Starters and screwdrivers

Sometimes things are lost. And we are frantic, panicked to find them. We say a quick prayer, summon our guardian angel to help us.

I tend to lose keys. If I have a guardian angel she has one VERY large ring of keys. I have tried fancy key chains, key chains that lock to my belt and making multiple copies to hide (usually from myself). It may be because growing up our front door didn't have a lock, and you could use a screwdriver to start the truck. But I really think it has to do with every single key meaning I am responsible for some room, some vehicle, some house somewhere and maybe losing the key is a way of screaming, "too MANY things to worry about!!!!"

I really don't mind having this rich and amazing life...but I really could use less keys. (and that drawer full of keys, who knows what there for?!)

The other option is getting rid of locks entirely. (this would help prevent me from breaking into my own house when I lose my keys, which I must say I have gotten really handy at) However I might be thought irresponsible if I don't lock my house, or car. Hmmm.

I guess for now the best I can do is put my keys on one ring, keep them in my purse (don't even talk about misplaced purses for the moment) and just do the best I can at keeping track of things.

And I do find that the less I panic, the better at keeping track of things I am. And I do need to remember I am very handy at breaking and entering...and I am handy with starters and screwdrivers.

weighted

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.- Marge Piercy


I need to work out more with weights. No, No, really, I can see you smiling at me, but I do. I need to pump some iron. I used to be triathlon ready. That was when I was thirty-one. Before the baby, marriage, working full-time, attending grad school. But, lo and behold after years off the photo film circuit I get a call to lens a movie, for pay. Now I realize my body is soft and that lifting 35 pound cameras is going to be tough, that injuries might be involved if I don't get back to pumping some iron. I am sort of stressed about it.

Then today I lift up my 45 pound six year old, toss him over my shoulder spin around until the world swims and  collapse in the grass. I don't break. I feel great. I am laughing. So we do it again, and again. Spinning like tops. I am strong. I might not be working out at the gym, but I am running with my son, painting the shed, fixing the car, baking cupcakes for every function imaginable and weeding the garden. I am active and yes, a little softer, too. And that may be why I got the call to shoot this film. The call that I didn't get ten years ago.

the red guys and the white guys: the fight to altruism

Oliver is 6. He sometimes has a fit about something. He hasn't learned the adult way to have a fit; suppression. So sometimes his fits are loud, crazy and really the all around temper tantrum. He told us on his walk to school that there are these bad guys inside his gut that make him do these bad things. My husband told him that, well, there are good guys in there too making him do good things. He agreed. The bad guys are white, he said. And I think the good guys are red.

Balancing out the good and the bad, the red and the white guys inside. Learning to personify our own behaviors. I think I may try that this week. Thinking about my feelings being a part of this family inside me and applying the same tools I use with my family; compassion, love and understanding. Far better than beating myself up for doing things that are just part of me.

Psych Monday

I am not really that psyched, but it just happened to be a day that included a student heckling from the front row, a crisis of equipment eligibility, an adjunct with a BIG issue, an advisee with GI Bill non-payment and older mother not doing well issues and on top of that the copier/printer started eating paper, blinking colors I have never seen before and ruining original documents that it forgot it was copying. This was all between 8am and 1pm. But I did get this little note from a fellow colleague, "Saw Jay this weekend, old student of yours, continuing on with school. Said he really appreciated that you cared so much for people in your program, that he just doesn't feel that camaraderie at the new school. Wanted you to know that. Knew he used to give you a real hard time. Best, K."

So there's the gift. The chug chug chugging along pays off. And maybe, who knows, I will get that Ed Psych Doctorate eventually, if I don't die first.

Spring sunday

Palm Sunday...it was a huge day for my family growing up... The beginning of Holy Week. A week of masses, parties, a new dress, hat and white patent leather shoes. Now we are far from family and we decided to skip services and hike under the Ponderosa pines and piñon. The sweet smell of sap running, like warm caramel. Dust covered toes in Tevas. Our own parade of celebration. The beauty of rebirth. Snow gone, earth worms swarming in the garden. Spring blossoms scattered like confetti in the air. I sit comfortable under the old budding willow watching Oliver scamp around finding forgotten yard toys that survived the winter. This continuance. This reassurance that spring will always come. I may be different but the tulips are bound to bloom and the trees will leaf. When death is inevitable it is nice to know the mountain I climb today will be here long after me. I am comforted by this thought. The inevitability of rebirth. This is why I celebrate this week and why I will pack baskets full of goodies. To share the smiles of this time of year. Spring has sprung!

middle of term

It is that time in the semester where we begin to race to the end. In the next six weeks I will be completing the shooting of interviews for the ethics awards, I will be trying to wrangle my students to make passing grades, tutoring, getting them study help and trying very hard for them to realize the importance of these last few weeks of the semester. And me? As a student I will be designing a class lesson plan that teaches wisdom, writing a paper about someone who is wise and I will be creating the basis for my thesis at UNM.

I am using my Spring Break to write, research, think and in many cases wrestle my printer to try and get it to output what I need. I also am trying to work on my relationship building. In the winter months I tend not to venture out as much. After Christmas there is a lull of gathering...a huddling inside after the winter equinox. The spring equinox is upon us. Suddenly the whole world has the same amount of light and dark, at least for 24 hours. And it is time for me to build again my personal and professional relationships, the ones that get put back into the nooks and crannies during the winter.

As I research material for my class with wisdom, I am revisiting cognitive film theory. Film theory. The thought of it makes me groan...but I realize all this studying of the brain is exactly what cognitive film theory is. Why define emotion? Why understand emotion? Because I now believe our impulses are what drives us towards wisdom or away from it. Synapse is the brain, impulse is the heart.

I have seen wisdom

I have seen wisdom...funny but the word wisdom has appeared in the church newsletter this week, the tumblweeds kids calendar and in an email from a friend who has no idea I am taking a class on wisdom.

Today however I observed it...in a group of teachers, reasoning a problem, coming to a positive conclusion and making changes to acutally effect change. Potentially the situation was ugly, very ugly, it could have been racial, accusatory and ended in severed relations between many people. Instead it was a meeting where people came together, decided what was best for all involved and made plans to move forward. It was my first observation of collective wisdom. (I am sure it has happened before but I didn't know how to see it) And it didn't happen in the siloed, weird, twisty hallways filled with the same company employees, it happened with the combined effort of many different teachers, schools and departments looking for a common goal.

Enjoy the process, but get out of the way

"Enjoy the process, but get out of the way. The budget is not the aesthetic. Never put in your own money. Ok, sometimes it has to be your own money. (Money is overrated) Identify talent and stick to it like glue. Every little picture needs a big picture. In the big picture, we need little pictures. Less money = more control; more money = less control. Find the intersection of an investor's courage and cash. Do what you love; do it consistently. Everything else will follow. Every story behind a movie that gets made is a success story. This is the best job in the world." - Christine Vachon, movie producer, Boys Don't Cry, Far from Heaven, I Shot Andy Warhol.

After watching Waiting for Superman I wanted to cry. Then I was angry. Above is a quote that sums up my filmmaking experience. I have been blessed to meet some of the wisest people while working in the film industry. I have heard people say its a job for dummer people. Sure there are dumb people in any industry, but the successful filmmakers, the ones making those brilliant movies are not only smart storytellers, they are sage like people, revealing another perspective to us.

The reason I was angry, sad, frustrated is because this career I am in now is education. It is a wonderful combination of making films, teaching, guiding and helping people, but ultimately it is about the system. The system is not smart, the system is tyrannical, ignorant and slow to change. It is a quagmire where I fear my own child will get stuck. And that really is the thing. Fear. I don't want to be afraid of the future of education. I want to be part of the solution...so what tools do I have to offer for that change to happen?

perspective

Stick out your arm, thumb up. Close one eye and cover something on the horizon with your thumb. It could be somebody's face, a road sign, a mountain. Then close the open eye and open the closed eye. Suddenly that thing on the horizon jumped over a few feet wihtout you doing anything but changing which eye you had open. This week I am spending a lot of time covering things up on my horizon and then letting them hop back into view. There is nothing wrong with re "looking" at things. The sun is shifting, staying a little longer each day. And I am spending a little more time on things I haven't had a chance to see in awhile.

prisoner of thought seeking a new path

"wisdom represented knowledge that was, by contrast, profoundly social, deeply personal, adaptive, and intuitive. It incorporated emotional intelligence." Hall, Wisdom: from philosophy to neuroscience (2010)

I suffer from my own thoughts. They spin, sometimes in a horrible rerun (like being made to watch The Dukes of Hazzard for 12 hours straight). I know I need to release myself from this egoic maelstrom. Why do I need this incessent replay? I don't, but for some reason, like loving a disease, I cling to it.

However the mind is adaptive. Finding a middle-way, seeking truth, understanding self.... or just dissolving into "bouts of bewildering silliness" --- there is hope for my mind, now the truth of how to untwine myself from the stickiness of my own egocentric drama.

There are trees. Like millions of fence posts scattered with no rhyme or reason. But then I see how the seeds have scattered, the young trees sheltered by the old, the sun filtered, the protection complete. Then I understand the divine. I see the path and I travel lightly. Heart filled with understanding. There is hope for me.

Is harmony part of wisdom?

February 2nd I am hard placed to find wisdom in my workplace...I feel like we are at times all lemmings piled in a row, dropping off a cliff, one by one. Communication seems to be key in all patterns of life. How we operate. The choices we make on how to act. To smile and say hi or to look at the floor, sulk, be buried in some past event or perceived turmoil. How we great each day, how we communicate with the world and the people around us. I don't expect a wise person to always be happy, but I do expect to find them with a sort of heart light inside. There are those that have inner peace, and to me that is a sign that balance can be attained as a human being. That is wisdom I seek. Balance is not easily struck when there are demanding children, bills to pay, work duties that seem to never end. Balance can not be struck if our hearts are stuck..in the quagmire of hurt, false love or other imagined pain. I am not saying we need to have lack of feeling but that our hearts must open wider and wider...which may mean we find more pain, see more of the ills we have committed, but from there can there not be self forgiveness? We are human, we are not perfect. We only take steps, one at a time to figure out the next part of our life or path might be. How do we make it a wise one?

I think of the word harmony. Another word for balance. The word suggests that beauty is balance. Harmony is not perfection. But I realize harmony is what I seek. Perfection can be for someone else interested in that. Harmony I think is attainable, perfection a constant slippery slope, always out of reach and quickly disappearing around dark corners. So how do I find Harmony?

A little snow

Reading and thinking about wisdom today. A repeating theme is "slow down"; from people spending a day in silence, to people choosing to drink a cup of coffee in face of a crisis, to people moving to the country, away from the constant "noise" of the city. In middle-class america we spin ourselves up and up until we have to go on a retreat. We run away and pay $$$ to get away. To sit by a pool, or walk in the forest, or sail a boat. And while we are there we say, "I would be so healthy if only I could do this every day." And then we met the person who has done this, selling pineapples on the side of the road, or giving scuba lessons to tourists like ourselves. We ask, "How can you live on this island?" We would be so bored we think, what would we do with our every day, and of course, there is the mortgage on the house to think of, the kids' schools, the church organizations, PTA, etc... that we need to get back to. But really, how can it be refreshing to be responsible for my continued engagement into a society that doesn't allow wisdom to grow because we really are never very still, or quite for more than a moment. Seeking peace today. A moment to watch the birds at the feeder as the snow comes down.

Organizing it

I think I am attracted to academia because it follows set patterns. I know when time is off time and when I need to be on. And I am addicted to stationary. I love organizing folders and papers, stickers and colored pens. So here I am embarking on another semester as student and teacher. My theme color is green this semester. Green water bottle, green folders and backpack. Maybe because it is winter and I miss the leaves.