On Ash Sunday

I did not grow up knowing anything about Ash Wednesday, having been raised marginally Baptist. I remember my first Ash Wednesday at All Saints in Tempe, Arizona. I'm not sure I have missed more than one disposition of ashes in the seventeen years since. Every time the experience strikes me as a powerful reminder of my mortality.

Something about today's disposition of ashes (many of us were snowed/iced out of attending services on Wednesday, so it was Ash Wednesday redux on Sunday) resonated with me and some of my recent ruminations: the freedom that comes with knowing you come from and will return to dust. A contemporary Episcopal riff on Henri-Frédéric Amiel says, "Life is short and we have too little time to gladden the hearts of those who travel the way with us."

Life is short, indeed. From there I think it's really a matter of how we feel about our brief journey here. I have known people to concern themselves with building a legacy in their short time. To be fair, most of the those I have heard express that sentiment have wanted to leave behind a memorable contribution to society. I admire that.

I suspect my lasting impression will be a headstone in a field—unremarkable in its stature, location or general significance—as weather and time ware away even that. Maybe I have or will cross paths with some great person of our time and have an odd mention in a biography or two, in which everyone will surely mispronounce my last name. Perhaps at my university many years from now someone will find that I was responsible for the renaming of my program, probably from whatever the then-program was once, and say, "oh, that was his name," which will be mispronounced, again. Of my writing, there may be an essay I have written that a student turns to generations from now, finding something I said a useful footnote (silently mispronouncing my name, one final time).

Old City Cemetery, Lynchburg, VA (Photo by author)

I leave my legacy to the ashes. Slowly, everyday I learn to embrace the transitory. A tasty dish or beautiful bloom lasts only a short time, so I want to soak in its pleasure; that's the whole point, right? Lest anyone think me trying pass myself off as very zen, I admit I hold onto scraps that remind me of moments and people past owing to deep sentimentality. Even still, I work every day to enjoy the moments whizzing by; that's why I take some many pictures of my daughter just being herself. French cuisine and spring bulbs do not my legacy make; my legacy like so, so many of our legacies, will lie in the other ashes: it will be "those who travel with [me]."


My legacy exists in my relationships; talk about an evanescent marker! In my work I meet some fascinating people who spend a few months in my class. Periodically I hear back from one, saying something positive about my brief time in their travels. Teaching aside, I have and will continue to enjoy meeting a number of fine, kind, funny, intelligent, helpful, and uplifting people. Every once and again I manage to be one of those things for them, even if for an instant. We will have no grand markers for gladdening the hearts of others, well, most of us won't, anyway (I'm excepting here memorable artists, thinkers, pioneers, and defenders).

Who ever said life was about our monuments? Ashes to ashes; we come from nothing and then return to them, scattered in the wind. If you and I only have these fleeting moments, let's enjoy them together. A laugh, a helpful word, a small act to make the day just a little lighter and brighter or at least less lonely, these are the stones in our legacies. They'll be forgotten in time, but I won't be there to care; neither will you.

Happy Divorce!(?)

I never know what to say when someone tells me they're getting divorced. "I'm so sorry to hear that," doesn't sound right; I assume my friend came to the decision for well-thought through reasons and this will help both parties move on with their lives in a more positive manner. "That's good news," hardly sounds appropriate, though; everything I have seen suggests that however needed divorce may be, there is inherent pain to the end of a once love- and joy-filled relationship.

Up front I should clarify that I have never been divorced; I am married, and every day I work toward making this partnership work rather than veering toward dissolution. My parents' divorce provided my only up-close and personal experience with the topic (the actual divorce spread over nearly six years, from the month I started the eighth grade to when I had just finished my first year of college). That experience has largely shaped my attitude toward divorce. I cannot speak for my parents' or siblings' experience with that divorce, so I won't.

Before my parents divorce, concluding a thirty year marriage that produced five children, my father had payed passing attention to me. I cannot charge that I ever experienced neglect or that my father abused me in some way. He, a child of the Great Depression, may not have been especially expressive or attentive, but I would never say my father ignored me, either. I remember having in-patient eye surgery when I was not-quite ten; while I was in the OR, he seemingly bought out a local toy store. The story makes me smile a little because I like to think that the shopping spree was him worrying about me, which seemed a rare occurrence. I also recall mornings he drove me to school (occasionally he assigned an employee of his to the task) and the times he let me ride with him on big farm machinery when I was fairly young, so I do have pleasant memories of being with my dad. On the whole, though, he did not stake out a significant part of my childhood. Dad went to work, and Mom raised us: that's just how it was.

My parents at 26 years, a happy moment

I also remember life in the house before my parents' divorce. Those memories get sadder as they get later. By the time I turned 10, my mother, who served as the emotional center for a household with three kids still at home, became depressed and took to her bed with migraines as she also began a career as an insomniac. This went on for a few years. It's hardly the stuff of a Dickens novel, but it doesn't exactly qualify as a Kirk Cameron Christmas either.

When my mother filed for divorce she set into motion a change for healthier family dynamics. My mom became visibly happier—not all at once, mind you. Slowly, steadily, she became happier, she coped better, and, to be blunt, she became a more engaged mother. As you might expect, the house became less toxic. Tension in the home lowered. I will not cast my father into the role of an ogre who had to be banished from the kingdom; I will say that two people who did not get along no longer breathed each others' air quite so often.

Dad may have hated getting divorced, but in the process he became a much more positive influence in my life. My father went from occasionally demonstrating interest in what I did—he always showed for command performances like the odd school play—to seeking out time with me. Almost every Friday he picked me up from the house where I lived with my mom and dropped me off Sunday evening. We had to learn to how to be around each other for entire weekends without buffers, but we adjusted quickly and well. I rather enjoyed living the weekends in Dad's world. I liked being around adults, so visiting his friends and having him explain things on the farm to me made for enjoyable time together. He did lots of active parenting things like teaching me social skills and how to put a tow bar safely on a ball hitch (I would explain pre-treating laundry and that you wait until clothes come out of the wash before adding the dryer sheet). As I got older, especially a decade later when I went off to graduate school, I learned that my father understood me better than I knew, which in turn helped me to see how I also understood him.

Someone once said to me plainly, "It sounds like you benefited from your parents' divorce." I did. My mother came out of a depression, and my father got involved: I had two actively engaged parents for the first time. Now, they got some parts of parenting through divorce wrong, but they also got a lot of it right. My mom, for instance, nurtured my father's relationship with me, encouraging him to see me and telling me I could call or see him whenever I liked; my dad worked to not undermine my mother to me—he failed at that no more than she did, and he really tried.

My parents' divorce also taught me some important lessons. Before my mother filed papers in court, I thought marriage an odd arrangement: it appeared you got into this relationship and stayed there for no clear reason, just getting up every day and going on because that's just what you do. After the divorce, I realized two important things: 1) a relationship should feed you, if it only drains you then you are missing out on the chance for happiness when our time alive is too precious to squander and 2) nobody will stay with you if you don't take the time and effort to feed the relationship. Genuinely, my parents' failed marriage reminds me that human connections take work and must also be worth our effort.

Several years ago, some fifteen years after my parents divorce, I heard a sermon that essentially vindicated divorce as necessary when the relationship has truly ended. Drawing from the notion of two flesh becoming one flesh through marriage, the Episcopal priest said (paraphrasing), "God's math is not our math; one plus one equals one." "With time," he continued, "some couples do not live as two being one, but two being two, with separate lives and concerns, not living for the one from two but for the one separated from the other one." As he explained, we have to accept divorce as the eventual state of a relationship that stopped working a while ago. That argument goes a long way to explaining my repulsion at the term "a broken home" to mean a home that has gone through divorce. The home—if we're going to use that metaphor—was "broken" because of a "broken" relationship; a divorce can be a way of helping the home and the people in it get better.

My largely positive experience with my parents' divorce surely contrasts with others'. My parents hardly resorted to the War of the Roses; I lived a financially comfortable and physically safe life during their divorce. That said, in my own, limited experience, divorce brought tears and turmoil and from that came relief, brighter days, and even a little wisdom.

Love What You Do, Primarily After 5

http://www.dreamstime.com

Somewhat famously Steve Jobs told the Stanford class of 2005, "Love what you do." Well, he said those words, but they were tempered elsewhere in his speech by his concern that your life focus on finding what is important to you, with some mention of connections (i.e., family, however you might define that). To be fair to all the folks who have quoted the disambiguation of his words, repeating the mantra, "Do what you love and love what you do," Jobs did lean pretty hard into the joy of a career that enables you to toil away at something you enjoy since you will be there so much of your life. Point taken.

Some have critiqued Jobs for a couple of points. First, Jobs has been critiqued for giving sort of simplistic advice about the nature of life and work. Second, it has been pointed out that Jobs speaks from a place of privilege that ignores some people do not have the luxury to pursue their passion rather need to put food on the table. There's that, and I agree with both, veering strongly toward the latter critique.

To Jobs's argument (not merely a few words nestled in a speech), I want to keep some balance in the conversation. I want to interject the idea that maybe you do what you love, just nothing for which you receive a paycheck.

I spent a number of years in graduate school specifically to have the job I have now. In fact, the job I have meets the job description I once said would be my ideal, so I have to admit I am sitting fairly pretty when it comes to talking about doing what you love at work. Indeed, at my job there are things that I want to accomplish for my pleasure in achieving them. If I ever finish and have published the book I'm working on, I expect Ill feel pretty good about that; I do not expect it to be the highlight of my life, though. For me, the time with my partner and child gets the lion's share in the highlights reel of my life. This is not me promoting the life of marriage and children as chief among all; rather I mean that I believe our connections with each other and family, broadly defined, matter most.

We workers get a lot of messages about being happy in the workplace or advice on how to feel fulfilled in our jobs. I think that's nice; if you can enjoy the time you spend earning the money to live your life, that's really pleasant. What worries me, however, is the concealed message to commit yourself to your job when, let's face it, the job's commitment to you might be lower. As I told a friend, who hated to inconvenience coworkers by taking (federally protected) time off for the birth of his child, "your boss is a swell guy (I know him), but he probably won't be bringing you soup in your dotage." My supervisor has been supportive of me juggling job and family, but I'm still expected to deliver at work, totally fair. Even still, the call to find fulfillment at work has some problems for me.

Interlude: Oliver and Arnold

Two men I knew, Arnold and Oliver, are an interesting bookend set of how to approach work in your life. Arnold is accomplished in his field, not a giant but respected; he also worked hard to be intimately involved in the lives of his partner and children. As his career grew longer he slowed down to be there more with his family whose needs changed with time. Arnold's employer wanted him to meet increased performance benchmarks or he would lose status (not his job, mind you). Nearing retirement, Arnold allowed himself to lose the touches of status and continued to do good work, with his employer asking him to delay retirement for a year or two. When Arnold retired, his life got better. He smiled more and walked lighter. Arnold chuckled when asked how he liked retirement.

Oliver and Arnold worked in the same field; they even had a collaboration once. Oliver was a bit of a giant in his field. His list of professional accomplishments go on for a while, varied and numerous. Oliver's retirement seemed to be a little harder on him, though. Oliver loved his job but always had a little less time for his family than Arnold. From my limited vantage point, he wandered in retirement. I remember being with one of his children, a friend of mine, when someone who knew Oliver professionally passed by and asked about him. "He's having some health issues," my friend answered. "I'm sorry to hear that. Give him my best," said the concerned but busy friend who swiftly walked away. My friend said that scenario happened all the time; people who worked with Oliver were sad to hear about his decline but never bothered to so much as pick up the phone and chat.

Back to My Point

Theodore Gradman, in a chapter of the book Older Men's Lives, writes about men and retirement. He finds that men in white-collar professions have a harder time transitioning to retirement than men in blue-collar professions. Why? He argues that men in white-collars job have more of their personal identity tied to what the do at work, and he finds the opposite for men in blue-collar jobs. So there's that.

In their jobs some people will make meaningful contributions that will live well beyond their time on this planet. Some people have the talent I lack to work tirelessly at their jobs and still remain active, important members of their family, be it a conventional scenario or a ring of close friends. Some people will find their ultimate joy and fulfillment in work. I respect that. Let me offer an alternative, though, for some of us others.

What if we freed ourselves to approach our jobs as something that pays the bills so we can get home to what we love, which might be a child, a dog, or a rugby team? What if we said that we do what we love and love what we do after 5 PM. I become angry when I hear about people in jobs where they are treated unfairly or abused in terms of salary or job risks, so I'm not saying all jobs are equally good.

I am saying that the seduction to find fulfillment at our jobs may not work for some of us; the unglamorous gig that pays the bills and helps you prepare for retirement has a lot to say for itself. Useless coworkers are the worst, and I have committed to avoid being one of them. I also decided a while ago that even as I pursue certain work-oriented goals, if I fail or if I succeed, if I'm given a plaque or just given a paycheck, I need to love what I do outside of work, and that is what is most important for me. My goal is to love what I do and do what I love irrespective of my career, but I do hope to enjoy what I do at a desk as much as I can. Let me job merely be the icing to the proverbial cake of my life.

Pinkwashed

A few weeks ago I felt like I was caught in a social-behavioral experiment. When I set down my 18 month-old daughter, Lucy*, in a Best Buy to walk on her own she bolted away from me down an aisle on a clear trajectory. Amid a long row of boxes on shelves stacked from the floor to twice as tall as her tiny frame she had spotted the single pink item amid a sea of gray and black; Lucy smacked the box and looked at me with the excitement she reserves for when my mother has a new toy out in preparation for Lucy's visit.

Tearing my daughter away from the pink box she attempted to take with us I felt like I had already lost the bigger fight: Lucy identified with the color pink.


I harbor no ill will toward the color pink in and of itself: I cannot say I have a grudge toward any part of the color spectrum, but pink had become my enemy. As a professor who teaches and writes on issues of gender in US culture—and, you know, someone who would like to see everyone treated equally—I have some real issues with the girl = pink equation. Pink tool cases marketed to women seem as inane to me as ballpoint pens for "her", though I read somewhere that some women prefer the size of the tools in those sets—I'll refrain from further comment on that one.

http://celebritybabies.people.com/2009/02/19/toy-fair-2009-barbie/

As some may already know, in the last century people accepted that boys alone were suited to pink and girls to the more delicate blue. I offer the point only to underscore the arbitrary nature of these colors. In the last quarter of century, however, the trend of "pink is for girls" has gone into overdrive. Toys for girls have gotten pinker. From 1974 to 2009, Barbie's Townhouse went from multicolored to multi-shades of pink.

How, then, do I explain Lucy's affiliation with pink? She, like all children, is a quick study.

Family and friends, who generously give to our daughter as a show of love, have been the primary givers of pink, the pink play mat, the pink water bottle, and the pink school bus (just like the ones you see around town all the time). With all that pink our daughter has learned, "pink is for me."

My partner and I willingly participate Lucy in cultural traditions for females; we gave our daughter a name considered traditional for a woman, we put her in clothes typified for females (e.g., dresses), and we use feminine pronouns. There have been some conflicts along the way, like the time we argued in Target about a pack of onesies: I said she could have the pink and purple pack with flowers on them, because there was no reason for her to avoid feminine colors, but she should also have either the red and blue nautical themed onesies with boats and whales or the gray and green astronautical onesies with the dogs in rockets and on the moon (we came home with the nautical choice as the second set). I like flowers, but I wanted to make it our practice early on to communicate that the sea, the moon, and the stars are also options for Lucy's interests.

Back to my nemesis pink (not P!nk, because I think we can all agree she's pretty damn cool), the narrow association of pink with certain interests (e.g., play kitchens and tea sets rather than play work benches and power tools) equates to a narrow associations for my daughter. I don't want to despise the color pink, largely because the color's association with women would mean to also despise those things we think of as feminine. Moreover, I would hate for my unease with pink to lead Lucy to feel shame for enjoying playing/working in the kitchen or anything else we see as feminine. My bigger issue is that when I turn her loose in a Best Buy I want her to know that the black gadget, the white gadget, and the pink gadget are all equally attractive options—that is, right before I tell her to put it down because we're not getting it.


*Her pseudonym, and, also, her patron saint as given by us, her parents.