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A Love Letter to My Mom – Exploring Fun, Joy, and Sports

A few days ago, I listened to a recent episode of the We Can Do Hard Things podcast hosted by Glennon Doyle and her sister Amanda Doyle. (Side note – you should listen to this podcast if you aren’t already. It’s amazing.) The topic was fun and Glennon’s wife Abby Wambach was a guest. The episode was interesting in a hundred different ways, but mostly I was fascinated by how perplexed Glennon and Amanda were by the concept of fun and purposelessness. Abby defined fun as experiencing joy, oftentimes without knowing what the outcome will be. Merriam Webster defines fun as “what provides amusement or enjoyment”. Glennon and Amanda shared how they didn’t really understand fun, and Glennon went on to say:

“Can we just get deep for a second? Because I was talking about this with a few friends recently and it made me feel better. Babe (Abby), you were there. We were talking to Karen and Jessica and none of them also understood what fun was. And so I thought, wait, why do women not understand fun? Right. So we’re talking about, is it because we’re mothers? Is it because we’re caretakers? Is it because we have so much to do that we always feel like something has to be productive? And then we decided no, that it’s earlier than that. It’s part of it. I’m not saying all of it. But part of it is being raised as girls in this culture where first of all, a lot of people find sports. You’re talking about competitiveness and sports. People find fun in that, but girls are kind of teased early out of losing themselves in sport. We’re kind of, you run like a girl you’re, you know, you’re teased and you start to feel self-conscious. That girls are trained to care about how we appear to other people or whether we’re looking desirable or looking attractive, or are we fitting in? And I think fun does require some kind of being unselfconscious, does fun require losing yourself and like not worrying about how you appear. And that is what is trained out of girls so early.” 

And with that, I was ten years old, wearing catcher’s gear that was MUCH too big for my small frame, covered in dirt, playing a sport that I loved so much with my friends. A sport that my parents introduced me to as soon as I was big enough to hold a softball. Mom loved to play and even if we girls didn’t enjoy it as much as she did (it would turn out that we did), as she was not about to have daughters that “threw like a girl”. 

1986 Little League Champions. I’m in the second row, second from right.
1986 Little League Champions. I’m in the second row, second from right.

My childhood was largely defined by sports. We didn’t have a lot of money, but bike rides, road races, and sports were fairly accessible. I started playing softball early in grade school, basketball in fourth grade, track (and running with my dad) in sixth, and volleyball in seventh. Of the many lessons I learned through sports as a kid, one that I hadn’t recognized until listening to this podcast, was how to have fun. My childhood was filled with fun. I learned to get dirty, to play hard, to compete, and I witnessed my parents – especially my mom – having fun, which was probably just as important. My parents ran road races. They played volleyball at the Y and my mom played in a women’s league when I was in junior high. I occasionally went with her to practices and would silently plead from the bleachers to be invited to play. She also played softball. I remember going to her games and playing with the other kids while our moms were on the field. One game in particular stands out – there was a storm coming and everyone’s hair stood on end, which us kids thought was really neat. But without lightning closeby, the game pressed on. Then my mom went up to bat, in the clean-up spot as always, and just as her bat connected with the ball, lightning spidered across the sky. The game was called before she could cross the plate for what would have been a home run. I didn’t know the term “bad ass” back then, but it was so bad ass. In addition to playing softball, she coached my 13-15 yr old travel team when no one else would. We also camped (not always fun) and took vacations, often to places my parents thought we’d enjoy. I had a lot of books and no shortage of material with which to make art. I borrowed my cousin’s clarinet and started band in fifth grade and ended up playing through my sophomore year in college. So much of my childhood was doing. Doing and being and having fun. 

Until listening to this podcast, I didn’t realize what a gift it was that I had parents who showed me how to have fun, who allowed and encouraged me to have fun. That I had parents, a mom and a dad, who let me see them having fun. Joy wasn’t something we had to earn in my house. As a result, I grew into a woman who never felt that I had to earn the right to have fun. I am not confused by the concept of doing something just because. But so many people are, especially women, for many of the reasons Glennon mentions in that quote above. (As well as trauma, which I’m not discussing here. That needs its own post. I’m probably not the best one to write it.) I don’t know how we help women learn to re-inhabit their bodies, or learn that they don’t need anyone’s permission to have fun, or learn that not everything we do has to have a purpose or an outcome. I don’t know how we help women access the joy they’ve been denied for so long, the joy that was conditioned out of them as kids.

But when I think about the consequences of this fun deficit, perhaps even a pleasure deficit, for all of us, I urgently believe we need to figure it out. How will today’s kids, especially girls, learn how to have fun when they don’t see it modeled by their own parents and the other adults in their lives? I would argue that productivity culture, diet culture, and fat phobia have not only stolen fun from adults, but they’re also stealing from kids. This obsession with outcomes, getting stuff done, being “productive”, being thin, being seen as attractive to others, is sucking the life force from all of us. 

Productivity culture should not be confused with Type 2 fun. Type 2 fun is fun in retrospect. Type 2 fun comes from an activity or experience that is miserable in the moment but provides deep joy and satisfaction later or when it’s complete. Something like training for (or racing) a marathon, or learning a new skill which is often torturous in the beginning, or hiking a steep trail. Type 2 fun is still fun. Racing around to check every item off a to do list, or wearing busyness as a badge of honor is not fun. Type 1 fun can be a bit more accessible as it is fun in the moment. Things such as attending a concert, eating a delicious meal, or snuggling with a pet are all type 1 fun. Both types are important. And both require a measure of presence, a willingness to be fully within one’s body. 

I wonder if simpler pleasures, simpler types of fun would provide a safe way for women who live with a fun/pleasure deficit to begin to explore being fully embodied, to relearn what it means to experience joy. Savoring a good cup of coffee in the morning or cuddling with the dog might feel more accessible than louder/bigger experiences of fun, or fun that involves a lot of physical feedback from the body (anything athletic or physically challenging). Little pockets of joy and pleasure might make it easier to reconnect with a younger version of ourselves, the one who knows how to have fun. Little permission slips can become big permission slips with time and experience. 

This week, I’m going to marinate in those moments of joy, be grateful that I can see them and experience them. Be grateful that because of chronic illness, I’ve divorced myself from productivity culture and recognize that by just being a human in the world, I’ve earned the right to experience pleasure and joy. The too-strong coffee while I write in the morning (early morning coffee = type 1 fun, writing = type 2 fun), the runs in the summer sun (type 2), watching my puppies play in the yard (type 1), the decadent breakfast I made for myself (cooking = type 2, eating = type 1), reading the four books I’m in the middle of (type 1), and so on. I am going to savor every little bit of fun. And perhaps see if my mom wants to play a game of catch.

This piece was originally posted on my new blog earlier today. This will be the last post on this site, but I do hope you’ll join me over at https://www.juniperuscoaching.com/blog. Same stuff, just a new location. Thank you, thank you for reading these last five years!

General, Reflection, Transformation, Uncategorized

Square One: Or the Time I Poured Gasoline on a Raging Fire

It was about midnight on a Tuesday. After a few fitful hours of sleep, I awoke to my heart racing, feeling like it was about to flutter right out of my chest. I glanced at my Garmin and saw 100 for my heart rate. It’s usually around 60 when I sleep. I checked the monitor to see if the puppies were still asleep and they were, curled up tight against each other into one little fur ball. We adopted them five days ago from a local rescue and my body has been in full rebellion since the second day. That night, I was up running to the bathroom every few hours with what I thought was a digestive bug, but by Monday it was apparent something more sinister was at play. I couldn’t eat and my gut was still a wreck. Add in the periodic episodes of tachycardia waking me up at night and something was clearly amiss. I worry the puppies are too much, and text M as much in the middle of the night.

We talked for almost an hour, with me being as quiet as possible as I didn’t want to wake the puppies. Being so young, they’d soon be up to go outside and I wanted to put that off as long as I could. I don’t understand what’s happening to my body and am worried about what’s going to happen in the three+ days until M gets home. He’s only been out for a day and it’s already a shit show. I wonder if we should contact the rescue, but he thinks he can get home early. He will make some calls first thing in the morning and I will do my best to keep my head above water until then. As someone who’s always prided herself on having her shit together, I hate that I need help. I hate that this is too much. I hate that my body is rebelling in such an obvious way that it cannot be ignored. I deeply resent that after everything that’s happened in the last three months, that now my body is like a wildfire raging out of control.

It’s June 11, 2019. Just over three months after my dad died from pancreatic cancer. Not yet three weeks since my old-lady dog Abby died unexpectedly. Adopting the puppies was supposed to be a bright spot in what has been an incredibly shitty year so far. We’ve lived with at least one dog since we got Sadey, our Lab, in September 2001. She was with us until August 2016. We rescued Abby in October in 2004, and with her passing that chapter of our life officially came to a close. Sadey and Abby brought so much life and joy to our home. Sadey with her love of naps in front of the fan and Abby with her gentle scolding when the popcorn I tossed her didn’t land to her liking. With them gone, M wanted to take a break from having pets. But with him away for work as much as he is, a quiet house in the midst of this dreadful year seemed like a miserable idea. So one adult dog became two puppies after our dog sitter reached out when these two came into the shelter. It’s one of those moments that when I look back on it, replays in slow motion as I scream at the woman to stop and pay attention.

I navigated my dad’s passing fairly well, all things considered. He lived with pancreatic cancer for 3-1/2 years, which is practically an eternity for that particular cancer. As with a lot of terminal cancers, there were warning signs those last few months that suggested we were running out of time. Which is to say that while his passing was tragic, he was only 65 and we should have had much more time with him, it was not unexpected. What was unexpected was how much time we had following his diagnosis. When you expect someone to be gone in less than a year and one year turns into 3-1/2, the extra time feels like a tremendous gift, even as the ending is the same shitty ending. Three and a half years is a lot of time to acclimate to what’s about to happen. I started grieving the minute we got confirmation of his diagnosis. Which isn’t to say that a tsunami of despair didn’t accompany his passing, but I was prepared for it.

When my dad was diagnosed in the summer of 2015, I did the math and realized I was going to be the girl who lost her dog and her dad in the same year. I assumed that dog would be Sadey, as she was 14 years old at the time. Abby was 11. But then my dad and his treatment team found a groove, and when we lost Sadey the following summer, my dad was humming a long just fine. I thought I’d dodged a bullet.

The years clicked by with my dad holding his own, even as we knew it wouldn’t last. By late 2018, it was clear the cancer was getting the upper had. He looked as though he’d aged ten years since the summer and he was sleeping more. Other troubling symptoms started to pop up. The clock spun faster. We had our last lunch together on Monday, February 4th. Exactly four weeks before he died. And I knew it was our last lunch. Just as I knew he had pancreatic cancer when my mom mentioned his symptoms on that July evening in 2015. So when he passed just after midnight on Monday, March 4, I was as prepared as one can be.

What I was not prepared for was Abby’s quick decline two months later. She was so spunky, so full of life for being 14 years old. We knew we were on the short end of her time with us, but it wasn’t until 36 hours before we said goodbye that we knew anything was amiss. And with her passing, a small little fire that had burning in my body since the death of my dad, grew into a bonfire, but a fire I could still ignore. With the adoption of the puppies a few weeks later, I poured gasoline on the fire and it quickly over took my life.

It would take months for me to recover from the aftermath of that June. M did the heavy lifting on so many fronts, most especially in caring for the babies. Part of me resented them, thinking they were responsible for what happened to me. Which of course they weren’t. They were a catalyst, but they weren’t the cause. The cause was my own inability to see what was happening. When the dust finally settled from that terrible time, my takeaway was that when a fire is burning, pull up a chair and watch. Don’t ignore it. And for the love of god, don’t add more fuel.

It wasn’t until last fall when I started my coach training that I had language beyond metaphor for what I experienced that summer. One of the first concepts we learned about was the change cycle. Life transformation follows a cyclical course with four phases, a course that we navigate many times in many aspects of our life. We can be in different phases of the change cycle in different aspects of our lives – Square One in our career, Square Four in our relationship with our significant other for example.

The cycle kicks off with a catalytic event. Catalytic events are a shock, an opportunity, or a transition, and can be good or bad events. The catalytic event sends us into the first phase of the change cycle – Square One. Square One is a time of fundamental death and rebirth. Old identities, old patterns, old versions of the self are shed to make way for the new. It is a deeply uncomfortable stretch of time. Martha Beck’s mantra for Square One is “I don’t know what the hell is going on, and that’s okay.” (For reference, Square Two is for dreaming and scheming, the motto is “there are no rules and that’s okay”; Square Three is the hero’s saga, the motto is “this is much harder than I expected and that’s okay”; Square Four is the promise land and the motto is “everything is changing and that’s okay”. For more information, Martha Beck goes in to detail on the change cycle in her book Finding Your Own North Star.)

As it turned out, I had two catalytic events right on top of each other – my dad’s death and Abby’s death. Then, because apparently that wasn’t enough, I added in a third for good measure by adopting two young dogs. Looking back now with the context of what I know about Square One, it feels like a foregone conclusion that the summer of 2019 was going to be a fucking disaster. There was no other way for it to go. Two of the most important steps for navigating Square One are to stay present and make small moves. Stay present and make small moves = pull up a chair and watch the fire burn, maybe make some s’mores and read a good book. In other words, don’t adopt two young dogs after the death of your father and beloved old lady dog.

For better or worse, holding still goes against our cultural narrative of what it means to be a worthwhile human. We worship productivity culture and resist pausing for any reason at nearly all costs. It didn’t occur to me when everything was going wrong in the first half of 2019 that it was a warning sign, a caution light encouraging me to slow down. In fact, slowing down was the exact opposite of what I wanted do. So I ran head long into a situation that would be my undoing. It took about four months to crawl out of the hole I dug for myself in June 2019, an incredibly high price to pay.

But the next time I land in Square One, I’ll recognize it and know what to do. I’ll know to stand still and wait. To pause as long as it takes for the dust to settle. To let the fire burn itself out. To not make any big decisions, even if big decisions seem like wonderful distractions. They are not. They are fuel on the fire and I know how spectacularly that can blow up.

And while that summer was traumatic (not an exaggeration), we made it thanks to a lot of help from other people. My sister watched the puppies while I showered those first few days. Our dog sitter, the local doggie daycare, and Bob the trainer, who helped us teach the puppies not to be assholes (Jack is still working on this), saved our butts time and time again. I still need a lot of help with the babies, but we’re managing. And when one or both of them curl up on me in the middle of the night, I am so deeply grateful to have not missed out on this. They’ve been my greatest teachers, it turns out.

General, Politics, Reflection, Uncategorized

Peace Amongst an Insurrection

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I was in class while violent white supremacists stormed our Capitol. In class with eleven other women, learning how to hold space and examine painful thoughts, while aggrieved men desecrated one of the most sacred places in our government. Once I was out of class and realized what was happening, I could not stop thinking about the juxtaposition between the space I just occupied and the chaos unfolding halfway across the country.

I did not have an illusions that 2021 would be magically different from 2020. After 2019 nearly tore me in half, with the death of my father and my dog less than three months apart, and a spectacularly shitty couple of years before that, I deeply understand that the universe owes me nothing. So when the calendar turned on Friday, January 1, I cast a skeptical eye towards what might come. The universe wasted no time in getting to work. On January 1st, my community endured a severe ice storm with .3-.4 in. of ice piling up over the course of the day. It would take ten days for the ice to melt and it would be twelve days before we’d see the sun again. I was in Prompt Care on Sunday morning, January 3 with a case of shingles. Violent white supremacists terrorized our Capitol on Wednesday, January 6. Jack and Lola were at the vet on Saturday morning, January 9 where Lola had some “maintenance” on her anal glands and Jack was diagnosed with a thyroid problem. Lola was back at the vet the next Saturday, yesterday, with an ear infection. 2021, coming in hot.

And yet, the last few weeks have been some of the most peaceful weeks I’ve experienced in quite a few years. And not just because I spent the first ten days of the year sick and mostly stuck on the couch. Today (Sunday, January 17) is my 17th day with out social media. I planned on taking a break from just Facebook and Instagram, but haven’t felt the urge to login to Twitter, so my FB/IG break turned into a social media break. Of course, I had no idea that my hiatus would coincide with an insurrection, but my timing couldn’t have been better. It was fascinating to experience such a cataclysmic event without the noise of social media. It was SIGNIFICANTLY less stressful. Significantly.

Without this pause, I wouldn’t have known how affected I am by the swarm of input from my social media feeds, which is exponentially amplified during significant events. I was able to follow the news about the violence, without the extra chatter. It was just the facts. Because of that, I felt some space from what was happening. As terrible as it was, I wasn’t anxious, I didn’t spin out about what would happen next. I didn’t feel compelled to form my own opinions about it. I talked with a few friends about what was happening, and M listened to many more of my ramblings than he cares to, I’m sure. I eventually wrote my Representative. But it all felt very civilized, unemotional…in a good way. A healthy way.

Beyond the tremendous decrease in anxiety related to political events, I’m reading way more. Since the start of the year, I’ve read The Witches are Coming by Lindy West and Wintering by Katherine May (I highly recommend both books). I’m just finishing up A Liberated Mind by Stephen C. Hayes for my coach training. Never mind how I will be able to use the tools outlined in the book in my work with clients, but I have a dramatically different perspective on the chatter and anxiety that has always resided in my head. One of my top priorities for this week is to start practicing some of the techniques outlined in the book. Thank you sweet tiny baby Jesus for brilliant researchers who can write coherent books for regular folks. I’m also reading Running Home by Katie Arnold (a gift from a dear friend, thank you Kristy!) and Mediocre by Ijeoma Oluo. Reading Mediocre, who’s subtitle is “The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America” on the heels of the insurrection on January 6 is particularly rich. I have always been prone to reading two-to-three books at once and these last few weeks have been no exception. I’ve even managed to watch two(!!) movies, which probably only happened due to being sick. But still, it counts. If you haven’t seen Just Mercy, please watch it. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Even though it’s barely halfway through the month, I’m already thinking ahead to what happens when February arrives. I realize that this is my experiment and that I make the rules. Meaning I don’t have to come back to social media if I’m not ready. But I do miss my friends, even as I’ve been zooming, emailing, texting, and chatting on the phone with some (seriously, I’d love to do more of all of this, let’s chat!). I’m certain I don’t want to leave these platforms. However, I don’t want to go back to my old habits. I want to retain the hard-earned peace I’ve found these last few weeks. I’ve thought about how I might create an online environment that feels more friendly and less antagonistic. Honestly, I think (hope) the inauguration in just a few days will go a long way in creating that. Trump is a cancer that’s infected all of us. With him out of the White House, I hope we might start the long process of healing the damage of the last five years. A Biden administration will bring down the temperature, even for Republicans. While they might not agree with his politics, he will lead the government in a way we are accustomed, with seriousness and grace. His staff and administration are comprised of people who are deeply familiar with government and know how to do the people’s work. Government was never meant to be a business and should not be treated as such.

Mostly, I’m getting better at not abandoning myself and I want to hang on to that. Learning to stay with myself is partly why I’m taking a break from alcohol. I don’t drink much, and I don’t drink often, but I want to be far more careful about how, when, and why I escape. Taking a pause from social media and not drinking for a while are two “easy” ways to do that. Now when my brain needs a break, rather than scrolling mindlessly on my phone, I read a book, work on a crossword from the New York Times (which are really hard, BTW), or watch a favorite episode of The Office. If I have a thought that’s hooked me, I use one of the tools from my coach training to take a look at it. Peace has been the overriding theme of the year so far, even with an ice storm, shingles, an insurrection, and two sick dogs, all with an escalating pandemic as the backdrop. And for that, I am deeply grateful.

Autoimmunity, New Year's, Reflection, Uncategorized

Taking a Break

I noticed the email around 8p. I opened it and clicked the link, knowing what I would find. I had blood work drawn the week before in anticipation of a doctor’s appointment on the 23rd. After feeling really good for several months, I felt not great. Again. A familiar fatigue returned, and with it the anxiety and rage and wonder if this cycle would ever end. After thinking we found THE solution this summer with the discovery of a severe wheat intolerance, this recent setback reveals that while gluten was in fact a significant part of the problem, it wasn’t the full story.

I open the email and quickly scan the results. As I expected, the inflammation was back, more than double what it was in September. I know what this means: no more running, more sleeping, more supplements, and more dietary changes. While I’m relieved for confirmation that the fatigue and malaise wasn’t in my head, I’m so frustrated to be back here again. I thought I was done with this.

This fall was busy, busier than I’d been in a while. My coach training, which started in October, is rigorous and much more work than I expected. Not only am I learning the skills to be an effective coach myself, but in practicing with my fellow students I’m experiencing the tools we’re learning from the perspective of a client. Which means that I’m doing a considerable amount of internal work while learning and developing a host of new skills. It is turning me inside out in a way that no other program has before and I love it. I love what we’re learning. I love how actionable and effective the whole of it is. I am still deeply uncomfortable with the “life coach” label, even as I am three months into an intense training program, with seven months still to go. A program that was developed by a Harvard-trained sociologist. A program that is deeply grounded in research. And even as I learn how transformative this work is as I serve as a practice client for my colleagues. I still shudder at this term, hesitating to attach myself to it.

About the time I started my coach training, I began running again. I started conservatively, hoping that the cooler weather would allow me to gain the traction that eluded me in the summer. I took a break from running in late June, when it became apparent that the summer heat, something I’ve always struggled with, was going to be more of an issue than normal. For the first time, running felt inflammatory in a way I couldn’t well articulate. This seemed to be confirmed when I switched my workouts to strength training and HIIT, supplemented with regular walks around the neighborhood, and immediately lost a few pounds. I only resumed running once the heat broke, easing back into training cautiously. In early November, I started training with my friend Mike, one of my Boston Marathon friends. It was my first time I having running coach since Mr. Bahr in high school. I loved having someone tell me what to do. He also kept me from increasing my mileage too fast, something I repeatedly do to myself when left to my own devices. I savored heading out the door every morning, even as the mornings became colder and darker.

And then, seemingly just like that, it all came crashing down. Here I sit in late December, not running at all, on holiday break from coach training, trying to recharge my batteries as much as I can before we pick back up next week. As I look back over the last few months, I wonder where I went wrong, how it fell apart again so quickly. I’ll never have the definitive answers I crave, but I think it boils down to a lack of resilience. My recovery is fragile, tentative, and uncertain. It is hard to accept this. Before these last few years, I could plow through life, burning the candle at both ends. I’ve been very stubborn in letting go of this approach, even as it is obvious it no longer serves me. Our culture worships the hustle, prioritizes productivity. Even as I was forced to let go of my attachment to those since getting sick several years ago, it’s fascinating how quickly it creeps back the minute I start feeling good again.

As I’ve read the work of women writing about sobriety the last few months, one recurring theme is how the absence of alcohol created space for other things such as more restful sleep and more meaningful connections. There’s conversation about how many people turn to alcohol to numb out or distract. As I’ve thought about this, it’s nudged me to consider the other ways in which I numb or distract myself. Social media is a big one, something I engage with far more frequently than alcohol. It’s been interesting to observe myself the last few weeks, noticing when and why I reach for my phone. Similar to experimenting with sobriety, it has me considering what my life would look like without this distraction.

I don’t want to leave social media, as I deeply value the connections I have with very real people there. I met a large group of friends on a Runner’s World forum over ten years ago, and we used to call each other imaginary friends. But there is nothing imaginary about most of the people who fill my social media feeds. They are full of real people that I treasure and to whom I want to remain connected. And yet. I want to develop a healthier relationship with this tool. As the often quoted line from The Social Dilemma goes “if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product”. Our attention is a commodity. These platforms are made to capture our attention and keep us scrolling for as long as possible. I know it has affected my attention span, reduced how long and how deeply I can focus. I wonder what the consequences are of being able to so readily distract myself. I want to know what I would think about, how I would use my time without this thing that has become central to our existence.

So similar to my experiment with sobriety, I am going to take a break from these platforms, well Facebook and Instagram anyway. I use Twitter primarily for news and cultivated a feed that I do not find stressful. Nor am I tempted to check it or scroll mindlessly as I am the other two. January will serve as a reset, a detox of sorts. I’ve taken several days at a time away from these sites over the years, but this will be the longest break I’ve taken since joining them all those years ago. I’m embarrassed to say that I’m nervous.

With the pandemic, all of our worlds have become quite small and mine is no exception. With a husband who is gone for a week at a time, every other week for his work, I spend a lot of time by myself. This was true before the pandemic. I don’t know how that time alone will feel when I can’t meet friends for dinner because of covid and don’t have the option of checking in online. I text with my family, email with friends, but not having Facebook and Instagram as one more avenue for connection and distraction will be an interesting experience. Through my coach training, I’m gaining the confidence to hold discomfort lightly and with curiosity. I am not afraid of what might come up. I plan to write a few posts throughout the experiment here on the blog, mostly for my own benefit, but feel free to follow along if you’re curious (since I won’t be posting to FB or IG, subscribing to the blog is the easiest way to do this).

I’m also taking a break from running, likely until I have blood work drawn again nine weeks from now. I am grateful for a wonderful setup in the basement, so getting in a good workout will not be difficult. Fortunately, January and February are two of the worst weather months in my corner of the midwest, so I am not that sorry to be inside for a few months. Hopefully this will let my doc further isolate what may or may not be the problem and finally put an end to these seemingly relentless setbacks. What I want most is to be healthy, to feel good, to live my life without this mess hanging over every decision. I believe there’s a sweet spot of diet, exercise, sleep, and life that will allow my health to rest quietly in the background. We just need to find it. We’re getting closer.

These last four years have been difficult for many of us. This last year especially so. My wish for all of you is ease and comfort as we go into 2021. May your new year be filled with joy and peace.

General, Politics, Reflection, Uncategorized

To the Religious

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As an agnostic, a secular person, someone who finds inspiration, grace, comfort, and reassurance in nature, I watch as you wield your religion as a sword. I see how rather than using your religion’s tenets to guide your own life and decisions, how you use it as a weapon against others. How you use your faith to demonize people who make different choices than you, live their lives differently from you. How you stand in false morality shouting about the unborn, but look away in silence while children are ripped from the arms of their families at the border. Look away in silence from the black mothers who die in childbirth at much higher rates than their white counterparts. Look away in silence at the children who go unfed and unhoused right here in our own country. How you rail against the Affordable Care Act and the birth control it provides, how you rail against other public health interventions that reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, how you shame women for the very human act of sex.

I watch while you turn your noses at LGBTQ folks for their “lifestyle”. If you didn’t make a conscious choice to be cis-het, how did they make a conscious choice to be gay or lesbian, to be trans? But even if that were a choice, what business is it of yours? How is two women or two men getting married any of your concern? How is the baker refusing to make a cake for the gay couple any different from the soda fountains of the 1950s not serving black people? Are you not called to love everyone? Didn’t god make us all in his image?

I grew up going to church in my tiny midwestern town. I attended Sunday School most every week, and my family attended services most but not all weekends, usually arriving a few minutes late when we did much to my eternal horror. My parents weren’t content to slide quietly into a back pew, we had to march our tall, noisy selves to the front of the sanctuary which made me want to melt into the floor every single time. My heart races just thinking about it. As a high schooler, I watched the young kids during the service, escaping to the basement after the youth sermon. We were active in our little church, my parents serving in leadership roles and us kids volunteering to help at church events on a regular basis. I enjoyed it. Later, my mom would say that she wanted us to attend church as kids in the hopes that it would make us less likely to join a cult as adults. She was probably half joking, but perhaps not. We belonged to the Congregational Church, which became a point of pride many years later, long after I stopped attending services, when they were one of the first denominations to actively invite and welcome LGBTQ folks to worship.

Eventually, when I was in college I believe, there was a falling out of sorts and my parents left their leadership positions. The pastor was updating the organizational chart and budget of the church. My dad thought god should be at the top, the paster felt he himself should be at the top. The pastor also wanted more money. Our church was tiny and had very little money. I don’t know details beyond that, but it ended with my parents walking away. They left their leadership roles and never attended services regularly after that, although I believe my dad remained a deeply faithful person until he passed last year.

One of my sisters takes after my dad in that respect. She took religion seriously, even as a younger child. She and her first husband were very active in their church, most of her friends were from their congregation. When she left the marriage, a decision she did not make lightly or without every attempt to save the marriage, she lost many of those friends. I watched my sister lose her support system in the time she needed it the most. When I think back to the teachings of my youth, what I remember most comes down to “love thy neighbor”. Not “love thy neighbor unless they want an abortion”. Not “love thy neighbor unless they are gay or trans”. Not “love thy neighbor unless they get a divorce”. Not “love thy neighbor unless, unless, unless…”.

Earlier this year when the pandemic hit, Governor Pritzker here in Illinois was one of the first to issue shut down orders. These orders included any place where people gather, including churches. Many local churches pivoted quickly to online or call-in services, as good internet continues to be a huge challenge in rural areas (side note – this would be a wonderful actual problem for government officials to focus on). Several churches even did drive-in services, where folks stayed in their cars but tuned into the service through a radio station and still worshipped together, which I thought was brilliant. It didn’t take long for some people to claim that the shut down infringed upon their first amendment rights, even as the governor never asked people to stop worshipping. He asked them to stop worshiping in person, a request a great many churches complied with as they recognized the dangers that congregating together posed to their parishioners. People in my timeline made all sorts of ridiculous statements about their rights and their freedoms.

Those same folks in many cases raged against the mask orders. Public health folks universally recommend masks to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. Masks, social distancing, and regular hand washing are our best defense against this virus. And yet these same folks, including many in public office, persistently stomp their feet about their rights and their freedoms, to not only gather together, but to not wear masks when they do. I cannot reconcile how this same group of people shouts about the sanctity of life when it comes to the decisions women make about their own bodies, decisions that affect no one but the women herself, but persistently and vocally shun all public health measures when it comes to combatting a deadly and highly contagious virus, decisions that affect great many people not just themselves. The intersection of freedom and responsibility is not something we discuss, particularly as relates to religion. People shout “I HAVE FREEDOM. I HAVE RIGHTS.” and the conversation ends.

When it comes to the hand-wringing about abortion and gay marriage, including a significant number of letters to the editor in our local paper and what I see from people online, it is all based in personal religious beliefs. I have yet to see one argument against either of these that isn’t based in someone’s religion. I also have yet to hear an argument of how or why it is appropriate to apply those religious beliefs to the whole of the country. How is that not the establishment of a religion? What about my religious beliefs? What about the religious beliefs of the woman getting the abortion? The couple getting married?

With white religious folks supporting Donald Trump in large numbers, especially white protestants and evangelicals (black people are generally the most religious folks in the country and they overwhelmingly support democrats on the whole), those of us who sit on the sidelines of formal religion see stunning hypocrisy. Trump is a man who goes against everything I learned as a kid when I attended church. He is a bully, a white supremacist, a man who treats women with great disrespect, who behaves as though rules and laws do not apply to him. He is not a man of faith. I don’t think a president’s religious beliefs – or lack of belief – matters at all when electing who will lead our country. But if a group of people seeks to apply their version of morality to an entire country, but throws their energetic support behind the most immoral of men, it reveals the whole mess of it to be a house of cards. White christians revealed deep tolerance for white supremacy and misogyny, a deep tolerance for a man who lies with abandon. They are not the moral compass for the nation.

There are many people of faith who do not share these sentiments, of course. “Not all religious people” applies here. And yet. A vocal and powerful subset of that group do and currently they drive the narrative. Many of us agnostic, atheist, and folks of other religions are held hostage by this minority. Rather than talking about public health measures that can reduce unplanned pregnancies, therefore making the question of abortion a rare occurrence, we debate whether or not women have the right to bodily autonomy. Rather than ensuring everyone has equal rights under the law, in many states LGBTQ folks can still be denied employment and/or housing, we debate whether or not they have the right to exist and to marry. This isn’t freedom of religion. We need to have a conversation about what is “moral” and why it matters. When it comes to public policy, morality as defined by religion – any religion – doesn’t matter at all. Even so, attending church every Sunday doesn’t make you moral. Praying every night doesn’t make you moral. Telling others how to live their lives doesn’t make you moral. Ignoring public health guidelines, thereby endangering the health and lives of others, in a pandemic is not moral.

A great number of religious folks need to realize the difference between my business, your business, and everybody’s business. They are awfully concerned about what amounts to my business. I’d prefer they spend their time minding their own store. I don’t need their input on how I live my life. My friends don’t need their input on who they should marry. I do need them to wear a mask, however. That’s everybody’s business.

General, Obesity, Running, Uncategorized

On Running, Anti-Fatness, Diet Culture, and Body Liberation

A few things off the top:

  • This post discusses bodies and weight stigma. Please proceed carefully if these topics are triggering.
  • I write this as a straight-sized, cis-gender, white women who holds tremendous privilege in the context of this particular conversation.
  • This post is meant as a conversation starter, a toe-in to a conversation I don’t see in the running community, but a conversation I think we need to have. I am by no stretch an expert on diet culture, anti-fatness, fat phobia, or fat liberation. I am learning and this post is a dialogue on some of what concerns me. I am guilty of much of the behavior I discuss here.
  • At its root, anti-fatness and fat phobia are white supremacist beliefs and behaviors. I do not get into that aspect here, simply for the sake of brevity (this post is already too long), but want to be clear that the these behaviors are white supremacy in action.

Over the last few years, the running community has started a reckoning with our deep history with eating disorder culture. We’ve acknowledged how women in particular have been harmed by sometimes (but not always) well-meaning coaches who place an outsized focus on body weight in competition. We’ve learned how girls as young as junior high and all of the way into the professional ranks have been scolded for the number on the scale. Runners who’ve been told they’re too fat to be fast, even while they compete at the upper echelons of the sport in very thin bodies.

But what I haven’t seen much of is a dialogue about how anti-fatness and diet culture have weaved their tentacles into running culture, particularly among the non-elite. Runners such as Mirna Valerio, Latoya Shauntay Snell, and Kelly Roberts have been vocal advocates for more inclusivity for fat bodies in the running community. As women in curvy bodies, and for Valerio and Snell black, curvy bodies, they’ve shouldered much of the burden of holding a mirror up to the running community. And while we work to make space for runners of all shapes and sizes, I don’t hear us talking about anti-fatness or fat phobia, or the ways in which it influences the behavior of straight-sized, mid-pack runners, never mind the ways in which it excludes people from the sport. I also don’t hear us discussing how diet culture repackages itself as a desire to be fit particularly among women athletes.

Anti-fatness: opposed to obese people

Fat phobia: irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against obesity or people with obesity

Diet culture: a system of belief that worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue

Anti-fatness among the running community looks like clothing companies with limited sizing and with apparel that doesn’t take the needs of fat bodies into account. Shorts that are too short (longer shorts reduce chafing and increase comfort), sports bras that don’t account for an ample bust and in the rare instance they do, are ugly and utilitarian. It’s tops that aren’t long enough. Compression gear only in straight sizes. Sportswear catalogs and advertising that feature only straight-sized athletes and models. Running stores that carry clothing only for straight-sized athletes, or that carry a small offering of “extended sizes” on a small rack in the back corner. Running stores that don’t have any fat runners on staff. It is publications that feature exclusively straight-sized runners, except for the occasional feature about fat runners, which is the only time runners of size are seen.

Diet culture with a side of fat phobia is straight-sized, mid-pack runners monitoring their calories in the off season so as to not gain weight. It’s women wearing shirts when they run in the summer, until they are “thin enough” to run without it. It’s straight-sized runners saying they are fat – even as a joke – when they pick up a few pounds in between training cycles. It’s women wearing tights when the weather is hot (this can also relate to shorts not being long enough). It’s anytime someone covers their body for reasons that don’t include the temperature. It is going out for a long run to “earn” the cheeseburger, the pizza, the ice cream. It is the way we hide behind training, hide behind “wanting to be fast”, as an excuse for our calorie restriction. It is the folks who comment on Snell’s Instagram videos of her workouts, saying how they are smaller than her and couldn’t do what she does. It’s the people who see those videos and think that same thought. It’s complimenting each other on weight loss. It’s “transformation Tuesday” posts where the transformation is almost always a smaller body.

American culture is deeply fat phobic. Fat people are less likely to be hired for a job, less likely to have their complaints taken seriously at the doctor’s office – the solution to a sore throat is to lose weight, and more likely to be shamed for taking up space in public than straight-sized people. They are never the romantic lead in a movie. They are not the CEO of a company. Their size is always something to overcome, to succeed in spite of. Fat women of color are particularly invisible or when they are visible, it is never in positive ways. There isn’t a comparable state of the body that people are so thoroughly blamed for, even though body size is due to a very complicated set of circumstances, personal choices being but one incredibly small component. People are very comfortable making value judgements based on someone’s size. We are comfortable assuming how they (don’t) care for their body, and what must be their (ill) state of health.

Fat activist Caleb Luna states that fat phobia and anti-fatness pressures thin people into monitoring their bodies. I believe that many runners, particularly women runners, use running as one way of monitoring their body. A socially acceptable way. We can hide our internalized fat phobia and participation in diet culture behind our desire to be “fit” to be “fast”. I don’t doubt that we also want those things, but I don’t see how the pervasive anti-fatness of our culture isn’t also a factor in how we monitor our bodies in sport, especially when we belong to running groups that do not include any fat people, buy from companies that don’t make products for fat people, consume media that doesn’t include fat people or consider their needs.

Diet culture is an avenue for monitoring our bodies. Factor in a genuine desire to be a better athlete and it can be a perfect storm. Diet culture leaves us hungry and obsessed with food. It tells us to track our calories, to never be full. It tells us that low-carb/high fat will solve all of our problems, even if there is no medical reason to eat that way. It instructs us to skip the snack and to not eat after 7p. It is the belief that we need to earn our food.

Rejecting diet culture is understanding that we can eat whatever the fuck we want, whenever we want. It is the realization that we can be fit, we can be fast, without the obsession about our diet. It is acknowledging that we are humans who get hungry. Virgie Tovar says that “extinguishing our hunger is extinguishing our desire”. And that at it’s root, “desire is about power”. A patriarchal society thrives when women are kept small and distracted. Sociologist Sandra Gillman states that “dieting is a way that women express to their culture that they understand their role and are willing to accept it”. Gillman is a man, but his observation is accurate. Our hunger and our distraction keep us small. It keeps us focused on what we’re going to have for lunch instead of the art we want to make, the problem we’re trying to solve at work. It prevents us from being fully present with those we love.

Within the last year or so, Oiselle expanded their size offerings and now include runners of a variety of sizes in their advertising. They are one company, and a smaller company at that, but it feels like an important step forward. Oiselle has been called out over the years for not featuring diverse runners in their advertising and for not offering apparel for all sizes, and to their credit, they stepped up to the plate in both instances. Unfortunately in both cases, it was runners of color and runners of size who were the most vocal about the omissions.

When running creates space for fat liberation, it will be straight-sized runners pointing out these absences just as vocally. It will be straight-sized runners who notice the community isn’t fully represented, not just those who’ve been left out. Just as we’ve come to expect to see black and brown runners included in advertising and feature stories, we’ll expect to see fat runners included as well. We’ll expect to see fat runners in our local running groups, at the local run store. We’ll expect to see clothing for fat runners displayed right along clothing for straight sized runners. We’ll see companies developing cute, functional bras for fat women runners, just like they do for straight-sized women runners. We’ll realize the fat phobia inherent in our comments about our own bodies, and the damage those comments inflict on not just the fat people in our communities, but on straight-sized folks too.

Want to give white supremacy and the patriarchy a big middle finger? Embrace your hunger, love your body, run hard because it fills you with joy. Understand that bodies aren’t a problem to be solved, our own or other people’s. Consider not commenting on other people’s bodies at all. Stop viewing weight loss as progress, your own or other people’s. Take a deep dive into your own beliefs about fat people, regardless of your size. Read the work of authors who talk about fat liberation, authors such as Virgie Tovar. Eat the cheeseburger. Most of all, savor your food. What a tremendous privilege it is to have delicious, ample food.

Autoimmunity, General, Introversion, Reflection, Transformation, Uncategorized

Healthism is Ableist, Capitalist Bullshit and Musings about What’s Next

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Healthism: identified by Robert Crawford in 1980, healthism is “the preoccupation with personal health as a primary – often the primary – focus for the definition and achievement of well-being; a goal which is to be attained primarily through the modification of life styles.”

Ableism: discrimination in favor of able-bodied people

Capitalism: an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for-profit, rather than by the state.

Six years have passed since my health started its downward spiral. Fall of 2014 was the first clear inclination that something was up, beginning with exercise intolerance and weird night sweats. The downturn continued for four more years, with sprinkles of hope and improvement mixed in, but it would be fall of 2018 before any marked recovery took place. In that time, I burnt my career to the ground – not by choice, stopped running for months at a time, radically modified my diet, all in hopes of reclaiming a shred of the wellbeing I once took for granted.

It’s quite common in our culture to hear people brag about how they don’t take medication. It’s not meant to shame those that do, but folks take pride in being medication-free. It bothered me before, as someone who’s needed thyroid medication to function since I was 25, and allergy medicine to prevent me from taking my eye balls out of my head and scratching my face off since a decade before that. But as someone who now requires handfuls of supplements a few times a day, in addition to the aforementioned thryoid and allergy medication, to make up for the nutrient deficiencies documented within my body, it reeks of ableism. Folks who are medication free are largely so because of good fortune and good genetics.

But what is healthism, beyond the overly stuffy definition quoted above? Our attitudes about overweight and obesity are perfect examples. Folks are blamed by society if their bodies don’t fit our fucked up ideas about what bodies should look like. All bodies must be thin, ideally white or white passing. Anything other than that is subpar and a problem to be addressed. Never mind that a person’s body sized is influenced by many factors, most significantly genetics. It’s also affected by income levels, food security/insecurity, access to healthcare, stress, a community’s built environment – or how people move about one’s community (are there sidewalks, is it safe, is it bikeable), all things partially or completely outside an individual’s locus of control. In spite of all of that, a person’s weight is viewed as a moral issue. An urgent problem that must be solved.

How many companies exist for the sole purpose of “helping” people lose weight? Who is making money off of our culture’s obsession with thinness? Who benefits? Certainly not women who are taught from a young age that our unruly bodies are something to be controlled and managed. Our healthcare costs are some of the highest in the world, our outcomes not befitting those of a wealthy nation, a nation obsessed with health. Where’s the disconnect? Never mind that our bodies are no one’s business. The size of it, the state of it, what we do with it, how we treat it, none of it.

The chronic flare of my autoimmune condition started because of stress. Specifically stress at work. I cared deeply about my job and it was incredibly challenging. So I did what many women do, I ran myself right into the ground, without a second thought. I spent the decade before burning the candle at both ends and getting away with it. I climbed ladders, took on more responsibility, earned a decent salary, all for someone else’s – namely my employer’s – benefit. Sure I had some money in the bank, but I was not the main benefactor of my labor. It’s what I was supposed to do though, right? Bust your ass, even if it costs you nearly everything. This is capitalism. An economic system that benefits a small class of wealthy people, not the everyday folks stuck in the middle of it.

So now I am a person with a chronic illness, someone who will forever exist outside our culture’s obsession with health. I no longer possess the capacity to burn the candle at both ends. Most days I feel pretty good, but I still have days I can barely get off the couch. Less often than a few years ago, thank goodness. I sleep a lot, not by choice. It’s the only way I can function. I spend an inordinate amount of time prepping food. Taking care of myself feels like a full time job most weeks. I’ve spent the last few years trying to figure out where my career fits in the midst of all of this. I’m young enough that I still have a lot I want to accomplish, a lot to offer. I want to be of service, to make all of this mean something. I explored, and even started, going back to school. I’ve explored a number of other options, none of them feeling like the right fit. All of those options have been within how we traditionally define work, namely my working for someone else. My pay, my worth, defined by others.

Finally, it occurred to me that perhaps the way forward isn’t the way it’s always been. What if I worked for myself, on projects that matter most to me? Where I have complete control over how and when I work, taking advantage of when I’m feeling great, scaling back when I need more rest. What if I created a career for myself that can go wherever I go, wherever we go?

Months of soul searching, questioning, and facing a whole host of fears I didn’t even know I had (thanks to M for his tremendous patience while I worked through these) has me on the cusp of starting my own business. I’m a few months from launch, but I am starting Juniperus, a leadership and communications coaching service focused on quiet, introverted, empathetic women who want to cultivate more courage and resilience in their work and in their life. What I loved most about being a leader was mentoring and bringing up other women with me. When I thought about how I wanted to spend my limited resources going forward, I realized it is here. I think the concept of work-life balance is bullshit, especially as someone with a chronic illness. Work-life integration is what I’m going for, and what I hope to help other women manifest in their own unique ways. In addition to my nearly two decades of experience as a quiet leader, I’m also taking a life coach training that starts in October. Not because I want to be a life coach (NTTAWT), but because I want to enhance my question-asking and listening abilities. And a coaching certification seems important in the longterm. I’m exploring anticapitalist pricing strategies and plan to increase our giving as I earn income again. I have very modest goals initially, but I’m not ashamed to say that I want to make up for the income that I’ve lost out on the last five years. I believe I can help quiet women leaders be more effective and fulfilled in their work AND earn a decent salary while I do it. Creating work that accounts for my very real limitations in a way that doesn’t feel like a compromise feels pretty damn good too.

I’ll post on the socials when I officially launch, but none of this would be happening without this persistent, relentless flare, and the wildfire it created. Without being forced to burn it all down, I wouldn’t have had the time or the space to think about the kind of impact I want to have with my work and how I can make that happen. In a different society, one that valued true health and wellbeing, that honored different abilities, I could likely go back to a more traditional career. I could still be a leader in an organization. That is not an option for me, or thousands of other people in similar situations. And what a loss that is. Our talents and our skills are missed because our capacity is different. Because workplaces care more about my butt in a seat for eight+ hours than the quality and quantity of work I can offer. I’m grateful for the privilege to go out on my own. Grateful for a husband that’s been a rock through these last terrible years. Grateful for our good financial decisions that provide the resources to get Juniperus off the ground. Grateful to Vasavi Kumar, the extremely talented business and mindset coach who’s helping me nail down the specifics of this business.

The fire is out, the smoke has cleared. Little bits of life are poking up through the charred earth. I turn 45 in eight weeks. LFG.

General, Reflection, Uncategorized

How Will We Be Different?

In June of 2017, I left my position with the local health department to address what had become a life-consuming setback with an autoimmune condition (Hashimoto’s thyroiditis). As someone who’s always loved throwing myself into my work, leaving a job I enjoyed left me feeling like I was standing naked in the middle of the street. We all have various ways we define ourselves and for me those included daughter, sister, wife, runner, and whatever title was on my business cards. I took a lot of pride in my work. I defined much of who I was through my work. Being sick had already forced me to quit racing two years before, and having to walk away from my career was an even more devastating blow. As I left the office that Friday afternoon, I walked out into a void that I worried would consume me, even if the Hashi’s did not.

I ended up being off work for fifteen months. During my time away from many of the things I enjoyed most about my life – running and racing, working, adventurous vacations with my husband just to name a few, I had a lot of time to think. I’ve referred to those few years lost to the Hashi’s flare as a forest fire, and what grew back wasn’t exactly the same as what was there before. All of that time sitting, resting, and recovering allowed me to evaluate every single aspect of my life. While it wasn’t an opportunity I would have chosen, it was an opportunity nonetheless. The pause provided me a unique chance to remake my life and to reconsider my priorities. I decided what I rebuilt on the other side needed to look much different that what came before. Not only was my body not going to tolerate the levels of stress I subjected it to in the past, I realized that I wanted out of the “race” of life. I no longer had an interest in success as we traditionally define it. The title on my business cards didn’t carry nearly as much weight as I thought it did. In fact, it didn’t matter at all. What I wanted most was to maintain more space in my life. Time to be with my dog (now dogs). Time to be with my husband. Time to read, to write, to be bored. Time to be with my dad while he was still with us. Time to travel. Time to be with my family and friends.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a similar opportunity for many of us, both individually and as a society. Again, not an opportunity any of us would have chosen, but an opportunity just the same. For many of us, our day-to-day life looks very different than it did six weeks ago. The hustle of regular life has been replaced by a different kind of chaos. Gone is the rushing from place to place, activity to activity. Even for folks still going to work (not working from home), the world is very small. We’re in the midst of a pause of sorts, a collective deep breath.

In six short weeks we’ve learned who the essential workers are. They aren’t the corporate individuals walking around in suits. They aren’t the people with the money. They aren’t those in corner offices. The people we need, really truly need, are the checkers at the grocery store, the gas station attendant, the bus driver, the letter carrier, the UPS driver. They are the healthcare workers – the environmental services folks, lab techs, nurses, doctors. In many cases, they work for less than a livable wage. Some have minimal benefits, if any. How do we look them in the eye when this is over if we don’t take this opportunity to rebalance the scales? How can we continue to pretend that the inequity we’ve tolerated for so long is ok? Even as our health care workers are fighting on the front lines, health care systems are laying off staff. With elective procedures canceled, revenues have plummeted. Our health care system is so fucked up that the very organizations responsible for saving us are going broke…while saving us.

In six short weeks, the Earth breathed deep as well. Cities known for their horrific air pollution are enjoying consistently clear skies for the first time in decades. Wildlife is returning to some areas. In six short weeks, workplaces who’d maintained that it was impossible to let employees work from home, quickly figured out exactly how to let employees work from home. Suddenly, many people have much more autonomy over how and when they work. Autonomy to work when their mind is the sharpest, when their body’s most alert. Autonomy to work when it fits within their family life. Perhaps this pandemic will be what finally shakes us out of an obsession with the factory model of doing work, where how long we sit in our chair matters more than the work we produce. In six short weeks, we’ve been forced to consider how we define “productivity”, and realized that sometimes the most productive day involves not much at all.

But what will we DO with all that we’ve learned? Will we pass on the opportunity to remake our lives and our society into something more satisfying, something more equitable? Will we jump right back in to the hustle-and-bustle, letting ourselves be numbed once again by busyness? Will we allow our workplaces to go back to business as usual, to go back to playing the game of who sits at their desk the most works the hardest? Will we again punish the earth with our habits? Will we keep washing our hands?

In six short weeks, we’ve proven that we can all make great sacrifices for the collective good. Something I honestly think we’d forgotten we were capable of. Healthy people are staying home to help out their at-risk friends and family, and their local health care workers. Neighbors are getting groceries for neighbors. People have found new ways to connect with both the folks next door and friends around the world. We’re ordering takeout to support our favorite restaurants. Regular people are making masks. Health care workers are making great sacrifices to give us all a fighting chance. Yes, there are people protesting at-home orders, disregarding the policies in place meant to protect us all. But I believe those folks are in the minority. Just imagine how different things could be if we took advantage of this pause and used it to create something much more powerful, just, and fair. Perhaps we’ll value more deeply the time we spend together, the concerts and baseball games, sitting in a movie theater, going out to dinner. Perhaps we’ll value more deeply the time we spend at home, with each other.

How will YOU be different?

Uncategorized

Unlearning

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From a very young age, girls are told to be quiet and small. Society tells us how to look (again, small), outlines the many things we need to “do” to maintain our appearance – shave legs, pluck/wax eyebrows, color hair – preferably lighter and blonder – and leave it long, breasts should be big and perky and if they aren’t buy a different bra or get an augmentation, starve ourselves – again, be small please, botox for the forehead and Juvederm for the cheeks – no aging here either. We’re told that getting married and having kids is our future, that career is ok as long as it comes after these other more important things.

I was ten years old when I realized I didn’t want to be a mother. Young enough to not understand the rules society expected me to follow, young enough to not foresee the programming that was in store for the next ten+ years of my life. Sure, I played with dolls as a young child. I also played with Legos and Construx, I was obsessed with building things. I loved to color, draw, and read. I played outside in the summer from sunup to sundown, chasing one of my best friends – Ronnie (a boy) – all over the neighborhood on my dirt bike. I played sports, starting with softball when I was four years old. I had short hair because I wouldn’t let my mom fuss with it. I was what we’d call a tomboy.

That didn’t change as I got older. In junior high, I was still the tomboy with short hair. I still preferred playing sports and being outside to just about everything else. I babysat here and there to make some money, but babysitting was always a job. Caring for kids was a means to an end. (usually a new pair of jeans, as tomboy or not, I loved clothes. Still do.)

By high school, I wanted to be a meteorologist when I grew up, and would tell people I didn’t want kids if they asked. I did want to get married if I met the right guy, but was certain I didn’t want to be a mom. This inevitably made people uncomfortable and was the start of several decades of people telling me I’d change my mind. I was confident I wouldn’t, and sometimes said that, but politely listened to the hundreds of people who told me otherwise. (It was ENDLESS through my 20s. Endless.)

That’s really the crux of what it is to be a woman. An excessive amount of external input telling you how to look, how to behave, how to live your life. Some women drink all of it in, swallow it whole, and then spend their lives as addicts, and/or living within the confines of an eating disorder, so poisoned by these external inputs that they lose themselves completely and become legitimately ill. Other women find a way to repel this barrage of feedback and are able to live life on their own terms. Many women find themselves some place in the middle, deeply influenced by these messages, but at the same time aware of their presence and trying to live their life around and in between them.

As a quiet woman, an introvert, I’ve had to learn to embrace my quietness, to inhabit it in a way that makes it fully mine. So that I am quiet in my own unique way, and not quiet because society tells me that a good woman is a quiet woman. I am quiet, but I have strong opinions, and in the last few years I’ve practiced speaking more of them out loud. It sometimes makes people uncomfortable. It sometimes make ME uncomfortable. It sometimes pisses people off even though that’s never my intent. But that’s something I’m practicing too. Allowing people, especially women, to have their anger. Including myself.

With regards to becoming a mother, I’m 44 now. I’ve been married for 21-1/2 years. I’ve spent the last 25+ years of my life listening to people tell me about how I’ll change my mind about kids or that I’ll regret it if I don’t have them. No decision I’ve made has invited so much input as my decision to not be a parent, especially when I was in my 20s and 30s. Everyone else knew more about how I should live my life than I did. And yet. At 44, I’m more confident than ever that I made the right decision for myself. There is not an empty chair at my table. There is no longing for the life not lived. If anything, I’m more certain by the year that I’ve made the best decision for myself. I’m not sure I would have survived being a parent, and that’s not hyperbole. And before any parent reading this feels compelled to comment on the love I’ve missed out on, the happiness I’ll not experience (I’ve been told I won’t know happiness until I become a parent, not kidding), trust that my life is full of love and happiness. It manifests itself differently in my life for sure, and there are experiences I will never have not being a parent. I’m entirely comfortable with that.

Society tells us that people who don’t have children, especially people who choose not to have children, are selfish. I’ve even said that myself. As I’ve reflected on that over the last ten years or so though, I fully reject it. I am not selfish. Or I am selfish, but not in any particularly special way. I am selfish in the way that most people are selfish. My not having children is not rooted in selfishness. It is rooted in a deep knowledge of self, a trusting of my instincts. A trusting of a knowing that first revealed itself when I was still a child.

And while these cultural messages about fulfillment and happiness being available primarily through parenthood are damaging to people like me, they are most damaging to those who desperately want to be a parent but aren’t. For every person like me who made the choice not to be a mother, there are so many more who didn’t make the choice. Who do have an empty chair, or more, at their kitchen table. While I would have enjoyed not spending 25 years explaining myself to strangers and acquaintances, I would enjoy even more if these folks didn’t have to reckon with that absence every time a stranger or a friend has an opinion. May we greet each other with more compassion, grace, and trust, may we create space for love, happiness, and fulfillment to look many different ways. May we understand that “family” can mean many things. May we not see a life lived differently as a challenge to our own choices. May we realize it’s not about us at all.

What I want for my sisters is freedom. Freedom to live, look, and act how we please. I want us to be able to define family however we’d like. I want us to freely inhabit the bodies we were given – big, small, every size in between. No more dieting to make our bodies artificially smaller. What could we do with all of the time and mental energy we’ve spent worrying about (and controlling) the size and shape of our bodies?? I want us to have long hair, short hair, no hair, and have it not mean anything. I want us to be quiet, to be loud, to be sometimes quiet and sometimes loud. I want us to be angry. I want us to tell our daughters they can be anything they want when they grow up, and for it to be the truth (in 200+ years and counting without a woman president, this is still a lie we tell our daughters). Mostly, I want to see what our society would look like, how we’d care for each other, when women are free.

General, Reflection, Transformation, Uncategorized

Wilson Mountain

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It was my last full day in Sedona. After a dear friend had a last-minute change in plans and was unable to travel, I’d spent the last few days exploring on my own. While I’ve traveled extensively by myself, I’ve always met up with folks wherever I’m going. This was my first time being somewhere, just me. Fortunately, M and I visited Sedona in April 2018, so I was familiar with the area, and I’d spent the prior weekend there with friends. But I was still quite intimidated by the solo 3-1/2 days.

I woke up that morning and considered my plans for the day. I really wanted to hike Wilson Mtn., a long, tough hike a guy at the hike shop told me about on Friday. It would be my first time on this trail, and a challenging enough hike that I knew I wouldn’t see many people on a Wednesday early in March. While I’ve hiked extensively, the only solo hiking (or trail running) I’ve done has been in places where I live – the lake outside of town where we live now, the mountains just west of Fort Collins where we lived several years ago. Hiking alone somewhere new is intimidating to me for some reason, even though I’m good with a map and know how to look after myself. To build up my courage, I hiked a beautiful and familiar trail on Tuesday, exploring four miles of new trails at the end. In the back of my mind I knew I was testing the waters for Wednesday. Poking at the edges of my comfort zone.

Boynton Canyon

As I eat my breakfast Wednesday morning, I know I’m going to Wilson. I’ll regret it if I don’t. So many things that are a stretch for me I end up doing not so much because I WANT to do them, but because I’ll hate myself if I don’t. Not hiking this trail, a trail that is within my physical capabilities, because I’m afraid I’ll get lost (absurd) or that I’ll get eaten by a mountain lion (it’s more likely that I’ll be abducted by aliens), would leave me with a kind of self-loathing that would make getting out of bed the next morning very difficult. And I had a plane to catch. So I packed up my stuff and drove to the trailhead.

Most of the hike I thought about my dad. That very day happened to be the one year anniversary of his leaving his mortal body for whatever waits for us in the beyond. His death revealed to me that the most horrible things can happen and yet we endure. Life really does go on, whether you want it to or not. I always knew that my dad and I were a lot alike, but it wasn’t until he passed that I realized what a comfort it had been to have someone close to me who experienced the world much the same way that I do. I would talk to him about work stuff and barely have to explain how I’d responded to a situation because he just knew. Because my instincts, my perspective, was most often his instincts, his perspective. My mom and I were driving back from picking up dinner this past Christmas Eve and she was talking about a problem she was trying to solve. I told her that I was really, really good at coming up with a solution three days from now, so I’d get back to her on Friday. I needed time to think about things before the good stuff bubbled up. She looked at me with a half smile and said “you’re just like your father”.

The farther I hiked, the higher I climbed I felt myself getting closer to him. Not because I believe he’s perched on some throne in the sky, but because it was just me, the trail, and my thoughts. The noise of the trip, the noise of the past month, slowly fell away. I saw one other person in the 4.5 mile hike to the top. I let the effort quiet my over-active imagination and only once thought I heard something in the brush (an actual miracle, really). The view from the top was as spectacular as the hike-shop dude promised. There was some snow still, and snow on the San Franciscos of Flagstaff which were prominent in the distance. It reminded me that it was still March, even as the sunshine and warmth of Sedona lured me into thinking otherwise.

I spent longer than usual taking in the view, making small talk with an older couple from Utah. I took too many photos – as always – and hiked to the other side to see the canyon. Part of me wanted to stay up there forever, as I knew that this hike was essentially the end of the trip. And waiting for me at home was reality and whole bunch of uncertainty around COVID-19, which was just starting to reach its tentacles into the country. I didn’t want to come down from this quiet place, this haven of solitude. My fear of hiking alone felt ridiculous to me now, small and insignificant, as most of my irrational fears do once I’m forced to address them.

While I’m still brokenhearted that my friend couldn’t travel, the silver lining was rewriting a story I frequently tell myself…that I’m unadaptable and that fear controls too much of my life. There was so much about this trip that was uncontrollable but I handled it and made the best of it. I took up space in a way I’m not used to, and that felt really powerful. I went for a burger and a beer after my hike on Tuesday because it was hot, I was starving, and I’m a fucking adult. I found THE breakfast joint on Thursday morning and took up a table by myself while they were on a wait (yes, I tipped my server very well). I helped quite a few people on my hike on Tuesday when they got turned around because of their inadequate maps, or in the case of the guy who was leading his family on a loop hike into a box canyon (impossible) – was on a completely different trail than he thought. Being out in the world by myself meant that I was a pile of mush by the time I got back to my Airbnb late in the afternoon each day – being a human is A LOT of work sometimes, but that was ok. I like what I learned about myself. I liked the person I was for those 3-1/2 days. I want to embody her more. I’ll always be someone who thinks deeply and is slow to act. But this trip showed me that sometimes I can think deeply AND act at the same time. I can be paralyzed by fear and still do the thing. That’s the energy I’m carrying into this decade.

And as for my dad, a year has passed now. A year of birthdays, holidays, little moments. The world ends, but it doesn’t. As I’ve said before, I really don’t understand anymore about grief than I did prior to all of this. I know it will swallow you whole if you let it. I learned that I could feel tremendous loss and deep gratitude at the same time. I think that’s much of what being fully human is, holding seemingly opposing thoughts and feelings together at the same time and knowing both are real and true. I know that there will never be enough time. That’s what I know the most. My dad could’ve lived to 90 yrs old (he was 65) and it wouldn’t have been enough. There won’t be enough sunrises and sunsets, beautiful trails in beautiful places. It is our duty, our responsibility, to soak up every ounce.