What Is Confidence?

Today's word is confidence. It came up in conversation as something overrated, which was specific to child rearing. Confidence is one of those words that has became code for what we think children need. As I ponder this word I realized that I have used it with regard to myself and the ways that I lack confidence in my voice as an artist. I love language and unraveling the meaning of words. I truly enjoy semantics and the nuances of our language—confession: English teacher fully on display.

 

The issue of having or creating confidence shows up for me in my artmaking path. In college and on through my 30's I was very much a 2D visual artist pushing into mixed media. My #metoo themed art was considered too difficult and not relevant at the time. While I had my gallery in NYC I realized that my desire to write was the strongest pull I had for my artist voice. What I didn't know then, but do now is that in someways I lacked confidence in my artistic voice. Numerous rejections in attempting to move my art out into the art scene of NYC was in fact undermining my confidence. 

 

What I saw with the artists that showed at my gallery, Eich Space was a drive that I didn't have for my visual work, but I did have for my writing and poetry—a persistence if you will to create my writing no matter what. 

 

The process of truly pursuing that calling in writing and in poetry happened after I closed my gallery. Unsure of what to do next I went to Arizona and stayed with my mom and stepdad. I was the nighttime cook at a diner and wrote a lot of poetry. When I went back to NYC I had the opportunity to be selected for the first cohort of the New York City Teaching Fellows program and pursue an MFA in Poetry. (For full disclosure: I was able to shift into the MFA program at that time because that contract for the first Teaching Fellows had a few holes, which have of course been removed from the contracts that are now presented.) 

 

So I'm in an MFA program and everyday standing in a high school classroom teaching English, my favorite subject. I spent two years in NYC teaching high school English and then moved back to Arizona and continued my MFA at ASU and spent a few years in rural Arizona also teaching high school English and journalism. During those years I kept writing poetry. (Again for full disclosure: I was able to complete my degree beyond the two years of my time as a Teaching Fellow because that contract for the first Teaching Fellows had a few holes, which have of course been removed from the contracts that are now presented.) 

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Here's an import aside: the creation of a personal narrative in telling a story is much like what happens when books or real events are made into movies: creative license is at play. The arc of my story is true, but it must be held that a ridiculous amount of detail is not present here because this is a broad overview that is considering a very specific issue about how confidence is built. I interject this as currently the Oprah Winfrey interview that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex gave is being dissected in a way that negates the human process of how each individual creates their own narrative. I speak to this as I have watched my own child create her narrative as she embarks on her young adult life. Child-rearing is truly a laboratory of how human experience unfolds.

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When I got pregnant at 41, I moved on to teaching first year college writing. I did that for eight years. About midway through that time I started writing blogs. My most important blogging was my weekly commitment to Motherhood Later Than Sooner for one year. My writing voice got stronger. My ongoing college teaching had me seeped in the minutia of writing. Eventually without realizing it I became more confident in my ability to write, to tell a story. The confidence came in the act of doing, in the persistence of struggling beyond my personal censors. Also it came from struggling through the process of finishing my MFA and by having an audience that was interested in what I had to say. 

 

In my late 40's I had the opportunity to pursue a dream of going to film school. That sounds so calculated, but really I had pined to be a filmmaker even as I had my gallery. Through a series of cosmic butt-kicks I realized that the film program connected to the community college where I taught would be a lot easier to do while my daughter was in the college's preschool program. Many people helped make that endeavor possible and I was able to make an award-winning short film because of all the support I received.

 

After that film program I kept trying to find my path, as a writer, as an educator, as a filmmaker, as a poet, as a person with a full-time job. Finally, I got brave and found an amazing office situation that I could afford provided by a very dear friend. The physicality of that space was similar to when I got my first art studio in NYC. Both moments helped me to believe in myself. Each time and place added to my confidence that art was my path in all the forms it has taken.

 

A few years back a dear friend from college said she admired that I hadn't sold out and that I was still trying to pursue my dreams as working artist. I laughed and said I was trying to sell out; i.e. trying to find a full time job, but nothing was working out in all the applications I was putting out in the world. No call backs, no interviews, absolutely nothing in full time work was happening for me. Instead I was a full-time caretaker through many intense family events. Caretaking was my unpaid work. And the shame of that has at times taken me to a dark place. Sadly, this society does not value artmaking or caretaking as both are difficult to measure monetarily, though their value is inescapable.

 

Fast forward to the present. My artmaking path has lead me back to where I started: making 2D work. The themes are still the same, but now my confidence in my voice has me looking at my old work in a new way and also considering my new work with a greater confidence borne from my life experience.

Does one know when confidence has been attained? Recently, literally I woke up and I felt like Wonder Woman. All the judgement about how my life should look had evaporated. I would be remiss if I didn't again say how hard it as been these last seven years and yet when I look forward I see...endurance. Years of creating artwork in many media is now culminating in new work that has a clear and resonate voice. 

 

I feel confident.

For more about confidence check out my posts at Run Mo Run and Motherhood Later Than Sooner.

It’s All Gray

This begins a new view on myself and motherhood for this blog. I thought I would start with a personal background essay.

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The dialogue between “Religion” and “Science” has been shaped as a duality between black and white, with each side poised to believe that their view is right. But currently there is a confluence of events where neuroscience has begun measuring what faith and spirituality intuitively already know.

The stunning beauty of a black and white photograph is in the range of grays that give depth, create perspective and evoke a feeling—all of which are created in a chemical process from developer to photographic paper. I propose that notions on science and religion span a similar dichotomy. My journey to this thinking began nearly forty years ago.

I grew up in the Catholic faith, was confirmed in eighth grade then went onto have a born-again Christian experience throughout high school. Around my freshman year my aunt had affair with a priest and then married him. At that point, I stopped blindly following the Catholic faith. As a born-again Christian during those high school years I also have an intense memory of being at a bonfire with my youth group where I experienced the phenomenon of speaking in tongues and I had a vision of being in Jesus’ tomb.

Just before my junior year—and for the next four years—I began working summers at a Catholic camp for mentally challenged youth and adults. The camp was staffed by kids who went to the Catholic high school in my hometown. As counselors they were a wild and rowdy bunch. Their partying ways were juxtaposed to their incredible compassion in caring for campers with limited abilities both physically and in speech. Those summers were another moment where I wondered what defined my religion and questioned Christianity in general as no one from my youth group participated in that kind of community service. Even though I had a sense that there was hypocrisy in religion—I didn’t stop believing in something greater than myself—but I did start to question what was “religion.”

In the 80’s after graduating high school and leaving home, I tried college in a few places then landed in the backcountry of Yosemite National Park working on a California Conservation Corps trail crew. I wish I could say that I blissfully found God again in the beauty of all that nature, but really I just survived an incredibly hostile work environment for the nine-month stint.

But there was a moment in all that natural grandeur that is forever embedded in my memory. Near the end of the season while doing my business—on the outdoor shitter, a pit with a toilet seat—it began to snow.

Given my situation and location, I couldn’t move as a single perfect snowflake the size of my fingernail floated in front of me and landed on the thigh of my pants. And just before it melted away, the intricacy of its delicate beauty was revealed to me. The cut out of paper snowflakes and snowflakes that adorn so much Christmas packaging was in fact real beyond an intellectual exercise in understanding snow.

That snowflake was perfect and elusive. It could not be touched. It could not be a captured. I did not see another snowflake like that then nor during all the other times I have experienced snow. That snowflake could only be held in my mind’s eye as memory. It brought tears to my eyes then and still does even now. It was transitory perfection that I experienced personally. Was it a religious experience? Maybe.

The beauty of Yosemite National Park is and was amazing and after that job I was lucky enough to go to Russia for a climbing expedition. Due to a previous injury, I decided to end my ascent of Mount Elbrus before making the summit and turned back before a guide needed to go with me. And it was there that I had a second moment in my life with a sense of awe that really cannot be captured well with just words.

When I turned around I saw the dawn and the night sky meeting in a line before me with the edge of the glowing sun rising on one side, a spray of stars, and the moon high in a black purple sky on the other side. Again the intellect bows to the understanding of beauty and perfection that is captured in photographs, but rarely seen and experienced personally.

And if that wasn’t enough there was a butterfly two feet away resting on the snow, which even today in my mind defies logic. But my lived experience still holds that moment, which really was a moment as I began my descent down the mountain moving forward through the intense cold back toward Priyut Refuge. Breathless was the view and no one else saw it, as all the heads of my American and Soviet comrades were bent down focused on the small, slow trudging steps taken at 16,000 feet toward the summit of Mount Elbrus.

A few years later when I finally found my way to college at 23 years old, it was there that I began my exploration of religions. I wouldn’t say I was on a quest as much as I stilled wanted to understand dogma and the notion of religion. The hypocrisy of my aunt’s act haunted me, but as time passed and their marriage endured I wondered where dogma and faith intersected? My personal experiences of religious ecstasy and of raw natural beauty made me wonder what makes a religion? What is dogma?

Dictionary.com defines dogma as

1. an official system of principles or tenets concerning faith, morals, behavior, etc.,

   as of a church.

   Synonyms: doctrine, teachings, set of beliefs, philosophy.

2. a specific tenet or doctrine authoritatively laid down, as by a church: the dogma of the Assumption; the recently defined dogma of papal infallibility.

3. prescribed doctrine proclaimed as unquestionably true by a particular group: the difficulty of resisting political dogma.

4. a settled or established opinion, belief, or principle: the classic dogma of objectivity in scientific observation.

The nuances inherent in the English language and the way connotation informs how a word is used are so clearly delineated in the above definition of dogma.

At college I began reading about Sufism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, The Bahá'í Faith, and different sects of Christianity, and over time I began to see the similarities of all religions that I was learning about and at times experiencing when I participated in different religious rituals. I am no theologian, but the basic message felt the same across all religions, but presented in different packaging.

While in college I had another encounter that I added to my catalog of religious experiences. In an old house where I lived I believed my room was haunted. Early one evening while I was sitting in my bed studying. I closed my eyes and felt I couldn’t move. Then a mandala-type shape began pulsating in front of me. The next night I was sleeping and I awoke and again couldn’t move as I lay in my bed. A vision of crinkly aluminum foil highlighted and outlined in an electric blue edge was hovering above me. When I felt released I left my room, drove my truck to lit parking lot so I could sleep for the rest of night. I decided that a new antique teapot I had brought home was the cause of my night visions. I got rid of it, but I really don’t know what that experience was. Within a month of those frightening nights I moved out of the house.

After college I eventually I found myself in New York City running a little art gallery I had started in Tribeca. I lived an ascetic’s life at the gallery with a foldup futon as my bed and little else beyond the art on the walls. One day when the gallery was closed, I had a waking vision.

Lying in my bed a number of knives flew from my torso to land in arc across the room. Mini sunflowers grew up in the holes that were left by the knives creating a grove of flowers growing a foot above the height of my head. Through the flowers a serpent with a head like a tortoise came to rest at my face. I looked at it and was very afraid. I called the name of a friend and a white light in the shape of a human came to me, taking my hand, and helping me to my feet. When they did this the flowers pulled through my torso leaving the stems in the ground behind me with the petals left inside me. When I was standing the light being continued holding my hand and we walked toward a cityscape. As I walked I opened my mouth and the petals flowed out making a ribbon like path toward the city. Then we walked beyond the cityscape coming to an old woman who was covered in a heap of red, white, and blue trash. I began eating the little wrappers and explained, “We must take care of her.”

Later in my process to discern the meaning of the symbolism of that vision, an astrologist said it was the story of my life. Astrology is not something I personally practice, but at the time a friend recommended checking it out and so I did.

All those memories make up my life before November 1999 when the article “This Is Your Brain on God” by Jack Hitt came out in

Had I been experiencing, in its myriad forms—what Hitt described in his article—the electromagnetic pulses that the God Helmet of Michael Persinger’s research could simulate? Were my experiences just so much synapses firing due to electromagnetic stimulation? The article made me ponder even more what is religious experience and its push against science. Even though I am not drawn to scientific reading, I read what I could find in mainstream articles about brain research.

Around this time I realized that I believed all the paradigms of every religion I had encountered so far. Each was right and flawed at the same time: love is the great definer and something exists beyond that. There was an equalizer moment when I could see or rather feel that each part was relevant though not exclusive to a greater whole than any single religion could hold.

All the different experiences from my youth jumbled into one notion, which follow the story of the blind men and the elephant. This story has been interpreted in a variety of ways, but for me the blind men are the religions of the world describing the parts of the elephant and science is the blind guy trying to measure the elephant. Dogma is how each religion attempts to name the truths it has discovered in describing the part of the elephant it’s holding.

And what is the elephant? Could it be the “life force” in The Sea of Troll by Nancy Farmer, or “dust” in The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, or “the force” of Star Wars fame or all the other names that artists call a living presence flowing through the earth when not using the word God?

The elephant for me is all of the above and that something more—the amorphous quality of love: an immeasurable substance with measurable outcomes.

Mata Amritanandamay, known to the world as Amma, is singlehandedly imparting a message of love that transcends religion. “[She] has never asked anyone to change their religion[,] [o]nly to go deeper into their values or faith, and live by those essential principles.” From her website some of her words on love are noted below.

“Love is our true essence.”

An excerpt from a poem I wrote before I read “This Is Your Brain on God” highlights some of my own thinking on love.

...but our poor little brains are so small that we can’t love and think at the same time like walking and chewing gum or patting your head and rubbing your stomach it’s possible if you really concentrate and with practice it could begin to feel natural...

Fast forward to now—and a life that includes more than 14 years of parenting and teaching students to write—and my wonderings about how elements of religion intersect with science have only increased as neuroscience has made even more strides measuring and understanding the human brain.

One of the places—that is leading the charge to learn the skill of patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time—is the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University School of Medicine. Founded in 2008 and directed by Dr. James Doty, Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery, CCARE’s mission “draws from several disciplines including neuroscience, psychology, economics and contemplative traditions[.]”

[R]esearch and programs supported and organized by CCARE examine: the neural correlates, biological bases and antecedents of compassion[;] the effects of compassion on brain and behavior[; and] methods for cultivating compassion and promoting altruism within individuals and society-wide.

For me, this is one of the most important and hopeful endeavors happening on the planet right now and the Dalai Lama thinks so too, having committed his time to work with CCARE. In an op. ed. piece in The Washington Post from June 13, 2016 “Why I’m Hopeful About the World’s Future,” the Dalai Lama writes:

To find solutions to the environmental crisis and violent conflicts that confront us in the 21st century, we need to seek new answers. ...I believe that these solutions lie beyond religion in the promotion of a concept I call secular ethics. This is an approach to educating ourselves based on scientific findings, common experience and common sense — a more universal approach to the promotion of our shared human values.

CCARE’s work connects up with research that is being done around the study of happiness: measuring, creating and sustaining it. As a late-life parent I was blessed with a happy daughter. She was born happy and she continues to be happy. My main goal in life is to not mess that up. In pursuing my own development I have read a number of articles and books about happiness including taking the Awakening Joy course offered by James Baraz.

Actually seeing the notion of a high happiness set point in my daughter and watching her self-sooth with singing and dancing after she is in “trouble” or when she is upset is mind-blowing. Singing is just one of the things that Baraz includes in his course about how to find personal joy. He is teaching a course in something that every person has innately, but somehow many people have lost access to. It is interesting to consider that different religions have used both singing and dancing to create euphoric states of being in adherents.

When I think about religion as a parent, I at times worry what I may not be giving my daughter: dogma to push against when explaining the world beyond the everyday and possibly euphoric experiences that can be encountered through faith in a particular divine being.

Equally fascinating as a parent has been watching the development of memory in my daughter and the creation of her self-narrative and the assigning of meaning to events and things in her life. Parenting her has shown me how much my view on how the world works directly impacts her view of herself. Watching how her Waldorf education collides with interactions with her classmates and seeing all the forces around her mix with her inherent personality has left me awed and of course terrified at the same time. What would be considered “textbook psychology concepts” become quite intense in the direct experience of raising one’s own child.

As an educator of high school students and then college students of various ages I have come to see how much the creation of a self-narrative impacts self-expression. In my teaching what I have found is that fear is the greatest obstacle to writing. Most students have a level of trepidation when it comes to writing expository papers, no matter how good of a writer they may be. My work led me to read about language acquisition. But truth be told, I am not an academic and so the ponderous writing I have read about teaching I find mostly unhelpful, but that expanse of knowledge did bring me back to my musings about religion and brain development.

So where does this all lead? I realize I have stated that I am not a theologian, nor an academic, nor scientist, so what is my perspective? I move through the world with the lived experience of an artist. I am a keen observer into the workings of humans in language, expression, and connection.

The artist is one who attempts to capture the something beyond. Art—photos, paintings, poetry, film, literature, poetry, any medium—permits the immeasurable to be glimpsed fleetingly like little tiny Polaroid photos giving close up images of the elephant. At times more can be understood through the linking of these tiny images of art as they give a depth of detail not discerned by the blind men of religion and they give a glimmer into what science is trying to measure.

As an artist—writing, poetry, filmmaking are the mediums of choice in my life right now—I realized in my teaching that to help my students write I had to create a way for them to face their fear. And what is that fear? It is a fear of the unknown and the chaos of ideas colliding in one’s head before order has been created for logical expression. It is the ordering of ideas that is required for writing.

I believe the process of writing is a metaphor for how humanity interacts with science and religion creating an interlink that cannot be articulated in words at this time in human development. The pre-writing techniques that I am about to share weren’t invented by me, but in them I see the gestalt of how religion and science balance each other and are both needed for how the mind works.

With my students there are three components that I utilized to begin the process of writing a paper. The first step is creating a web—a circle in the middle of the page with the topic to be considered—where floating ideas are captured and noted on lines coming out from the center circle. This is a non-linear thinking process and I tell my students that if “Aunt Bertha” shows up write her name down; don’t censor the unconscious even though “Aunt Bertha” or any other thought may seem completely unrelated to the topic in the center of the web.

Next, once the web process is done the student should let the task compost, which means walking away leaving the web alone for a period of time. This part of pre-writing I believe is unique to my teaching strategy, but I have found through my own experimentation on myself and with classes that this is the most important element to the writing task. I call it composting because I believe the captured thoughts that have moved from the mind to paper become digested by the mind again—in a way that moves beyond just rethinking about the webbed ideas—improving what was originally captured. In the silence “Aunt Bertha” begins to be revealed for what she is: shorthand, a symbol—about a related experience to the topic selected.

When the composting is done, outlining begins. There is no required amount of time for the composting to be effective, as I have employed the strategy for timed writing tests. The web is used to create the outline and the composting process feeds a sense of order for the structure and the symbol of “Aunt Bertha” is often fully revealed as the magic piece that weaves through out the writing task. Now it should be noted that this process is often happening for the naturally fluent writer without even realizing it. I myself am doing some of this for every piece of writing I undertake though not in such a structured form unless I am stuck.

Through this process I believe I have slowed down a naturally occurring process that is constantly at work in the mind. Our lives are filled with experiences that are constantly being sifted through to make meaning and create order. Religion makes meaning—religion becomes the symbols, a kind of shorthand to spiritual experiences, which can be chaotic, but through dogma become clarified. Science creates order—the ordering of the measurable and the creating logic about the vastness that is life on earth. The composting connects in the something beyond and is a part of the elephant though I cannot explain exactly why I think that.

The mind has two hemispheres that function differently, but symbiotically. The notions of science and religion are a duality juxtaposed as a riddle. In essence human thought is the sum of black and white. The chemical reaction for creating a black and white photo is like life in the world, as we know it now. But if we take a step back and think more simply about how to create the color gray for a painting of the elephant—maybe the color gray is the fruit of yin and yang, a view of interlocking hemispheres of the brain? How much of black and white determines the hue of this ambiguous color? What is the balance of science and religion where their duality is unified and symbiotic?

Smeared with a palette knife where is the point between black and white called gray? Light gray, dark gray...it’s all gray.

© Maureen Eich VanWalleghan July 2020

Graham Norton, The New Antidepressant

Here is a glimpse into my secret mommy life: no one is home...my husband's on the road working, my daughter's away on an overnight school field trip and I am home totally alone for an extended period of time (overnight from yesterday).

The color snapshot looks like this: I really need a shower, awful hair pulled back into a ponytail sort of, if you can call a clump of hair the length of your thumb a ponytail. The hair-tie is only working because of the grease. Soft teal plushy bathrobe under which is an old lady house dress given to me by an old lady, sorry Mom, the truth hurts. This is the ugliest garment I own, but the most comfortable to sleep in when it's hot. Comfort trumps sex appeal at this stage of my life. 

[Can I just say that every time I want to use the word trump I pause and have the visual image of "you know who"—self-censorship almost always stops me most days from using the word, but not today.]

I have just spent the last two hours watching 2017 movie trailers. I love movie trailers. There are so many fun, great movies I want to see and frankly, I will never have the time to do so. Watching trailers is fabulous because it's the essence of the movie. I hated to watch trailers before I had a kid because I didn't like to see all the greatest parts of the movie jammed together. I loved the surprise of going to a movie and watching it unfold. Sound effect: record scratch...who has time for that once you become a mother? NEVER. GOING. TO. HAPPEN. Now if I watch a movie I better love it for the two-plus-hour investment I am making.

But with movie trailers, it's like I just watched A Lot of movies. Do the math: on average, 3-minute clips for 120 minutes. I have laughed and cried repeatedly, an emotional roller coaster. There's maybe one movie I'll see in it's complete form from that gorgefest and my selection will probably change once or twice before I actually get to Redbox in the next few months.

So more of my unedited life that I would not share on Facebook in picture form. My desk is in the middle of the dining area of my new house. Tiny scraps of paper are strewn about on its surface, a little pile of business cards, clean underpants (so I could find them), and a stack of unread Hollywood Reporters all surround my laptop. Boxes are everywhere around my oasis of semi-controlled chaos that is my work space. And small piles of dirty clothes are about the floor. 

Newsflash: I have sh*#!t to do. My kid is coming home this evening and I will be gone next week. I probably have about two hours more before the whirling dervish in me comes out to get ready for the trip and the next week—all while trying to ignore the boxes screaming to be unpacked. Oh yeah, and I have a writing deadline... Ha, ha, ha, I laugh at deadlines and laundry (even if I do have to go to the laundromat—oh, how I pine for my wonderful washing machine...)

As I write, I am enjoying a raspberry sorbet popsicle, my second for breakfast. This is my second course: my first course was chocolate chips. Soon I will be feasting on some popcorn with brewers yeast. All food of the gods and a throw back to how I ate in college. Once in crazy moment when my husband wasn't home, I said to my daughter let's eat for dinner what I used eat when I was in college—essentially the meal noted above (if you can call it a meal). After the ice cream and a handful of popcorn, she looked at me and said "Mom, I need some real food." I must be doing something right, thank God.

So my real reason for writing today and what stopped the movie trailer viewing fest was an ongoing urgent need to write a love letter to Graham Norton. Rare is it to have this kind of alone time and really my secret pleasure is mini clips from the Graham Norton show on the BBC. I usually watch them late at night on my iPhone with my noise-cancelling headphones. But after this I'll watch a few on my laptop. Oh, happy day.

I do a lot of reading about the science of happiness and compassion. I want to be a neuroscientist when I grow up. Probably not going to happen, but there is a Ph.D program at Stanford called Modern Thought and Literature, which is interdisciplinary—I would like to be in that program and do research connected to The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) also at Stanford. I will be applying for this program when my girl is a senior in high school, right after I finish my miniseries, documentary and feature film. Maybe just in my dreams, but I am persistent. 

Anyway Graham Norton is a part of my personal self-care and health program—all connected to happiness. 

It all started when I was watching clips of Keanu Reeves' interviews for research—Graham eye-roll here—and in the YouTube feed was a little clip "on the couch" with Whoopi Goldberg and Keanu Reeves.

[A quick aside: I really am working on a documentary that I want Mr. Reeves to narrate. So here's a quick synopsis. 

Looking At Clouds, Listening To Wind
Finding Our Compassion In Nature 

We are at a confluence of events right now—a tipping point. Science, particularly neuroscience has measured what is known through faith and intuitively through the spiritual world: humanity is most happy, compassionate and loving when we are deeply connected and rooted in the natural world. Journalist and author Richard Louv documents a global phenomenon, which he calls “nature deficit disorder” in his seminal work Last Child In The Woods. In this age of rapidly expanding technology use, children are not playing outside and this is creating a disconnect for the future care of our planet and potentially impacting the compassion we need to sustain our ourselves. Through interviews with Louv, parents, educators, children and the world’s spiritual leaders: Amma, the Dalai Lama, and the Pope, filmmaker VanWalleghan illustrates the truth of Louv’s work.]

Mr. Reeves if you read this—my documentary (in all earnestness and sincerity)—could be a life changer and will win an Oscar once I get it made, especially if you're the narrator. Please call my people...

And with a sardonic smile lest I take myself too seriously, we return back to the writing at hand. I watched Keanu squirming as Whoopi revealed the truth of aging and I belly laughed. Clearly, it was a mortifying moment for Mr. Reeves, but after more little clips I realized that he's not the only celebrity to be mortified on Graham Norton's couch. 

And there began my love for Mr. Norton. I would watch these little clips at night after a long hard day. You know the kind: I hate my husband, I think I have damaged my kid to the point that she's going to need a lot of therapy when she leaves home; and my favorite late night angst-ridden thoughts: "What is the meaning of it all?" But then I watch a few or a lot of these little Graham Norton clips and off to sleep I go with a smile on my face. No, Mr. Norton I have not subscribed, but I am getting close.

Humor is one of the key ingredients to maintaining happiness. A quick digression...my pet fly is bothering me (not enough window screens in my new place.) I have the flyswatter and I just gave him a near miss swat, so close his life flashed before his compound eye. Now he's knows to stay away because I am writing.

Mr. Norton you are impacting mental health one viewer at a time. I have watched your show in various forms: "The Best Of" clips, the whole show, whole interviews, and the individual mini clips. The mini clips are my favorite. The cumulative total of watching 10 or even 15 clips equals nearly 30 minutes of belly laughing. Belly laughing leads to a good night's sleep and usually good dreams and waking up with a smile on one's face. Better than sex? Probably not, but the investment of time for sex is much greater when your tired partner is already snoring in bed.

In my reading the studies show that a great deal of happiness is predicated on the individual's attitude and attitude is a personal choice. Read a bit of Pollyanna and this notion rings true from the pages of that old novel. This is the bedtime reading for my daughter right now. I highly recommend it.

Also if you consider that recent neuroscience studies show our brain synapses are impacted by complaining, which may rewire one's brain toward negativity, which could in turn change one's personal reality... Whoa. WHOA. WHHHOOOAAA. Graham Norton we need you.

Belly laughing is impacting mental health and physical health. I am going to suggest that if one is feeling happy this can also help bring us outdoors. I wonder if there isn't a chicken and egg conundrum about getting outside. It can be hard to make oneself go outside if one is tired—so I say humor promotes a deeper rest, which in turn can promote wanting to get outside, and being outside promotes compassion. 

Graham do you see my point? You are an antidepressant. Please for one of your show's read this study. I do seem to be getting familiar: no "Mr." anymore. 

So the secret to your success—and I have watched a few comedian-hosted shows (I don't want to name names because someday I might be famous after I have won my first Oscar)—is this: sarcasm mixed with awe and reverence and a dash of incredulousness thrown in. What is most funny is that guests can't take themselves too seriously—sitting on your couch with other interesting and famous people—because either your eye-rolling, giddy laugh or just highlighting the ridiculous as it relates to celebrity keeps everything real. Just about every famous person was not famous at one point in their life. I think you help folks remember that, which is very revealing and can be very uncomfortable for someone famous. Celebrities have armor and for the briefest moments we mere mortals see behind the armor and realize that the edited life is just that "edited." 

So keep up the good work. And if ever you want to host me on your couch I would like to be seated next to Meryl Streep, Harvey Keitel, Winona Ryder, and Keanu Reeves. All folks I would like to direct in my future filmmaking career. 

I know your people will call my people. I'll be patiently waiting by the phone while doing that mothering thing I do. But first: I need to take a shower, eat some real food (I have a popcorn headache) and pick up the dirty laundry from off the floor before my daughter gets home.

But secretly before all that I'm going to watch a few more of your mini clips. Thank you Mr. Norton for my future belly laughs.

On My Soapbox For Art

Last week I was enjoying a comfortable morning, sitting in a friend's backyard swing. We talked about knitting (she is my knitting mentor) and then we started chatting about my grand art theories and my recent blog post about measuring the physical effects of art on the brain. We are both into Waldorf Education, so I consider us very like-minded. In the midst of the conversation, my dear friend jumped in with a great point—really the "aha" moment—when she said that petting a cat lowers blood pressure, which is measurable. My point exactly. No major scientific breakthrough needed...it really ought to be possible to measure the impact of art on the brain (and/or the body).

So back to my previous blog post: This Is Your Brain...On Art, I think the connection to be made is this: given that Happiness and Compassion studies are happening right now, an important task would be a long-term study about how interacting with art has a measurable impact on the brain and could possibly counter-balance the effects of digital consumption.

Stanford has The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE). Since the fear and measurable probability is that brains are being changed by digital consumption, for example: are violent video games making kids more violent? With the brain as the last frontier, what scientists should consider is what makes a healthy brain. Measuring the brain centers that link to compassion and altruism, one has to wonder where art interactions fit. 

I think there is a strong connection between "beauty" and compassion and altruism. Of course, I can only discuss this anecdotally, but consider the impact of nature. Studies have been done, are being done that show how important connecting with nature is to the human psyche. Much of what people connect with is the beauty. Is there a value in beauty? 

Now let's consider the Puritans, whose impact can still be felt when it comes to art. Is it possible to discuss the intersection of a Puritan ethic in art rippling toward a wave that crashes against joy, beauty, digital consumption and brain health? (That is probably a dissertation waiting to be written.)

As a summation of the tumultuous thoughts swirling in my brain, here's what I think we need: a national conversation about the "value" of art and the human mind's need for it (What makes us human? Our ability to make symbols?) This is a conversation that needs to happen now, to figure out how to balance the brain changes that are happening from digital consumption.

Phew...I know it's just a blog post, but finally I get to have my own soap box. My call to arms: WE NEED ART!

This Is Your Brain...On Art

Folks, I am reporting at the scene of a head-on collision. Art, life and motherhood lay before me in a gnarled messy mass. I went to get new tires this week and thought I would have a relaxing hour of knitting—my newish favorite activity that provides me with zen relaxation and funky home-made stuff (think: pillow covers, kid purses and scarves)—instead my eye was drawn to the magazines (listen for the crescendo in the music) particularly the latest issue of Newsweek featuring a cover article by Tony Dokoupil, “Is the Web Driving Us Mad? The new research into the Net’s negative effects.” 

Ahhhhhhhh, there’s the crash...I’m a mom and I just bought an iphone, HELP! 

It’s a fascinating article, with lots of information about the now-measurable—hitherto unknown previously, except through behavioral studies—changes in brain matter from the use of digital media that can now be recorded through brain scans. Frightening...one of my colleagues that I bumped into by the copy machine—when I was at my office at ERAU (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University) to finish grading summer school papers—made a comment about how students’ brains really are changing because of technology. Now she’s vindicated. We really are becoming the Borg. (Pretty crazy to think a Star Trek concept is being discussed in Newsweek magazine regarding real life.)

And what does that mean for me as a mom? I already have the digital media faucet on a drip, drip, drip for my daugther: our family does not have TV; we only watch movies once a week on Friday or Saturday nights (and once in awhile on Saturdays when I have a writing deadline—shh don’t tell anyone); I only permit her two 15 minute increments a day for playing with her kid computer that she got from her auntie; and she goes to a Waldorf charter school where media consumption is frowned on. But, I did just buy an iphone and she keeps asking what games I got for her to play. HELP!

So here’s more of the collision: besides thinking about technology in regards to education, which is not going away (I teach writing and ERAU has just added a new electronic portfolio program for students, I will be using it this fall); I am also an artist, a former gallery owner and frankly, someone who can’t live without making and viewing art. 

The Humanities/Communications departmental homework I am doing right now involves crafting my version of a seven-year plan that has as it’s focal point a return to art-centric coursework (yes, I know ERAU is a technology-focused institution.) But, Occasional Paper Number Ten entitled Shakespeare For Analysts: Literature And Intelligence from the Joint Military Intelligence College has been a fascinating read (a little something from my department chair) as has a 2009 article by Angelika Festa in Human Architecture entitled “Teaching Critical Thinking to Freshman Writers by Engaging Contemporary Artists’ Work,” which was sent out through a department-wide email. 

Something is happening...humanity can not live on technology alone. From Dokoupil’s Newsweek piece, the below quote really articulates this for me.

Recently it became possible to watch this kind of Web use rewire the brain. In 2008 Gary Small, the head of UCLA’s Memory and Aging Research Center, was the first to document changes in the brain as a result of even moderate Internet use. He rounded up 24 people, half of them experienced Web users, half of them newbies, and he passed them each through a brain scanner. The difference was striking, with the Web users displaying fundamentally altered prefrontal cortexes. But the real surprise was what happened next. The novices went away for a week, and were asked to spend a total of five hours online and then return for another scan. “The naive subjects had already rewired their brains,” he later wrote, musing darkly about what might happen when we spend more time online.

So what’s the rest of the smash up? Art and art education—for everyone—needs to make a comeback. What researchers need to start measuring and studying through brain scans is how the interaction with art—the making of it and viewing of it—impacts the brain. Of course, there are some studies out there about the importance of “art education” in the elementary grades and maybe even studies at the post-secondary level—now there’s a dissertation to pursue. But, what most of us in Humanities departments (and English and art teachers at every grade level) across the country already know intrinsically is that creativity and all it’s byproducts—literature, poetry, painting, performance, photography, drawing, etc., etc., etc—are vital for developing and maintaining a healthy mind (i.e. a person).

So how about a few brain scans for a potential public service announcement: This Is Your Brain...On Art.

Everything's Changed

My father died two weeks ago and one of my dearest friends from high school—who still lives where we grew up—gave me as a gift, Paul Simon's album Surprise. I listened to it on the drive home after my stay in California (for the memorial service). The whole album is great and most every song spoke to me. I haven't really heard new music is such a long time. I felt lucky for the gift and amazingly there was a song about a father's love. And another song with the line: "Nothing is different, but everything’s changed," which sums up my life right now.

Anyway, this morning I slept late. I am not quite settled into what will be my new writing and teaching routine. Frankly, I still feel tired, so I am trying to be gentle with myself. When the alarm went off at 5:41am, I ignored it and figured since my husband is working the late shift this week, he could take our daughter to school today. On a late day it so helpful to have him drive her since I am getting my daughter ready to go (and still running around in my pjs) while he is leisurely getting himself ready...no need to explain further this rather familiar scenario for moms everywhere.

After everyone left I found myself still slightly agitated by the inefficiency of six year olds and the stubbornness of husbands.

[We pause for an interruption: the Husband has returned...talk radio is on and out come my ignoraphones (BOSE acoustic noise canceling headphones) better than a door when I am trying write. Now we return to our previous programing...]

With everyone out of the house, I was alone thinking of what I needed to do. My usual habit when I am bugged or mad is to get online and surf around the trash magazines: People and US, but then I remembered the Paul Simon line from the album: "Nothing is different, but everything’s changed." I decided to figure out which song that was from. Oh how I love the internet. The song is "Once upon a time, there was an ocean."

Once upon a time, there was an ocean

But now it’s a mountain range
Something unstoppable set into motion
Nothing is different, but everything’s changed

Sitting at my desk, I thought I would write in my journal, but it's in the car and it's cold outside. My desk is a wreck. One of my tasks is to clean it up so that I can get back to my writing life, but not today. Instead I decided that today is the day I get back to this blog, which I started for myself last year. I didn't quite follow through with writing here as I had hoped. No single reason I kept me away, except maybe fear. Somehow for me, blogging is a scary endeavor, kind of akin to streaking: you don't really know who is seeing you naked as you run past.

Getting past the fear of making art is something I definitely want to consider in this blog. While I was at my dad's house I watched the movie The Time Traveler's Wife with my stepmother. A day or two later, I had a moment where life imitates art and I spoke to myself across the years. While sitting at my dad's desk after checking my email, I was looking at his things and thinking about what was important to him. On his shelf was a book I had given him ten years ago: Art and Fear, Observations On The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking.

I doubt he read it, which I will explain in a different blog post, but for me, that book is the book I need right now. "Nothing is different, but everything’s changed." I have a lot of writing I want to do and hopefully, writing this blog will help support me in my bigger projects.

Motherhood Is A Way Of Life

I started this blog because as a woman who thinks and as a mother who is finding her way, I wanted to talk about or rather to write about the state of motherhood today. Literally, motherhood for me has been a place, mommyville. A place where I felt lost. At different moments I have read books about motherhood, but recently I really found myself on a quest to understand and possibly figure out why I felt like s#$% so much of the time.

I have found mommyville to be a very lonely place. Intrinsically, in my own head, the solitary nature of my life feels unnatural. Intellectually, I know that mothering has been a more group endeavor thru the ages and of course there is the famous line: It takes a whole village to raise a child. What is most distressing is how hypocritical that line is given the structure of family life for the modern 21st century mother.

Years ago, before I became a mom I read misconceptions by Naomi Wolf. In my process of transformating into a mother I sadly did not reread it. During my daughter's first year I followed the babyfruit blog by Aliza Sherman. I lived very remotely at the time and this was the only daily contact I had with a woman of my age who was a mom that I happen to personally know from years before when I lived in New York City. I think because I actually once knew her, she didn't seem completely removed from me and instead there was the optical illusion that somehow we were friends even though our connection was only via me reading her blog. Also my cousin had a daughter about six months after I did. Even though we are similar in age we don't really compare child rearing notes as I think we came to the experience from very different places. And yet I believe our struggles have been the same. When we (my husband, daughter and I) moved to a town I finally connected with a few other moms through the daycare program where I enrolled my daughter. Also I am lucky that my own mother lives close by and has actively supported me as a mom by helping me take of my daughter. Our relationship is such that I tend not to ask her too many question about mothering, but I do listen to her when we check in about my daughter and take to heart a few of her suggestions.

Thus my experience as a mother has been a lonely journey. It is this loneliness that I want to address and figure out can it be changed. Even though I now have a few mommy friends and my daughter is five years old, the day to day existence of mothering in the year 2011 is still a solitary effort that is completely invisible to the world. How did this happen? Does it matter? Maybe...there are many books looking at the postfeminist world. What I am interested in is how to make mommyville a joyful place where mothers really do enjoy the rearing of children. I am sure that plenty of mothers will cry foul and say that they enjoy being a mom, but isn't it possible that the structure of the modern life has really robbed mothers of a physical existence that could be more aligned with how women are wired to function? Couldn't mommyville be a place where mothers pursue the work of childrearing and pursue their own development as people without the crazy juggling act that most moms try to do? Functioning in a world that treats motherhood as an invisible occupation is crazymaking...