Boston, Boston, Boston!

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!

comfort

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.

made in China

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.

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

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.

Follow along with #genderd on Sept 1st

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.

open

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.

What Has to be Done, redux

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.

a bit of shell-shock

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...

some days...

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.

pre-trip panic

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?

perspective

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.

send-off

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!

As busy as a...bunny?

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...

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

transitions

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

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.

On Turning 39...

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. 

sail away from that safe harbor...

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

reflections

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!

my life-square

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.