tamarjacobson

Quote of the day:

George Washington Carver once warned against letting any man drag you so low as to make you hate him. Marian Wright Edelman

I am always amazed at my own resilience. Sometimes at night I am exhausted. Physically, emotionally, cognitively. From working, thinking, feeling all day. And then after a good night’s sleep I wake up full of bounce and energy ready to go again. The night before, all the days ahead seem so full of work and responsibility that I feel I might fall down under the weight of it. And so, lately, when I start to feel overwhelmed in the night, sometimes just before I fall asleep, for example, I say to myself in my mind, "Don’t think about it now. Wait until tomorrow morning," and then I fall right to sleep as relaxed as can be, as if some kindly, strong and constant parent has just tucked me into bed. And then, the next morning, the burden seems as light as can be and I am rearing to go.

Resilience is intriguing to me. I don’t think I’m alone in my fascination with humankind’s will to survive even the harshest of circumstances. Tales of this or that person’s strength when all seems lost hold my attention and inspire me. Always have. I am especially struck by people who seem to have no fear and do great deeds: Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa, you know, people like that. Fear is such a stumbling block to activism. Fear of what people think, wanting to be liked by everyone, fear of the unknown, physical or emotional discomfort, or even fear of one’s own mortality.

For the longest time I hoped someone would come along and save me. Now I understand that resilience has also to do with realizing I am the only person who can save me. When I am out of confidence or sliding into one of my ancient abysses, that realization seems lonely. On the other hand, early in the next morning of energy and bounce-back, that realization feels like strength and courage.

Resilience has to do with energy, bounce-back, hope, strength, courage, the ability to climb out of the abyss, and most importantly, attitude.

And for me, resilience has to do with time of day.

Happy Spring, Bloggers!

Dedicating this, one of my all time favorite songs from my all-time favorite movie, Magnolia, to all us "inner-musing-navel-gazing-all-connected-bloggers" out there, not because I think it pertains to you, but because I want to share with you that which is so relevant for me:

Momentum: Aimee Mann

Oh, for the sake of momentum
I’ve allowed my fears to get larger than life
And it’s brought me to my current agendum
Whereupon I deny fulfillment has yet to arrive

[Chorus:]
And I know life is getting shorter
I can’t bring myself to set the scene
Even when it’s approaching torture
I’ve got my routine

But I can’t confront the doubts I have
I can’t admit that maybe the past was bad
And so, for the sake of momentum
I’m condemning the future to death
So it can match the past.

A year ago at Tamarika: Old ways of communicating

… which started back here:

Descriptions of purely inner musings are self-obsessive and irrelevant to anyone else. Andy at Older, But No Wiser.

… and continued with Andy:

But something I read at your place, Tamarika, made me wonder whether that joining up of worlds always has to be in a single post, or whether the weaving might not take place just as effectively across a spectrum of posts and the conversations which arise out of them?

… and I replied:

Yes, yes, Andy. I think that’s true for me, certainly. The weaving takes place across and through all of my posts and comments all over my blog all the time. In fact, I think of it as one long tale of my emotional, imaginative, psychical, cyclical, realistic, physical, and spiritual worlds/life – whatever – all the time. So that, indeed, even though it might be considered self-obsessive, navel-gazing, it can be relevant and connected to others too. By knowing me, by identifying with pieces that are themselves or the external world of society really or virtually …

For we are, all, connected.

During our anniversary the house was full of flowers. Daffodils of course, the symbolic flower of the day for us. Freesias that were ordered for the table at the romantic restaurant dinner, and then a bunch of carnations and such as a gift just because the day was the day. It was all so pretty and festive. Wherever the eye fell there bloomed another flower. After a week they all started to wilt. That’s what happens with flowers. It’s the nature of things. They herald the aftermath, the clean-up after the party, or the farewell-it’s-over-time-to-move-on-to-the-next-thing. Sometimes I try to salvage a few remaining live flowers and create a new arrangement to last just a few more days, but they always look different somehow. Not quite right. Like holding-on-to-the-past-too-long …

Celebrations are like that. The build-up, the festivities, and then, the clean up and move on. Cyclical. Come and gone.

Not quite gone though. For they leave behind a trail of memories that stay with us, sometimes, forever. My old friend, Mary sent me an e-mail once after we had danced together all night at a conference. She wrote:

tamar

memories are moments that refuse to be …

ordinary …

A year ago at Tamarika: The gift of early childhood

Quote of the day:

From Winston at Nobody Asked.

Hello blog. I’m back. I’ve been away for awhile. I mean, that’s how it felt. In fact, it felt like a bug on its back, little legs flailing about in the air unable to turn over upright again. Almost like I could not seem to find my way back to me. And then suddenly someone said to me, "Imagine that they cut off your leg below the knee. And you had to learn to live without it."

What a metaphor. It made sense instantaneously. Of course, it made me really mad at first. You know, that stage that always comes right before acceptance?

And now the bug is almost right side up, legs still struggling, going at quite a pace, still a bit out of control. A little nudge and soon it will be upright again, waddling off into the sunset. Isn’t that where all little bugs scramble off to?

And just as it all started falling back into place, I met a brand new friend. On the train. Coming back from presenting at a conference. The workshop was a hit. Accolades galore. And then I met a brand new friend.

That’s what happens when the bug turns upright again. Feelers reach up and out and open its buggy heart and soul to brand new friends.

Just like that.

A year ago at Tamarika: Green, green

I didn’t always own a car. Living in Israel 19 years ago I used public transport but mostly rode to and from work on an old Raleigh bicycle. I loved my bike. In January 1988 I wrote a little piece in my journal about it. I was preparing to give the bicycle away to my step-daughter, Tammy, as I planned to emigrate to America. I wrote:

I like the idea of riding through my life. I jump on my bicycle – blue and silver, gentle friend – you gave me strength, stability, you helped me share the world around – the sea, the green, the warm, spring days, the blistering summer wind, the cold, wet winter – on your saddle, your wheels spinning round, you helped me realize my own strength, my freedom to choose, to act – I loved you so for this. I would ride with the wind in my hair – so free, so at one with all around me, and slowly but surely I built up the shivering, trembling, frightened me. I learned my strengths, I learned my weaknesses, I learned my independence and learned to love my alone-ness.

These days I hardly ever ride a bike. I take trains and walk, but mainly I drive. Nowadays, I love my car. It has become like a little home as I commute for hours back and forth from work, to and fro shopping around about the Chestnut Hill area. On the front seat, at my side I have a box of tissues, flashlight and cough drops. In the cupholder is a tall bottle of water. Sticking out of the heating duct is a little, rubbery green frog that Janna once gave me because I loved the movie, Magnolia so much when it first came out that I saw it three times in one week. Also from Janna is a little Mickey Mouse doll she picked up with a Happy Meal she purchased years ago. When I came out to my car, Mickey was lying face down on the windscreen under the windshield wiper. As Director of the Child Care Center in those days, I was very strict about not allowing Disney characters to decorate the walls. I guess Janna thought I deserved such a Mickey for putting them through a strict aesthetic code! I love my frog and Mickey because that way I know that Janna thought about me. In a drawer under the dashboard I store my Cd’s that fill the car with music as I drive: Eric Clapton, The Idan Raichel Project, a CD of "music for Tamar" created by Anya last summer, and Patti Griffin, to name a few.

Patti Griffin sings as I drive:

… Making all this time stand still
I’m standing, I’m standing, I’m standing
… Mother, I am weak but I am strong
Standing in the darkness this long
But in the deepest darkness I listen to your song
Mother I am weak but I am strong …

And I become stronger. Just like all those years ago, when I was young, lithe, and brown-skinned, and rode my bicycle through my life.

A year ago at Tamarika: A note (update)

Quote of the day:

We can make the sun shine when it’s dark and make it dark when the sun shines; we can be warm when it’s cold or cold when it’s warm.  But in the process we’ve disconnected ourselves from the essential of life, which is nature…we need to remember that we are all made out of the same stuff.  In every one of us there’s a little bit of whale, of rose, of fern, of butterfly.

Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, speaking as part of the Distinguished Speakers Series, University at Buffalo on March 1.

This semester I am taking a faculty course, Writing Across the Curriculum. Riding on the train to Philadelphia this morning to see my favorite dentist, I was reading an essay by Kenneth Bruffee about collaborative learning and conversation of humankind, which is part of homework for next week’s class.

As I was reading, it occurred to me that a lot of what he was saying was appropriate for blogging. Especially those types of blogs that allow comments, dialog and interaction. He wouldn’t have thought of that back in 1984 but I kept thinking, "Hmm … this applies so well to blogging."

For example [from pages 641 and 642]:

… the human conversation takes place within us as well as among us, and that conversation as it takes place within us is what we call reflective thought … human thought is consummately social; social in its origins, social in its functions, social in its form, social in its applications [quoting Clifford Geertz].

And now, look at this:

If thought is internalized conversation, then writing is internalized conversation re-externalized … writing is at once two steps away from conversation and a return to conversation. We converse; we internalize conversation as thought; and then by writing, we re-immerse conversation in its external, social medium. My ability to write this essay, for example, depends on my ability to talk through with myself the issues I address here … what I have to say can, of course, originate in thought, and often does. But my thought itself is conversation as I have learned to internalize it. The point, therefore, is that writing always has its roots deep in the acquired ability to carry on the social symbolic exchange we call conversation.

Wow. Is blogging always on my mind?

Do I see, hear, feel, sense blogging on trains, at the dentist, reading essays, raking the yard, feeding birds, doing yoga, on the treadmill, driving to work, teaching students, watching TV, going to the movies, having lunch with friends, playing with the cat, everywhere, any how, all the time?

Am I talking to me?

A year ago at Tamarika: Dream state

Update:

Quote of the day:

Descriptions of purely inner musings are self-obsessive and irrelevant to anyone else. Andy at Older, But No Wiser.

The weather is good. Warm and sunny. Birds are everywhere sharing the glee with me, not even waiting for me to complete pouring their food into the feeder, calling to one another all around the tree tops as I walk away with the seed bucket, and swooping down almost, just almost on top of me.

Spring break and lots to do. Coming and going. Yesterday I had lunch with a friend and she urged me to play this week. I wonder what I will do? Walk by the Wissahickon perhaps? Read something not related to work? Free, fun time. She said, "You deserve it!" What a friend, eh? I can take extra time with my yoga postures, breathing exercises and meditation. Yum. I love that. Ada can sit for a long while on my lap while I stroke her and stare out at the woods in silence. I love that too. Her little body warming my legs, purring finding its rhythm into my heart, steadying its pace and bringing peace into my chest and lungs.

Beautiful day in every way. I allow it to define my mood, mold my inner turmoils and soothe the stormy thoughts that otherwise take over the brain with tension and anxiety. Blow it all away. Listen to the chaos, fear, violence, garbage out there in the world, close to home and think of the mess, the almighty mess, greedy dominant men in government have made to feed our minds and souls.

Breathe in the beautiful day and blow it all away.

Queen of the Desert.

Assumption, my dear Mitz, is the mother of all fxxck-ups. Marion

Mamma Mia!