18 posts tagged “family”
today is my grandmother's birthday as well as (supposedly) our nation's. my parents and youngest sister are visiting her and my grandfather, who is doing well but has parkinson's disease. i talked to him on the phone and he sounded all right, but far away. i'm sure that's his voice, which is quiet, and the phone connection, which was scratchy, but i couldn't help feeling it, all the same. i can tell that something is wrong because my mom has only seemed so stressed out once before, and that was when she had hurt her back. i'm hoping that my sister R can shed some light on this all when she comes to visit. it's exciting in and of itself because she will be visiting our nation's (supposed) birthplace this weekend! she's never seen our apartment or the town where we live, and hasn't been to the city for a long time. it should be great. she also hopes to see a college friend over some cereal with crazy toppings.
my grandmother claims that something exciting happens every time my parents visit. this time, the news is that we might have a date! don't get too excited, because we don't have a contract yet, but we are crossing our fingers for june 19th, 2009. this will NOT turn into a wedding blog! but i wanted to say it, because it's pretty exciting. i'm usually so nervous about making goals that i just don't, but M. and i had hoped to have something concrete by the end of this week, and as long as the postal service actually works, we should in a few days. in other news, we had a good visit to the west coast, where i got to spend a lot of time reading ("pride and prejudice" - definitely not as good as i was hoping) and spending relaxed time with M.'s family. i'm grateful that they put up with me.
well, i must be off, but i wanted to pop up and say hello. may you have good fireworks and a summery, all-american weekend. by the way, i don't mean to seem flippant about my grandfather's declining health; in fact, i take it very seriously and may try to plan a visit there soon... i was just reminding myself that this is going to be really hard on my mom. i hope you can spend time with your loved ones this weekend.
Yep! For now, I'm done. Done with my semester, done with my thesis! I just ate a chocolate chip cookie and watched all the trailers for the "Sex and the City" movie on the NYT website to celebrate. Now I'm looking at old photos that I have stored in too many places online.
Tonight's a little celebration for graduation, tomorrow's a picnic and another celebration for a friend who got her Ph.D., and Sunday's the event itself, bagpipes and all. I hope it doesn't rain and it's not too boring. M. cooked all day yesterday so we'd be prepared for these various events, while I was a total witch, grumbling away about All My Work. I hope to be more human from now on. I know I've said that about a hundred times this semester, but now I really feel it.
Next week, we're headed to my parents' and then to the midwest to visit my sisters, brothers in law, and niece. I can't wait to get a change of scene! And see everyone! And traveling anywhere with M. is about the most fun thing I can think of.
The summer will be a nice transition time; several of our friends will be abroad, which is great for them, a little sad for us, but still, I think, an all around good thing.
I don't know what to say, really - I'm just relieved to have everything over with for now.
I leave you with a picture of one of those old wooden roller coasters at Coney Island - a photo I took years ago.
Hey, it's been a while! I defended my thesis last week, and as soon as that happened I became very lazy and very happy, and very lazy.
Seriously. It's the last week of class, but I can't do any work. I have a bunch of finals stuff but I just can't get anything done. Instead, though, I've been being human again: I've cooked dinner with M. nearly every night in the past week, watched a bunch of fun things (including "Waking Life" D+ [directionless; bad writing; cool look], "Juno" which gets an A- [very cute; George Michael and Michael Bluth in one movie!; somewhat predictable; awesome soundtrack], "Lars and the Real Girl" which gets a surprising B+, and "Slings and Arrows," which is too good to grade). I've sent letters to my grandparents, I've taken a walk almost every day, I've slept late, I've gotten to email friends, we've had time to discuss (briefly) wedding planning; I've even had time to be BORED. What the heck? It's like... normal life is back?! The real me is back too, as the people around me will be glad to know - no more weird crying fits or monosyllabic responses or failures to do any chores ever. Certain persons who cooked and cleaned everything for me for two months (and to whom I am very, very grateful) will be particularly relieved, I suspect.
Just to celebrate spring and May 1st (though it's not related to workers in any way):
I'm glad to report that other parts of my life seem to be ok too: my school hasn't completely fallen apart, though it will be going through some growing pains. I'll know more about this over the summer, I think, if the committee ever starts meeting. We don't have to move this summer - excellent! I don't think I'll have a garden but hope to join a CSA or find a decent farmer's market. We've been talking a lot about what we eat and how we live and whether it can be (affordably) more environmentally sound - strategizing about "carbon footprint"s and organic vegetables and about how bad the beef industry is. I'm not trying to turn anyone vegetarian but sometimes you really have to stop and think...
My sisters seem to be doing well; my baby niece is now six weeks old and has already outgrown a piece of clothing. She has tiny eyebrows, apparently. Amazing! I hope to meet her in a few weeks. My parents are thinking about taking a trip with my great aunt, which could be a combination of wearing and hilarious, but she's an accomplished traveler and I think they'd probably end up having a good time. I'm pushing for Italy in September but it's all up in the air. They deserve it, though, they're working really hard. So is my sister R.; I hope she finds another job soon, one where they can afford to treat her properly (I'm worried she's getting burned out). She'll get a little vacation this summer, which is nice.
I hope this finds you well, and somewhere with cherry blossoms or daffodils or tulips.
So, the holidays were lovely this year. As you might guess from the illustrations, and as you probably already know, I was visiting Oregon, where things are gorgeous everywhere you look (even dogs on the beach). M.'s family treated me like one of their own, showering me with love and even a little teasing. It could have been a difficult time, I think, because this year is different than most, and to throw me into the mix is probably a bit much. Everyone was super welcoming, though, and I was very glad to be there. It's always neat to learn about how M. grew up (Of course, I could use a few more embarrassing stories from his youth, but that will probably always be the case!) I got to meet lots of family friends/friends from childhood, all of whom were really cool and, again, treated me with so much kindness. How come every time I go to the Northwest I sort of want to move there?
I had thought it might be strange to be away from my parents and sisters over Christmas and New Year's, but I talked to them a lot, and then I went to visit my sisters. As you can see, there's a baby on the way, and they think it's a girl! (Yes, that is indeed a knitted huarache that my sister's friend made for her baby shower). I don't have the first idea how to be an aunt, but I'm going to try to be good. Our other sister has worked with moms and babies for a few years now, and has been chomping at the bit for there to be a kid around, and she lives only an hour away from soon to be baby niecey, so that's awesome. Mostly I was just humbled to see the future dad, my brother in law, so cute and excited and all full of plans and opinions (e.g. "Once you have it, leave everything to me" - he's planning on wearing the baby all around in one of those bjorn things)! Overall, I think my sisters and their husbands are doing well - they both have good marriages, and seem to be total masters at their jobs, and they're great hosts. I'm very proud of and grateful to them.
My parents seem to have had a good holiday despite a few horrid snafus involving taking a long busride across the Midwest (instead of a plane) and not having their luggage and having to talk to people in South Asia about it instead of airport personnel an hour away. I worry about how stressed they get, but I'm not sure there's a lot I can do. I am seriously considering getting them a book on meditation. And I hope to visit them this month.
There are a lot of other things to ponder (why are there so many books about atheism out right now, and is it really "atheism" that they're about? are we going to have a recession? was the NH primary result a miscount? how come Iron & Wine is so good? will i write anything creative ever again?) but I promised I'd go to bed early tonight. I'm back home, but only for a few more hours, before I rush off to Atlanta. Last night I went to dinner with some friends, and it was awesome to realize that they're my friends too - all people I met through M. Once again, great people welcoming me. I'm thoroughly awed.
It's been a very quiet day, with a few errands, a haircut, an early morning run, but not much other human contact. What do I think when I'm not thinking towards anything? I just found this nice poem, on the sometimes-good poetry website Poetry Daily:
Someone opens an orange in silence, at the entrance
to fabled nights.
He plunges his thumbs down to where the orange
is rapidly thinking, where it grows, annihilates itself, and then
is born again. Someone is peeling a pear, eating
a bunch of grapes, devoting himself
to fruit. And I fashion a sharp-witted song
so as to understand.
I lean over busy hands, mouths,
tongues that devour their way through attention.
I would like to know how the fable of the nights
grows like this. How silence
swells, or is transformed with things. I write
a song in order to be intelligent about fruit
on the tongue, through subtle channels, unto
a dark emotion.
For love also gathers rinds
and the movement of the fingers
and the suspension of the mouth over the confusing
taste. Love also places itself at the gates
of ferocious nights
and tries to understand how they imagine its
alien power.
To annihilate fruit in order to know, against
the passion of taste, that the earth works its
solitude—is to devote oneself,
sucking dry the loved one so as to see how love
works in its madness.
A song of now will say that nights
crush
the heart. It will say that love approaches
eternity, or that taste
reveals unending rhythms, the secrets
of the dark.
For it is with names that someone knows
where a body is
through an idea, that a thought
can take the place of a tongue.
—It is with voices that silence wins.
- Herberto Helder (link to the original Portuguese)
translated from the Portuguese by Alexis Levitin
Hi, folks,
As usual, I'm writing while I'm on the cusp of something, terribly behind on email and not really super ahead on work, but trying, expectant and nervous and tired and probably on a rainy day, with frizzy hair, all disorganized, etc.
Today I'm on the cusp of Thanksgiving. Tomorrow we'll drive up to my parents', where there will be relatives from all three sides of the family (Mom's, Dad's, and M.'s) which is really cool, and the first time that's happened. It's the first of the two major Holidays (TG and Xmas) that M. and I will be spending together. Any anxiety and weird people dynamics aside, with the apple pie, candied yams, shiitake stuffing, and a number of other excitements, plus the amazing people, I think it'll be great. I'm even hoping to see my friend B. from high school. It's too bad my sisters and brothers in law won't be there; that would make it complete.
On the work front, I'm happy to report that I just coded my last interview, which means that I'm ready to move on to the analysis part of my thesis research, where we'll see if I find any patterns. I hope there's at least one, because if there isn't, all I'll really be able to say is, "The sample size was very small, and we don't know what we'd find with a larger one." Not very satisfying.
I went to a conference last weekend and it really made me feel (a) the gulf between theory and practice, between researchers and clinicians (though this organization really tries hard to bring the two together), and (b) just how tenuous theories are. What if there is only one study on a particular topic of interest? I feel like this is the case for about five of my topics of interest, but who has time to go around learning new literatures and methods and replicating all these different studies? Sigh. At times I could see the studies sort of building on or bouncing off of each other, and at other times I could see the clinicians in the room being bored. Anyway. My favorite piece of research showed that experienced meditators have slower brain aging than non-meditators, and that certain parts of their brains are larger. Cool!!
There are many more things to be said, but I'm expectant and happy about a few days off. So I think I'm going to leave it at that for now. Happy Thanksgivings, everyone!
My friend W. has taken to what he calls "microblogging," chronicling the steps he's taking on his thesis, little musings about noisy neighbors, etc. I, apparently, am veering toward the opposite end of the spectrum, with great swaths of my life unchronicled, undocumented, and then five-line posts where I spend most of the time doing a terrible translation of a poem from some language I barely know, and then add a little postscript that says "By the way, I love all my friends (even though I never write to them), I'm going to be an aunt, and one of my best friends is going to be going through a very important ceremony soon, and I wish I were doing some community service, and I'm incredibly uninformed about all news except things in Burma (which are very upsetting) but I feel vaguely unsettled about everything from China to the habits of photosensitive coral, and someday I'll be able to practice in the field I'm studying (in a way that, right now, feels disjointed and futile), and oh yeah, P.P.S., I'M GOING TO BE M.'S WIFE."
Sorry, I just had to get that out there. For some reason I've been feeling guilty (and Vox hasn't been working), and I just want to put it out there: the length and style of my posts have nothing to do with the importance and wonderfulness of the things and people described therein.
So, please bug me if I'm out of touch; I'm still here, and happy, just scattered!
I've wanted to post for a while now, but every time I try, Vox won't load. It's still acting funny, but seems to be half-working, so I'm going to grab my chance.
If anyone is reading this, s/he is probably asking when I will stop promising to write an informative post and actually do it. Unfortunately that's not this post! I've been pretty busy with school and have been saving my free time for actually interacting instead of documenting. Tonight, though, I took the night off from everything, and in fact M. and S.M. are out, so it's just me and J.S. Bach here at home. So, the few most important things, and a brief "translation":
Matt and I are going to get married! I'm sure you know this already, lone reader, but if you don't, I am very sorry to have somehow not told you already. We don't know when, or where, but we ARE, and we'll always BE, and, and... it's the most perfect thing that could ever happen. Sometimes I have to write this reality in all caps to make it sink in. Sometimes it appears in the middle of my head and thus in the middle of my emails, like this: "Dear [Advisor], Yes, Friday at 4pm I'M ENGAGED TO THE MOST AMAZING PERSON IN THE WORLD HOW DID THIS EVER HAPPEN TO ME HOW DO I DESERVE THIS I'M SO OVERWHEMLED! ahem, yes, Friday at 4 sounds like a great meeting time. Thanks, S." etc. One of the other amazing things about this whole thing is that, not only do M. and I get to join (together) each other's wonderful families, both of whom have been so accepting and joyful, we're also starting our own new family.
Ok, before I start crying, I have to tell you the rest of the news. My sister A. is having a baby! It's a girl! They've seen the ultrasound and it's got organs, arms, legs, a head... I'm so amazed by this. My sister R. just won a major award at her job, finally giving her the recognition she deserves for all the hard work she does, helping so many women be healthy and make good decisions. My cousin M. is engaged! My other cousin M. is graduating from college in December! My friend A.K. survived a very dangerous car accident, and I'm still processing that - all those times that could have been me... every day we take our lives in our hands...
Ok, before I start crying, I told myself I would do a little writing tonight, so here's a "deaf" translation of the first part of the poem I posted a while ago. I don't really know Portuguese...
Thank you for being exactly for who you are.
--
How you make a poem
Rhetoric won't work if you want to talk
about the poem as an object. Simplification isn't enough,
no formulas. Instead, maybe a flower,
growing for its own sake in the middle of a field.
Not the one for sale along the loggias, though. Here: these syllables,
these alien, bright vowel petals, the joint of this
against the stem.... You could pause at each turn
of the sweet green stalk, wait for another twist
of succulent leaves, but no--you should keep going...
COMO SE FAZ O POEMA
Para falarmos do meio de obter o poema,
a retórica não serve. Trata-se de uma coisa simples, que não
precisa de requintes nem de fórmulas. Apanha-se
uma flor, por exemplo, mas que não seja dessas flores que crescem
no meio do campo, nem das que se vendem nas lojas
ou nos mercados. É uma flor de sílabas, em que as
pétalas são as vogais, e o caule uma consoante. Põe-se
no jarro da estrofe, e deixa-se estar....
In addition to being our nation's birthday yesterday, it was also my maternal grandmother's. I emailed her about it, and here's what she said:
Eighty-two
doesn’t seem so bad if I stay away from mirrors. So much to be grateful for,
every day, but especially today! Hooray
for life!
Now, for those of you who are convalescing or getting through difficult times, I'm hoping you get to imagine, and experience, some similar light.
Human Beauty
by Albert Goldbarth
If you write a poem about love . . .
the love is a bird,
the poem is an origami bird.
If you write a poem about death . . .
the death is a terrible fire,
the poem is an offering of paper cutout flames
you feed to the fire.
We can see, in these, the space between
our gestures and the power they address
—an insufficiency. And yet a kind of beauty,
a distinctly human beauty. When a winter storm
from out of nowhere hit New York one night
in 1892, the crew at a theater was caught
unloading props: a box
of paper snow for the Christmas scene got dropped
and broken open, and that flash of white
confetti was lost
inside what it was a praise of.
----
I should be editing my thesis project presentation, but I ran across this poem and liked it. A short recap: the past weekend was wonderful, involving as much beer and socializing and Thai food and hanging out with family and kickball and sleeping and holding hands as weekends should, and as much work as was absolutely necessary. Nuff said. Ok, back to work! To those of you who are far away and to whom I haven't talked in ages, I apologize; after next weekend I hope to re-emerge.
