numerous spaces, too: PilgrimSteps, MakingHistoryPodcast: Blog, HistoryCompass, DHSoCal, The Exponent, etc. Then there's flickr and Facebook and LinkedIn and Posterous. Not to mention GoogleBuzz and GChat and Skype.

These online presences all complement my "in-real-life" busy-ness. I'm shuffling between two campuses, fulfilling parenting/household duties, and escaping to the ocean as often as is reasonable.

Of course, it would be uber-awesome to be mayor of the Pacific--or at least of Newport Harbor. But I'm not yet convinced that I need a web app to tell me I own those spaces.

in the details

2010-04-06T20:54:00.001-07:00

CatGirl's finished pysanky egg, plus two from previous retreats., originally uploaded by mind on fire.

Each Easter Catgirl creates beautifully detailed Pysanky egg art. I do think this year's is especially lovely--but of course I think that every year.

itchy itchy scratchy scratchy

2010-04-06T10:52:00.001-07:00

my back has muscles, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

My back is nearly always itchy--especially in that center spot between the shoulder blades. I think it has something to do my outrigger paddling and the stretching to the tendons and muscle fibers across my upper back.

But it's so terrifically annoying to have itches that I can't scratch (or at least, where it's not so easy to scratch)! Today I can hardly get any work done because of the distraction, which I'm guessing is from the hard workout with my team last night...[note to self: buy backscratcher for office!]

retreat

2010-04-04T21:46:00.000-07:00

As happens in academia, March and April are the season where you learn the results of all those grant applications you sent out in November and December. The last time I applied for funding I received nearly every grant that I applied for--a rare thing in History, for sure. But this past grant cycle has been nearly the opposite--the rejections far outweighing the acceptances. Of course it's to be expected. Of course it doesn't mean anything about my intrinsic worth as a scholar, but it is...wearying to keep finding all of those skinny envelopes.

So that's just one reason that some news I received in Friday was extra-exciting, that I was selected as one of the twelve "barn-raisers" for the One Week | One Tool summer institute. I read and re-read that letter, just to make sure that it wasn't another rejection. And then stomped my feet with glee!

Just shortly after I received that news, we left town for our annual Spring retreat with our Quaker Meeting. We gather in the mountains above Julian, CA, and spend three days strengthening our connections with each other and with our shared values. The setting couldn't be more idyllic. We made blood-orange marmalade together, cheered the children's Easter egg hunt, celebrated two friends' engagement with some sweet champagne, played Eurogames, sipped tea, chased wild turkeys, took naps, wandered the forest dotted with wild daffodils, and ate apple pie. It's quite different from the Easter celebrations when our kids were younger--there were no pastel dresses or baskets filled with plastic grass. No church choir. No talk of resurrection. After the egg hunt the children continued playing together while the adults sat in a silent circle.

I realized, while I was there, how much I needed time to simply be with my family, my friends, and my self. I needed the time to think and to imagine. I needed to watch the firelight dance. I needed to remember who I am and what I can be.

yet another reason that I haven't been blogging much lately

2010-04-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

I just launched a re-design of The Exponent blog, which included moving the site off of wordpress.com and onto a hosted server. The blog is actually still just a wee bit buggy, but be patient with me--I'm learning a lot, making mistakes, and figuring things out as I go along. :)

As I wrote a few days ago, I'm continuing to enjoy my association with the fine Mormon-feminist women that I know from The Exponent & ExponentII. I feel so fortunate to count them each as friends and sisters.

yet another reason I haven't been blogging as much lately

2010-03-31T16:24:00.001-07:00

IMG_0442, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

My apologies for the grainy photo. But you get the general idea...

A few weeks ago I took a part-time temporary position at Chapman University as the Associate Director of Instructional Technology. Balancing that work with my dissertation-writing and my other obligations (podcasting! blogging! attending conferences! poetry! parenting! gardening! paddling!) has not been easy. But the work is incredibly stimulating. I have a lovely office location and great resources at my fingertips. My new colleagues are smart and supportive. I am learning so much.

I fear that what has suffered the most for these past few weeks is my ability to support my family, my friendships, and my spiritual life. Because becoming a better juggler of my 'to-do' list does not necessarily make me a better human being or a better partner. But in that, I am learning, too.

just one of the reasons that I'm not blogging as much these days...

2010-03-30T22:40:00.001-07:00

IMG_9577, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Why?

2010-03-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I attended a few sessions of the Sunstone West conference at Claremont Graduate University, an event that examines Mormon culture and thought. Several people asked me why I attended the event, or why I continue to be involved in Mormon circles given that I'm not a practicing member of the LDS church.

Those are good (hard) questions, ones that I've often asked myself these past few years. I don't know if I have any good answers. But I continue to feel that these folks are my 'tribe.' These are not your everyday Mormons, these are women and men who've walked much of the same path that I have. Our shared history and experience allows me a freedom that I don't have in other spaces. My Quaker Friends, as dear as they are, can't fully sympathize with my struggles. Nor can most of my local ward members. Having a continued tie to the Sunstone and Exponent community is somewhat akin to having a shared history with extended family members. There is so much joy in the reunion, even if it is a rare occurrence.

It may be that at some point I will cease being involved in Mormon organizations altogether. But for now, for me, it feels right to continue. Much joy comes from being with this group, and that joy is what keeps me returning. I need those hugs and hi-fives from my fellow travelers. I especially relish the strength and support of my Exponent sisters--each of you give me the courage to continue on my journey.

My path to technology

2010-03-24T22:16:00.000-07:00

A blog entry for Ada Lovelace Day

Yesterday I was nearly exploding with the news that I'd had my first few PHP successes. Just small things, but it felt so satisfying to troubleshoot an issue and muddle through the fix. It took lots of websearching and reading, a brief convo with an IT tech at my hosting provider, and lots of trial and error. But it worked. Woot!

In general, lately, I'm finding huge satisfaction with acquiring new technical knowledge, much of which has come my way through my work in digital humanities. My capacity to learn new things seems to be increasing with each new step, and I'm intuitively becoming more capable at describing, managing, and troubleshooting technology. The thrill that accompanies each of these successes is not something I would have expected. How fun it is to learn--even as late as my 30s--that I like tech.

Along with my recent successes in the technical realm, I've been part of numerous discussions about the gender gap in technology-related fields. As a result, I've reflected on my own path in this direction. I can't point to any one thing that steered me away from math and hard science, except my own deep belief that I wasn't good in those areas. I felt no thrill when faced with a math problem. I merely endured Physics. The quantitative elements of Chemistry and Economics were my least favorite. It's possible that I simply wasn't good at any of those things when I was younger, and my stronger skills in writing and memorization steered me towards Biology and Journalism. Or it may be that I simply wasn't validated for performing well in my Math or Science classes in the same way that I was when I did well in English. It's hard to say.

But I think the real reason probably lies with being more often rewarded for what came easily (such as writing a story) and less often rewarded for what came hard (like a well-argued geometry proof). My own experience leads me to believe that my male peers often received praise that affirmed the skills needed to work through a difficult problem set, whereas us girls were not encouraged in that same way.

I also suspect that much of the reason I steered clear of math & science was that I wanted to be attractive to boys, and winning such attention meant more to me than the satisfaction of an elegant lab writeup. Although I typically dated the kind of boys who liked brainy girls, I still knew, deep-down, that the girls who were 'too smart' were far less likely to have a date on Friday night. My being raised Mormon particularly reinforced the notion that a 'soft' career choice was a better one, because the more important goal was to be a wife and a mother. Mormon women are strongly discouraged from full-time work, or even pursuing graduate study, unless it is after their children are grown.

I'm not sure yet where my growing passion for technology will take me, but as I move forward on this path it's exciting to add new tools to my tech-kit and to find such satisfaction in problem-solving.

because I don't like pinches

2010-03-17T07:55:00.001-07:00

like velcro, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

At Concord farm, 2007

2010-03-16T15:43:00.001-07:00

At Concord farm, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

A good memory. So perfect & blue!

philia

2010-03-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

I am drawn to people with passion and vision. That's much of the reason that I started my podcast--because I wanted to have conversation with people who share my history-lust. Talking to such people causes me to fall in love with my chosen profession (and the whole entire world, for that matter) all over again.

I was similarly drawn to the passion shown in Wallace J. Nichol's Oceanophilia post (thanks @hallnjean) about ocean-love and neuroscience. He writes:

We humans offer up our dreams, our secrets and our treasures to the sea from whence we came...What is it about the ocean that speaks to us on such a fundamental, profound human level? I have always wanted to know, but my chosen profession, science -- skeptical, detached, dispassionate science -- wouldn't allow me to go there.

When I was a graduate student, I tried to weave that big human Love into my dissertation on the relationship between sea turtle ecology and coastal communities. No luck. My advisors steered me to other departments, another career even. "Keep that 'emotional' stuff out of your science, young man," they counseled. Emotion wasn't rational. It wasn't quantifiable. It wasn't science...

We must seize this particular moment in time -- when the nascent power of neuroscience is burgeoning and the popular momentum is toward conservation rather than exploitation. We can use science to explore and understand the profound and ancient emotional and sensual connections that lead to deeper relationships with the ocean. I believe that if we do that we have an opportunity for real conservation gains that could do some true and lasting good for the ocean and planet Earth.

It's time to drop the old notions of separation between emotion and science. Emotion is science. Let's convene the top marine scientists, skilled communicators, dedicated conservationists, and leading neurobiologists and cognitive psychologists to ask and answer the most probing and compelling set of questions about the ocean that we can imagine. Let's explore the mind-ocean connection -- oceanophilia.

His thoughts about oceanophilia echo many other things that are whirling around in my brain this morning. In just a few hours I will abandon all of the tasks on my list and head out for a few hours on my outrigger. To let the ocean tug and push me as she may, while I paddle, paddle, paddle. The connection with the water will stretch and pull me into balance once again.

And at the same time, I'm thinking a lot about my experience yesterday at THATCampSoCal (a tech-humanities un-conference). A primary theme running through the day was how to forge (and control) one's online identity in a way that will be an asset in the pursuit for a tenure-track job. The hiring and promotion practices for historians are so capricious. One certainly can't second-guess all that happens behind the scenes in such interactions. While I want to be thoughtful and careful with my online presence, the thought of having an imaginary search committee governing my actions is so much like the way I used to think about Mormon God--the attempt to "please" someone who was so remote and nebulous and judgmental--it had the hair standing up on the back of my neck.

Instead, I want to throw myself into my life. Letting my passion and my curiosity drive my choices and my research. I expect that I will make mistakes. I suspect that I will be accused of "not doing it right." I suspect that I may never get tenure. But I need poetry and art and sunshine (and moonlight). I need waves that pull and bump and threaten me. I need to tell my stories without worry about how they will affect my job security.

The internet has been my playground for the past decade--just because academia has finally found it, too, I don't want to lose the immediacy and the thrill of this space.

And, below, another link I just had to share (if only because of my long-time crush on Bill Nye):

Our library in The New Yorker(!)

2010-03-11T18:55:00.000-08:00

Link to the article and link to the original picture.

Daily Cuppa

2010-03-10T23:10:00.000-08:00

This evening a friend dropped by and we shared some tea & scones after dinner. It wasn't until about after an hour of chatting that I realized that I've been so crazy-intensely busy lately that the luxury of having a friend over for a cup of tea simply hasn't been on my agenda. It's no wonder, perhaps, that I've been waking up in the morning with a tight jaw, after I've been dreaming about lists of "To-Do" all night.

So I'm trying to reincorporate some space for peace and relaxation. Adding meditation. Walks. Sitting time in the garden. It won't be easy with the schedule that I've got over the next few weeks, but I know I need to keep the balance in my life. (poetry, I hear you calling my name....)

For those of you who have missed my regular postings here, you might want to drop by History Compass or take a listen to one of my recent podcasts.

Teh Awesome

2010-03-06T15:37:00.000-08:00

John & Catgirl battling it out in one of UCI's Lecture Halls. They crack me up!
PS: Look how tall that Catgirl is getting!

birthright

2010-03-03T09:18:00.001-08:00

There are some things that I don't like about this video--such as the belaboring of the prep before surfing. But there are some things that I love about it. Like that moment where the first wave passes over him and all the sand is washed away...it's just perfect. And then, seeing him in the water moving so fluidly...I know that feeling so well.

How can I explain what it means to be in water? To be the only place where gravity doesn't pull and tug in ways that make movement difficult? In the water, on the water, under the water--I am a fish and my legs (or lack thereof) no longer matter.

The other thing I like about this video--how it shows the innovative things that Michael does to allow him to surf--such as balancing the end of the board on the fence near the car...So cool.

BIRTHRIGHT from Sean Mullens on Vimeo.

pilgrim classic: Saint or Sinner?

2010-03-01T18:01:00.000-08:00

Republishing this post from 2/19/07:

[Full disclosure: I kifed this book from John's pile this morning. And I am 'stealing' one of its ideas for this post.]

Are you good? Are you bad? A host of consequences hangs on the answer. Yet, a brief experiment can easily convince you that the question, so grave in appearance, has little foundation.

Consider how you spent yesterday. Retrace the main events, how one led to the next, and, as far as possible, reconstruct the thoughts that went with them hour after hour.

From this reconstruction, consider your attitude. Not objectively. In a partial, exagerated, and tendentious way. Note first the extreme magnanimity of your smallest actions. Be a benevolent judge of your innermost thoughts. Look how devoted you have been, how attentive, altruistic, sympathetic, humane, supportive, charitable, etc

And then do exactly the reverse. Force yourself to discern, in your acts and thoughts during that day, the obvious signs of perversity, your ability to harm, your taste for destruction, your fundamental wickedness...

And then, if you have carried this out completely enough, try believing in moral judgements and the searchings of conscience. What have you learned?

A bit of my experience (note: somewhat sanitized to avoid speaking of particular interactions w/people who might be reading my blog):
The Saint
In worship yesterday I felt lightness, love, goodness. A closeness with the spirit. I reached out to newcomers after Meeting. I ate lunch with friends and enjoyed their thoughts and their humor. I ate a divinely-tasty egg salad sandwich. I spent time interacting with my kids and John in the afternoon. I did the family's laundry rather than spending time on my own tasks. Assembled a favorite salad to share with friends at dinnertime. Was gracious to Friends for their hospitality, etc, etc.

The Sinner
Slept in and was grumpy in the morning, as usual. Was testy with John and the kids because I was ready for Meeting before they were. Got to church late, despite having arranged to meet newcomers there beforehand. Resented some disruptions during worship. Had difficulty quieting my mind. Thought mostly of myself and all I want to/need to do. After meeting, left fellowship early to spend time with my friends. Ate egg salad sandwich for lunch w/no remorse about consuming animal protein. After dinner, poked fun of 50s movie and traditional Quakers. Tried to be funnier to impress friends. Thought more about how I was feeling than about others. Didn't reach out to those I didn't know well.

Upshot:
More than ever I agree with C.S. Lewis that:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

It seems to me that we are, all of us, both gods and devils simultaneously. We are selfish and selfless in the same moment. And as such, we should be gentle with judging ourselves, and also with judging others.

on passion, evangelism and madness

2010-02-27T07:47:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I led another workshop about some of my favorite web-based research tools. My colleagues like to tease me about how zealous I am about such things--my enthusiasm causing me to talk very quickly, show too many glitzy features, and gush. I suspect that my evangelism is charming rather than off-putting (at least, I hope so). I try not to say that using Zotero or GoogleSuite will change the world as we know it, but sometimes I sort of think it will.

Of late, I've come to realize that I need to believe in what I'm doing to be enthusiastic about it. For example, my loss of faith the UC has made it increasingly hard to be tied to that ship, despite all the good that's come of my years at UCI. And while I've spearheaded some small efforts for change at UC, I no longer feel that our high-level administrators have the interests of the humanities at heart (departmental admins, OTOH, rock), so I'm looking forward to moving on. A similar thing happened with the LDS church. I was a super-champion of Mormonism until the foundation gave way (for me), and then it became impossible--even repulsive--to carry on with the organization. I'm not halfway person. Either I love it and believe in it, or I lose interest.

Having such passion serves me well in many circumstances. When I'm in the front of the classroom I am teaching, believing, and professing with everything I've got. Parenting absorbs me completely. My friends know of my wholehearted love affair with my two perfect children (and the amazing man that I made them with)--there is no ambivalence there. Whether I am gardening or traveling or swimming, it is done with body and soul. And there is a thrill with being able to live so fully, so committed. If I say or do something, it's because I believe in it.

Life itself seems lunatic. Who knows where madness lies? Perhaps being too practical is madness. To surrender to dreams, this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash is madder still. Too much sanity may be madness. But maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be."
(adapted from Dale Wasserman's screenplay, "The Man of La Mancha")

Photo above is of us riding the tram up to the Getty museum when GameBoy was about 6 and CatGirl was 3-ish years old. We love taking our kidlings to museums! I'd forgotten that John and I had matchy-matchy black Dickies messenger bags back then. So cute!

living a life different enough to be worth writing about

2010-02-25T09:49:00.001-08:00

china 2005, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

I've been attempting to articulate a particular feeling for several days now, and here Jeffrey Tayler has done it so well.

If you had 99 lives, what would you do with them? With the one life you have, what will you do that will be different and exciting, worthy of recounting in print? If you’re short on ideas, as I was, let the protagonists of novels and short stories show you how to live; let the great writers, with their imagined plots and characters, introduce you to new paths in real life. I don’t necessarily mean milquetoast paths, easy ways out. So, if you’ve read “A Bend in the River,” let Salim the Indian trader, who came up from the coast to open a shop on the Congo River, show you what you can do when you have nowhere else to go. Let Georges Duroy, the pitiless hero of Maupassant’s “Bel-Ami,” show you what you can do if you arrive penniless in Paris. “The Sheltering Sky” might serve as your guide to Morocco, Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” to the U.S. The point is that great writers and their works can provide blueprints for changes in our lives. They can teach us about how many possible ways ahead there are, both good and bad. And bad is not as bad as all that. Remember, for a writer, adversity makes good subject material.

The protagonist of “The Death of Ivan Il’ich” died moaning, in agony, overcome with the realization that he had wasted his days on earth following social conventions. He lacked l’esprit frondeur, and he paid for it. Conventions now are hardly less pervasive than they were in Tolstoy’s day; we’re pressured to start a career, build our résumé, earn a certain amount of money, and so forth. But remember: None of us gets out of here alive. So don’t fear risks. Rebel. Be bold, try hard, and embrace adversity; let both success and failure provide you with unique material for your writing, let them give you a life different enough to be worth writing about.

Picture from my trip to China a few years ago--a charming round "hobbit door" that I discovered in a garden. What a wonderful adventure that was!

orange

2010-02-24T08:28:00.001-08:00

orange art, outside of AdHoc gallery, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

In the last few days I've been smelling blossoms on breezes--magnolia blossoms, mostly, but also just a hint of citrus. It's a little early yet for orange blossoms, but my anticipation is building, nonetheless.

So this morning I read a thin book of poetry called The Orangery by Gilbert Sorrentino. Each poem in the volume is about orange or oranges. Just what I needed today. It's full of delicious ironies about the impossibilities of orange (and it doesn't rhyme, of course).

An excerpt from "Variations 1"

Poetry must not be poured into molds
the man said, fighting an old battle
filled with wild alarums.

No one eats oranges
in anybody's poems

The image above is from a jaunt to Brooklyn in winter where outside an art gallery there was a bare tree hung with oranges. It delighted me--I am a fan of the ridiculous and unexpected.

Busy-ness

2010-02-16T22:40:00.000-08:00

Friends:

This week and next I will be unusually busy. I look forward to catching up with you when I return. I will be full of adventures to share--including some details of a trip to the East Coast! :)

If you are in New Haven or Boston and you want to meetup this weekend, please drop me a line. It will be a whirlwind trip, but I hope to find time for friends!

Bridges

2010-02-08T21:47:00.000-08:00

Cross posted at History Compass

Since I started paddling an outrigger canoe through the Newport harbor, I've gone under a lot of bridges. I learned, very quickly, that the current around bridges can be unpredictable--even dangerously so. In my small boat if I hit a bridge it means that I'll likely end up going for an unintentional swim and the blow from hitting a cement pylon can easily cause irreparable damage to my fragile canoe.

As I paddled under a low-lying bridge last week and heard the uncanny echo of water and wind through that space, I realized why trolls always live under bridges in folktales. Bridges are important places--necessary crossroads. But they are also liminal places where danger lurks. It might be in the form of a malintentioned someone hiding in the shadows, or it might be a whirl of current that pulls the boat toward a cement piling encrusted with mussel shells. Whatever the possibilities, bridge-crossings demand heightened attention.

Like the dangers of the bridges that I face as I paddle around segments of the harbor, there seem to be trolls lurking around the bridges of academia, too.

Right now the trolls that I'm facing are the distractions that pull me away from finishing my dissertation--the largest being the specter of the awful job market, but others include my inner perfectionist that needles me with reminders that the dissertation will never be as good as I wanted it to be.

Every morning as I plan my day and make my "To Do" list, I realize that some choices I make keep me on a straight and safe course, while others bring me dangerously close to wrecking my boat as I let the current pull me this way and that. And some days I don't get anywhere--eschewing the list of daily tasks and paddling around in circles rather than making measurable progress toward my end goal.

Morbidly romantic

2010-02-05T09:32:00.001-08:00

035:365 Braided Bones., originally uploaded by mind on fire.

A gift to my lover, upon celebrating 20 years of togetherness (he wrote the poem for me 8 years ago).

I just wish that I'd thought to black out one of these legs from mid-femur on down. :)

Dear LDS missionaries

2010-02-04T20:00:00.000-08:00

This letter is prompted by two recent visits from LDS missionaries. One was two nights ago, when I was knocked out on drugs and could barely register what was happening in the living room. Apparently the elders came by "just to visit" people on the ward list. John politely explained that he's not a member of the church and said that our family has officially requested "no contact" with the church. He asked the elders to pass that information on to the powers-that-be in the ward, given that our earlier request was not honored. The letter below is from the previous of the two visits...

Dear LDS missionaries who helped me carry my groceries in the rain:

First of all, it was very nice of you to help me--particularly with that box of clementine oranges that I was grasping awkwardly with two fingers while having 3 or 4 bag handles draped over each arm. It was obvious I was about to lose some oranges, so the help was very considerate.

I liked how genuinely surprised you seemed when I greeted you each as "Elder" and asked where you came from. That you were both from rural Utah didn't surprise me very much--you both looked pretty intimidated by the heathen graduate students milling around our neighborhood. When you found out that I was nearly done with my PhD, one of you asked for suggestions for a good college major. My reply that a degree in engineering might be a good way to support a family was sincere--I worry about young LDS couples and their ability to survive in today's economy. That you both looked at each other and admitted that neither of you can do math reminded me just how very young you missionaries are, and I realized how hard it must have been for your mothers to let you go for two years.

It probably seemed like the reason that I didn't invite you in after you helped with the groceries was because I was busy. But it really was because I didn't want the conversation: the one where I would explain about apostasy, about not going to church for awhile. And about institutions and inequity and history. About needing a new place to call home. About wounds. About the kinds of life experiences that couldn't be articulated to two nineteen year-old boys who don't even know what to study in school.

I wanted your memory of the afternoon to be one of rescuing a fellow Saint who was about to lose her oranges. Not of a lost soul for you to pity.

And when I prayed, as you walked away in the rain, that you would avoid the doors of my neighbors who have been the most hurt by the Church's influence...that was one of my most sincere prayers in quite some time.

Love,
Jana

the phantoms

2010-02-03T17:08:00.001-08:00

Alice's garden, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Let me just say first that I'm not writing this because I'm seeking sympathy, or pity. It's just one facet of life as an amputee, and since one of my primary aims of blogging here is to discuss the experiences of my different body, that's why I'm writing this post.

A few times a year, I get the phantoms. I've mentioned them occasionally on my blog before. There's not much of a pattern to when they happen, except that I've noticed they are more likely to occur when I'm dehydrated or sick. They were pretty bad when I was pregnant, too.

Generally, I don't think being an amputee is all that painful. As long as I've got a prosthesis that fits well, my pain level is probably not all that different from anyone else who's heading towards middle-age. Of course, when my leg isn't fitting well or when I've got pressure sores or rashes on my stump, that's a bit of a different story. But I'm lucky not to be experiencing any of those problems right now.

The past few days we've had a cold/flu bug going around our family. Yesterday I pressed on with my regular schedule despite feeling pretty cruddy. And then it hit me right around dinner time--the nerves in my right leg started spasming. The pain level is pretty close to what I felt when I had labor contractions before my babies were born. It starts in my leg and causes my entire body to shake for a few seconds. To be fairly descriptive of how it was feeling yesterday, it was as if someone had poked a metal wire up along the side of my femur bone and then ran a jolt of electricity through that wire every few minutes. Oddly, the pains are different each time it happens. It used to feel more like my toes were being twisted off one-by-one. Or that someone was ironing the bottom of my non-existent foot.

There are a few remedies that work--walking helps, as does some pressure on my stump or a warm shower. But really the only thing I've found that truly helps is a dose of a strong muscle relaxant. So that's what I took last night, and then slipped into sleep, only waking occasionally to note that the spasms were becoming weaker as the night wore on. When I awoke this morning I felt stiff and sore in my right hip, with just a very faint metallic-tingly feeling. As if my leg had "fallen asleep" and was just waking up.

I don't know how other amputees experience phantom pains. Those I know, I've never thought to ask. It's not something that I think about very often, or that impacts my life in any huge way. It just happens sometimes. And I don't think I'm particularly heroic for having endured phantom pains--we all have these little tricks that our bodies play on us once in awhile. Whether it's lower back pain, that stiff elbow, or the arthritis that gets to us when it rains. I figure we're all just doing the best we can and some days that means we have to take it easy for awhile.

Mary Monday: poetry in motion

2010-02-01T16:04:00.001-08:00

crane taking off from Spider Island at high tide, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Spotted this ~~crane~~ heron while paddling on Saturday and was lucky enough to capture him just taking off (most likely my fault--my boat is nearly 20 ft long and the strong current was carrying me a wee bit close when I snapped this).

It's time for a new carrot

2010-01-31T15:08:00.000-08:00

The past few days have been the most extreme tides of the year--the water so high that it's barely possible to paddle under some bridges, then the water so low that the Back Bay is mostly mudflats. This has also resulted in HUGE amounts of debris being pulled into the water--some chunks of it are large tangled island masses of branches and trash that are 4 or 5 times the size of my boat. Much of it is just random floating crap--so paddling through the channel is a bit like a slalom race. Yesterday I veered around something that looked like a tree branch, only to learn seconds later that it was a huge log (most of it submersed under water) and it made a loud thwack it collided with my outrigger. I was afraid that I'd cracked something and might even be taking on water. But the next few minutes went smoothly and I forgot about it until I brought my boat up to the deck for cleaning. I found an ugly gash on the ama (the outrigger float), exposing the carbon fiber shell under the gelcoat finish. Fortunately, it seems that the damage is purely superficial. It was still discouraging, though.

The scratch on the ama was on my mind when I went out again this morning. I work pretty hard to keep my boat in good condition--taking good care of her so she'll do her best for me. I hate to see her get dings and scratches. And then I had this 'aha' moment: the best way to keep my boat in 'pristine' condtion would be to keep her stored away safely. She can't help but show some wear if I keep taking her out on the water. And it was right then that I decided to wear out my boat--by paddling regularly and hard. Of course, I'll still be on the watch for floating tree trunks...but I won't stop getting out on the water just because I'd like to keep the pretty paintjob.

The other thing that was foremost in my thoughts as I paddled this weekend, was the news that I got on Friday: our division was canceled at the World Champs because too few teams could afford the trip to New Caledonia. I knew this might be a possibility because several teams had already pulled out. But the final news was pretty disheartening. I've used that upcoming race as a "carrot" to keep up my practicing and cross-training all winter long. And I was so looking forward to paddling the waters in the South Pacific in May. But of course I still aim to do so...someday.

So now I need a new carrot, a new goal to work towards. It might be a special race or reward for reducing my per-mile speed by a specific amount. I'm not sure yet. But if you have any good ideas, I'm all ears. (oh, and I'm also looking for a new way to ring in my biggest birthday yet now that I'm no longer planning to win me a shiny medal that week).

And just like the inevitable scratches on my boat, I'm sure I'll continue to encounter a variety of bumps as I continue paddling--canceled races, bad weather, damaged boats, etc. But if I was gonna let the challenges stop me, I'd never have gotten back in the canoe on that memorable first race...

My blogging life

2010-01-27T22:23:00.000-08:00

Cross-posted at History Compass

Three years ago I outed myself as a blogger--to both the folks in my department and beyond, as I started using my real name online in places that could link back to my identity as a graduate student. Prior to that, my blogging was something that I did on the side, pseudonymously. However, for a variety of reasons, it seemed time to meld my online and real-life identities.

Two years ago I wrote a post on my History blog about the "seduction" of the blogging life, and how it was an asset to my work as a scholar. I explained,

Yet what I find the most seductive about blogging is the continued experimentation. It's a challenge to find something new to say every day and to find new ways of saying it (especially when my life is just a mundane mix of grad school, parenting, and spiritual seeking--it's hard to imagine more boring story fodder). So I have to think about how best to 'hook' my readers, how to provoke a response, and how to write with such skill that my posts are linked by larger blogs.

Now that I'm addicted to blogging, I wonder how it will affect my professional life. Though I'm a few years from facing the job market, I can't help my think that search committees might be put-off by my flower photos and rambling observations. Often I vow to stop blogging and focus my time on more legitimate academic pursuits (just think, people, of all the book reviews I could be writing instead of blogging!).

But then I consider this: Blogging lubricates my writing muscles. Pounding out a two-paragraph post during my morning latte primes me for a day of historical inquiry...

Now, I'm finding myself in a place where I'm a bit weary of blogging. Certainly that's a strange confession in a blogpost! But it seems as though blogging doesn't carry the same excitement for me that it once did. It might be because I've become an avid tweeter, or because I've been at this blogwriting gig for nearly a decade and I've run out of things to say. Or maybe it's because I spend so many hours at the computer with my academic work, when I have some moments of discretionary time I want to do something wholly different (like read poetry). Surely it's a phase that will soon pass. But it feels fairly odd to me right now, knowing how enthusiastically I blogged in years past.

Thaw

2010-01-27T08:15:00.001-08:00

in love, in spring, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

From Audre Lorde's "Thaw"
(for those of my friends in colder climes who are ready for spring)

The language of past seasons
collapses pumpkins in spring
false labor slides like mud
off the face of ease
and whatever I turn my hand to
pales in the sun.

We will always be there to your call
the old witches said
always said always saying
something else at the same time
you are trapped asleep
you are speechless
perhaps you will also be
broken

Step lightly all around us
words are cracking
off we drift
separate and syllabic
if we survive at all.