tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77817755568383859912024-03-18T21:32:52.709-07:00Cristina SpencerRubies and RubbleCristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.comBlogger234125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-85710229807529384742018-10-29T12:07:00.001-07:002018-10-29T12:07:10.095-07:00Finding hope on Monday<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine act of insurrection."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--Rebecca Solnit</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">10/24/2018</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maurice Stallard</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vicki Lee Jones</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">10/27/2018</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joyce Fienberg</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Richard Gottfried</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rose Mallinger</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jerry Rabinowitz</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cecil Rosenthal</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">David Rosenthal</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bernice Simon</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sylvan Simon</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Daniel Stein</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Melvin Wax</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Irving Younger</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This weekend, I learned about the Tree of Life Massacre while at the Bat Mitzvah of a close family friend. Toward the end of the ceremony the cantor sang L'Dor Vador, which means generation to generation, and it carried the meaning of the day and its context for me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here are the lyrics:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are gifts and we are blessings</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are history in song</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are hope and we are healing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are learning to be strong</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are words and we are stories</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are pictures of the past</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are carriers of wisdom, not the first and not the last</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">L'dor vador nagid godlecha</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">L'dor vador we protect this chain</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From generation to generation</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">L'dor vador, these lips will praise Your name</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Looking back on the journey</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that we carry in our heart</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From the shadow of the mountain </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to the waters that would part</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are blessed and we are holy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are children of your Way</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the words that bring us meaning</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We will have the strength to say</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">L'dor Vador...</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The video below is a recording of the Rutgers University Singers performing a version of the song. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the evening, we danced. We held hands, we jumped, we shuffled, we twisted, we twirled, we clapped, we raised our hands. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because bodies</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">who had birthed bodies</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">were alive.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-35924617324764305592018-09-28T10:45:00.001-07:002018-09-28T10:57:37.930-07:00What to do now<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dear ones,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I received your phone calls and texts. I read your posts on Facebook. I see your tears. I hear the hurt. I am with you. I believe her and I believe you. You are not crazy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here is what we do now. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We remember we live in a world that was not made by us or for us. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We remember that in our lifetime we have to live in two places, the world we have inherited and the world we are inventing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We work the system. We make the calls. We write the postcards. We get out the vote. We protest. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AND</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We dream.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We invent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We make new language.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dr. Ford talked about a memory that was seared into her hippocampus. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In 1987 Toni Morrison birthed a word for us in <i>Beloved</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">She named this kind of memory </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">plugged into an always-on power socket </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">with ongoingness </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">breaking time past and present</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rememory.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A reader</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">who gets rememory</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">is blessed with the difficult gift of Beloved</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and recognizes the meaning of</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Two front doors.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Get off the internet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Throw out the paper.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Find your allies and be with them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For the love of everything sacred </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Find your circle </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Pray and dance</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Make magic and art</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Alter your state </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">so you can</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">YOU ARE NOT CRAZY</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and you never have been.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The women of Liberia </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ended a bloody civil war</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">with prayer</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a white t-shirt</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and their naked bodies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is time to give thanks to our teachers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to the artwomen and prayerwomen</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and sciencewomen and businesswomen</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and motherwomen who dare</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to spin their own yarns</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and to the men who say yes to their brilliance.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rest. Refuel. Get back to your sacred work.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We need you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stay with it. Breathe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-55282265266047126492018-04-02T11:28:00.000-07:002018-04-07T08:58:44.575-07:00Interview: Andrea Jarrell<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilXtzM_b90s2wDvLkK6k2jz6A0vkvegWE8xOayJ_1LX5rDrFJYS7G1VlrYMFv-142isHou9LyvHO3LJuQqdy_rPSCVOS01WsiETUQKDnK-DY6fLh6VSUsfGRnu2zRqoUrl6b-N1jWLOY-c/s1600/IMG_5778.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1193" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilXtzM_b90s2wDvLkK6k2jz6A0vkvegWE8xOayJ_1LX5rDrFJYS7G1VlrYMFv-142isHou9LyvHO3LJuQqdy_rPSCVOS01WsiETUQKDnK-DY6fLh6VSUsfGRnu2zRqoUrl6b-N1jWLOY-c/s320/IMG_5778.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hey friends, </span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you are looking for a Spring Break read, go pick up <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Im-One-Who-Got-Away/dp/1631522604/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1522692333&sr=1-1&keywords=I%27m+the+one+who+got+away" target="_blank">I'm the One Who Got Away</a></i> by Andrea Jarrell. It's a riveting coming of age memoir in which a mother-daughter pair escape a charismatic but dangerous man. At its core, the book is an exploration of female desire, and Jarrell's chiseled prose comes alive documenting the moments in which a young woman first learns the pleasures and liabilities of inhabiting an erotic self. </span></o:p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And guess what! Andrea generously agreed to do an interview with me! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Writers, the interview is chock full of great thinking about writerly routines and practices. </span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If anyone is in the New York area over the next couple of weeks, Andrea will be appearing at two events:</span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">April 11 at 5:30PM, 742 10th Avenue, New York, NY</span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">She'll be doing a New York Public library event with memoirist/poet Gayle Brandeis.</span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">May 17th at 7:00PM, 126 Franklin Street, Brooklyn, NY</span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">She'll be reading at WORD Bookstore with novelist Melissa Scholes Young.</span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I wish I could attend these--if anyone is able to go I'd love to hear about them.</span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Happy Spring everyone!</span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cristina</span></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cristina: Am I correct in
remembering that you started your MFA as a fiction writer? What led you to the
material in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I'm the One Who Got Away</i>?
Was the topic of female desire always front and center or were you at some
point surprised that this topic was going to be a big part of your book?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Andrea: Yes, I began as a fiction writer. Mostly, I think because I
thought fiction was the only realm of writing that used creative world
building, character development, and storytelling. It sounds uninformed to say
that now when memoir and narrative nonfiction are a huge literary force but
this was the 1990’s. I had been reading fiction all my life and that was what I
gravitated toward. But even then, I was writing fiction that grew out of
autobiography. Some of the same material that became my memoir. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If I’d had, all along, more examples of creative nonfiction such
as Jo Ann Beard’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boys of My Youth </i>or
Megan Stielstra’s<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Once I Was Cool</i>, I
might have started with it. But I’m so glad I didn’t. I’m grateful I didn’t
begin trying to tell <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">my</i> story but
rather was focused on sensory experience, character development and plot.
Trying to answer: what makes a satisfying story? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I didn’t realize until I was deep into the book how much
female desire was a central theme: desire as a hazard and desire as liberating.
From the beginning, I definitely understood that wanting to be desired was part
of my story but seeing the flipside — owning desire — was key to understanding
the book’s narrative engine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cristina: What impact does
your identity have on your writing? Are there roles you fill (for example as a
parent or as a sibling) that significantly influence your art? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Daughter” is the first identity that has influenced so much
of my writing. No matter what a piece is about my mother always seems to find
her way into it. That’s because for much of my life I lived in a world of two —
my mother and me. Her role modeling influenced how I see the world and how I grew
to be a woman. Coming into my own, making choices that were not her choices,
living my life in ways that are both like hers and not like hers has inspired a
lot of what I write. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The second identity is “lover/partner/wife” — obviously,
there are differences between all of those roles but the lines between them can
blur. I am intrigued by all kinds of intimacy. Those moments when we reveal
ourselves to others, those moments when we see others either because they let
us or because their actions and words unmask them. Capturing intimacy between
lovers — not sex itself necessarily but an intimacy that derives from having
been sexual — has been an important route for me to narrative meaning and
revelation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A third very influential identity is my role as “mother.”
The experience of being a mother has been enormously important to my life as a
creative person. Artists who become mothers sometimes describe the taxing
effects of motherhood on their creative lives. I found the opposite to be true
likely because I didn’t have an artist identity before parenthood. Having my
children coincided with quitting my full-time job and also with moving to Maine
where I lived in nature in a way I never had. All these factors: childbirth
which opened me up to my personal physicality in new ways; freedom to write
versus work an office job; and being surrounded by nature were a boon to my
creativity. In addition, being a mother gave me new insights into having been mothered.
It also gave me the experience of childhood all over again. As an only child
I’d only known my childhood. By watching my children grow, I saw the ways in
which I had been like any other kid and the ways I was different. These new
understandings fed my work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Andrea: What does it mean
to you to be a working artist? Did you always take your own art seriously? Was
there a moment you decided to "go pro"?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In some ways I’ve been a “pro” since graduating from college
when I started working in magazine publishing in New York City and began to get
a byline. I’ve been a working writer ever since but more behind the scenes
writing marketing copy and trade magazine feature stories. The moment when I
decided to “go for it” in terms of creative writing was in applying to MFA
programs. An even more crucial turning point was when I shifted my personal
work versus my client work to the front of the line when it came to my time and
energy. I still spend a lot of time on client work but I think of my creative
work remains my most important client.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I can’t remember a time when I did not think of myself as a
writer. I’ve never been shy about calling myself a writer. But that is not the
same thing as always believing that I would be successful as a writer. By that
I mean, almost all my life I have had benchmarks against which I measure myself
as a “good” writer or someone with any talent. The benchmarks hold steady when
I have a setback or rise when I have a success. For example, when I started out
getting complimented in a workshop was a big deal. Then success became getting
into an MFA program, getting published, getting published in ever more
selective places, getting an agent, publishing a book, getting good reviews,
etc. Now my goal is to write a second book. These markers will never stop. I
think it is important not to delude oneself about one’s merits but also to set
goals and to relish victories when you reach them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cristina: Tell me about your
routine as a working artist. What are your artistic habits? What do you do if
you ever find yourself stuck? Talk to us about your intuition and your
intuitive habits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How is your intuitive
self alive in your writing?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am a morning writer. I like to get my coffee and go right
to work often by climbing back into bed with my laptop. If I start the day by
looking at my phone or getting into an extended conversation with my husband
I’m toast. Or so I once thought. Rather than surrender to the feeling of a
wasted day, I have learned to force myself to “begin again” even if I haven’t
had the perfect uninterrupted start. Generally, I like at least three hours to
write. Sometimes, if I’m writing an essay or working on a chapter I will
continue until the evening with a first draft done. Depending on how well the
writing has gone I either feel enormously pleased with myself or I am distracted
and agitated until I can get back to the piece the next day. I am a big
believer in Hemingway’s idea of quitting in the midst of a scene rather than at
an endpoint. It is much easier to begin the next day when you’re in the middle
rather than when the page is blank.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Getting “stuck” can mean different things to me. Within a
piece, it might mean I don’t know where to go next. In that case, I go for a
walk or practice yoga, which loosens up my subconscious. I once worked out a
whole essay on a quiet hike with my husband. If I haven’t been writing because
of work or travel and need to get a jumpstart I read several beginnings of my
favorite books. That gets me in the narrative flow. I also might read some of
my own published work to remind myself that I can do it. I used to think that
it was counterproductive to read another person’s work at the start of my day.
That somehow that interrupted my own flow but now I believe the opposite. This
comes from Jane Kenyon’s advice about “have good sentences in your ears.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If I really feel stalled and need a reboot I sign up for a
workshop. Last winter, I did a Tin House one-day workshop Leigh Newman and then
did an online workshop Creative Nonfiction workshop taught by Lisa Ohlen Harris.
I kind of abandoned the online workshop but began working with Lisa on my own.
The result has been three new essays and some of my best work to date.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cristina: Cheryl Strayed
says success in the arts is measured very differently than in other endeavors?
As an artist, how do you define success for yourself? Making art often seems to
me like an act of faith. What inspires you to continue doing your work?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I often think of that Ira Glass video about one’s taste as a
beginning artist exceeding one’s abilities. For so many years, I could write
lovely sentences but could not fashion them into a satisfying story or essay.
Now I have faith that, although it might be challenging and I may be frustrated
along the way, I can write a satisfying narrative. I have faith that if I keep
at it I will get where I want to go. These days, I am most excited about what
revision will reveal. I am at a point where I can get to a publishable piece
fairly quickly on my own. I have always been an avid reviser. Yet now I’m
learning to revise and get to a good place but then through working with
someone like Lisa to get to an even deeper and better piece. I feel it
physically when I get to the deeper gold of a piece and I love that process. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So success to me is about being able to write a deeply satisfying
piece. How do I know it’s satisfying? I want these pieces to be published in
venues that I admire and read alongside other writers I love. I want to hear
from readers—especially readers who don’t know me— that these pieces moved
them. Other forms of success (money, awards, etc.) are wonderful but I consider
them frosting on the cake. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My continued inspiration is the mystery in everyday life and
relationships. I am always looking for the story in the ordinary — the story
that illuminates in a particularly piercing way the human experience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Andrea: What, if anything,
has writing taught you that carries over into other aspects of your life? Are
there any habits or routines you keep as an artist that support you in your
life in general? In what ways does pursuing your art impact your well-being?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Moving to the last part of that question first, I feel
antsy, almost useless and unfulfilled if I am not writing. In many ways I am my
purest self when I am writing because I forget myself. I am in flow. I also
feel that way when I am practicing on my yoga mat but not to the same
gratifying extent. I can’t imagine not writing because it feels so central to
my wellbeing and to living a fulfilling life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I recognize in myself that I am disciplined and grateful,
and that I can find satisfaction in small pleasures. I think all of these
traits are informed by my writing life. I have created a very successful
business out of nothing other than my ability to write, to think creatively, to
be a good listener, to pick up on the telling detail, and to understand people.
All of these things inform my marketing business as well as my creative
writing. I love that I have been able to support myself and my family through
writing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Also the idea that writing is a practice — that I am never
done but always building on what I know to explore and get better — is a key to
feeling satisfied and optimistic in my life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cristina: Who's work is
inspiring you right now? Feel free to range wildly and not limit yourself to
literary art!<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Andrea: As I begin to work on a new book, I am very intrigued by
blurring lines between genres. I am totally in love with the poet Beth Ann
Fennelly’s genre-busting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Heating and
Cooling: 52 Micro Memoirs</i>. By genre mixing, in some cases I mean fiction
and nonfiction; essay and story; poetry and memoir. But other mixing is within
a genre itself such as the “lyrical” and “thriller” mixing that Rene Denfeld
does in her latest novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Child Finder</i>.
Or Carmen Maria Machado’s mixing of horror and feminist and literary fiction in
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Her Body and Other Parties</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am also inspired rig<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">ht now by Martha Cooley’s memoir in
essays </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Guesswork: A Reckoning with Loss</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">.
It is making me think about how seemingly quiet observations can build heat and
drama in narrative.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In my marketing life, I have the good fortune of knowing some
graphic designers who are recognized as being among the most influential and
brilliant today. Two whose work and writing always inspire me: Michael Bierut
and Jessica Helfand. Michael’s latest essay collection is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Now You See It</i>. Jessica’s new book is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Design: The Invention of Desire</i>. I am also really inspired by
storytelling in illustration. A few of my favorites: Wendy MacNaughton, Liana
Finck, and Bryan Rea. I’ve encountered their work in various ways over the
years and I love following them on Instagram for a daily jolt of their genius. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment--><br />Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-90633123863739006472018-03-08T16:07:00.001-08:002018-03-09T10:55:50.744-08:00Interview: Hannah Howard <div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Meet Hannah Howard, author of FEAST!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Dear friends, writers and undercover creatives,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There was a moment many, many years ago, when I was wondering about becoming a writer. I walked into Books Inc. in Palo Alto and was overcome by the sheer volume of books. They were piled on tables, they were shelved on floating A-frame carts, they climbed the walls all the way to the ceiling. It wasn't my best day, and I thought to myself, "Really, does the world need another book?" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fastforward to 2018, halfway through my MFA and my perspective has been turned inside out. Back then, even in the face of my overwhelm I loved books. But I love them now more than I ever have. Now I know people who write books. Their children get sick. The pipes in their homes blow. Sometimes their relationships fall apart. Their bills pile up. And still. They write. They revise. They submit. Maybe their work finds a kindred spirit who wants to represent the work, who wants to publish the work. That any book exists at all is a collaboration of miracles and a testament to human persistence. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I take more pleasure in books than ever. Especially books written by friends and colleagues. As a celebration of what I'm learning about writing and especially what I'm learning about women who write, I am launching an interview series of women writers. Today I kick the series off with my friend Hannah Howard, whose book, FEAST has just arrived in the world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In FEAST, Hannah shares the story of her life with food. As a Columbia undergrad she lands a job at Picholine (cheese cart anyone?!) and begins to explore the inner workings of the New York City food world. Meanwhile, she wrestles privately with an eating disorder, reckoning with body image, craving, and the universal need we all have for comfort and connection. Her writing is alive on the page, at times sparkling (a cheese never read so yummy) and at other times searing (her descriptions of body dysphoria chilling and unsettlingly familiar). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Feast-True-Love-out-Kitchen/dp/1503942570/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1520621410&sr=8-2&keywords=Feast" target="_blank">And guys--it's debuting on Amazon as a #1 category Bestseller!</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here we go! Interview #1</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Hannah, congratulations on the publication of your first book! Talk a bit about the process of getting from your first flicker of an idea to producing the book. When did you start writing it? What were the hurdles? Who and what helped provide the momentum to make it to a finished product? What has been most gratifying for you as a writer?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve always loved to write. More than loved to write—needed to write. When I started interning for Serious Eats in college, I wrote a column called Served about waiting tables at Casellula. That was not my first time turning my day-to-day experiences into stories and sharing those stories with the world; when I was in middle and high school, I published a ‘zine called Power Dreams about my adventures with my friends and the horror of moving from Baltimore to New Jersey. (Back issues 1, 2 and 3 are still available from my parents’ closet.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There was something instantly wonderful, addictive, and deeply gratifying about the whole process. I want to make meaning out of my life, and I want to share that meaning…and stories, silliness, revelations, heartache, messiness, and all the rest. I wrote columns, essays, and reviews, and at some point I realized that these anecdotes were adding up to something bigger. FEAST was born! I’ve been working on FEAST for the last five years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So many people believed in FEAST along the way. My agent Andrea Somberg helped me turn a mess of ideas into a book proposal; Morgan Parker, my first editor at Little A, helped me transform the proposal into an actual manuscript; and Laura van der Veer, editor number two, helped polish and refine that manuscript into something I’m proud of. And I’ve had the added luck of insightful help and edits from the whole family at the Bennington MFA. And my mom. And my writer’s group. It takes a village. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As for the hurdles: publishing a book is a long road and patience is not something that comes naturally to me. Going back into the weeds of the hardest, darkest part of my life was incredibly challenging. I started seeing a therapist again. Sharing my most vulnerable stuff with the world is terrifying—but I’m hoping ultimately rewarding. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I cried last week when I got my first copy of the finished book. Holding FEAST, with a cover and an author photo and all of that, felt unreal and magical. Talk about gratifying! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>What does it mean to you to be a working artist? Did you always take your own art seriously? Was there a moment you decided to "go pro"?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My mom told me that I could call myself a writer when I first got paid to write something, and I think she’s right. We writers and artists have a hard time owning what we do. I can’t think a lawyer who abashedly says, “Oh, I’m just practicing some law.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For many years, I’ve worked on a mix of projects like copywriting and marketing writing to pay the bills, and the “fun stuff,” writing that brings me gratification like personal essays and restaurant reviews. But I do get a certain satisfaction from copywriting. And I like making money, too. It feels like a crazy puzzle I’m constantly trying to fit together with varying success. I am lucky to have the privilege to create this working artist life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Tell me about your routine as a working artist. What are your artistic habits? What do you do if you ever find yourself stuck? </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some days I work from my “bed office” with a giant mug of coffee and a big pile of pillows. As a former cubicle person, I feel lucky and a little bit naughty for getting to do this. If I’m having a writing day, I like to take a lunchtime break and go to a class at my gym, go for a walk, and make myself something to eat. I’ll get antsy and relocate to a coffee shop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’m writing this from Ground Support in Soho, a great coffee shop with excellent people watching opportunities. (There’s an incredibly stylish woman with two gigantic poodles shouting in a language I cannot identify into her phone by the door…) The change of scenery sparks something. My brain works best in the morning, so I try to schedule my meetings for the afternoons and save my sharpest focus for early writing time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Other days I am absorbed in non-writing work and projects. I go for weeks where I write every day, but there are weeks where I hardly write at all. I like to think of these times as opportunities to soak up inspiration and recharge. I’ve been letting myself take breaks when I feel stuck and revisit something in a few hours, or in a few days. Deadlines are great cure for stuck-ness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Talk to us about your intuition and your intuitive habits. How is your intuitive self alive in your writing? Feast is a book fueled by obsession. What role does obsession play in your writing life? What are you learning that is surprising to you about your own obsessions, if we can use that word in a friendly way between writers :-) ? How (if at all) do you think obsession and intuition are related?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I love this question! I think of obsession as two-headed. There is a negative, destructive part of obsession that, if indulged, spirals into a dark, fucked up place. My eating disorder was fueled by this kind of obsession. But there is also obsession in a more positive light, a deep creative fixation that can spark the best kind of writing. I think to write a book, any book, you must be at least a little bit obsessed with your subject, your characters, and your story. You’re going to spend a whole lot of time and emotional energy there. Maybe this juicy, generative obsession is intuition. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><b>Success in the arts is measured very differently than in other endeavors. As an artist, how do you define success for yourself? Making art often seems to me like an act of faith. What inspires you to continue doing your work?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve thought so much about this. I’m an ambitious person. My goal has always been to write a book. And my greatest hope is that people read FEAST and feel less alone. Now that I’ve written a book…well, I’d love to write another one. I’d love to make a career as a writer. That would be a huge success.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Making art is such an act of faith. Starting with a blank page. That stupid cursor on a white screen, blinking as if taunting you. And harder yet, sometimes—sharing that work with the world. I’m inspired by an amazing group of talented artist friends like you who are fighting the good fight. I am inspired by people who take risks and show up. By writers, artists, and readers. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What, if anything, has writing taught you that carries over into other aspects </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">of your life? Are there any habits or routines you keep as an artist that support </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">you in your life in general? In what ways does pursuing your art impact your </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">well-being?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dinah Lenney, one of my wonderful Bennington MFA professors, said this in an <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.triquarterly.org/craft-essays/not-quite-naked&source=gmail&ust=1520637548484000&usg=AFQjCNEHMM4KGNeSK8lTPt21k_f7s3j3nw" href="http://www.triquarterly.org/craft-essays/not-quite-naked" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">essay at the TriQuarterly Review</a>: “You have to get naked first. Moreover, it’s not enough to get naked (this is what I used to tell my own students), you have stand up naked and turn around slowly.” Sometimes I think, oh my God, why would anyone want to do that? Maybe I’ll quit writing and learn to be an accountant. But the good, important stuff is often the vulnerable stuff. The getting naked and turning around slowly stuff. When I’m feeling that fear of being seen, really seen, I’m probably onto something real and worthwhile. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Whose work is inspiring you right now? Feel free to range wildly and not </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">limit yourself to literary art!</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some writers I’m loving: Mary Karr, James Baldwin, Ariel Levy, Meghan Daum, Ruth Reichl, Alice Munro, Donna Tartt. I’m always inspired by food and flavors. I’ve been watching some brilliant TV lately—Orange is the New Black, Transparent, The Handmaid’s Tale. And some movies that have really stayed with me, Lady Bird, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and of course Black Panther. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Thanks Hannah! <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Feast-True-Love-out-Kitchen-ebook/dp/B073FC1C5T/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1520551712&sr=8-2&keywords=Feast" target="_blank">FEAST is available on Amazon today</a>. Don't miss it!</b></span></div>
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Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-57703968026668110312017-10-19T12:24:00.001-07:002017-10-19T12:27:53.461-07:00If you're feeling like it's an F-bomb kind of day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Who, in these crazy times, is not in need of reading that will either make you laugh or bring some level of comfort?</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These bright yellow covered books are road signs to mental health that do</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> both AT THE SAME TIME!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Are-Never-Meeting-Real-Life/dp/1101912197/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508439473&sr=8-1&keywords=samantha+irby" target="_blank"><br /></a></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Are-Never-Meeting-Real-Life/dp/1101912197/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508439473&sr=8-1&keywords=samantha+irby" target="_blank"><i>We Are Never Meeting in Real Life</i>, Samantha Irby</a>: Get inside the head of one of the funniest people I've met on the page in a long time. Irby's inner monologue as she fills out an application to reality TV show, The Bachelor, had me in stitches from page one. Her self-deprecating humor offers Philip Lopate style permission for each of us to be human. Also, if you like swearing, which I really do, run don't walk to pick this one up. And when you finish the book and just <a href="http://bitchesgottaeat.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">NEED MORE FUNNY, take refuge in Irby's blog</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Feelings-Practical-Managing-Impossible-Problems/dp/1476789991/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508439824&sr=8-1&keywords=Fck+feelings" target="_blank"><i>F*ck Feelings</i>, Michael and Sarah Bennett</a>: Here is the thing your shrink won't admit, everyday that you don't get your shit together equals another day of gainful employment for them. Believe me, as the daughter of a therapist, if at all possible you should avoid becoming a shrink's lifetime bread and butter. The Bennetts agree. This book lists the most frequent chronic problems they witness in contemporary adults (everything from living childhood trauma, to raising a kid with an LD, to adultery--they cover A LOT of ground), and then suggests perspective shifts that will help you live with the problem rather than solve it. In the wise words of Maggie Nelson, "the shit stays messy," and the Bennetts are here to teach you how to celebrate small victories and stop wasting time solving unsolvables. As someone who has both been the bread and butter and gone to college on the bread and butter cases, I get it, there is nothing that can replace a real person resonating with your trauma. And still, from the minute I read the phrase "f*ck self-improvement" I got the tingling feeling of a laugh going, and the sense that liberation was much closer at hand than I allow myself to believe.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">P.S. Here is a public service announcement for my fellow middle aged people. Did you know that double spaces after a period MAKE YOU LOOK OLD? Lord, how did I miss this? So forget your anti-aging creams, just drop that extra space after a period and you will be looking ten years younger already.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-55271799702150348262017-10-09T10:06:00.000-07:002017-10-09T13:38:56.102-07:00October reading update<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm not going to lie, this month has been the hardest month in my MFA program so far. The way the Bennington Low Residency program works, we meet twice a year for ten days in Vermont and in the intervening time we work one-on-one with established writers on our own material (I'm working with <a href="http://www.dinahlenney.com/" target="_blank">Dinah Lenney</a> this term, and got to work with <a href="http://www.susancheever.com/" target="_blank">Susan Cheever</a> last term--both amazing writers and amazing teachers). Every month we're responsible for reading 4-5 books, writing two annotations--which is what fancy graduate school calls book reports, and we submit 15-20 fresh pages of work, along with the revision of one of the last month's pieces. Altogether, my Bennington peeps and me, we call this stack of work a "packet." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Packet #3 of 2nd Term is killing me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That said, the best part of this last packet has been luxuriating in the reading when the writing has not been flowing. Here's my reading list for the month:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm going to start with the essays I've loved, because they feel like they might be more widely appealing. They </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">are all low-investment (relatively short compared to a book, and free) reading options that will challenge you into a better place from sentence #1. Plus, if you have not seen the plural of "Prius" written on the page, you will find its appearance "prii" hugely satisfying.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://aboutplacejournal.org/issues/political-landscapes/political/pam-houston/" target="_blank">What has Irony Done for Us Lately</a>, A Place Journal: Calling all Pam Houston fans: she has a new book on the way, and some gems from it are being released as essays. This one must be read with tissues, but you won't be disappointed. Bennington peeps, read to experience our beloved Josh Weil with a thirty pound elk baby in his arms.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://kuow.org/post/ijeoma-oluo-i-am-drowning-whiteness" target="_blank">I'm Drowning in Whiteness</a>, Ijeoma Oluo, Kuow.org: Fellow white people, we have to read these pieces. What comes up for me and what I'll be thinking//writing about more, has to do with what white supremacy has stolen from all of us. It should be obvious by now that non-white people live more dangerous lives in the US. And we should be furious about that. But if we think that white supremacy mostly does a disservice to other people, we are missing the point. These cultural separations are robbing us all of us.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.wildmysticwoman.com/poetry-prose/white-women-white-supremacy-1" target="_blank"><br /></a></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.wildmysticwoman.com/poetry-prose/white-women-white-supremacy-1" target="_blank">I Need to Talk to Spiritual White Women about White Supremacy</a>, Layla Saad, wildmysticwoman.com: The biggest lie white women have been sold is that we are our most successful when we are being nice, that and that love looks like something from a Hallmark card. Fury is love that demands justice, and you've been told you have no right to your own fury. The world needs us to find our fire, ladies.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now for the books:</span><br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Im-One-Who-Got-Away/dp/1631522604/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1507567708&sr=8-1&keywords=Im+the+one+who+got+away" target="_blank"><br /></a>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Im-One-Who-Got-Away/dp/1631522604/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1507567708&sr=8-1&keywords=Im+the+one+who+got+away" target="_blank"><i>I'm the One Who Got Away</i>, Andrea Jarrell</a>: A memoir exploring the contours of the writer's desire across the span of her life. Without mentioning the word misogyny, she nails the complex problem of women's desire in the patriarchy. Has a great ending. Plus she got her MFA at Bennington--WOOT!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Conundrum-York-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590171896/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1507567763&sr=1-1&keywords=Conundrum" target="_blank"><br /></a></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Conundrum-York-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590171896/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1507567763&sr=1-1&keywords=Conundrum" target="_blank"><i>Conundrum</i>, Jan Morris</a>: Published in 1974, this is <i>the</i> classic trans memoir that seems, so far at least, to be the seed for all others. Important because it establishes some metaphors about the experience of gender that seem to have become fundamental to how we talk about the various genders that don't yet have a name or a language to live in. The book was a break through, but in some sense also represents the linguistic limits the gender nonconforming experience still lives within. Read along with Nora Ephron's scathing response to the book to learn how some of our prominent feminists have been seriously horrible to trans folks. I haven't been able to locate her review online, if you want to read it check out <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_12?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+most+of+nora+ephron&sprefix=the+most+of+%2Cstripbooks%2C245&crid=11QK6SRUCSN1C" target="_blank">The Most of Nora Ephron</a>. Like Conundrum itself, Ephron's response continues to be the scaffolding behind a lot of political pushback towards transpeople.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Middlesex-Novel-Oprahs-Book-Club/dp/0312427735/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1507568371&sr=1-1&keywords=middlesex" target="_blank"><i>Middlesex</i>, Jeffrey Eugenides</a>: Confession. I haven't finished it yet. But so far, this is the most writerly example of a gender nonconforming experience I've come across. That said, the author is not gender nonconforming himself, which doesn't mean he shouldn't write it, but it does mean that I think he has to have some of the same problem I do trying to feel into the experience. But, the guy is a masterful writer--which accounts for a lot. So more on this to come.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Some-Assembly-Required-Not-So-Secret-Transgender/dp/1481416766/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1507568414&sr=1-1&keywords=some+assembly+required" target="_blank"><i>Some Assembly Required</i>, Arin Andrews</a>: A FTM trans memoir written by a young adult right after transitioning. Includes very explicit information that most trans memoirs do not directly address. Written for other teens considering transition and does a lovely job of addressing the overlap between gender identity and sexual orientation. From a distance we are taught that these two topics are separate, but in this first person account it's clear that for this individual the two topics are intimately tangled together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">not shown in the pile: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Boys-My-Youth-Ann-Beard/dp/0316085251/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1507568441&sr=1-1&keywords=Boys+of+My+Youth" target="_blank"><i>Boys of My Youth</i>, Jo Ann Beard</a>: This is a collection of essays by a writer that writers love to love--her language is like fireworks in your brain. Plus she is funny. You should read her even if you're not a writer. If you are a writer you should read her and then work hard not to feel bad that your words don't fizz and swoop on the page just like hers. We are all special in our own way, right ?! LOL</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-73541380744382261432017-09-18T15:47:00.000-07:002017-09-18T15:49:50.324-07:00What I'm up to September 2017<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dear blog-reading friends,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I miss you all! I wanted to quick check-in and report that I have been writing, writing, writing, even though I'm not posting as much as I usually do. A lot of the work I'm producing for my MFA is not yet ready for primetime, but there are still some juicy bits to share.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The motto at Bennington is "Read 100, Write 1"...books that is. So needless to say, I've been devouring words. I think you might enjoy a peek into the "best of" in my reading list for the month. If you guys like this I'll continue to post. I would definitely love to hear what you're reading. Please post what's on your nightstand in the comments!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This month's "best of" includes:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Twenty-Lessons-Twentieth-Century/dp/0804190119/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1504031380&sr=8-1&keywords=on+Tyranny" target="_blank"><i>On Tyranny</i></a>, Timothy Snyder. A collection of 20 very short essays about preserving civil society written by a Yale professor who studies the history of fascism. I especially appreciated some unintuitive tips about staying connected with your community and upholding ethical values in group settings such as at work and at schools.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://longreads.com/2015/07/06/a-few-words-about-breasts-from-nora-ephron/" target="_blank"><br /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://longreads.com/2015/07/06/a-few-words-about-breasts-from-nora-ephron/" target="_blank">"A Few Words about Breasts,"</a> essay by Nora Ephron</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.michiganquarterlyreview.com/2016/05/from-the-archive-portrait-of-my-body-by-phillip-lopate/" target="_blank">"A Portrait of My Body,"</a> essay by Phillip Lopate</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/21/an-evening-out" target="_blank">"An Evening Out," </a>short story by Garth Greenwell from the 8/21/17 New Yorker. The dog at the end, you'll never forget her. Bonus, the audiofile of Greenwell reading the story is also included in the link.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lighthouse-Virginia-Woolf/dp/0156907399/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1504031960&sr=8-1&keywords=to+the+lighthouse" target="_blank">To the Lighthouse</a></i>, Virginia Woolf. Dinah Lenney, my current instructor (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Object-Parade-Essays-Dinah-Lenney-ebook/dp/B00IHGV8JG/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1504032067&sr=8-7&keywords=dinah+lenney" target="_blank">The Object Parade: Essays</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bigger-than-Life-Murder-American/dp/0803232675/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1504032067&sr=8-1&keywords=dinah+lenney" target="_blank">Bigger than Life: A Murder, A Memoir</a>) calls it life-changing. So I'm in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Not pictured here, but both fabulous reads:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Suicide-Index-Putting-Fathers-Death/dp/0156033801/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504032436&sr=1-1&keywords=The+suicide+index" target="_blank"><i>The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order</i></a>, Joan Wickersham. Wickersham is an instructor at Bennington. In this book she reflects on her own father's suicide, using the structure of an index to give shape her complicated, unresolvable experience. The way she ruminates on the page is sharp, original, and at times very funny. One of my favorite books so far.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shes-Not-There-Life-Genders/dp/0385346972/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504032532&sr=1-1&keywords=she%27s+not+there" target="_blank"><i>She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders</i></a>, Jennifer Finney Boylan. A transgender transition memoir--a contemporary classic in this subject area. Boylan is a columnist for the New York Times.</span></div>
Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-36985471262413490132017-05-02T13:56:00.001-07:002017-05-02T14:00:27.516-07:00Sweet peas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I walked out of my office this morning and the air smelled like suntan lotion. I knew something new was in bloom, but couldn’t name it. I had just gotten off the phone with a new friend, we had talked for two hours straight, and though I had been struggling on a piece of writing for weeks, I felt encouraged—though in real time, was no closer to finishing the draft than I had been earlier in the day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Despite the fact that the piece was hanging over me, I went on a walk around the block and listened to an <a href="https://onbeing.org/programs/richard-rohr-living-in-deep-time/" target="_blank">On Being podcast with Richard Rohr</a> recommended by my friend. In the podcast, Rohr talked about the difference between chronos—everyday, minute to minute time, and chiros—deep time, wise time, the kind of time that reminds us each of our actual size in the universe. Rohr referenced a Latin phrase that he had learned as a Franciscan monk, <i>sub specie aeternitatis</i>, which means, in the light of eternity, as a context that could be applied to any moment in order to shift focus into chiros. He explained that the things that bothered young men, and at the time he was talking specifically about men, those irritants often disappeared in the light of eternity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I saw what he meant immediately and the writing that I was struggling with ceased in that moment to have such a tight hold on me, at least in a way. I could see how finishing it today or tomorrow would had no real world consequence for me or for anyone else. The ten pages I’m hammering away at matter very little to the eternal universe.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I wound my way through our neighborhood to the public garden where the flowers are going gangbusters. Every green stalked showed off a petaled swagger. The peonies especially flaunted themselves in all their excess, the layers of pink and white petals, their over the top scent, blossoms so big and heavy that each stem seemed at risk that it might break under the weight of so much beauty. I sniffed the blossom, but this wasn’t the suntan lotion smell that had struck me in the morning.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I walked some more and wondered if my writing mattered at all. In the grand scheme of things, does anything really matter in the light of eternity, but because I’m writing about gender identities, and because gender identities transcend time in a way that I necessarily don’t, the writing did seem to matter somehow—though, you know, eternity is a lot of pressure. I might buckle under the weight of an idea that mattered that much, and plus, what does a single person’s contribution matter to an archetype. And there I was caught in the tension again—ideas matter way too much or somehow not at all. I found myself slightly disappointed in Rohr’s light of eternity, or if not in Rohr’s notion itself, the way my own mind was distorting it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On the way home, I walked by a house with an unkept garden. Weeds rambled, the lawn was burned out in some spots, and near the edge, there was a small tangle of last year's sweet peas. By all measures they shouldn’t have been there. <i>Lathyrus odoratus,</i> that tendril-ed clutch of vines, humble blossoms, and scent, is an annual, and this garden hadn’t been tended this year and likely not last year either. But there it was, a wildly occurring splash of pink, seeded there who knows how. I leaned over to take a sniff, and I knew right away it was the scent I had caught a whiff of earlier in the morning.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I stole a sprig and carried it home, holding it close to my nose the whole way. It cast a spell on me, that scent. I felt small again, like my mother would walk around the corner and take my hand. There was relief in that—to be whisked away on the scent of an accidental flower, to be reminded of love.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Later in the day I found this poem. I hadn’t ever seen it before, but once again, I am grateful for Naomi Shihab Nye who speaks my own heart better than I ever could.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">***</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Famous</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The river is famous to the fish.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The loud voice is famous to silence,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">which knew it would inherit the earth</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">before anybody said so.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Watching him from the birdhouse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The idea you carry close to your bosom</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">is famous to your bosom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The boot is famous to the earth</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">more famous than the dress shoe</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">which is famous only to floors.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I want to be famous to shuffling men</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">who smile while crossing streets,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">sticky children in grocery lines,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">famous as the one who smiled back.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">but because it never forgot what it could do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">***</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And those pieces came together for me, the scent of unplanned sweet peas, the work of button holes and pulleys, and one word at a time. Nothing was cornered into here or there, eternity or this moment, nothing spectacular was required. And I believed it, you know which is the thing. We can know these things but not actually believe them. Perhaps what I understood today, though not for the first time, is that believing, actual faith in a thing, is an act that requires the body. The knowing needs a vessel, my mind grips, but my believing body breathes. Its a thing better done than said, but in a body whose way is characterized by language, the language just keeps coming, whether it serves or not. And so here I am writing again, after a few weeks of feeling very stuck. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Wishing you all the sweetness of springtime. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Love,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cristina</span></div>
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Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-59617681922868543152017-03-17T12:33:00.000-07:002017-03-17T12:33:04.791-07:00Thoughts on the gender revolution<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguiuvSg4RRJGMpqNad6iKHgeBbcWwbI2Zbku9Upkw8r3nUvJZawZElAN-wACyanhirco6PbDHNp1Oj1ghgI_WZ_Ta_RYWWoRjIE0foOQgLufA1Ybv7iLeJPBQPtIiZn6AdWaB3JVJPmW9F/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguiuvSg4RRJGMpqNad6iKHgeBbcWwbI2Zbku9Upkw8r3nUvJZawZElAN-wACyanhirco6PbDHNp1Oj1ghgI_WZ_Ta_RYWWoRjIE0foOQgLufA1Ybv7iLeJPBQPtIiZn6AdWaB3JVJPmW9F/s320/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dear friends,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you follow me on Facebook, you've probably noticed that I am linking to a lot of pieces about gender, especially topics that have to do with women's rights and the emerging understanding that gender is a spectrum. Many of you who know me, know that this topic has been a reading and thinking obsession of mine for a long time. All the way back from when I first read the Diary of Anne Frank as a girl, through the years I spent hiding out at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe researching the history of the Pill and the women who demanded it be reformulated for safety reasons, to founding Shine on Collaborative, a coaching organization whose primary concern is women's contributions and well being--the experience of gender has fascinated me. And it's humbled me by its complexity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You've probably already noticed that we are in the middle of a sea change in the universe of gender. The Trump administration has and will put up road blocks to stop it, but in a way, these road blocks are amplifying the felt sense of what is afoot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">National Geographic calls this a Gender Revolution, and I agree with this characterization. By the time our children or maybe grandchildren are adults, there will be pockets in the world, mostly cities, in which gender will look completely different than what we have known up until now. The feelings I have about this alternate between, excitement for what may be one of the most important cultural shifts in my lifetime, fury in the face of extreme conservative backlash against progress for any of the non-dominant genders, fear for the safety of the individuals whose lives are lighting the way forward, but who may not be in friendly territory, and sometimes also exhaustion--because change is hard, and finding the right words and concepts to describe what's emerging requires real effort.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm writing this post for friends and family whose day-to-day might be on the periphery of this revolution, who may think something like, "boy and girl was good enough for us, why do we need all these other special labels?" And to remind myself that, yes, we need to keep moving forward, even though it will take a lot of work to reinvent say, a language that takes into account that he/his and she/hers categorizes individuals in a way that at times is unnecessary and at other times is not specific enough.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll start with a narrow set of facts. High school biology teaches us that biological sex falls into two neat genetic categories, XY or XX. Jogging your memory here, you learned that if your karyotype is XY, your phenotype will be male and that if your karyotype is XX then your phenotype will be female. To be specific the main physical details consulted to determine your phenotype were your private parts, and assigning you a gender did not take into account any other physical evidence about your brain, your endocrine system, your kidneys or any of other difficult to measure physical trait that tends to correlate with whether you are XX or XY. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also not covered in that 9th grade unit on genetics and biological sex is the fact that other combinations of sex chromosomes can and do result in viable human beings. We know for sure that X, XXY, XYY, XXX and XXXY all occur with varying frequency within the human family. And they are not that uncommon. XXY is thought to occur in as many as 1 in 500 people. The current guesstimate is that XXX and XYY both occur in about 1 in 1,000 people. But even then, many people with these less typical chromosomal combinations don't know about their own genetic difference, which means we have a limited understanding of how often these combinations occur. <i>At the very least based on the estimates available, simple math leads to the conclusion that among the billions of human beings on the planet, there are millions of people alive today whose biological sex does not conform to a binary gender rubric.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let that sink in for a minute. The two neat categories of male and female are inaccurate in the most fundamental way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And this is just the beginning of the biological confusion. There are other worlds of information that describe the interactions between hormones and the brain that also have considerable impact on the categories of male and female. And that does not even begin to address the way social narratives have attached themselves to physical bodies. There are many aspects to the complexity of gender, but for today, I want to be clear about one thing--the concept of binary gender is wrong, and a single focus on sex chromosomes should be enough to convince any of us that gender as a category deserves a revolution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Scientists discovered these other genetic sex variations in the late 1950's as a result of new developments in genetic research methods. But when these types were discovered, they were classified not as new separate sex categories, but as twists on male and female. Usually these twists were considered poorer versions of male or female, but in the case of XYY, there was a brief spell around 1968 in which a big deal was made about the arrival of the "super male"--someone who was extra macho, and alternatively might be more likely to end up serving time for criminal violence, or might end up a hero, as suggested by the main character in the novel called <i>XYY Man</i> (just ordered it on Amazon to have a peek) in which an XYY guy named Scottie finds his skills as a cat burglar in high demand with the British Secret service. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> There's that social narrative piece. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I find myself here both laughing and cringing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">******</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My education has trained me to pursue clarity, and that confusion in any realm, but especially in the realm of gender and identity, is a bad thing. I've often felt internal pressure to know what side of an argument I believe or agree with, I've wanted to have big thoughts about how to "fix" the problems of gender, I've wanted to know for sure one way or another whether my thinking about gender or my performance of my own gender is good or right. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But lately I've been wondering whether or not this need to "know," to pin down the facts, and to be good, correct, and right, is in itself a culturally gendered way of thinking, or if not gendered exactly, a traditional way of thinking that is getting in the way of experiencing the complexity of the situation. But this is especially hard because not knowing, in the case of gender is extra vulnerable.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> In some cases not having the right words for who you are or the most accurate words to demand your right to personal safety can be a matter of life or death. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still, Rebecca Solnit, Virginia Woolf, Pema Chodron, Lydia Yuknavich and all the thinkers who encourage getting comfortable with uncertainty are my coaches these days. I wear their words like a team uniform, a way of belonging to the crew that is doing their work out in the dark every day, feeling around for new languages (thinking of Yuknavich's book Chronology of Water) or pushing the old one to do new tricks (I'm thinking o here of Kristi Yamaguchi and her triple lutz, triple toe, or Michelle Kwan and her seven triple jumps in '88). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here are some passages of Solnit that describe what I'm talking about:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>"We know less when we erroneously think we know than when we recognize that we don't. Sometimes I think these pretenses at authoritative knowledge are failures of language: the language of bold assertion is simpler, less taxing, than the language of nuance and ambiguity and speculation."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>"My own task these past twenty years or so of living by words has been to try to find or make a language to describe the subtleties, the incalculables, the pleasures and meanings--impossible to categorize--at the heart of things...The tyranny of the quantifiable is partly the failure of language and discourse to describe more complex, subtle, and fluid phenomena, as well as the failure of those who shape opinions and make decisions to understand and value these slipperier things. It is difficult, sometimes even impossible, to value what cannot be named or described, and so the task of naming and describing is an essential one in any revolt against the status quo..."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So for all of us who find the long lists of genders on college forms confusing or tiresome, my request is that we stick with it. We are learning so much all at once and it will be years before the everyday language can hold the complexity of what we are learning about the reality of gender. My hope is that we can be creative and empathetic through the learning process.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At this point, I also look back to the half-marathon I ran with my friend Laurel in 2013. To call us amateur runners would have been generous since we hardly thought of ourselves as runners at all. The night before the race we got together with my friend Katherine McIntyre who asked us what our plan was for getting through the 13 miles (our longest run had been 7, I think). And we had none. At that point she suggested we put our selves in a 5 minute run-2 minute walk pattern. She had a lot more experience, which was enough to convince us to avail ourselves of her advice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During the race, I learned that the most difficult part of the first half of the race was keeping to the pattern. I felt like a horse chomping against the bit every time we had to slow ourselves down to walk. The thought bubble that popped above my head then was "refraining is the most difficult task." It was one of those moments when life and metaphor happen at the same time. My body was doing the motions of a perspective that is increasingly difficult to hold in a fast paced world. I was forcing myself to walk when I wanted badly to run.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It ended up for the best. In that last mile, we were both spent and hardly made it across the finish line. If we had not saved our energy, we would not have made it. On the topic of gender, as well as all of the other political topics that are in such flux right now, having a plan for pacing and sticking to it, feels right to me, along with finding ways to be in a state of productive uncertainty. And by pacing, I'm meaning pacing around the language and making room for some level of confusion, while at the same time holding sturdy vigilance for everyone's right to safety, to free circulation in their environment, to love and be loved.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the meantime, if you meet someone whose gender you do not know and you need to find out what pronoun to use when talking to them, there is a simple polite formula for how to proceed. You say, "Hi, my name is Cristina. What's your name?" Then they might say, "I'm Jordan." Then you can say, "Nice to meet you Jordan. The pronouns I use are she/her. What do you use?"</span><br />
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<br />Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-74231752255232744772017-03-08T10:30:00.001-08:002017-03-08T10:41:35.050-08:00Happy International Women's Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What I know "for sure" about being a woman is unfinished. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I do know gender impacts your personal safety, how likely you are to live in poverty, what kinds of jobs feel within reach, and whether or not you feel entitled to voice your most passionate perspectives. We will need International Women's Day for a good long time to come, and we'll need it to do its job for all the genders. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And I do know I love being a woman, which feels like more of a paradox everyday. It's like this:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">warm body late night </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">bath bubbles buzz</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">lip stick </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">sweet cream</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">apricots</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">hips, hips, hips, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">spinning like tops </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">hiding diamonds </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">in praise</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">of flowers and tulle</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and the twelve signs</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">whispering </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">steady streams</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">of warning and love</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These good things I learned from my mother. The rest I learned from being a mother. Mothering is the kind of bowl that is bigger than the brain, you know, that can see the wrong things and love the things, and get up every morning hugging and fighting at the same time and not fall apart. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Which is not to put mothering on a pedestal, but to say that a maternal perspective, one in which one person works on behalf of another less powerful person, or one in in which taking care, not optimizing, maximizing, or winning, is the primary motivation, gives life, encouraging tiny green shoots of goodness to make their way up through the cracks of impossibilities.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Happy International Women's Day.</span>Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-83388936006516146452017-02-13T15:46:00.000-08:002017-02-13T15:58:41.319-08:00My friend Nancy's term "inner patriot"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjklNyK3_cz4PhGnSr2CHxZ8kJXhDmVpQA7xSJ1sBK9GHozPM8BQY2Zz7Lqi9OVx6Eh4NLsqv51ty-upymBIyUzeOa5w_PwM73QbPVCKtwmXNBwNWtt7vU-Y5rZRRoS08uCbo4FCDObnq8x/s1600/IMG_1937.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjklNyK3_cz4PhGnSr2CHxZ8kJXhDmVpQA7xSJ1sBK9GHozPM8BQY2Zz7Lqi9OVx6Eh4NLsqv51ty-upymBIyUzeOa5w_PwM73QbPVCKtwmXNBwNWtt7vU-Y5rZRRoS08uCbo4FCDObnq8x/s320/IMG_1937.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My friend Nancy is awesome. She has coined the term "inner patriot." She and my friend Brette have also sent me this care package of ice cream. That makes them both super awesome.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hi all,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have not yet posted in 2017. It is as if there is too much on my mind to even get out a few sentences. But I thought for today I'd just post a couple of simple things:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm worried. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">--Continuing to employ a staffer blatantly plugged a private business interest.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">--Then the following two days using the POTUS twitter account to continue to plug the family business by using it as a location to entertain foreign dignitaries.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">--Calling that business on the POTUS twitter feed, "the Winter White House."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here is a quote from The Standards of Ethical Behavior for Employees of the Executive Branch iIssued by the US Office Of Government Ethics</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"(7) Employees shall not use public office for private gain.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>(8) Employees shall act impartially and not give preferential treatment to any private organization or individual."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These above actions were against the law in the case of the staffer, and against the spirit of the law in the case of POTUS.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Meanwhile to call protesters</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">when protesting is not only our right, but written into the first amendment of the constitution, is wrong. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is worrisome.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To my good friends who find these times overwhelming, and overly negative. Please, stay tuned. Do not fall into confusion or paralysis. We are called on to peaceably redress our grievances. I know you are not accustomed to being in the fight. I know you want to take a break or for all of this to go away. But history tells us, this falling asleep or falling back is how we lose our democracy. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For those of us who have had the good luck to have enjoyed the privilege of straightforward citizenship in the form of whiteness, perhaps a Christian identity, a decent education, food on the table every night, etc. that privilege has kept us on the sidelines for a very long time.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> We have maybe even believed that our voice doesn't matter. It does</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. Do not fall into overwhelm. Do whatever you need to do to say energized to call your Members of Congress everyday. In the past other good Americans have correctly criticized our government, and they have left us a legacy of clear instruction. Peaceful non-violent resistance. We can do this. We are doing this. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I feel tired of all this, which is a lot, I call on that resource Nancy has dubbed our "inner patriot." I love this phrase. Our inner patriots will never tire. Our inner patriots do not belong to a party, they belong to the cause of functioning democratic ideals. Our inner patriots know that to plug a personal business from an official government office is wrong, our inner patriots know that it is a startling departure from historic norms for a president to refuse transparency around their tax record. Our inner patriots believe that real facts exist and that it is our job to find sources that report them. Our inner patriots believe that our elected officials work on our behalf, and we contact them regularly to express our opinions. Our inner patriots insist on robust electoral process, on the checks and balances built into the government, and on mutual respect between citizens. Our inner patriots make the calls. Our inner patriots have heroes and call on them regularly through reading, prayer, channeling and petitioning in real life and in spirit. Our inner patriots are timeless. We practice knowing that every moment is urgent and that clocks and calendars do not measure our timeline.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of my heroes lately has been Rebecca Solnit author of Hope in the Dark.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"When I think back to why I was apolitical into my mid-twenties I see that being politically engaged means having a sense of your own power--that what you do matters--and a sense of belonging, things that cameto me only later and that do not come to all."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-8527887938543169352017-01-31T10:11:00.000-08:002017-01-31T10:11:06.298-08:00Tenzo: A poem<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7bQH-vc7cZ1e6Dq6VPanIssCoQqW-LXQL5EqFDCMM_SPGuvcGnkB5nFWB2FeahdVAlA13bVYy6ZNO4CCjlzMCSKrFPhPjGqoYtb1-nAMlOk4woAtXunUv4JEQGgQGAZDCD4GzBRhK3LDY/s1600/IMG_1085-1.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7bQH-vc7cZ1e6Dq6VPanIssCoQqW-LXQL5EqFDCMM_SPGuvcGnkB5nFWB2FeahdVAlA13bVYy6ZNO4CCjlzMCSKrFPhPjGqoYtb1-nAMlOk4woAtXunUv4JEQGgQGAZDCD4GzBRhK3LDY/s1600/IMG_1085-1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tenzo</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">January 31, 2017</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The cook has always known the flame.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Do not burn the butter," she says.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Or else the alarm will sound and</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">we will not be able to eat </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the eggs."</span></div>
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Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-5497369239921191792016-12-22T13:46:00.004-08:002016-12-22T13:50:32.701-08:00The Shortest Day<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">My shoulders slumped a little as I walked out of
the salon last Thursday. I didn't like my hair cut. The blonde fell in
smooth strands, a little bang whisked across my brow. I couldn't put a
finger on what I didn't like. But when I got home that evening my tween
daughter put it in simple terms. "Mom, it's a bob." She
squinted her eyes a little and elaborated. "Actually, its a little
bit shorter than usual. It's not just a bob--it's a mom-bob."
Of course it was. I was a mom with a smooth blown out bob, a
mom-bob is what I had for hair. I didn't love it, but was mildly resigned
to it. Something about me with a mom-bob made sense, not to my internal
story of myself, mind you, but to my understanding of the world beyond me, to
the people who look at me and think of me in a certain way. I think to
them I am a mostly a mom, and for me to have a mom-bob would make a certain
kind of sense.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Because I'm a mom of a certain age, who still
has blonde hair, a haircut does not finish it off for me. The next day I
had my second hair appointment of the month--for the color. By last
Friday my roots were showing about an inch and a half, damning evidence that I
had missed the previous appointment. My colorist hates it when I do this.
It makes her job of making my hair look natural more difficult.
I've spent the last three years or so threatening to give up the color,
but pretty much everyone I know--my kids, my hairdresser, my colorist,
everyone, is staunchly against my going gray--and in the end, I suppose for now
I'm with them. I'm not that interested in looking older these days, which
must be some kind of sign that I've grown up, because I can remember the days
of wanting to look older than I actually was. And beyond all that I've
not been able to calculate the logistics of letting it go gray. Do I cut
it off and then grow it out? Do I tough out the year of hair half gray
half blonde? That's usually where my thoughts on gray stop and I book the
next three hour appointment.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">For the first time at this particular
appointment, I ran into a male friend getting his color done. Do you
acknowledge this? Is it outing him somehow to say hello? For years
friends have streamed through the salon during the three hour appointment, and
we've covered, children, marriage, the state of the nation, all with our hair
foiled up into wild looking techno manes. But the men had never joined us
here. So that was a new. I decided on texting him to let him know I
was there, so when we ended up sitting next to each other in the blow dry line
it was a little less awkward, I like to think.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">While I sat next to my guy friend, a
twenty-something male stylist with blue ear plugs and black doc martens blew
out my freshly blonded mom-bob. Smooth, straight, pretty. It was a
haircut that was hard to argue with, because it didn't look bad. But in
the course of the three hours in the chair, not only had I seen my first male
friend come in an cover up his gray, but I had also read <a href="http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/12/16/the-long-and-pretty-goodbye/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Megan Mayhew Bergman's essay, The Long
and Pretty Goodbye.</span></a> In it she catalogued some of the most
effective elegiac writing of the year, including an article about the sudden
thinning of the giraffe population in Africa. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/08/giraffe-red-list-vulnerable-species-extinction" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">In thirty years the giraffe population
has fallen from 157,000 to 97,000, slipping from the list of animals around which
there is little concern into the list of species vulnerable to extinction. </span></a> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Learning about the declining giraffe population
pierced me in a new way, as if there had not in the last few months been enough
disillusion and disappointment. Eloise, our almost seven year old, is a
self-proclaimed giraffe-girl. In a family where gender is fluid and up
for discussion, Eloise claims giraffe-middle as her gender essence. It's
about the eyes for her, and I can't argue. Both she and giraffes share a
fringed wide-eyedness that makes an undeniable impression, and she claims the
kindred spirit any way that she can. It is not uncommon for me to pick
her up from first grade to find her wearing her giraffe horn head band.
She draws giraffes. She dreams of giraffes. She has decorated
her room with giraffe artwork and a collection of giraffe stuffies that range
in size from over five feet tall to four inches short. Each has it's own
gender-middle name: Jingles, Beau, Sparkle, and on and on. I cannot hold
the full catalog in my head. Eloise asks me almost every week, "When
can I visit the giraffes in Africa?" </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">From my seat in the salon I foresee a slow train
wreck of heartbreak that I could not prevent. With zero hope in my heart,
I sign up, from the salon chair, to become a member of the Giraffe Conservation
Foundation. I don't research or dig deeper to find out if it's a good
organization. I just plug my credit card in one more time, because it is
the only thing I can do, not to ward off disaster, but to ward off a kind of
personal shutdown, a way of not allowing myself to give in to the helpless
feeling that lingers at the edge of everyday these days. As the sad
feeling descends once again, this time weighted down even heavier by the
visceral feel of my daughter's heartbreak alongside my own, I force myself to
also understand it as the seed of hope, to see the wide view that these
feelings of sadness as the underside of our love for so much that is both
within and beyond our grasp.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">The last time I felt sadness like this was when
my friend Brett was in a biking accident and almost died. The doctors did
not think he would live and they predicted that if he did he would not come
close to a full recovery. He had been biking across country and ended up
in a hospital in Joplin, Missouri. His wife, his children and a few close
friends flew out to be with him and make their hope manifest in person which
seems almost always to be the most important thing. I was not at the
inner circle of this tragedy, but at the next rim. I was very sad and
would find myself crying at odd times and in odd places, feeling sort of stuck
and helpless in Palo Alto. But eventually I came to the idea that my
sadness would help nothing. That though I felt sad, that sad feeling had to
serve as a call to notice what it felt like to be alive and well, to be able to
walk, to be able to hug my kids, it had to be a call to joy of some kind, since
I myself was not debilitated. <a href="http://cristinaospencer.blogspot.com/2012/10/something-little-wild.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">This was hard to remember, so I
streaked my hair with pink as a reminder.</span></a> Every time I looked
in the mirror I was reminded of a certain basic joy of just being, the kind of
joy that is often easy for me to overlook.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Similarly, I decided just feeling despair about
the giraffes, and the election, and the single sex bathrooms in North Carolina
would not help anything, and that I had no room in my life for resignation to
things that did not suit me--like that mom-bob. So I texted with my
hairdresser to say that the cut was good looking enough, but wasn't working for
me. He texted me back to say, "Let's make it fierce,"
which felt just about right. As he snipped away years of hair, my one
fear was for what the girls would say. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">People who have known me a long time, know that
the short-haired feminist is always on hand, even if you can't see her.
But the girls had never seen me that way before. Chloe had told me
a dozen times when I had thought about cutting my hair short before that she
did not like the idea, that to her mind, "You won't look like my mother
anymore." I also realized that the whole world that has grown up
around these daughters of mine has only ever seen me with long blonde hair.
It was strange to realize, since I know myself in so many other ways, but
this group of people I love, this group of people who are my everyday, has only
ever known me with long hair.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8uAQH4THepkpoY0xQDo_CdoZnj-Cg40ZuhmT5DBVdBKs4Qjyl5-sAT-bisEqk6yOwLbZ6dHjkHRGot3uTUDpnMDNzSh7fOBRzNjpa8LU4FO-wzstNn4q449Kr1gCb2xmXaIIF6Ih9Q4_z/s1600/IMG_0005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8uAQH4THepkpoY0xQDo_CdoZnj-Cg40ZuhmT5DBVdBKs4Qjyl5-sAT-bisEqk6yOwLbZ6dHjkHRGot3uTUDpnMDNzSh7fOBRzNjpa8LU4FO-wzstNn4q449Kr1gCb2xmXaIIF6Ih9Q4_z/s320/IMG_0005.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">For me, short hair is a sign that a new
adventure is starting. I had my hair short when I left for summer camp
for the first time, when I started boarding school, and when I moved to
California. These were all the most formative moments of my life.
It seems just right to me that as I start my MFA, at this particular
moment in time, that another adventure is beginning. In each adventure, I
can see that a set of questions was rising to the top--beginning with:
who am I and who is my tribe, and then who am I and how will I take care
of myself, and now as I head to writing school the question is a little bit who
am i (though so much less than in school and upon arriving in California)
combined with how can I help? Though there is likely nothing more
practically useless than an art degree, I am becoming a student again to ask
the question, how can my writing help. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">And just as a final note in the darkest time of
the year, I offer these couple of quotes that have helped me this month.
Because though writing is impractical in so many senses, other people's
writing, more than almost anything else, has been my lifelong solace. To
all the writers out there who are doing their thing to offer their best effort,
I am grateful. And to Rebecca Solnit, I know I am not alone in gratitude
for <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hope-Dark-Untold-Histories-Possibilities/dp/1560258284" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Hope in the Dark, a book that found me
the day before the election and which I read cover to cover in just a few
hours.</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">"Resistance is
first of all a matter of principle and a way to live, to make yourself one
small republic of unconquered spirit. You hope for results but you don't
depend on them."</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">"Joy doesn't betray
but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make
you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of
insurrection."</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">And to Lidia Yuknavich thank you for the
continuing encouragement to "Try everything." </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Happy New Year everyone. May the return of
the light stoke your joy.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">With love,</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Cristina</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-27569529849420589392016-11-14T16:27:00.001-08:002016-11-14T17:26:17.709-08:00The hard work of tolerance<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/11/mountain-view-high-history-teacher-on-leave-for-comparing-trump-to-hitler/" target="_blank">Friday November 11th the San Jose Mercury News reported that Frank Navarro had been removed from his history classroom</a> for making a comparison between Trump's rhetoric and Hitler's. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On Sunday I attended a group gathering that was called an Election Shiva, because, as has been pointed out, many of us are in grief. The topic of Frank Navarro's removal came up. And the group looked at one another and asked, what do we do about that? It does not feel right? But should schools take a political perspective? What should we do? Everyone looked at one another. I wanted to say something, but at that time didn't. It seemed that what I had to say felt complicated, or that if I opened my mouth I might say it with too much emotion so that it could arouse more emotion, and I did not want that. But here is what I wanted to say. It is my response to the silencing of a teacher.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We are all in difficult times right now and emotions are running high. No matter who we voted for, there is hurt all around. The stories of bigotry, of who is and is not a bigot, are swirling. That our republic suffers the vestiges of slavery cannot be denied. That some Americans are learning for the first time that the American Dream is not equally distributed is also true, though many among us have known this for generations. Many bodies are suddenly less safe than they were last week.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hurt and fear threaten to close the aperture for conversation or in some cases, like in my own family, have closed it already. However, contact is important, however painful it may be. And by contact I do not necessarily mean agreement and I am aware that even this, contact, may be something that not everybody is ready for. Yet, at school especially, our communities must cling to first principles of democracy, one of them being, freedom of speech. No voice may be silenced.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Tolerance in an environment in which everyone agrees does not test the principle of tolerance. It is when there are multiple perspectives that the practice of tolerance is forged. It is not easy work. In this case, organizations, like schools, owe it to their communities to be clear about their values of inclusion and freedom of expression. All bodies must feel safe. That is, in a tolerant community it is not permissible for someone to fear physical harm because of their perspective or their identity. Similarly, all voices have a place. No voice may be silenced and no individual voice may be amplified to drown out other voices.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With respect to a teacher, that voice already has power associated with it. I believe the responsibility of the school is to guarantee safe space for its students, and in the case of history, to provide the appropriate resources for history students to grapple with the known facts of the past, knowing, of course, that those facts are always delivered from a point of view. This is part of the study of history--to learn that who gets to tell the story has a big impact on the story that is told. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In a tolerant community I think it is normalization of silencing to remove a teacher from their post for presenting historical facts from a particular point of view. It is urgent that we resist this kind of silencing at this time. Instead, it is preferable in a tolerant community to invite other voices into a conversation, to empower students to grapple with varying points of view. This is the study of history. Removing a teacher from their post is silencing. They are very different approaches.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Similarly, I was impressed this week by John Palfrey, Head of School at Andover who, on Wednesday delivered <a href="https://jpalfrey.andover.edu/2016/11/09/all-school-meeting-post-election-november-9-2016/" target="_blank">an excellent All School Meeting Address</a> in response to the election and with regard to what is expected of the Andover community, knowing that diversity is a cornerstone of that school's mission. In response to his address, a trustee offered an alternate perspective that he would have given as the community address. And here's the thing, Palfrey, though he respectfully disagreed with the trustee's position, <a href="https://jpalfrey.andover.edu/2016/11/12/guest-blog-post-trustee-steve-sherrill-on-the-all-school-meeting-address-he-would-have-given/" target="_blank">he distributed the perspective to the Andover community as well.</a> Offering alternative perspectives, respectful listening, and maintaining contact even in the midst of fierce disagreement is difficult work. But defending the ability to do so is urgent work for maintaining the fabric of our republic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Follow up. School districts have the right to restrict what is being taught in their schools. Public school teachers' rights to freedom of speech are shaped by their role as employees of the school district. In this case it is the Superintendent's duty to oversee the school's curriculum. The Superintendent has the power to declare what is and is not an appropriate presentation to a high school history class post-election. Knowing this, it is our job to implore our school leadership to make clear their commitment to teaching tolerance as part of our public school curriculum. Here is the ACLU information that details the public speech rights of public school teachers:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.aclu-wa.org/docs/free-speech-rights-public-school-teachers-washington-state" target="_blank">ACLU information regarding teachers right to speech.</a></span><br />
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<br />Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-28514605312226115992016-11-09T13:30:00.002-08:002016-11-11T13:53:24.707-08:00What does it mean today?<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last night I dreamt that I was caught in a train station during war time. It was night, and I was trying to buy five tickets to get out. A long armed robot was in the station picking people off, it caught a whiff of me and because I smelled like vanilla it chased me down into a corner. It was going to kill me, but it did not because I offered it a vanilla cookie I had made.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Many of you have now read my most recent essay, <a href="https://theroarsessions.com/2016/11/07/cristina-spencer-im-not-really-a-waitress/" target="_blank">"I'm Not Really a Waitress" over at the Roar Sessions.</a> Most of you have been exposed to me giving Trump Tower the finger. And if you read the piece, you know that I was p*&$y grabbed on the subway, and until I heard that this had happened to others, anger eluded me, only to erupt when I woke up to the fact that this kind of behavior is widespread. In the piece I grapple with my anger and its expression. I behave rudely in public for the first time in my life, and then struggle with violent thoughts in the privacy of my own writing space. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I ended the piece with no easy answers. There was no wrapping it up cleanly. It was published on November 7th.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Since writing the piece I have continued to think about why my anger laid fallow for so long, and one thought I have had was this. Diminishing its meaning, filing the experience as an odd-one off that took nothing from me was a survival strategy. It was a way of keeping the reality of my vulnerability as a woman on the streets of New York City at bay. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Because the other side of my anger, I understand there to be grief and fear regarding the primal vulnerability of my body, which, in the end, is the primal vulnerability of all bodies. To have acknowledged that in my twenties would have been difficult, near impossible really wth living in the city and needing to make my way as a young woman. And in part was possible because while my body is in its way vulnerable, it's less vulnerable than most. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In my essay I go on to share with readers a disturbing rage fantasy, which I included because I felt it said something important about a universal violent impulse that lives in consciousness as a primitive reaction to realized vulnerability. When you encounter folks in grief after the election, it is grief over this primal vulnerability, especially of black bodies, brown bodies, bodies of women and others who have mostly skirted on the fringes of power over the course of history, and the accompanying fear that these bodies are now more vulnerable than ever.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anger is a healthy response to the violation of bodies, but what I want to refine and commit to continue to refine here on my blog and in all my writing, is the process of being with anger, such that it becomes a workable force that bends the arc of history toward justice, especially in the forms of safety and inclusion for a diverse community of people. I do not regret my anger, but also understand it to be powerful and if confused with hate to be dangerous. I vow to harness it to become ever more useful in fulfilling the promise of our democracy and the requirements of our planetary interconnectedness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My mother is a Jungian analyst. I have been raised to believe that dreams come to us to aid us toward our health and growth. They are poems, riddles that may suggest uncanny solutions to problems, not that there are easy solutions to any of the large challenges we face as a planet or a nation. In my dream last night, a vanilla cookie kept the monster at bay. I did not perish. I lived to see another day. In a sense, the vanilla cookie is the solution the dream offers the dreamer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've tried lots of different interpretations on in this paragraph today. None of them feel quite right. But what I cannot help but point out, and want others to understand, is that the white cookie keeps me safe. My privilege keeps me safe. Many bodies are much more at risk than they were before Tuesday night. Those who walk safely among us have an obligation to use our privilege in whatever form we experience it to protect the more vulnerable and to protect the principles of democracy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Whatever it means, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I plan bring my very most sincere effort to the work and I hope you will join me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Take good care. With love and commitment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cristina</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-37703182346389443382016-09-20T10:13:00.001-07:002016-12-21T09:54:52.767-08:00The Summer of Hamilton<div class="p1">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPDJ_ZDkcF3MxR6HMTjO418sdj4_xGfsK_O9sTZreScjaLU4To6nz2vedrHRv61kv139q3V7u_CGvhyphenhyphenXcVfv6DL_jlI9I9vwqF8zLeCsOK7pknil5bWj2ifQIgMgM365NslyWSJmn_pVOc/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPDJ_ZDkcF3MxR6HMTjO418sdj4_xGfsK_O9sTZreScjaLU4To6nz2vedrHRv61kv139q3V7u_CGvhyphenhyphenXcVfv6DL_jlI9I9vwqF8zLeCsOK7pknil5bWj2ifQIgMgM365NslyWSJmn_pVOc/s320/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Two hour Hamilton sing along on the road to Hana</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is so much I could say about the past six months, about how we gave up an idealized version of family life in favor of a doable version of family life, about how the pedestrian pressures of Palo Alto exhausted me to the point I thought I might be clinically depressed, about how it came to my attention that Graham and I often find ourselves in over our heads raising three children, or about how frequently and humbly I've needed to ask for help and then ask for help again. That all has been true, and it is also true that things are much better now (PHEW). The biggest impact has come from finding help and support, but I must say, the Spencers have also been lifted up by Hamilton, the musical. 2016 will definitely go down as the summer of Hamilton.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It started with an image that seemed at once typical and a bit worrisome from a parent’s perspective. Gwendolyn, on the verge of turning twelve, was on her phone a lot. At the beach she sat in the shade, earbuds plugged in place, those white plastic threads skimming her shoulders as they tethered her to some unknown elsewhere. For hours. Everyday. In all fairness, she was not totally hypnotized, she produced many drawings while she was attached to her phone, but since she is my first child, the child who will break me into raising a teenager, I kept an overly vigilant watch. The phone seemed a likely pitfall, and in other ways was already proving itself to be. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I worried whenever I saw her on her phone. Was this too much time? Should I cut her off? How much was normal? Until one day in early July; it was hot and sunny. We were in our bathing suits walking on a path toward the beach. Gwendolyn said mom, “Listen to this.” And then she started to play a song from Hamilton for me. It was “Guns and Ships.” I knew she liked the music from Hamilton, that her friend Gracie had introduced her to it, and even that she listened to it a lot. But because her phone life was such a private cocoon, I had no idea how much she was listening to the score. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As Gwendolyn played me the song, she sang along to all of of the lyrics in “Guns and Ships.” For those of you who haven’t heard the music from Hamilton yet, the words in “Guns and Ships,” spew like machine gun fire. I’ve read that to perform the song, the singer must pronounce 6.3 words per second. In general, the pace of word flow in Hamilton overall is so fast that if the show were to be performed at a typical pace for a musical it would play for over four hours, instead of the two and a half hours it normally runs. Learning the lyrics to “Guns and Ships” was an impressive feat, evidence of passion and an inestimable amount of practice. Hamilton. The bulk of Gwendolyn’s phone time had been spent listening to Hamilton.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">From that point on, Gwendolyn took charge of music during car rides. We listened to “The Schuyler Sisters,” on repeat for the first few weeks. Then “Helpless.” We faked formality along with the cast as we learned “Farmer Refuted.” None of us learned the lyrics to “Guns and Ships,” quite like Gwendolyn had, but we followed her lead, and after a spring during which the girls had been more at one another than ever, the sisterly tension shifted gears into friendly jousts over which Schuyler Sister would be the best to play when they all made it to Broadway. Short answer—it’s not Peggy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">******</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is how I end up walking down Bryant street the other morning listening to “One Last Time.” In this number George Washington takes a private moment with Hamilton to share the news that there has been a shift in power in his administration. Jefferson, Hamilton’s nemesis, has resigned from the cabinet in order to run for President, and Washington will not oppose him. The song plots the emotional journey Hamilton and Washington make together as they draft one last public address together. </span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One last time.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Relax have a drink with me.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One last time. </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Let’s take a break tonight</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And then we’ll teach them how to say goodbye,</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>To say goodbye.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You and I.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In Palo Alto the sky is blue over head, and for the first time there is a bit of fall chill in the air. Here I am, the person in the phone cocoon, earbuds plugged in place, Hamilton also my elsewhere. Chris Jackson’s clear brass voice sings <i>one last time, </i>as I walk past the familiar homes in my neighborhood—the tan stucco, the tudor, the house with the giant briard whose barking always startles me, the white home with the terra-cotta roof. When I pass this last one, I experience an unexpected wisp of grief, the living room window of the terracottas-roofed house is now empty. It used to give view to a table decorated with a collection of model hands. They were a bit gothic and odd and at the same time quite beautiful. I had only recently learned that the house belonged to a hand surgeon and had started to think fondly of the home as one that belonged to a certain kind of artist, even though I had never met the owner in person. This summer they moved and the house has been empty. The hands and their owner passed out of my life without fanfare. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Which might account for the fact of my tears. Because it seemed for no reason, but on that block, as I listened to Chris Jackson play George Washington I cried. I couldn’t place the reason, but looking back I wonder if the experience of a small loss was hinting at the imminence of more important losses to come. The empty window. My little girl disappearing. The final months of a presidency that has both meant something to me and has felt inextricably linked to the arrival of my first child.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">******</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I got home I looked up that final address that Washington and Hamilton wrote together.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it, accustoming yourself to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When Washington points out the “immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness,” I return to July 2004. Gwendolyn is four weeks old. The incision across my belly is a hard ridge. I have been visited by the lactation specialist three times for a cracked nipple that won’t heal. For the first time in my life, the television is on all day. Everyday. I’m embarrassed to admit, this is why I end up watching the Democratic National Convention for the first time in my life. I am moved by the young senator from Illinois. </span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation not because the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy; our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: “ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." That this is the true genius of American, a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution; and that our votes will be counted—or at least, most of the time.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When he finishes his speech, I think, <i>I’d like to see this man run for President. </i>This might be the only substantive thought I hold in my head all summer. That summer that I never left the house and watched television all day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And so here we are together. The single thought shared by so many, <i>I’d like to see this man run for President</i>, is a notion that has run its course. My daughter is twelve, and it is time for this country to re-invent itself again. Just like in 1796. Just like in 2004 and 2008 and 2012. I wonder how we will do it this time. Gwendolyn is twelve, straddling her own epochs, the music from Hamilton humming in her blood. What history is she about to witness? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm not sure how to end this post, except to say, Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man was shot on September 16th walking to his stalled vehicle in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you haven't watched the videos, you must.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some links:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/us/video-released-in-terence-crutchers-killing-by-tulsa-police.html" target="_blank">NYTimes distribution of videos documenting the murder of Terence Crutcher.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp" target="_blank">Washington’s Farewell Address, September 19<span class="s1"><sup>th</sup></span> 1896</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19751-2004Jul27.html" target="_blank">Obama’s DNC speech, July 27, 2004</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The notion of “elsewhere” was adapted from the essay, “On or About,” from t<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Changing-Subject-Art-Attention-Internet/dp/1555977219/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474391396&sr=8-1&keywords=changing+the+subject" target="_blank">he book Changing the Subject by Sven Birkerts.</a></span>Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-35711399453170838222016-07-28T11:51:00.000-07:002016-07-28T11:54:40.962-07:003 Fun Things<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTWI5g_hmgYhXUQ07Apw0n-J6UhWT2xnTV51pdwF9lZDniWf_Yl82NjPWpELSJ48TgUFf4clLx3z_ZO5RElDA5eUFKFFKuPftqFW_rKJgAquavTq5hqnstCagBfd3PkSQIpmpFs-k84Hla/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTWI5g_hmgYhXUQ07Apw0n-J6UhWT2xnTV51pdwF9lZDniWf_Yl82NjPWpELSJ48TgUFf4clLx3z_ZO5RElDA5eUFKFFKuPftqFW_rKJgAquavTq5hqnstCagBfd3PkSQIpmpFs-k84Hla/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I thought you could use some plain old good news for a change. So here are three small but, great things.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">First, I saw a 7 week old Jack Russell puppy this morning. The picture doesn't really capture the total cuteness of this tiny mammal. At about two hands long, and one hand high this guy's body is portable joy. Do you think it is cheating on my 13 year old German Shepherd to have enjoyed this little encounter so much? I'm not bringing home a puppy, so I think Chicca, my sweet old girl, will forgive me this little flirtation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Second, this week, with the publication of my <a href="http://cristinaospencer.blogspot.com/2016/07/roll-call.html" target="_blank">Roll Call</a> post, my blog crossed 100,000 pageviews! YAY! Thank you so much for your time and attention. For a young writer, having readers never stops being astonishing, I'm not kidding. My heart hops into my throat and I squint back tears, when I think about it. I have no idea what this number means in the world past my doorstep, whether it would be considered a lot or a little. But I don't care. It means a boatload to me, and I am doing a little teary, jig here at my lap top. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And finally, I just wanted to circle back on my last post. I said something in there that wasn't exactly accurate. I said I didn't care who you will vote for. The truth is I do, I deeply do, but what I don't care to do is argue about who you will vote for or to give any more attention than necessary to Hillary's opponent. I have started to feel about the non-Hillary candidate the same way that the characters in Harry Potter feel about Voldemort. To say the name is to risk conjuring the presence. The non-Hilary candidate is getting plenty of attention in other places, and while I agree it is important for the news and the truth to keep coming, in this place, my blog of 100,000 pageviews, where I get to control the universe, I want to offer attention toward practical steps we can take towards sanity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To that end, and this is my third good thing. I am celebrating that good citizens can take comfort in the democratic work ahead. In a non-partisan way, it does the heart and mind good to act on behalf of the things that matter most to us. Today I went to www.hillaryclinton.com, clicked on ACT, then scrolled to California. I signed up to volunteer and then found the link to START CALLING (right here from my lap top, just an hour ago!). After setting aside a short case of the jitters (cold calls can be so tough) I made my first three phone calls on behalf of Hillary Clinton, and on call number three I reached a woman in LA named Tracey. She is a strong supporter, and so I got her signed up to volunteer for the campaign. She will be traveling to Nevada and I hope to do the same. WOOT!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.hillaryclinton.com/calls/" target="_blank">Here is the direct link to the online phone bank</a> (<a href="http://www.hillaryclinton.com/calls/">www.hillaryclinton.com/calls/</a>). Once I got past my nerves, calling was so easy and only took a couple of minutes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I hope you all have a great Thursday!</span>Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-19719710975859420232016-07-22T13:13:00.001-07:002016-07-24T19:33:16.010-07:00Roll Call<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Showing up for roll call, strong in generations</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This week J<a href="https://jenaschwartz.com/" target="_blank">ena Schwartz, a wonderful writing friend and teacher</a> published a post she entitled <a href="https://jenaschwartz.com/2016/07/18/roll-call-are-you-here/" target="_blank">Roll Call</a>.</span><br />
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"This morning in one the writing groups I facilitate, I essentially asked for a show of hands — a virtual roll call. Are you here? I asked. One by one, people came and said <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">yes </em>and <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">yo</em>. They wrote <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">half-mast</em> and <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">no but I want to be.</em> There was no wrong answer. <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Are you here? Are you here? Am I here?</em></div>
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We are here, and we are not leaving."</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">She was writing about her morning writing group, but she was also writing about the politics of our times, in particular, some of the more disturbing aspects of the Republican platform. For those of you who know me, it will be no surprise that there are many, many aspects of the current Republican platform with which I disagree. The bigger surprise may be that I have written so little in the past few months.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The truth of my quiet is that I have been in a state of waiting. Of I don't know what I'm meant to do here. Last summer I picked up <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/0812993543/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469307519&sr=8-1&keywords=Between+the+World+and+Me" target="_blank">Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates</a>. I read it while on a long stretch at the beach with my family. Halfway through the book, I found myself walloped with despair. I told Graham I needed sometime alone. I rented a small hotel room, finished the book, and spent the rest of the day in a state that I can best describe as mourning. I cried for how much more work there is to be done, and for my absolute sense of not knowing what, personally, I could do. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Writing was always a possibility, but there was a part of me that did not want to add to the mayhem. With the political and racial climate plummeting, it can feel like the air itself is lace with vitriol.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> I also have bouts of anger, but have not wanted to add to the heat of the moment. And yet, it feels important, also to speak up, respond to my friend Jena's roll call, to say I'm here, count me in. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 25.6px;">In particular, I want to share with you the issues that matter to me as a way of presenting myself without anger or heat to say, count on me for these issues. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 25.6px;">These are not the only issues I care about, but I feel each of them deeply, and struggle with feeling paralyzed in the face of their scope.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 25.6px;">I don't know what it means to ask you to count on me for these, or what I will be able to do to back my beliefs up. This not knowing has kept me quiet for a long time. Putting what I believe into words in public feels so meager, and honestly, not knowing what action to take makes me feel ashamed--and that more than meagerness has probably been the thing that has kept me so silent. What is more annoying than a person with strong convictions and not enough action? But you know what, forget that--these things take time, they take all of us, and it will take all of us putting our fears and shame aside to plunge forward. I believe saying what we care about matters, in ways that maybe we don't understand or can't understand in the moment of their saying. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 25.6px;">So here it goes...yo' Jena, I'm here for roll call.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I believe in equity, inclusion, and in a democracy that is grounded in robust participation. I am troubled by Citizens United, the power that super PACs have in our electoral process, and the current legislation around campaign finance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I believe that income inequality is polarizing American culture and society, and that the disappearance of the middle class instills fear and anxiety in all of our citizens.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I believe that as a country, we have yet to account for the exodus of women from the role of care taking. We have undervalued the role that care taking plays in a compassionate society and our lack of attention keeps structures in place that reinforce the cycle of poverty and the the shape of American work life. The dominant culture of work and social life encourages citizens to cover their differences in order to participate in our economy and other systems. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I believe that our country has profited off the bodies of black men and women, since our founding days, and that our current privatized prison system is a re-incarnation of slavery. To read more about this topic read <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Just-Mercy-Story-Justice-Redemption/dp/081298496X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469307684&sr=8-1&keywords=Just+Mercy" target="_blank">Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson</a>. I don't think that we will come close to addressing racism in our midst until we address this and other structured injustices.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I believe that media has de-sensitized us to sensationalism, drama, and aggression--it makes it difficult to distinguish between news and entertainment. Though we can never go back to pre-Watergate days, in which the media and the government shared a gentlemen's reporting agreement with regard to the news, we need more journalism that is designed as a public service to preserve our democracy, not drive profit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I believe that compassionate people have a role to play in reducing anger and increasing sanity. We need heroes and scripts and models for creating unity in an insane climate. We could do with far fewer guns in our public life, and deeper structural change in the geography that drives racism and injustice and the systemized concentration of wealth. We need to acknowledge that our thoughts and reactions are shaped by the geography and structures in which we live. None of us will be able to think or act freely for as long as groups of individuals are systemically disadvantaged. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These are not the only issues that trouble me, but they are the ones I feel intensely right now. This week I will take active measures to support Hilary Clinton. I don't care whether she is your candidate or not, but I do care about having skin in the game--yours, mine, everyone's. Unless we are all in it together, we risk losing what generations of Americans have made possible (um, sure, I've probably been listening to too much Hamilton, but honestly, it's an uplifting soundtrack for summer of 2016, which is serving up so much sadness, violence and disappointment).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you're inclined, I would love to read your roll call. What do you care about? Where do you want to be counted, even if you don't know how to go about showing up?</span></div>
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Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-28688426588649782312016-03-08T13:04:00.001-08:002016-03-09T21:52:19.884-08:00Interview with Jan Ellison<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
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It gives me inexplicable happiness to share an email interview I conducted with <a href="http://www.janellison.com/" target="_blank"><span class="il">Jan</span> Ellison</a>, author of the novel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Small-Indiscretion-Novel-Jan-Ellison/dp/0812985427/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457470761&sr=8-1&keywords=jan+ellison" target="_blank">A Small Indiscretion</a>. Just released in paperback, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Small-Indiscretion-Novel-Jan-Ellison/dp/0812985427/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457470761&sr=8-1&keywords=jan+ellison" target="_blank">A Small Indiscretion</a> is a National Bestseller and has been well received by a broad spectrum of reviewers, including Kirkus Reviews, New York Journal of Books, The San Francisco Chronicle and many others. </div>
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In Ellison's novel, Annie Black, a wife and mother of three, recounts a series of love affairs from her twenties that are having unexpected and tragic consequences in her family's current day life. The book swells with innumerable pleasures including delicious prose, taut suspense, and the opportunity to spend time in the hearts of original characters. But what puts this novel on my short list of favorites, is Ellison's capacity for empathy. Through her flawed character of Annie Black, Ellison explores our universal longing to be forgiven. So that when Annie says, <i>"I wanted what everyone wants--to be known. To know oneself, and to tell the whole story of that self, and to be loved anyway,"</i> it feels as if Ellison is naming the yearning for all of us.</div>
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<span class="il">Jan</span> and I met recently at our mutual friend Kristin's 50th Birthday party. I knew <span class="il">Jan</span>'s book and I knew of her, but we had never met, and I was too self conscious to ask for an introduction. So it felt like a moment of grace when I realized that the first stranger I introduced myself to at Kristin's party, was <span class="il">Jan</span>, herself. This interview is the continuation of the conversation we started that evening. (Kristin, if you are reading, thank you for including us and setting the stage for a conversation that will go down as one of my favorite I've had the chance to have about writing.)</div>
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In person, in this interview, and in her writing, <span class="il">Jan</span> models a way of making art that inspires me. While I'm not sure she would say that writing is her spiritual practice, the things she says about writing remind me of qualities that I have come to associate with spiritual practice--the importance of habit, the way that the act of engaging (rather than the product of the engagement) is what matters (I'm reminded of the line from Wendell Berry, "everyday do something that won't compute") and that when "her writing mind runs the show" she is closer to the person she is "meant to be in the world." </div>
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Discussing writing with <a href="http://www.janellison.com/" target="_blank"><span class="il">Jan</span> has uplifted me as a writer and as a human being</a>. I hope you'll feel the same. If you enjoy this interview, please consider sharing it. <span class="il">Jan</span> offers hard won writer's wisdom, and her book is so worthy of people’s time.</div>
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Love,<br />
Cristina</div>
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<b>What led you to write <i>A Small Indiscretion</i>? Is it true that you kept a journal of a year abroad when you were 19? What role did the notes play</b>?</div>
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When I was 19, I took a year off college and spent 3 months in Paris, then moved to London and found a job in an office and a room in a boarding house. I filled notebooks with bits of poems and stories, and with observations about my new surroundings. The writing in those notebooks is not very good at all, but the act of putting words on the page was important. It became a habit, and the habit in turn altered the way I walked through my days. I made word sketches of people I saw on the street. I wrote down bits of dialog. I leapt out of my own skin and began to experience the world as a source of stories and inspiration. I became not only a participant in my own life, but an observer of others’ lives.</div>
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The genesis of <i>A Small Indiscretion</i> came from a particular memory from the day I turned 20. It was just a few weeks after I’d arrived in London. I called my mother from a red phone booth across the street from the youth hostel where I was staying. This was before cell phones and the Internet, and it struck me after I’d hung up that my mother had no way to reach me, and neither did anybody else. I was alone in the world for the first time. This feeling was new, and I treasured it. Two decades later, it was that particular feeling I was trying to capture—the freedom to experience the world in an entirely private way. </div>
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<b>Motherhood and family life are so present in the novel, and you're the mother of four children. What's the relationship like between motherhood and writing in your life? How does motherhood influence your writing? </b></div>
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I write about motherhood because it has been the most profound experience of my life, and it has shaped my world view. But also because I’ve struggled with its demands. I’ve had difficulties balancing raising a family with the need not only for time to write, but for time to experience the world independently, as I did when I was young. To digest its offerings fully and without interruption, which every writer needs. </div>
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I started to write just a few months after I became a stay-at-home mom, so the two pursuits have always gone hand in hand. Which is to say I’ve never really been a writer and not also been a mother, and vice versa. In the beginning, I couldn't work it out: Was I meant to feel guilty when I was writing, or when I was not writing? When I was ignoring my children or when I was turning away from what might turn out to be my only real talent? Was I first and foremost a mother, or first and foremost a writer?<br />
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Like other mothers I know who write, I seemed to be first and foremost a writer in my mental wanderings, but in the actual physical motion of the day, in the bulk of the hours, I was a mother. And so the writing, for the first decade or so, was a guilty retreat, the thing I slunk off to as if to a lover. </div>
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After I started to publish stories, and especially since my novel came out a year ago, that dynamic has shifted. If I was desperate in the early years to escape the demands of family life into writing, I find that sometimes, now, I want to escape the demands of being an author to plop down on the couch and watch a movie with my kids.</div>
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<b>When did you know that you wanted to become a writer? When did that wanting shift into a deeper commitment to a writer's life? What changed?</b></div>
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I had dabbled in writing during that year in Europe, and again after college, during a two-year stint abroad. But at 22, when I came back to the States, the last thing I wanted to do was try to be a writer. What I wanted to do was make some money.</div>
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So I found a job with a financial software startup, and I didn’t write creatively for 7 years. Then when I was 33 and my second child was born, I quit the job, and that very same day, signed up for a writing class. I can’t say that I ever decided I wanted to become a writer, but on the first day of that first class, I gave in to the compulsion to write, and I’ve been doing it more-or-less steadily ever since.</div>
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<b>What are you reading right now? What few books or collections have made the biggest impact on you as a writer?</b></div>
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Lately, I’ve been drawn toward intimate narratives that offer a deep exploration of domestic subjects. A few novels in that vein: Robin Black’s <i>Life Drawing</i>, Jenny Offill’s <i>Dept. of Speculation</i>, and Claire Messud’s <i>The Woman Upstairs</i>. </div>
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In terms of my development as a writer, Alice Munro is probably the single writer whose work has most influenced me. I’ve read most of what she’s written, certainly all of her earlier work, much of it more than once. There is a discipline in her writing, a precision in the way she describes how people think and feel. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t look away. She doesn’t apologize or moralize. She allows her characters the most outrageous longings and impulses, yet it all feels very much like real life. She’s a master of that blend of authenticity and surprise that I want to strive for in my own work. </div>
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<b>Cheryl Strayed says success in the arts is measured very differently than in other endeavors. Your writing has been successful by any measure. Over the years of becoming a writer, how have you defined success for yourself? And how has that changed as you've earned recognition for your work, for example with the O. Henry Prize and then the successful publication of <i>A Small Indiscretion</i>?</b></div>
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At every step of the way, I set goals for myself, ways to measure my success, but they were achievable goals—they were under my control. </div>
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Finish a first draft of one short story. </div>
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Apply to an MFA program. </div>
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Polish one story to submit to the student magazine. </div>
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Send work out to literary journals.</div>
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Collect 100 rejection letters. </div>
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<i>Finish your novel.</i> </div>
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What I see, now, is that setting these sorts of goals forced me to engage with my work again and again. To revise and reshape and cut and reimagine. To toss out and begin again, then submit again. It took me 5 years to write and publish my first short story, <i>The Company of Men</i>, which went on to win an O. Henry Prize. That was a hugely lucky break, and it jump-started my writing career. But I view the success as the relentless revising and submitting, not winning the prize. </div>
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It took me 8 years to write <i>A Small Indiscretion, </i>and I’m proud of myself for having fought through the doubt and despair to finish it. I’m happy about how quickly it was sold, and how well it’s done. But what happens after you’ve published a book is not a measure of its success; writing it is. Because no matter how many accolades a book receives, no matter how many copies it sells, there is always a book that has done better. There is always a list it missed, or a prize it didn’t win, or a reader who didn’t like it. It’s easy to become discouraged, to begin to measure your work, and yourself, in only these terms. It’s sometimes tempting to turn away from the writing entirely because of the difficult business of having that writing out in the world. But it’s the act of writing, of making art, that matters, not what others think of it, not even what we think of it, ourselves.</div>
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As Martha Graham puts it: </div>
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“No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching . . .”</div>
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<b>What, if anything, has writing taught you, that carries over into other aspects of your life? Are there any habits or routines you keep as a writer that support you in your life in general? In what ways does writing impact your well-being?</b></div>
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I love this question. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, lately, thinking about how important writing is to my well-being.</div>
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Last Friday, I took my daughters to a concert at the Fox Theater in Oakland. We didn’t have time to grab dinner beforehand, so we decided we’d eat at the Theater, but we got there to find one guy making grilled cheese sandwiches, one woman taking orders, and a line fifty people long.</div>
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We got in line, and my blood began to boil. I was furious at the theater for not lining up more food options. I was furious with the grilled cheese guy for not hiring extra help. I was furious with myself for wasting time being furious. </div>
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Then I took a deep breath, and remembered I was a writer. I began to consider the Grilled Cheese Guy as a source of material instead of frustration, and gradually, my fury turned to curiosity. What was the story? How had this barrel-chested, big-armed man ended up here, slapping cheese on sourdough bread while his assistant fumbled with the credit card machine? What could be gleaned from his posture, his facial expressions, his tattoos, about the internal workings of his mind and heart? What did it mean for him when he had to announce to the hungry crowd that he’d run out of bread? </div>
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To answer the question: When I let my writing mind run the show, I’m more calm, more curious, more alive, more receptive to humor and joy and tragedy and beauty. I’m closer to the person I was meant to be in the world.</div>
Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-31005363578225834002016-03-02T06:41:00.001-08:002016-03-02T06:41:44.872-08:00Birthday thank you<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Forty-Four. It's not a big deal Birthday. And yet a bunch of people I love made a big deal of it. Friends joined me an outdoor adventure to Windy Hill. Flowers came to my door. My family gathered around my dining room table--a simple thing--but the choreography that my husband had to perform to make it happen was formidable. There were cupcakes with candles (I blew them all out and did not pass on making my wish). A scarf that matches three tops I already have. Chocolates from Connecticut (not only yummy, but adored and Instagramed by Dani Shapiro, a favorite author who happens to live near my father). A cookbook whose cover is so flowered and cheerful, I may just use it as table art. A book of poetry called Salt.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then there were all of those Facebook Happy Birthdays. I admit, up until this year's Birthday, I have been a bit of a Facebook Birthday snob. How much could a HBD message from someone you haven't seen in years really mean? More than I have allowed myself to imagine, I think. First, it was a barrage of delight to hear from so many people. Something like the perfect blow on the bubble wand--all those tiny, reflective, sentiments fluttering in my direction, so many of them! What a happy surprise. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was the number of them that reminded me of my friend Brett, and his bike accident, and how many people offered help on Facebook. The Happy Birthday wishes are a small thing, but the help that can emerge, that does emerge in times of trouble, is a new kind of safety net that none of us had before our networks came alive online. I am grateful to have heard from so many people, and grateful to be connected to such a thoughtful, accomplished, compassionate group.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's a poem I read for the first time yesterday. Thank you for everything.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Questions About Angels</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by Billy Collins</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of all the questions you might want to ask</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">about angels, the only one you ever hear</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is how many can dance on the head of a pin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">besides circling the Throne chanting in Latin</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or delivering a crust of bread to a hermit on earth</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or guiding a boy and girl across a rickety wooden bridge.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do they fly through God's body and come out singing?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do they swing like children from the hinges</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of the spirit world saying their names backwards and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">forwards?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do they sit alone in little gardens changing colors?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What about their sleeping habits, the fabric of their robes,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">their diet of unfiltered divine light?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What goes on inside their luminous heads? Is there a wall</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">these tall presences can look over and see hell?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If an angel fell off a cloud, would he leave a hole</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in a river and would the hole float along endlessly</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">filled with the silent letters of every angelic word?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If an angel delivered the mail, would he arrive</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in a blinding rush of wings or would he just assume</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the appearance of the regular mailman and</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">whistle up the driveway reading the postcards?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, the medieval theologians control the court.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The only question you ever hear about </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the little dance floor on the head of a pin</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where halos are meant to converge and drift invisibly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is designed to make us think in millions,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">billions, to make us run out of numbers and collapse</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">into infinity, but perhaps the answer is just one:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">one female angel dancing alone in her stocking feet,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a small jazz combo working in the background.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She sways like a branch in the wind, her beautiful</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">eyes closed, and the tall thin bassist leans over</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to glance at his watch because she has been dancing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">forever, and now it is very late, even for musicians.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-85863134499236237912016-02-26T12:44:00.003-08:002016-02-26T12:49:05.320-08:00Don't Get Chased By Turkeys<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This week I took a walk with my friend Rachel at a place everyone in Palo Alto calls The Dish. A paved path cuts through the foothills. There are views that unfurl toward the San Francisco Bay, and on a clear day, reach as far north as Marin county. We often have nature encounters. We see squirrels, bunnies, deer, sometimes coyotes, and a lot of birds. Sparrows flutter by the edge of the path, herons stand on one foot in the golden grass, sea gulls slice across the sky, and hawks perch in oak trees.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the middle of our walk we noticed something unusual. What we saw first was a group of women in bright tops and sunglasses approaching us. They walked quickly and darted their heads from side to side. Sometimes they craned their necks behind them. It was hard to tell if they were doing a new exercise (should we be trying it?!) or if they were in some kind of distress. It was the jagged way their heads moved that made me think this wasn't just exercise. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When they came closer we saw that three wild turkeys were chasing them. The turkeys were puffed up, their feathers splayed tall and proud like on a Thanksgiving card. Their poking beaks getting nearer and nearer to the women's legs. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How threatening is a turkey? None of us actually knew. Their beaks looked pointy, alarmingly they moved pretty fast. And they were big. They were about up to our chests, and like a set of three army tanks they barreled toward us. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now we were the ones slightly anxious and uncomfortable, was this funny or dangerous? It was hard to say. Rachel retied her coat around her waste as we zeroed in on what to do. Our first instinct was to join the other women, to turn around put as much distance between us and the turkeys. But there seemed something off to me about that. Either the turkeys were a danger and we really should run, not speed walk, or they were dimwitted, but very afraid birds. So I said to Rachel, "These are turkeys. They don't want to chase us. I mean don't we call people turkeys when they are generally acting daft and ridiculous? I think we're probably more dangerous to them then they are to us." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And with that, I just stopped walking. I stood stock still in the path as the ladies in their bright tops blazed by. Rachel stood there with me, now stuck, somewhat unwittingly in my decision. I was honestly a little scared. I did not know if this tactic would work and if it didn't I did not have a back up plan. But it felt like the right thing to do. I forced myself to get very still. I took a few deep breaths. I dropped my gaze about six feet in front of me, where I let my eyes soften. Rachel did the same.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was like a cloud of calm mushroomed out of us and when it hit the turkeys, they slowed down. In the length of time it took for me to take three breaths they slowed down, and from where we were standing it looked like they almost melted. They shrunk to half their size, pulling all their big feathers back into their bodies. They were no longer looking like iconic Thanksgiving card turkeys, but small brown barnyard animals. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The thing I want to say about this is that I notice I often have a way of making the turkeys in my life chase me down. I have a way of making the things that trigger me bigger. I am often dealing with the problem itself, and the extra energy I have that is inflaming the problem--puffing it up like those turkeys on the path.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We all know what we are supposed to do in that moment. Take a deep breath, calm down. But the thing is, we don't believe it will actually work. We don't have faith that calming down will do anything but give us the relief of a deep breath. The fact is, it does much more. The thing that happened with the turkeys, it seemed almost physical, as if there were tiny strings between us and them. And that by changing the vibration of the string, things between us changed significantly. Animals show us this all the time. Our thoughts are just to big to let us believe it, I think.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There you have it, unedited, typos and all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I would love to know what you do, not just to calm down, but to convince yourself that calming down is worth doing. What is the thought or impulse or feeling that tells you it is time to get back to center?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sending love,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cristina</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-77489444250869489782016-02-24T10:49:00.000-08:002016-02-24T10:49:55.372-08:00The thing I need you to know<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Half way through I realized this heart drawing was not going to come out "right." But the thing I heard inside was see it through and see what happens. I keep it as a reminder that imperfect work is better than no work at all.</i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Friends of my blog,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I miss you. I have been posting less often, as my writing has been taking me into yet unformed places. I have been visiting the edges of my writing skills. I have been focusing on some longer pieces and hunkering into creating the kind of freedom that is needed to produce work that is truly new--that is written for the adventure of writing it. And yet, part of the big adventure for me has been the opportunity to be in touch with you, the people who I know, love, enjoy and who, more than anyone else, have encouraged me to keep at writing. You are such an important part of it for me. Write for yourself, first, the teachers say. And I get that. In part it means do it for the sake of doing it. Enjoy the process of writing, figure out what writing offers you minus any outer recognition. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But what I realized just this morning, is that my writing, from its earliest inception, was in the form of letters to friends. I was never very good at journaling, like many writers are, but what I did with absolute childhood fervor was write to friends. Long letters that traveled up and down the east coast, making their final stop in places like Skaneatelas, Greensboro, Weston, Allendale, New Canaan, Guilford and more. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What kind of letters were these? Just common letters in their way, contemplations about a new crush, tender bits of gossip, wonderings about what grown up life would be like. But as a whole, when I think of all of you to whom I wrote as a girl and a young woman, and when I think of those of you who follow the blog, I know in my heart these were love letters. They were meditations on the people I was writing to, my hopes for them and my hopes for myself, braided together in words. They were a way of keeping in touch, and a request for companionship around the questions that life, at every stage has posed to us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So with that, I've realized that my writing will never exist in a vacuum, without you. And given that I have other pieces in the works that require a different approach from blogging, I hereby announce that I will be posting shorter bits, questions, unformed thoughts and sentences that sometimes will have dangling participles or other such grammatical insults. Thank you in advance for being willing to shift sets, to leave the smooth pavement of crafted prose, and head out onto the road less traveled--dusty and full of rocks, where thoughts are blurted, things don't necessarily match, and where you may watch me change my mind 10,000 times as I wonder about things I don't yet understand.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I would love to hear from you too. I'd love to read your writing, hear about what you are loving (or despising) lately, and generally what you are up to. Don't be shy. Leave comments. You are all good people here and might very well meet some new people you'll enjoy or catch up with friends you love.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With love and appreciation</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cristina</span>Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-49492032986664727832016-01-13T12:39:00.001-08:002016-01-13T12:51:22.346-08:00A Letter to My Buddy Fran<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Happy New Year Everyone! I have not posted in awhile, but am so happy to be back at my desk after a busy fall and holiday season. I'm kicking off my blogging year with a public letter to my friend named Fran, who I met at <a href="http://cristinaospencer.blogspot.com/2015/04/notes-from-workshop-with-cheryl-strayed.html" target="_blank">Cheryl Strayed's writing workshop</a> last Spring. Fran is a beautiful writer (<a href="http://franbattlespinkrobots.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">check out her blog if you want to get lost in poetry and great personal narrative</a>) and I'm writing to her today because she asked me for one single link, but it was on a topic that I really like. In the beginning of the year I've offered myself a bit of freedom and open space, today I really let myself use it. I offer you my wandering note to Fran in the hopes that others find The Harvard Study on Adult Development aka The Grant Study interesting and encouraging.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Dear Fran,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Thanks for asking for the link to the TEDx talk about The Grant Study, which is now referred to as The Harvard Study of Adult Development. It has given me an excuse to collect my thoughts on this study, which has been a thread of interest for me for a long time.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The Harvard Scholars who run the The Harvard Study of Adult Development, say it may be the longest run longitudinal study of adult development that currently exists (so Harvard of them!). It includes 724 men, 268 were “Harvard men” from the original Grant Study and 456 boys from inner city Boston who were part of a lesser known study called the Glueck Study. I also read in one of the articles below that, at some point, women from Stanford’s Terman Study had also been folded into the group, though I am not sure what impact this has had. </i></span><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But by and large the Harvard Study of Adult Development, often more casually referred to as The Grant Study, has considered the long term evolution of men’s lives. </span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don’t remember when I first learned about The Grant Study, but it feels to me like I learned about it when I was at Harvard or at least soon after I graduated, because for me there has always been, a sense of connection, as if these men were somehow my own predecessors, which in a way, they were. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have a</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">fondness and affection for the study and the stories it contains, as if it gifted me a tribe of elders that I would never have known otherwise.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That said, the learning so far has excluded stories from women and individuals of color.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So like with my actual grandfathers, I have to assume that my views may be different from theirs, and that the shape of what can be learned from studying these stories is less authoritative than any of us would like it to be.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And yet, as writers and human beings, as fellow believers in the art of narrative, I think we can allow ourselves the pleasure of absorbing wisdom and encouragement from the stories anyhow.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The particular link you were asking after is a TED talk given by Robert Waldinger who is the Fourth Director of</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Harvard Study of Adult Development. H</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">e is a Clinical Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, The Director of Psychodynamic Therapy at Mass General, and oh by the way, Fran, a Zen priest, which in some odd way seems like it just might be the glue that makes all those other roles fit together. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The TED talk is a short one, just under 13 minutes.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Worth a listen.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The synopsis: “Living in the midst of good, warm relationships is protective.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good_life_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_happiness" target="_blank">Robert Waldinger TEDx Talk called, "What makes a Good Life: Lessons from the Longest Study on Happiness"</a></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2009 <a href="http://www.shenk.net/bio/" target="_blank">Joshua Wolf Shenk</a> (author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Powers-Two-Relationships-Drive-Creativity/dp/0544334469/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1452714321&sr=8-2&keywords=shenk" target="_blank">Powers of Two: </a></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Powers-Two-Relationships-Drive-Creativity/dp/0544334469/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1452714321&sr=8-2&keywords=shenk" target="_blank">How Relationships Drive Creativity</a>)</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> wrote a cover story for The Atlantic about The Grant Study.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He dove deep into its history, chronicling its leadership and the evolution of its funding, revealing that at one point Phillip Morris offered some funds, and not surprisingly a question was added into the questionnaire for non-smokers about why they had never smoked.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s hard to say what speaks to me more in this article, the learning from The Grant Study, or Shenk’s analysis of the evolution of The Grant Study and its leadership. </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>It’s difficult to boil this one down for you into a one line synopsis, but I found this bit about the study to stay with me, “Regular exercise predicted late-life mental health better than it did physical health. And depression turned out to be a major drain on physical health: of the men who were diagnosed with depression by age 50, more than 70 percent had died or were chronically ill by 63.” If you have time, this article is worth it, if for no other reason to be swept away into Shenk’s mind, where you run across beautiful sentences like this one, “Perhaps in this, I though, likes the key to the good life—not rules to follow, nor problems to avoid, but an engaged humility, an earnest acceptance of life’s pains and promises. In his effort to manifest this spirit, George Vaillant is, if not a model, then certainly a practiced guide.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/06/what-makes-us-happy/307439/" target="_blank">2009 Atlantic Article called "What Makes Us Happy."</a></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When George Vaillant released <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Triumphs-Experience-George-E-Vaillant-ebook/dp/B00A4NF904/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452714799&sr=8-1&keywords=vaillant" target="_blank">Triumphs of Experience</a>, his latest book on The Harvard Study of Adult </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Development, The Atlantic covered The Grant Study again with <a href="http://www.scottstossel.com/" target="_blank">Scott Stossel</a> reporting.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 2013 article is a short piece that serves up a selection of informational gems that make for excellent internet reading, including this tidbit, “Aging liberals have more sex.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Political ideology has no bearing on life satisfaction—but the most conservative men ceased sexual relations at an average of 68, while the most liberal men had active sex lives into their 80s.”</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So Fran, knowing that you and I lean similarly politically, I think the future looks promising for us :-)</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Similarly to the 2009 article, the writing is inspired and led me to learn more about the writer, Scott Stossel, whose 2014 book, </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/My-Age-Anxiety-Dread-Search/dp/0307390608/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1452714268&sr=8-2&keywords=stossel" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My Age of Anxiety:</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/My-Age-Anxiety-Dread-Search/dp/0307390608/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1452714268&sr=8-2&keywords=stossel" target="_blank">Fear, Hope, Dread and the Search for Peace of Mind</a>, seems worth tracking down.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/05/thanks-mom/309287/" target="_blank">2013 Atlantic Article called "What Makes Us Happy Revisited."</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The Daily Beast and The Art of Manliness have both run articles on The Grant Study, which I guess makes sense because those websites seem pretty interested in man stuff. And while my Cheryl Strayed, Elizabeth Gilbert loving self, does not often frequent those corners of the internet, I do enjoy flippant man writing too. I don’t typically recommend The Daily Beast for wisdom, but you have to admit, this nugget could help you out on a bad day: “Life is long, Vaillant seems to be saying, and lots of shit happens. What is true in one stage of a man’s life is not true in another. Previously divorced men are capable of long and loving marriages. There is a time to monitor cholesterol (before age 50 [if you are a man]) and a time to ignore it. Self-starting, as a character trait, is relatively unimportant to flourishing in early life, but very important at the end of it.” </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/07/what-harvard-s-grant-study-reveals-about-happiness-and-life.html" target="_blank">The Daily Beast Article called, "What Harvard's Grant Study Reveals about Happiness and Life."</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>And finally, if my summaries have not burned you out on the topic, you could go right to the source and read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Triumphs-Experience-George-E-Vaillant-ebook/dp/B00A4NF904/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452714799&sr=8-1&keywords=vaillant" target="_blank">Vaillant’s most recent book, The Triumphs of Experience</a>. I own one of his previous books, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Evolution-Wired-Faith-Hope/dp/0767926587/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1452714799&sr=8-7&keywords=vaillant" target="_blank">Spiritual Evolution: How We Are Wired for Faith, Hope and Love</a>, which I think I will re-read, but that will be for another day.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Fran, thanks for giving me a reason to put these articles in one place. It was a satisfying way to spend a morning, made more so by indulging myself in the thought that I was writing to you. As I wrap this up, I am reminded of our time together at the Cheryl Strayed workshop on Maui, and of the one-on-one time we had reading each other’s writing. I picked you out of the crowd that morning, because I had written something darker and riskier than I had ever written before. And it was not fiction. I picked you because you struck me as a person who could hold that, hear that, and be with me in that. </i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I mention it here, because something about that interaction reminds me of where this whole letter began, with the Waldinger talk. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One thing he says in that talk is this, “It’s the quality of your close relationships that matters.” And I would say, in a very short time and in a very limited set of interactions, you and I were able to enter into that kind of closeness and quality. I want to mention it, because “warm and protective relationships,” feels a little g-rated, and our lives, for better or for worse will always be messier than that. Warm and protective and high quality might also boil down to something like being true with one another, even when the stories we have to tell aren’t the prettiest. So thank you for offering me the opportunity to be true with you that day. It lives in my heart as a most important moment.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Sending love,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Cristina</i></span></div>
Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-33040720962198590432015-10-22T09:31:00.000-07:002015-11-03T10:36:42.067-08:00Step into the cathedral of your life<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Your-Wedding-Ceremony-Couples-ebook/dp/B015MA97FG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446575598&sr=8-1&keywords=cristina+spencer" target="_blank">BUY THE BOOK</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thanks Sheila Hamilton for hosting me on KINK FM! So fun to get to talk about my book and about the role of community in our spiritual lives. Here's an excerpt from the conclusion that listeners might enjoy. Thanks again for having me Sheila. Can't wait til you're in Palo Alto on December 4th!</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>For the first time in human history, marriage is truly a choice, not a social expectation, not an economic exchange, a choice. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>The past decade has seen the lowest marriage rates in the history of the United States. By and large, fewer couples are getting married and they are joining together later in life. According to the US census the number of un-married, cohabiting households in the US has increased more than ten times since 1960. Advancements in women’s participation in the workforce and the emergence of same-sex lifetime partnerships, underscore the fact that marriage, for the first time ever, is not a required social or financial arrangement between unequal partners, but instead an optional fork in the road of life that can be chosen by a pair of equal peers.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>For couples like you, who choose marriage, the decision to marry, however, often feels less rational than the notion of choice implies. There is a sense that this pairing is inevitable, or that something irrefutable is drawing the couple along. One or both of the partners might have the experience of hearing the small still voice that whispers over and over again, “this is so right, this is the person, this is the time, this is it.” There can be the feeling that something bigger is afoot than what you two, as individuals, have planned for yourselves.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>All these senses, these emotional sparks, are signs that individuals have entered the realm of their own spirituality, their own sense of meaning. A choice made in this context is not so much a choice as a calling, an enactment of deeply held sacred values. Considered alongside the changing external social dynamics, it is fair to say that in the course of just a few generations marriage has shifted from being a social requirement to a spiritual calling. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Meanwhile, as the choice to marry becomes more spiritual in nature, the fastest growing religion in the US is, simply put, not having one. We are coming of age in families that have lost touch or are losing touch with the rituals and rhythms that traditional religions held together for us. The reasons for leaving traditional religion are legitimate, but we are losing more than the restraint that accompanied outdated systems. The thing we are losing is hard to put a finger on, but we can feel it. We drift from day today, always on, always connected, and yet having the sense of dislocation or of missing out on meaning. We know in our core there is something inexpressibly sacred about our lives, but we often find ourselves separate from the wisdom that tells us how to make regular contact with it.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>However, contact with the sacred, because it is a part of our human nature, is inevitable. Thomas Moore says, “Our culture is in need of theological reflection that does not advocate a particular tradition, but tends to the soul’s need for spiritual direction.” And without effort at all, we find ourselves in the way of spiritual direction from time to time.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>We feel into it at the edge of the sea, at the top of a mountain, in the loamy, pine-scented grove of thousand-year-old redwood trees. We touch it when we count the ten little fingers and ten little toes of a newborn baby. We smell it on the edge of the morning, when the dew is still fresh and the air is cold and wet. And, in a good wedding ceremony, we hear it in the hush of the invocation, in the cadence of the vows, and in the celebration of the final announcement of the couple.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Your wedding ceremony, if you have grown up without a religious tradition in your family, may very well be the first time you experience the sacred in a social context. And I hope it will not be the last. There is currently a proliferation of science and literature that will support you in seeking the sacred in your own individual life by establishing some kind of spiritual practice. Perhaps you will try yoga, or meditation, or journal writing because of something you’ve read or seen in the news. However, there is very little that is currently being written about the importance of community in our spiritual and psychological fulfillment. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>I hope the direct experience of your ceremony will be proof enough for you that community and a set of shared common values are essential elements in a well-lived life. Each of life’s milestones represents an opportunity to bring people together and celebrate our common journey. They are each, in their own way, an invitation to step into the cathedral of your life, to appreciate the sacred as it appears in a particular moment, to celebrate, to weave a life of deep meaning, and to align your community around shared values. My hope is that your wedding will light you up in such a way that you resolve to mark the arrival of new life, the seasonal changes, and the inevitable losses you will face in the context of community. I encourage you to act boldly in designing or requesting the rites of passage you, yourself need. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>This is not to say that you should go out of your way to create fake routines or exotic pageants that arise out of nowhere. Many times a simple toast or an intimate gathering to say out loud what a transition means to you is all that is required. More important than the pageantry is the vulnerability you are willing to share with your community. And sometimes, pageantry is exactly what’s called for at a particular moment. Either way when life touches you deeply and you allow others to be with you in that moment, magic happens. You create a feeling of belonging for yourself and for others that empowers you to step into your life with more grace and authenticity. You open yourself up to the possibility that your life is full of light and meaning.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>In my view, our collective survival on the planet depends on compassion and the shared belief that all lives here on earth are worthy of respect. How better to grow our understanding of the spirit in all life, than to begin to recognize it in our own? When we take time to appreciate our lives, to allow every cell to wake up to the bittersweet beauty of our short time here, we sense a transcendent quality to our experience that is both tender and unbreakable. There is a durable softness to the human experience that binds us together. Ceremonies are important in our lives because they are a kind of frame that help us experience and claim this aspect of what it means to be human.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>My hope for you is that your wedding ceremony transports you into your new life as a couple with joy and ease, and that it instills in you the great spirit of celebration that lives in all of us.</i></span>Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781775556838385991.post-80754850526133274912015-10-13T11:21:00.003-07:002015-10-13T11:21:45.570-07:00In Praise of Karaoke<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hi all, I have been missing you and missing posting lately. And today I just have one thing on my mind, Karaoke.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you haven't done Karaoke, and you are one of the people who sit on your urge to join in, but over and over just don't, please do it. Just find a way to get yourself to do it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For all my life I sat on the Karaoke sidelines, watching others have the fun. Yearning to try, but red in the face with that shy shame feeling that haunts those of us who look at other people's singing and dancing with a strange combination of longing and embarrassment, I sat and sat. And about three years ago, I decided that I would stand up. That someday I would do Karaoke.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Time passed. I did not do it. And I did not do it. And then finally this summer I did. I had to fly out of state and sing with safe people, but I finally did it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Between channeling my inner Pat Benatar in We Belong Together, or convincing Graham to join me in a dramatic Don't You Want Me Human League duet (remember that one?!) I learned that I need more of whatever it is that happens in Karaoke in my life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's hard to pin down exactly, but it has to do with music and the way music hits me in my body. Whether I'm dancing or singing, songs land in my chest and make their way through me, somehow they bypass a part of my brain that desperately needs to be taken off line. When a song really takes me, it can feel like I'm all body and soul, my thinking brain gets sidelined. And I so need that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was reminded of Karaoke this weekend, when my friend Laurel and I went to see Elizabeth Gilbert talk about her new book Big Magic. She was speaking in an auditorium that held a few hundred people. At the end of the reading, she told an interesting story.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"At one of my last readings, a woman asked me, 'When you are not writing, what do you do for yourself? You write so much you must do something else for yourself' and I thought about it for a minute and realized that the other thing I did for myself was Karaoke."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was floored.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"It started out that a few of us got together on a Wednesday night to do Karaoke. We loved it so much we went again. And now it's a thing. On Wednesday night I do Karaoke now. I just do."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After this story, she explained that because she was on such an ambitious book tour, she was not signing books, but instead, asked us if we would be up for singing with her. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"If you don't go to church, chances are that you are not singing. And that is a sad thing. We must be the first humans in all of humanity to go long stretches without singing."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The audience was clearly game. She had us look up Take Me Home Country Road by John Denver on our phones and then we were off, singing all together. It was that simple. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I sang the song I'd learned on a hundred road trips in the back seat of my mother's car, there were tears in my eyes, the kinds that are the river of your life calling you, asking you to do your very best to go all in. And you are shy and embarrassed and maybe terrible singer, but you do it in any way. You allow yourself to disappear into the crowd, to let loose and let the song be in charge. And the music rises, past your ears above your head, filling the room up to the very rafters. Its hum is thick and deep and it lifts you along, and you are not alone, for one singing minute you are a part of it. No longer watching or listening or trying to decide, you are a part of the flow, a note in the song, a tiny speck carried along in the current.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Singing does this for me. I want more of it in my life and want it for you too. Karaoke, of all unholy things, strangely can help.</span><br />
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Cristina Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14430193860978418509noreply@blogger.com0