Hummingbird Homemaker

Kajunk Kajunk Kajunk

I am branching out into carpentry, which I have wanted to learn to do ALL MY LIFE.  Okay, not all of my life.  There was a time when I was a kid when my dad has a full workshop of tools and wanted to teach me carpentry--I didn't want to learn it then.

Anyways, this is the table I made, and it is BEAUTIFUL.  You may not be able to tell that from the picture because it is the kind of beauty that rests mostly in how much fun I had building it, and not in whether or not it is actually beautiful.

I am amassing carpentry skills the same way I like to acquire all skills.  By experimenting with whatever strikes my fancy, trying all kinds of new creative things, and of course with Gary's unwavering support. Which in this case expresses itself in him wandering past from time to time, nervously recounting stories about people he's treated in the ER after they learned carpentry the exact same way I am learning it.

I have acquired many new skills.  I can use a skill saw, and more importantly, I can clamp wood so that the skill saw doesn't fly around.  I have also learned to drill.  And stain stuff.  I am still having trouble, though, with the screwdriver.

I have always had trouble with screwdrivers.  Some idiot, years ago, decided that there needed to be 4,392 kinds of screws, and little screw driver bits to match each one, and keeping track of 4,392 little pieces of metal for my screwdriver is not my strong suit.  What works sometimes, though, is if you have a bit that is pretty close to right, and you press really hard.  Sometimes that's good enough--especially if you're using a manual screwdriver and can go slow and pay attention.

If you're breezing through with an electric screwdriver, though, more often than not you hear KAJUNK KAJUNK KAJUNK and if you don't stop and change the screwdriver bit, bad things happen.  The screw doesn't budge and sometimes gets wrecked, and sometimes the screwdriver bit gets wrecked, too.  And if it really gets bad, there's this other loud noise that is like a Gary yelling stories about all the major arteries in your legs, and about how people can impale themselves on drills.

And then you say "this isn't a drill, it's a screwdriver, so stop worrying." and then he says, in a voice that sounds like he ignoring your advice and continuing to worry "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY SCREWDRIVER?"

 

And then sometimes he says "Didn't you say you were going to spend today studying?"  (He has very few stories about people ending up in the ER from studying).

Actually, he never says most of that stuff, especially not the part about me studying.  Because he knows that reminding me to study doesn't get me to study, and it just annoys me.  And we've been married long enough that each of us has a substantial tool belt and knows which tools apply when.  We've learned to tell when the tool is wrong.  You hear a psychological KAJUNK KAJUNK KAJUNK, and you know that nothing is moving.  Doing it with a bit more force might work, and it might wreck stuff.

I'm reading right now about communication in Churches, breezing through the book thinking "oh, I know that technique.  And that one.  And I'm great at that".  And this is sort of true.  I can think of times when I've applied many of these skills quite well.  The one skill that I really struggle with, though, is switching drill bits.  Hearing the kajunk.  Which sometimes looks like a person repeating themselves.  Or rambling.  Or in my own head, when I think "he's always so…".  Or my most reliable kajunk, which is the thought "How could she do that?"  Which is extremely valuable as a genuine question and extremely not valuable as an untested conviction.

KAJUNK KAJUNK KAJUNK.  Stop, I remind myself.  Switch tools.  Running a screwdriver when the screw isn't moving is a good way to wreck things for good.

And, if you really don't pay attention, I hear you can end up in the ER...

 

Travelling by Faith--thoughts from our family's train trip to Vancouver.

My father once told me that faith can move mountains.  My father is a deep believer in science, so I was surprised to hear him say that.  “You don’t believe in faith.” I said—because this was back when I thought that faith and science were opposites.

“When this country built the railway…” my dad began (he was always trying to sneak learning moments in to daily life), “it seemed impossible.  There was a chain of Rocky Mountains running right across where the track would have to be laid.  They moved those mountains out of the way—people died moving them out, and do you know why they took that chance?”

“Because they had faith in the dream of a Canadian Railway and the nation that would be bound together by increased trade and a common identity?”  I asked, in the flat, parroting voice of a kid who knows that she is being Subtly Educated Against Her Will.

“No, because they believed they were being paid.  They were being given little slips of paper with no value whatsoever that they believed could be exchanged for food, shelter, and bringing their loved ones to this country for a better life.  Money isn’t a thing.  It’s of no value.  It is only given value because we have all agreed.  It’s an act of faith.”

He's right.  It was several years before I learned that it was misplaced faith--that many of the men who worked on and died for our railroad were misled about what the money they were given could be exchanged for.  In the end, people will suffer a lot for faith.  They still do.

Faith in money goes further than just the belief that the money will buy things.  It extends to a faith that the things it buys will have the power to make people happy and fulfilled.

And, with all the science out there showing that material wealth has little sway over happiness once basic needs are met, that's blind faith.  It's not just faith in things that can't be proven, it's faith in things that have been disproven.

Exercise, companionship, time outside in the sun--these things do increase happiness.  We sacrifice them to put in hours at work--slaves to blind faith.  Even worse, we fail to allocate enough money to meet the basic needs of all people.  It makes no sense, if you look at the science of what makes people suffer or be happy, to ever have one person's toys trump another person's necessities.

This is the faith that science should be denouncing from the rooftops.  It's not that I'm against rational discussion about God, of course, just that it seems to me that much of that discussion is not actually about what is empirically proven or provable.  And, if we want to talk about faith that wastes lives, creates huge amounts of suffering, and oppresses entire nations, let's talk about a fundamentalist consumerist faith.  Many of the things we believe about money are lies.  Huge lies.

How do you tackle something that big?

The same way you move mountains.  Bit by bit--and with a deep commitment to why it's worth it.

Parenting of Ninjas, Part Two

Continuing in the thread of Ninja Parenting...

On a recent visit to the West Edmonton Mall, Anthony discovered the joy of tubing in the wave pool.  I could just as easily describe this as "the tube discovering the joys of Anthony-ing in the wave pool", since each one of them took equal time on the top and on the bottom.  I was standing a ways off, watching his delighted and gleeful negotiation.  During one moment when the tube appeared to be making a break for it, an group of older kids passed by and grabbed it.

"Hey!"  Anthony declared, "That's my tube."

The boys looked at him and laughed.  He was tiny and on his own, and his indignation looked a bit cute and not at all threatening.  Little did they know, not far from any of them, Highly Threatening and Not Remotely Cute Mom was gathering steam and barrelling towards them.

But, luckily for everyone, Mother Bear paused for a moment before jumping into the fray.  I'd like to say it was my good-mother instincts, knowing that I should give Anthony a chance to resolve things before intervening.  It may have been that.  Truthfully, it was more like I was gathering evidence to to give my defence lawyer for my homicide trial.  Whatever the reason, I paused--and watched the boys holding the tube out of Anthony's grasp, and laughing off his attempts to get it back.

"THAT,"  Anthony declared again, loudly "THAT IS MY TUBE."

No crying, no whining, just a very clear demonstration that the tube they had stolen came with a permanent accessory--a determined seven year old boy with a very loud voice and no intention of backing down.  With a shrug, the older boys tossed the tube back to him and disappeared through the waves.  After wrapping his shaking arms around his returned trophy, Anthony stood in the waves, his face finally beginning to crumple.  This was the moment for the mommy swoop.

"Wow," I said, in admiration, "I bet those boys were in grade five or six--and so many of them.  How did you do that?"

Wrapping his arms around me for comfort, he took a deep breath.  Then, pride began to seep up into his face.

"I used my Hard To Bully Voice," he said, in wonder.  "I used it over and over until it worked!"

I asked him to tell me the story of saving his tube.  He re-inflated a little with each telling of how "There were three of them and I scared them off."  By the time he'd told me, his brother, the friends who were with us, several water park employees and multiple kids who were playing in the water and had no idea he thought he they were listening to him, he was a transformed kid.  All traces of the frightened little boy have been replaced by the posture and expressions of a full Hero.

There were two stories of that event.  The story of the kid who was bullied and humiliated and laughed at, and the story of the kid who saved his tube.  They're both true stories.  We don't always get to choose which story wins out--but every now and then there's a moment of ambiguity when we can help our children (or ourselves) choose to be heroes.

 

Ninja parenting. As in, parenting of Ninjas.

So, I am learning to use tools.  My sister who studies monkeys-and-stuff tells me that the ability to use tools is a key marker of intelligence.  She also says a lot about opposable thumbs.  So does Gary. He says something along the lines of how people often lose them by not being careful with power tools.

I lack natural talent when it comes to carpentry.  Ten years or so ago, when we bought all of our furniture for the current house, I had to pay David to put it together.

"The screws hold it together perfectly." he observed, "so do I also have to do the glue-and-dowel thing?"

"Naw," I answered, "it looks pretty stable without."

Which it was, until about a year and a half ago, when virtually every piece of furniture in our house simultaneously collapsed.  One piece had Anthony on it at the time.  Anthony leapt clear as it started to come apart, landed on his feet, and rolled to absorb the impact.  He lay there for a moment, dazed, before his lip started to tremble.  I reached to comfort him, but before I could, Troy's voice declared:

"Wow, what a ninja you are!"

Suddenly, the story-about-how-Anthony-got-hurt became the story-about-what-a-ninja-Anthony-is.  Involving several re-enactments (by him), and increasingly exaggerated story telling (by me).

Half of any story happens when the events unfold.  The other half happens when we decide what they mean.

Rev Davidson Loehr tells the story of Rachel Naomi Remen:

In her 60s now, she has suffered from Crohn's Disease since her teen years, and has been through over a dozen surgeries for it. As you'd expect, it can be a severely depressing disease. She tells of the time when, in her 50s, she was feeling beaten down by the disease - like a victim - and sought advice from one of the world's leading experts in Crohn's Disease.

It took her an hour to tell her story. He listened closely and with great sympathy for her. After she finished he was filled with pity for her, and asked if she was still able to practice at least a little (Remen is also a physician). Shocked, she reminded him that her schedule was as busy as his. Then she reflected:

But his remark had reawakened a deep sense of doubt. Many years ago, other doctors had told me that I would be dead long before now. On the strength of their authority I had decided not to marry or become a parent... The power of the expert is very great and the way in which an expert sees you may easily become the way in which you see yourself.

In the weeks that followed, she worried more about her physical problems. Finally, one of her physician friends asked her why she seemed to be having such a hard time. Remen writes:

Almost in tears, I told him what had happened. "May I hear the story too?" he asked, and so I told it again. Like Dr. Z., my friend listened thoughtfully, without interrupting, but he heard something very different. When I had finished he looked at me for a long time. "God, Rachel, I had no idea. You are a warrior!" he said, and healed me.

[…]

The "healing" came through leaving her dignity, integrity and power intact, rather than transforming them into pity (which takes your power and gives it to the person who has presumed to pity you). Defining someone as a victim is one of the most brutal and demeaning things we can do to them.

[…]

Someone who has survived an ordeal is a survivor. And describing them as a survivor leaves their integrity intact, and leaves power with them. Someone who has survived with verve and determination is more than a survivor; they're a kind of warrior. And that word even feels strong, passionate, and capable. How we define someone shows where we want to locate the power and dignity: with them, or with us.

Of course, Loehr is talking about people who have faced harder things than falling off of a piece of furniture.  But I believe that how we treat our kids in these little moments frames how they will think about the struggles they face later in life.  And the words we say to ourselves, too, can change how we feel about our own story.

"What a ninja I am!" is a silly sounding sentence, but it does a lot more good to one's spirit than "Why me?" or "This is so unfair."

It's worth trying.  I suggest trying it quietly in your head. If you declare your ninja-hood out loud, as an adult, people start to get really edgy about letting you use power tools...

If crabapple trees could talk, I know which one I'd want to talk to first...

This is the house that my kids will always refer to as “Len and Joanna’s house”.  For the first six years we lived in our current home, Len and Joanna were a constant presence--offering a friendly word or an afternoon spent picking crabapples from a tree full of fruit.  I didn’t really know Joanna--who died last week--because her Alzheimer’s had already taken much of her memory and personality by the time we met.  But she was a person whose story has a life of its own.

 

When their kids were little, Len and Joanna were members in our local Unitarian Congregation--and Joanna was a tireless activist for nuclear disarmament.  Ann tells a story of asking Joanna, once, how she kept going with such vigour in the face of such strong threats.

 

“Well,” Joanna said, “even if the chance of a global nuclear war is 95%, there’s a 5% chance that we will avoid it.  I must dedicate my life to that 5% chance.”

 

An article in our local paper, from 1985, reads:

 

 

“When Joanna Miller’s children were babies, she began thinking about the many other mothers in the world who had nothing to offer their infants when they cried in the night.”

 

I remember that feeling from when my babies were small.  How each time one of them cried and I was able to soothe him, a certainty grew in me that every mother should have that simple right--to be able to give their child what they need to be comforted.  Not thirty feet from where I sit right now, half a century ago, Joanna would tuck her kids in at night with the exact same feeling.

 

Her convictions led her to join UNICEF, of which she became President the year that I was born.  She became a pillar in the activist community, working tirelessly for nuclear disarmament.  She was sought after nationally as a powerful and well informed speaker.  Her porch was a local organizing site, where educational materials would be dropped off and picked up, and one woman said that her kids affectionately referred to Joanna as “the bomb lady”.  She inspired people from all walks of life to keep going in a fight that they had every reason to think would end disastrously--with their worst nightmares being realized.

 

It didn’t end that way.  They won.

 

You could say that they only sort of won.  You could say that there’s still chance of a rogue weapon being used, and there are new threats, and there’s so much to be done.  And that’s all true--but it doesn’t change the fact that the fight Joanna was a part of ended in the way she hoped against hope that it would.

 

Fifty years ago, a young mother looked out over the same back yard I can see through my window, bouncing a baby in one arm, and cradling a phone in the other--maybe planning an upcoming peace rally or arranging to go speak somewhere.  She had the same vision I have--of future generations of kids able to play in trees and grow up in as peaceful a world as possible.

 

Those kids she was picturing?  They’re my kids.  They have no idea that their are other worlds they could be growing up in--what possibilities have been averted.  I tried to explain to them about the incredible things that their neighbour did--but I failed.

 

“What’s a nuclear weapon?” they said, and I didn’t have the heart to explain.  I couldn’t find a kid friendly way to do it.

 

Maybe I’m being too easy on them, and letting them be naive.  Maybe.  The point is, I got to make that choice--when to explain, and how much--because the Cold War ended without a single nuclear weapon being fired.  I got to fail at explaining the feeling of the threat of imminent nuclear war to my boys because I’ve never had that feeling. I am betting that the young mother on the phone fifty years ago would count that as success.

 

Which is not the same as being done.  There is no permanence to this--we have to keep winning.  This might make each success look small.  Maybe it is, from the perspective of the historian, but from the perspective of the mom watching her boys play in the puddles behind the apple tree, it’s unimaginably huge.  The world I get to raise my boys in is one that was imagined, fought for against all odds, and won.

 

 

And the world of the family who lives here fifty years from now?  That will be whatever we imagine, fight for, and win.  But we have a head start.  Because we know something--something that Joanna only suspected.  We know that you can bet on the unlikely 5%.  And you can win.

Happy New Baby! And, baby naming advice. Because that's what everyone wants. Naming advice from "Hummingbird Homemaker".

My sister’s baby has arrived!  She is seven pound something (the baby, not my sister) which I think is a perfect size for a baby.  Small enough to fit comfortably through the, um, arrivals gate.  If you get my metaphor in that sentence.  The metaphor was “comfortably”.

Also, seven pounds is large enough to calmly weather any weight loss of the first few weeks--which of course will be the only time in her life that she will need to worry about this issue since she is a James Family Female.  We have childbearing hips.  Also, childbearing butts, legs, and arms.  Bet you didn’t know that there was such a thing as childbearing butts, legs and arms.  Most people don’t, until they bear children.  There is childbearing everything.

It was a water birth, on a lovely day, which allowed daddy, from his position in the water behind my sister to declare “can someone get me a beer?” between contractions.  Which amused my sister.  This is lucky for daddy, because they say a baby can drown in just a few inches of water, so I’m guessing that a labouring woman with an entire birthing pool at her disposal could have finished a grown man off without breaking a sweat.

In keeping with the whole “try not to use real names on your blog” rule, I will not tell you baby’s name.  But I have to say that, if I did, you would think it was one of my fake names.  And not just because my fake names are so uncreative. 

When I named my babies, I tried to give them normal names.  Because when I was a kid, the main thing you wanted out of a name was ease of spelling and pronunciation, and not rhyming with a synonym for penis.  But times have changed.  There are way more synonyms for penis, for one thing.  And anti-bullying laws.  (Unless, of course, you are a Canadian and are bullying because of divine instruction).

If I were naming a child today, my first priority would be choosing something that wouldn’t already be taken as a user ID by various online sites.  That way, the kid could just say their name “at gmail”, instead of SuzySmith35322. 

I would use something like xkcd. 

Oh wait, that’s taken.

It's not "just trivia" once you involve chocolate...

So, about a week ago, we were playing this fantastic game called "Wits and Wagers" as a family. It's like a trivia game, except that most of the points don't go to getting the right answer--they go to betting on the correct answer. So, you can use your keen knowledge of the human psyche to figure out who is most likely to be right if you aren't an expert in the relevant area. Kind of like life. So, final question of the night: Stakes are high, the first place prize is up for grabs, and the card says: "How many smaller cubes make up a Rubik's Cube?" The answers we gave were: Me: 20, Eric: 26, Troy: 27, and Gary and Allison: 54. The correct answer? 26. Gary: What? Oh, that's right. Of course. I was counting the faces of the cube--the question wasn't very specific. Eric (patiently, with no trace of a snotty tone): No, dad, because a square is a two dimensional shape, and a cube is a three dimensional one. How you tell is-- Gary: Yup, I got it. Troy: But there should be 27 cubes! Me: The middle one is a gear--otherwise how would it hold together? . You have to add up the cubes and subtract one. It was just like slum dog millionaire. My whole life built up to this moment. I knew about three dimensional shapes because of all those fairy tales you tell kids about the flat-landers, who live in different dimensions, and how you can use math and physics to…. well, it turns out those are just fairy tales if your dad is my dad… And I knew all about the internal gears of a Rubik's cube because the only way I can solve one is to take the ^*%&^&ing thing apart. Oh, I am the queen of higher reasoning. Eric: Mom, why did you write "20" as your answer? Higher reasoning, A+. Multiplication tables--need work. Turns out, it's three times nine is not twenty one. That's three times seven. (Also patiently explained by my eight year old). So, the prize goes to Eric. Second prize. The first place winner was Anthony, who guessed very few actual answers correctly, but absolutely cleaned up when it came to betting on the answers of others. Which speaks to something kind of interesting, if you ask me. With very limited knowledge base, Anthony was free to bet based on his emotional assessments. Turns out, that's not a bad way to do it. I know a lot about this--having a lot of trouble focussing in school has meant that I am missing big chunks of "common knowledge". I have always relied heavily on the expertise of others--and that's a skill in and of itself. Building relationship, reading faces, analyzing a person's credibility… In the modern world, I am finding that knowing how to judge the reliability of information is often as valuable as having a solid bank of facts. Except for the multiplication tables. I really should have learned those. For one thing, my baking would probably turn out much better…

For The Meditation-ally Challlenged...

    So, Kathleen-who-irons-napkins has been having her brain waves tested.  Not because she irons napkins (although, you would think…) but because she gets migraines.  To improve said brain waves, she's been working on these relaxation exercises.  Things like imagining you're floating in the night sky--with infinite space all around you…  She tells me she never thinks about these things otherwise, which makes sense.  Kathleen has a brain that only seems to think about whatever it's supposed to.
    By contrast, I end up floating in space all the time.  Or briefly imagining I am lying on the sand at the bottom of the ocean, looking up and watching the sun ripple through the waves above me.  Or standing in a given place and for a moment imagining all of the things that have happened to all of the people who have stood in that space before me.
    I have worked hard to tame these impulses.  I've learned they're a good way to fail a math test or burn supper.  But they won't be completely tamed.  And I've learned that, in small doses, these moments serve some subtle purpose.  They realign me.  They pull me out of myself--and add  perspective.
    Kind of like when you've been sitting at a computer for a long time and you take a moment to stand and stretch all your muscles and joints before returning to productive work.
    Some people do this all the time, as part of an intentional spiritual practice--prayers or meditations that weave into the day.  It seems to me that something is valuable about these moments of gentle stretching of the spirit.  Kind of like the stretching of the body that used to be woven into the daily tasks of life like fetching water and carrying wood--tasks which our bodies now miss so desperately.
    We're "supposed" to set aside time for spiritual practice, of course.  And for physical exercise.  That works well for some people.  For others, maybe there's something in the spontaneous stretching of soul or body--the quick romp of tag, or the bike commute woven into your day.  Or the moment of distractibility that you embrace rather than suppress.  
    Maybe there's something valuable about pausing to look at an oak tree on a busy street and wonder about all of the conversations that have floated past it in the many years that it has stood there.  Maybe there's something good in taking a moment to think about how many years it has stood, inhaling the carbon dioxide of so many exhaled conversations--and is about to take the air from your lungs, too, into it's roots and branches.
    Sometimes, it's hard to tell the difference between what distracts you from life, and what is life.

Puppy love

Anthony (after joyously cuddling this dog--who enthusiastically returned his affections--for what seemed like hours): "only dogs can out-love me."

Note: We also visited my sister and her family and my son and his fiancé on this trip. Not just the dog--but the dog posed so nicely, so it made it into the blog because apparently I'm supposed to use more pictures and that one of Bill Nye didn't count...

Who Says That Web 2.0 and Cell Phones are Undermining Reading?

(Well, I do.  But not today)...

This article, on the Atlantic Cities website, describes a fantastic use for old payphones...  worth looking at.  Somebody has a gift for seeing the potential all around them!