Revived!

Did the reunion eat me? You may ask. Where have I been? I do not know. One thing I do know: I haven't given up on Robo in Rockville.



Lesson of the day: we have more of an impact than we know. Recently, my coworker and I conducted groups in a local middle school. They were for families who had been separated and reunified--in most of them, parents came to the U.S. first, then brought the kids 2, 5, even 11 years later.

At the end of the groups, we did a field trip to Great Falls National Park. We hiked, grilled, ate enormous Costco cupcakes, made t-shirts, raffled off Subway gift cards. We laughed at me mistakenly calling a "waterfall" a "puddle" (FYI: a waterfall in the Dominican Republic is a puddle in El Salvador: charco. "Look at the giant puddle!" they guffawed), and other glorious moments of cultural integration.

Jason and his big, warm, culturally competent heart joined us. Even without the group leaders around, the families told him how much the groups meant to them. And what struck me most were the T-shirts the kids made at the end:

It says "El Salvador" and "I love my family." The kids each made T-shirts, on their own, displaying pride in their heritage and in their families.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.

That is not it, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be...

(T.S. Eliot, The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock)

I used to live there. That mass of columns, palm trees and sunlight is my alma mater, Pomona College. In a few weeks, I'm going to attend my five-year college reunion. Dun dun DUN!

It was a very formative place to be. Challenge. Friendship. Ideas. Food (oh, the food!). But what does that mean? A room of talented, ambitious people debating male homosocial desire in medieval literature. Anti- and pseudo- and post- and more post-. Discovering coffee. Anglo-American vs. Continential philosophy. Beer. Pink Floyd. Fake snow. Flip-flops. A thesis on Nietzche and Dostoevsky. Have the courage to be offended. T-shirts that said Harvard: the Pomona College of the East.

My thesis advisor once told me, "Sometimes elitism is good. You have to be elitist to be a leader."

Now most of the alumni I know have gone on to higher education or to service fields. And now something in me wants to run the other way from academic ego and ambition. I love having my ideas checked minute-by-minute by the person in front of me, ready to say, "Nope. You've missed it. That is not it, at all."

Need a reminder of the world's goodness?

My niece is here to help!

Bio-psycho-whats-its-name

The more I dabble into psychopharmacology, the more I am convinced by the biology behind mood. Dr. Kramer will even say that many relationship problems can be traced to mood disorders--that a man who falls "out of love" with his wife is actually experiencing depression, or that a woman who leaves her husband for a thrilling new love affair has some form of mania. But the more you do that, the harder it is to trust yourself.

Several years ago, I made an appointment with my old therapist for a "tune-up." I was dismayed. "I had another panic attack," I said as soon as I sat down.

"Well, what was going on when you did? Where were you, what were you doing?" He asked.

"I was on a date, kind of. It was mortifying."

"Tell me about the date."

"We'd only gone out a couple times. I was driving, and we were in a place I don't know very well. We were trying to find a couple of his friends, so we could all go out. I was uncomfortable and I freaked out."

"And what did you do when you freaked out?"

"I took him home and went home."

He paused, and his eyes got wide. "So you were out at night with a guy you don't know very well, in a place you didn't know very well, about to meet up with other strangers. Seems to me that panic attack was the best thing that could have happened to you!"

He gave me a huge gift. He taught me to listen to my feelings and my physical reactions, that they were my friends, that they were sending me important messages and trying to protect me. I never forgot that moment. And I haven't had a panic attack since (knock on wood). It made me feel more whole. I no longer needed to fear the parts of my self that were hard to bear. I could move toward them instead of push them away.

I still want to believe that hard-to-bear stirrings in my heart are there for a reason, and that I should listen to them. I hold to my hope that they carry a deep wisdom, not just a defect. I kind of have to, anyway, or else I'd be out of a job. :)

Please sign this!

Nisgua, an organization that works for human rights in Guatemala, is orchestrating a campaign to put pressure on Guatemala's president Alvaro Colom to work toward justice. There are pivotal genocide cases going on now, as well as thousands of human rights violations awaiting legal proceedings. It really does make a difference for the international community to let Guatemala know we are watching and are ready to take action in support of those who have suffered victimization.

Here is the e-mail with the link Nisgua sent me:

Support Guatemalan war survivors’ right to justice! This is the FINAL PUSH for NISGUA’s action! We are calling on President Colom to ensure that the victims of the armed conflict achieve justice for the crimes committed against them.

http://nisgua.org/get_involved/action_alerts/action_alert_colom.asp

We are moving to turn in these letters in the upcoming days. Please sign on, re-send it to your friends, family and networks, post it to your social networking sites. Get everyone you know to click this link and sign! http://nisgua.org/get_involved/action_alerts/action_alert_colom.asp

It's moments like this we all work so hard for -- holding the government accountable, supporting the communities and organizations we work with on the ground, demanding justice.

Click here to make sure your letter is in the stack we will be handing in to the President's office!

Thanks your ongoing support of NISGUA and the struggle for justice in Guatemala!

A Meditation from Ti Harmony

I wrote Ti Harmony and asked him if he had any yoga classes recorded. In his benevolence, he sent me three on a CD. I wish I could express my bliss.

I thought I'd pass along a meditation that begins one of the classes. I love his meditations.

*********************************************************************************

We'll meditate for a little bit.

Take a few conscious, deep breaths. Move your body if you need to, so you can feel as comfortable as possible.

Relax any unnecessary tensions.

Let go of what you were doing earlier.

And let go of what you think you might do later.

And then take a very long deep breath in, and hold the breath in for a moment.

As you're ready, exhale quietly and let your attention then drift down. Start to feel the floor and your body's contact with it.

Really feel the floor.

And breathe out.

As you're breathing in, then letting your attention draw up the spine.

Bring the attention up the spine all the way to the very top center of the head.

What's the space above your head feel like?

Can you stretch your feeling sense into the space above your head?

As you're ready, take a long deep breath in. When you exhale, without closing the top of your head, let your attention now drift down into and throughout, eventually, your whole body and being.

How does it feel being you right now? (long pause)

You might start to open yourself to something greater. (long pause)

Take a long, deep breath in and out.

Get clear for yourself what is your intention for the rest of your time here.

Again take a deep breath in, and as you're ready breathe back out.

I bow to the light inside you. Namaste.

The Dance Of...

"I admired in [my patients] the very traits that caused them trouble in the world, their sensitivity, generosity, openness, vulnerability. Some of these sensitive and generous men and women had their own genius, a genius for connection. Often they were romantic. They entertained impossible idealism. They threw themselves whole-heartedly into relationships. What [psychiatric] medication offered them was autonomy, the ability to say no others and attend to the self."

***

I am shamelessly stealing most of this from the book I'm currently in love with by Dr. Peter Kramer.

***

Autonomy has long been an ideal of Western, and especially American, culture. America was founded on separation from its "mother" country, in the Declaration of Independence. The pioneer spirit romanticized aloneness. Emerson urged, "Insist on yourself," in all situations. Thoreau loved his self-sufficient (sort of) life in his log cabin with his vegetables, miles away from the nearest town. Now our society is increasingly mobile, making intense bonding risky.

***

Critiquing the ideal of autonomy has fallen under the umbrella of feminist psychology. Beginning in the 1970s, people began labeling independence as a masculine ideal. Men in particular are encouraged to be emotionally independent, to value differentiation as the highest form of maturity. Women, on the other hand, find mutuality and connection an important part of their development. They tend to feel best through the give-and-take of connecting with others. This creates imbalance in heterosexual relationships, with men often de-valuing the genius of their partners' skills, and failing to appreciate the relational support that allows them to realize their self. It seems to me that many people who appear autonomous do subtle things that undermine others' confidence. Christianne Northrup mentions in Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom that many people also value functions associated with male brains: linear thinking, efficiency, conciseness. Femals brains, she says, tend to work in multiplicity, connecting emotions and language and goals all at once. Feminist writers challenged, even attacked, valuing differentiation above mutuality, and elevated connection to another axis of maturity.

***

But "in this culture, to rely on a capacity for generosity, mutuality, and intimacy is dangerous, unless those talents are accompanied by highly independent judgment and the ability to walk away."

***

That's exactly what many people now consider the ideal (like Harriet Lerner in The Dance of Intimacy): accepting difference and separateness, while staying emotionally present and connected. I feel like this sort of relating is the most difficult and most worthwhile way to live.