Open Lungs and Open Waters

I came down with a case of bronchitis a couple of weeks ago, and although I’ve felt better since the fever broke over a week ago, only now can I feel the last bits of congestion leaving my lungs. I feel like the world is opening back up again. My body and my focus are shifting from the tightness in my chest to what’s going on around me. Our summer has been so fun and filled with friends, camping, canoeing, and house projects that I haven’t had as much time as I might like to reflect on it all. I love the feeling of finally doing so many of the things Mr. A and I have talked about for so long. But the constant stream of activity has left us a little winded. Thankfully, the last couple of weekends have given us back that breath.

As my chest begins to open up I’m finding that my head is in a similar state. When the to-do list is long and there’s a lot of work to be done I tend to dig in. My shoulders rise as my muscles get ready for good, hard work, and I become focused only on the task at hand, to the exclusion of all else. But while the sweat and muscle strain feel good and seeing the results of my labor are nice, it means that I lose sight of what it means to open myself to the world.

The seasons are changing and it seems all my friends are saying farewell to summer (and getting sick). I am seeing the changes too.  The evenings are cooler and I can see the sunset kiss the trees before bedtime. The circle of activities is moving gradually inward. We do have one or two more fall camping trips planned before the weather begins to firmly dictate when we can get outside. I’m excited. I love fall. I love the close camaraderie and warmth that comes during the fall harvest as the leaves change. It means hot cider, crisp apples, big juicy tomatoes, crisp mornings, reds and yellows punctuating the green on hikes, and crunching leaves underfoot. These images, like here, fill my head and there is no other joy like it.  The Towhead has been my other source of joy with the spontaneous things she says and does.  She will often run outside in the morning as I am putting things in the car and throw her arms wide to the sun, exclaiming in her own improvised song, “I love the sun! I love the hot! I love the cold! I love the world and my (stuffed) kitty!” When I look around at moments like these all I can think is that this is where my center is, and I wonder what could ever be important enough to pull my focus away from this.

I’m not sure if it’s the rebellious part of my nature or the seasons that has me thinking about expanding my energy into the world when all else seems to be moving gradually inward. Or maybe it’s just the part of me that’s always in search of balance. My other theory is that it has to do with settling deeper into the life of a working mom, which I love and hate at the same time. I think the part that has begun to bother me most is the feeling of being sucked inexorably into the vortex of commercialism and expectations of the mainstream working family. Mr. A and I have agreed for a long time that we want a healthy and active lifestyle that includes:

• experiencing the outdoors and appreciating nature
• creativity and laughter
• being mindful and aware of the world and the interconnectedness of all things
• friends and family
• a wide variety of art and music
• toys that encourage mental and emotional growth, not greed and materialism

The pitfalls come when there is less time to carefully cultivate all the things that go into this mix and the temptation to just default to the “norm.” The norm is so pre-packaged, TV, and brand-name based that it drives me crazy. As grad students and then as a single-income family we avoided a lot of those things because of money. Now we avoid them by choice. But I’m realizing, especially with the Towhead in school and me working, how hard it is not to slide toward mainstream trends like cartoons in the afternoon and flashy treats for lunch. It’s strange for me when I talk to other working parents and I hear how much they talk about the newest Disney TV show, computer games, or dance classes. The first two are not really on our radar, and the last one we are just beginning to consider. I’m sailing into unknown waters. Is this what is supposed to be next on the charts? What things do I want to sail toward and what do I want to steer clear of? We’ve been in the lagoon where books, bike rides to the park, and homemade toys surround us.  New waters are coming but there seems to be a lack of variety when it comes to maps because there’s really only one corporate publisher. I know there are more paths, and that many trailblazers have come before me.  I just need to find their stories.

Maybe it’s the holidays that have me thinking about how to avoid cheap, flashy, Made-in-China, TV-character emblazoned toys. Maybe it’s the birthday party at Chuck E Cheese where the girl got 3 Barbie dolls. Or maybe it’s the normal questioning of what comes next in Towhead’s growth and development. I don’t want to fall into the trap of just defaulting to certain set of activities for no other reason than that everyone else is doing it. I seem to be filled with ever-changing thoughts and doubts lately. The sun is in my eyes and the way forward is not clear right now.

*Just when I begin to feel the most lost I seem to stumble upon what I need. This article turned out to be it: Lisa Bennett’s “Nurturing Creators, Not Collectors” in Mothering magazine. So often it seems like we compare ourselves to the images we see around us instead of the real people and voices in our own lives. I’m learning (and re-learning) to turn down the volume of pop culture and in the silence that follows, hear the beating of my own heart and the rhythm of life.

The Language Bridge

I just listened to a story on NPR that talks about the sensual experience that comes along with spoken language. It asserts that language you speak changes your experince of the world, and how you think and feel about people, places, and things. The irony is that this is an idea I heard quite some time ago and something I have actually argued with former students and collaegues (but mostly my husband) for years.

Here’s the story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102518565

Conducted by Lera Boroditsky, an assistant psychology professor at Stanford University, the study asks Spanish speakers and German speakers to examine objects – a table, a chair, a bridge – and name them. In the instance of the bridge the articles differ between these two languages: in Spanish “bridge” is masculine, and in German it’s feminine. Next the study asked participants to give three adjectives to describe the bridge. The German speakers chose words like “beautiful,” and “elegant,” while the Spanish speaker chose “sturdy,” and “towering.” Her hypothesis is that Spaniards and Germans see and experience things differently as a result of their language.

Boroditsky suggests that the grammar we learn from our parents, whether we realize it or not, affects our sensual experience of the world. Spaniards and Germans can see the same things, wear the same cloths, eat the same foods and use the same machines. But deep down, they are having very different feelings about the world about them.

To test this theory she invented her own language, one that randomly assigns masculine and feminie articles to various nouns, and then taught it to English-speaking participants. After being drilled in the language she tested to see if there was a similar effect on descriptive adjectives based on the gender assigned to that noun. And the answer was yes!

I find this absolutely fascinating. Language shapes and defines our world, but that it affects how we feel about both natural and constructed landscapes is, I think, both amazing and underappreciated. It may not seem like a big deal. But think about it, people get attached to objects. The first stereotype that comes to mind is Americans and their cars. But the list is exhaustive - a business exec and his cell phone, a fashionista and her shoes,  a triathlete and her bike, an electrician and his tool belt. But if those objects have certain qualities we assign to them, which shape not only our attitudes toward those objects but also our experiences with those objects and by extension our jobs and activities. In essence, language dictates how we see and experience the world. And it does so in much more subtle ways than our cultural traditions and norms.

The implications for me are even more interesting when I extend them to environmentalism. Whether or not a developer or city planner chooses to preserve more trees in a proposed development might very well depend on how they perceive a “tree.” Likewise, a company might have a different attitude toward dumping in the ocean versus on land based on how they feel about each (off the top of my head, I kow that ocean in Spanish is masculine “el mar” while land is feminine “la tierra.”) Would it make a difference? Who knows? But the fact that it might brings all new challenges to educating the public about sustainability.  And decision-making processes that one would typically perceive as objective, suddenly become much more gendered. I realize that this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the ramifications of this study but it’s a fun place to begin a conversation. Anyone else have any thoughts about it? Let me know. The idea that multi-lingual people perceive the world differently has always fascinated me.

And on a totally unrelated note, I have tons of pictures of fun stuff we’ve done to post. I will get to these soon. I promise. Given that some of these go back to the Towhead’s birthday in January I need to get my ample behind moving. I’m working on it Nana, I swear

Creative homes, and so portable!

Whoever thought shipping containers could be so luxurious! With so many of these used to move freight, recycling them in this way seems a great use of resources. Some of these even look pretty comfortable. The question is could we afford the one I’d want to live in?

It’s a neat idea for disaster housing and temporary construction housing though.

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/daily_green_news/8/twelve-amazing-shipping-container-houses.html

Thanks to Tatiana for posting this.