Go outside! Quick!

It's spring!

             

... all on a half-hour walk to and from the gym.

Go outside. Quick!

The last words

A while ago, I wrote about a Solstice concert by Sound Circle, a small (16-20 voices), Boulder-area women’s a cappella ensemble. I’m not generally a choral music fan, but this group is special. Their small size makes for a more intimate experience, and their varied and always beautifully crafted performances keep me coming back—always grateful that I did. This weekend, I attended a Sound Circle performance that included one of my favorite choral pieces ever, Praises for the World, composed by Jennifer Berezan.  

I've heard Sound Circle perform this piece before, and I keep going back every opportunity I get. Each performance has been slightly different; each one has had the same effect on me: calm, enwrapped meditation. I love just sitting with my eyes closed and being absorbed in it. This weekend, as on other occasions, I found tears slipping from my closed eyelids as I listened … if listening is even the right word. I feel transported every time I hear Praises.

This time, being in this music had an added dimension for me. I’m thinking a lot these days about the meaning of life and living (which is not the same as thinking about death). I’m thinking about the need to be engaged with the world, even as I’m aware of and striving to find peace with the approaching reality of leaving it.

Praises touched both of these places in my soul. I sat, immersed in flowing, meditative rhythms that took me someplace else—and at the same time, invited me to be completely present, right here.

Lines in the opening vocal solo convey this better than I can:

If I die tomorrow, may the last words that I know

Be praises, praises for the world

I suppose that all of us, as we age, wrestle with how to do it well. This changes with time, of course. Personally, I’m very aware of the rapidly decreasing time ahead, although I realize that compared with lots of folks, I’m very early in this process. But still, that awareness of entering this final stage of life changes just about everything. And finding peace in the middle of that seems to me to be the developmental task of this period in life.

We’re told that this will mean “coming to terms” with aging, “accepting” our limitations, aging “gracefully,” “acknowledging” the inevitability of the end of life. Alternatively, we’re told to stay lively, be “young at heart,” enjoy these “golden years.” I’m not certain what those things mean, but I’m pretty sure there’s no set formula for how to do this process, or for how to do it well. And for now, for me, I am very drawn to the image of doing it to the strains of Praises. Completely appreciative of the world, completely engaged with it, even as I anticipate leaving. Praises for the world. May those be my last words, indeed.

I realize that Praises carries different meanings for different folks—folks of different ages, and even other folks in my generation. This is how it touched me. This time. Next time I hear it, I may come away with another layer of meaning.

In any case, it’s an extraordinary experience, and I’d hate for anyone to miss it. So I’ll risk the charge of shilling for Sound Circle to let you know that they’ll be performing this concert two more times this spring. The first half of the program includes several other wonderful pieces, and the second half is devoted to Praises. If you’re wondering whether to make the time, ask anyone who has heard this piece. They’ll tell you to go if you possibly can. I know that’s what I’ll do.

Sound Circle will also be doing another concert this summer (details TBA) that touches me in a similar way: Path of Beauty: Singing the Grand Canyon. I saw this concert two years ago (and “saw” is the operative word here: the music is accompanied by a wonderful slide show of scenes from the Grand Canyon. It’s enough to warm the heart of any desert rat). I’ll be going again this year. For this one, I can’t close my eyes, but I know it will be wonderfully meditative in its own way.

Seamless time travel

When I visit places that have an interesting history, I tend to drift into a reflective, time-traveling space. I think about what life must have been like back then, right here. What was it like to sit here, walk here, work here, be a child here, grow up here, be a woman here? What did people think about as they traveled down this street, along this trail, through this courtyard? The first time I remember sliding into this mode was when I was visiting a castle in Germany. I was 17, an exchange student in this small town in Germany, and the very idea of a castle right in my little town was enough to snatch me away from current reality and into an imagined life in the 1600s. 

So, the other day, I decided to take a walk on a trail system I’ve never visited before, the Marshall Mesa trails near (what a coincidence!) Marshall. I knew that coal mining had been big around here, but I had never thought much about it. The fitness teacher where I do one of my volunteer gigs has said that Louisville is perched on top of a huge network of mining tunnels. This made me a bit more curious about the history of coal mining in this area. But I’d never been transported back to the days when mining built these towns.

So, I was walking along the Marshall Mesa trail when a spot of black dirt caught my eye. It felt significant, like the universe was conspiring to call my attention to this coal thing. So I snapped a picture to commemorate the moment and walked on, wondering now about coal mining.

Then, I passed this interpretive sign that explained a bunch about coal mining as it happened here. After reading it, I started my predictable drift into the past, wondering what it was like to be here then, in the middle of the mining scene. I took another picture to mark this sign moment (I included my finger to prove I was there). 

The sign hinted at a mine entry (or “adit,” I learned) nearby, so I sought it out … and took its picture, too.

Remnants of entrance to Cracker Jack mine

By this time, I was deep into the pseudo-experience of walking where miners had walked. I imagined them trudging up the hill to the adit, big boots, head lamps fueled by oil, clothes and fingernails permanently blackened with coal dust. Maybe coughing, with black lung taking its toll. I imagined their wives or kids hiking up from town to deliver a lunch bucket. (Notice, I’m beginning to invent bits of this story. That’s part of the fun.)

The map at the trailhead told me that one section of the trail system is called “Coal Seam.” I was really looking forward to this stretch, to seeing an actual coal seam. I imagined a deep, black gash in the earth, probably marked by the remnants of holes drilled for explosives, with coal chunks along the base. (The story line gets thicker, more embellished.) I was sorely disappointed to see no such seam. I suppose the trail follows a coal seam here, but maybe it’s buried or gone, or it’s just not visible to my untrained eyes (despite the fact that I was so prepared to see it. It was part of my story!)

So it was in this expectant, time-traveling frame of mind that I spotted this box strapped to a tree. As you can see, it looks old and rusted, with an aged padlock holding it shut. The story machine cranked up: Probably this was a sort of safe put here by the miners. I wondered what they might have stored in this old iron box. Emergency flares? Medical supplies? Firearms? A radio or walkie-talkie?

For an instant, I thought it might hold a cell phone. I quickly decided that was ... um ... unlikely. But realizing that I was concocting a pretty fantastical story with no evidence to support it (cellphone?!) didn’t stop me from doing more of the same. Is the lock too rusted to open? Is whatever they kept in there still functional? How long has it been here?

Then reality intruded. I saw a sign taped to the top of the box. To my grave disappointment, it wasn’t a message from some long-gone miner. It was a notice from Boulder County Parks and Open Space. Apparently, they’re counting how many people use the trails, and this box holds a sensor. It’s one of a pair; one unit sends and the other receives a beam of light. When that beam is interrupted, that means someone like me is standing there reading the sign … or at least passing on the trail. I turned around to see the other sensor just across the trail.

Interesting, but sort of a bummer. So much for the fanciful stories.

The whole experience did make me more curious about coal mining in these parts. So I went to the Louisville website and learned more. You might want to do that too; it’s a good, quick introduction to the history of mining here.

Or you can just make up your own stories like I tend to do. An old, rusty safe holding emergency gear seems lots more exciting that a people-counting sensor.

Palm Springs ... and the real desert nearby

As a long-time desert rat, I’m always excited to travel to hot, dry places (although the dry part is getting less appealing as my skin drifts toward the texture of parchment). So a trip to Palm Springs for one of my favorite annual conferences sounded doubly appealing.

bell hooks

The truth is that I usually spend conferences inside the hotel, except for an occasional dinner foray. So it generally doesn’t matter if it’s in Michigan or California in the winter, Florida or Aspen in the summer. But this time, for a change, I actually spent some time enjoying the locale.

First, the indoor part. This was a conference of the Association for Women in Psychology, a 1970s-born organization of feminist psychologists. The conversations tend to be rich, the conference sessions stimulating, and the humor a relief from the usual conference fare. It’s so satisfying to hang out with like-minded folks, to start from shared assumptions about women’s place in the world and then move forward from there. This beats all to heck the requirement that you first fight for that ground before you can talk about anything else. And with bell hooks as the keynote speaker, how can you go wrong?

After the conference, we stayed an extra day to spend time with friends whom we rarely see. The four of us decided to rent a car and drive from Palm  Springs (which held no particular appeal for this group) to Joshua Tree National Park. This was a great trip! What looked like maybe a 2-hour drive turned into 4 or 5 hours, as we stopped to take pictures and explore sights along the road. We also had some puzzles to figure out. The first was the rock formations. As a (very) amateur geology buff, I found these really intriguing. We speculated and guessed and watched for signs that would explain these odd rock piles—and then located a very clear description in the park brochure we were carrying with us (but apparently not reading too closely).

The next puzzle was the Joshua trees that give this place its name. These are a form of yucca, with the leaves/blades growing in clumps at the end of branches instead of growing individually on the ground. Some were huge, maybe 25–30 feet high, with many branches, sometimes at odd, twisted angles.

But others were (relatively) tiny, maybe a foot or two tall. These had a single central stalk with a bunch of leaves/blades on the end (instead of the many arms of the larger trees). We decided they were babies, but then speculated for a while about how fast they grow—a foot a year, 10 feet a year? Are these this year’s crop or are they from several years ago? Again, we found the answer when we thought to read the brochure. Joshua trees grow at the rate of one inch a year. One inch a year! So even these little ones are a decade or two old, and the big ones must be hundreds of years old. Think of what this means on a human scale—the big trees we were looking at were already around when the Declaration of Independence was signed. A reminder of the eye blink I mentioned the other day.

And then there was the desert itself. The Mojave: vast, dun-colored, with a wide, high sky, hot in summer (but just in the 80s the day we were there), seemingly barren—but, like most deserts, actually full of life. I love deserts. I have spent countless days in the red-rock country of southeastern Utah, exploring the canyons there. I’ve hiked, backpacked, road biked, mountain biked, canoed, rafted, and even 4-wheeled in that remarkable corner of the world. No place has the same hold on my soul as that area. Still, when we climbed out of the car to take a walk, I had this lovely feeling of being home in the dry, warm air, with the clean breeze, the clear sun, the sand and rocks and cacti. We saw a few creatures—a kit fox, some scrub jays, a lizard, and a bald eagle. And lots of people.

Despite the presumed collective wisdom of our group, we somehow forgot to take along sunscreen, hats, or enough food (“provisions,” we called it) to keep us fueled for the day. So, tallying our “compendium stupidium” (we created a substantial idiosyncratic vocabulary along the way), we decided it was best to cut our walk short and find a meal somewhere. In the tiny burg where we emerged from the park, the best option was Denny’s … not our best food of the trip, but it served our purpose just fine. We returned to Palm Springs and the hotel way too tired, but in a good way. It was a very different—and very welcome—way to finish off a conference.

Despite the deadly drudgery of getting through security at the Palm Springs airport, it was one of my favorite conference trips ever. Not because the conference was so stupendous, although it was good. But because of the really satisfying combination of the conference, good time with good friends, and a chance to spend some time in the open air of the desert. Any desert.

Bacteria, viruses, and life itself

We are a society of germophobes. We are preoccupied with cleanliness as a matter of health. We run to the doctor if a cold doesn’t disappear in a few days, eager to stamp out whatever germs are making us feel so awful. All of this makes sense from the perspective of avoiding or eliminating disease. But, as with most things, life is more complicated than this.

Here are two cool bits of information I've come across in recent days that might make us think twice about our germicidal tendencies.

The first is about a bacterium called Clostridium difficile, “C. diff” to friends. Health care professionals are worried these days about a C. diff “epidemic.” C. diff can cause symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life-threatening inflammation of the colon. And here’s the kicker: taking antibiotics, perhaps to fend off some other nasty bacterium, actually increases your risk of getting C. diff. This happens because antibiotics also kill off the useful gut bacteria that usually keep C. diff. in check. Mild illness caused by C. diff may actually get better if you stop taking whatever antibiotics you’re on. Severe C. diff symptoms require treatment … get this … with a different antibiotic. Unfortunately, drug-resistant strains of C. diff are cropping up as the bacterium adapts to our overuse of antibiotics. 

So here’s how it works: we take antibiotics to kill off bacteria, also killing off the wrong bacteria, making us more susceptible to C. diff (a bacterium), against which further antibiotics are increasingly feeble, perhaps increasing our vulnerability to C. diff.

Clearly, this is a medical challenge. But it’s also a philosophical, even an existential challenge. For one thing, it challenges our usual neat categories of “good” and “evil.” It forces us to reconsider the agents that we see as invaders and the drugs that we see as heroic defenders. It’s harder to keep the categories clear when inviting a defender increases our vulnerability to the invader, when the rescuer is a potential villain.

OK, hold that thought for a minute …

Then, just to make things more interesting, here’s another tidbit. To quote from an article in Discover magazine, “If not for a virus, none of us would ever be born.” Hmmm … a virus as the heroine? It seems that there is particular gene that’s essential for the placenta to do its job of transmitting nutrients and wastes between the mother and the fetus. And get this: this gene is not a human gene at all. Instead, it seems to be a gene from a virus.

 Apparently, over the millennia, our ancestors have collected souvenir fragments from the viruses that infected them (with those miserable diseases that we are so eager to snuff out). These virus fragments are like hitchhikers, slipping into our DNA and changing the direction of evolution. In fact, it turns out that fragments of viruses make up over 8% of our DNA. Who knew?! And imagine: we have such a virus to thank for the placenta, the amazing organ that makes human life possible.

So this is fascinating in itself. But it also brings me back to that puzzle: how do we know which visitors to fight off and which to welcome? And, on a larger plane, who do we think we are, anyway? We plan and maneuver and study and investigate and invent … and still, we’re products of the very things we resist, and we’re not really sure how to differentiate among the good, the bad, and the just plain ugly (but nonetheless good).  

I won’t expound on the obvious parallel here—what/who we resist and exclude in our own lives and how they might sustain us in the end, if we can only let them. We’ve all heard that lesson many times. But these ideas also bring me to a frequent (for me, at least) train of thought, one that arises more and more as I age:

We are just a blink in time. We are not, despite some politicians’ apparent belief to the contrary, the final outcome of evolution. We are some sort of step in a much larger process. Here we find ourselves: hugely dependent on the tiniest of agents, even as we fight them with all our scientific prowess. And down the line, even if we don’t wipe out the human species and destroy the planet through war, climate change, or distracted driving, everything will change. Slowly, but it will change. We’ll be gone, so it might seem irrelevant. But that’s what our long-ago ancestor might have thought, the one who got infected with the virus that made placentas possible. That is, if “thought” had evolved by then.

 This fascinates me, the long cascade of time. As I face the accelerating change in my own life—my body, my mind, my relationships, my general place in the world—I think a lot about change and mortality and the inevitability of both. The real value, to me, of this train of thought is the invitation to accept the flow and to recognize the uncertainty of our place in it. This is not to say that scientists shouldn't seek the cure for the common cold. It’s not to say that I should resign myself to a dispirited, passive decline in my aging years. It is only to say that time and change move on. I’m better at welcoming this some days than others. But bacteria and viruses are good reminders.

Seeking solitude

The Chautauqua Trail on Tuesday:

OK, so it's the Chilkoot Trail in the winter of 1898, but my camera couldn't do justice to the crowds out enjoying the weather on the real Chautauqua Trail.


It was lovely (Chautauqua, that is). You wish you were there ....


By the way, don't miss the comment/video from Ms. M. K. on the "Girl talk" post - the video is wonderful.

"Girl" talk revisited

I’ve been thinking lately about the language used to refer to women, including young women (which used to include me) and old women (among whom I now number myself). Of course, there’s a back story to this train of thought ...

Sometimes I'm sort of stunned by how much the women’s movement of the 1960s and 70s actually succeeded in changing the world. Think about how many more women have visible positions  in the world now compared with 40 or 50 years ago. Think about how girls these days can actually envision having a career—not a job on the side until they get a “Mrs.” degree, but an occupation that they choose and cherish. Think about the opportunities for girls and women in sports compared to 50 years ago when women’s intercollegiate sports (for instance) were unheard of. And think about how many men are actually involved in their children’s lives now—the flip side of feminism: it freed men, too.

Still, over time, we also lost some gains that I believe were really important. Remember gender-free toys? Remember the idea that giving girls only dolls and boys only guns taught children what their roles “should” be—and shaped the world in the process. For a few brief, glorious years, “Free To Be You and Me” was the law of the land. Stores weren't separated into pink and blue sections. You could actually get toys that weren't designated as being for boys or for girls. That’s gone. If you haven’t noticed this, check out the toy department in any mainstream store.

Also lost, I fear, at least in some quarters, is our early progress in getting folks to think of adult females as women instead of as girls. To call us “girls” is infantilizing and demeaning, we argued. It trivializes women and their lives. It precludes any sort of genuine equality, we pointed out, because equality is impossible when one person is regarded as a child (girl) and the other as an adult (man). We invoked parallels: who would consider calling an adult male a “boy” (except in the most egregious of racial slurs)? 

The point was so important! The trivialization of women in language reflected—and it also reinforced—the trivialization of women in the world. About this, we were certain. And plenty of research backed us up.

Persuading folks—women and men—that this was a problem was no easy task. But for a while, it seemed like we had won our point. By the 1980s and 90s, people with any sort of consciousness were careful to say “women.” Pretty soon, organizations, agencies, business, clubs, commercial enterprises, even the media conscientiously used “women” to refer to females over about 18 and “girls” to refer only to small children. (Adolescents were always tricky. Are they still “girls,” or are they “young women”? I always preferred the latter.)

That victory was 30 years ago or so. So I find myself distraught and dismayed to hear that “girl” has made a come-back among college students. These 18 – 22-year-old women are the age many of us were when we discovered feminism, with all its freeing and infuriating power. They are the age many of us were when we started to contemplate this language thing. Yet, these women are not only called “girls” by others—like their male peers—but they also refer to themselves as “girls.” Sure, much of the institutionalized (“politically correct”) language is still in place. Sports teams are women’s teams, not girls’ teams. But these young women will be the institutions in a decade or so. Will they continue to call themselves and their peers “girls.” What effect might that have on their workplaces? On their families? On their voice in governance? On the world?

As if this weren’t enough, I also realize that now, as an old woman, I am again personally confronted with trivializing, infantilizing language. Now it comes in the form of people I do not know and with whom I am not even slightly close addressing me as “honey,” “sweetie,” “my dear.” I’m pretty sure this language is meant to be kind, even to be a compliment. Like before, folks’ conscious intent is not to be rude but to be nice, to make me feel good—tell me I’m young rather than old, appreciated rather than dismissed.

Then why is it so irritating? Why do I feel simultaneously invisibilized and patronized? Why does it feel like a pat on the head … or on the wrinkled hand?

The analytic answer is something like this: These words are terms of endearment, which means their use is limited to certain situations. Other than intimate partners, these terms are used only toward a couple of limited classes of people: children (“Not now, Sweetie. Mommy’s busy”) and old people (“Here’s your receipt, sweetie. Drive carefully now”). Just like with the word “girl” used to refer to women, the message is that old women can be viewed as children, we are legitimate objects of condescension. Once again, we are asked to revert to immaturity, neediness, submissiveness, silence, invisibility. Maybe this is overstated, but that’s how it feels.

My partner does a lot of diversity training, and she talks about the difference between intent and impact. These people mean well, their intent is golden. But the impact is downright ... um ... unpleasant.

We need a new consciousness-raising movement. We need to educate folks about the discomfort they cause when they patronize us, treat us as children in need of a pat on the head—or hand. We’ve talked about making up cards to hand out when this happens. Here are some possibilities, in order of increasing crabbiness:

I’m sure you mean to be friendly when you address me as _________. But please be aware that it doesn’t feel good on the receiving end. It feels like you are treating me as a child. I have a lifetime of experience; I am not a child. I would be grateful if you would keep this in mind.

OR …

Please don’t use terms like ___________ when you address older people. You may mean well, but it’s actually condescending and hurtful. Please address us as you address other adults.

OR …

You just insulted a cranky old feminist. Who do you think I am—your child? I’m not! So please do not address me as __________________. Thank you.

So, say we’re successful in this campaign to get people to take us seriously. What do you suppose today’s college women will do with the change when they get old? Maybe they’d surprise us. I’m guessing that old women can get downright uppity, whatever their generation.