Reasons for not blogging

We've had houseguests for two weeks.
The journey of a thousand miles begins Saturday, with a drive from PA to MN.
We'll be in Minnesota for most of June.
I'm writing two books that have deadlines that are bullying me.
I'm writing a proposal for a third book.
My kids make me tired.
My thoughts aren't flowing in blog-sized chunks.


My one and only reason for blogging
Because I feel like it. And whenever that happens, you'll be the first to know!

A Professor's Perspective of Things at a College Commencement

I disapprove of...
old flip flops
not zipping up your gown
3-inch heels
floor-length black polyester garments decorated with velvet, with accompanying black polyester hat, to be worn outdoors in late spring. In the sun. Now the rain. Now the steaming sun.


I approve of...
new flip flops
old Birkenstocks (mine)
one-inch heels (if you must)
clouds
babies and children and related noise and paraphanalia
happiness, celebration, friends, and family

Who's in control here?

"What's wrong with mothers these days? They can't even control their own kids!"
These snarly words wafted over a row of lockers at the YMCA, clearly spoken for the mothers to hear. Two moms were getting their four preschool girls ready for the pool, and the girls were so excited they couldn't keep from laughing, dancing, standing on their heads, and nearly bursting out of their swimsuits.

One mom looked at me with the evil eye reserved for people who critize your children and asked, "Is she serious?"

I peeked around the bank of lockers at a pissed-off elderly troll, now muttering quietly about worthless moms, and mouthed, "Yes."

The mom defended herself loudly, "Those are happy sounds! Happy noise is good!" I bent down and talked positively to the girls, praying that it wouldn't escalate. The last thing I need to see is a throw-down between a mom in a swimsuit and a naked old lady.

The other elderly women in the vicinity started reminiscing about their years with preschoolers, conversation I've enjoyed many times when the very old and the very young intersect in the locker room. Just the other day a mom desperately tried to stop her two children from running. An elderly woman laughed and said, "You're wasting your breath, mom. Kids that age run. That's just what they do."

In my background, control over kids, whether by fear or corporal punishment, is the ideal. Mothers who "can't control their kids" are the worst - right up there with mothers who work, mothers who divorce, and mothers who wear bikinis and act like they're hot stuff. So I wrote off the old troll as a miserable legalist who would spit on a flower if you handed it to her.

After my workout, I saw the old troll hobbling to her car. She used a walker, clearly in discomfort with every slow, tiny step. Control? She can't even control her own legs, or feet, or pain. Our bodies get old; it's just what they do. Maybe those kids made her angry, made her realize that control is an illusion. We can't control our closest loved ones, and we can't even control ourselves. Or maybe she just lives with minute-to-minute pain, which turns even a saint into a crank.

One of the highlights of my year has been showering with old ladies in the group shower at the Y. They compliment each other as beautiful and voluptuous, and point out how young the 70-yr-olds are looking. It's no Shangri-la in there, though, they also complain about prescription prices, the skimpy summer clothes the kids are wearing these days, and why the local grocery rearranged the cereal aisle. But when it comes to life itself, it seems many of them are not grasping after control as they age; they're ceding it gracefully.

The young girls pranced away from the scene, oblivious to the judgment hurled at them, and surely enjoyed their swim. I hope the old girl left her judgment where it belonged, on the locker room floor, and noticed the bright sun giving light and warmth to her journey across the parking lot.

It's Always Commencement

Students are stressed -- rushing through final exams, begging for extra credit, hoping for a last-minute engagement ring. Seniors need summer housing, jobs, graduate school acceptances, and closure to their college years. Everyone knows that spring semester ends by commencing, and everyone knows that beginnings are hard for students (coming so closely on the heels of an ending).

But few realize it's hard for professors, too. Every spring I say good-bye to students I've come to love. I worry over how some will spend their summers, their romances, or the rest of their lives. I regret some books I assigned and some murkily written assignments. I revisit the decisions I made in the spring of my own senior year -- not to marry him, to go to grad school now instead of later, to become an anthropologist and not an economist. I wonder who I might have become, and who I am becoming.

The nice thing, for us professors, is that each spring brings commencement. We dress up like peacocks in regalia and sit outside for hours watching hundreds of students receive diplomas -- it's a ritual that lifts us out of ordinary time. We're offered the chance to begin again, to listen in on the speech directed at students and take it for ourselves. Along with our students, we take up the speaker's charge and commit again to do our part toward making the world a better place.

If you love me so much, then why don't you marry me?

He did, so my husband gets to pick the picture. He likes me not smiling, which is good, because marriage brings out my not-smiling face quite often.

I have a bunch of photos, and this one didn't make it on the photographer's blog. I am surprised that so many people liked #4 on Kate's blog -- I was squinting and thought my expression looked coy. #2 is my second pick, because Erin (a student) says that's what I look like when I want to laugh at what a student is saying but have to wait for them to finish speaking first. That's a good feeling. I'll use that photo for updating my college website and this blog.



But enough about me... I'll post something worth reading soon!

Mirror, mirror

What is a 36-year-old professor supposed to look like? Maybe, for you, the word "professor" conjures up an image of an older white man with glasses, a rumpled jacket, and an awkward half-smile. That's what I see in my mind, but not in the mirror. As I practiced in the mirror for a headshot (for my chapter in The Justice Project), only one word came to mind: pretty, pretty, pretty. As in "be pretty", not "you are pretty."

Is that all women are good for, contorting our bodies and faces into amusements for others to look at? Pretty, I'm through with you.

How about smart, personable, interesting, and interested? And how about not nerdy, antisocial, profoundly unfashionable or pale-facedly bookish?

Can you get all that in a single picture? She tried.

"Dear Dr. Paris"

I could start an advice column with all the questions I'm getting this week...

"Will the fact that I never bought the books for this class hurt me on the final?"

"How much will it lower my grade if I don't finish this last paper?"

"What do you think I should do with my life?"

"Should I marry him?"

"I don't know what I need. Do you think I need more sleep, or more caffeine?"

...and my favorite, from an amazingly productive and competent student who has a hard time getting started: "The essay you assigned is making me crazy. Seriously. I can't even write a single sentence."

My advice for him?

If writing makes you feel crazy and sends you into dark inner places, but then you emerge with a final piece of writing and emotional euphoria... you might have a vocation to write. Or it might just mean you hate writing. It's hard to say :)

Lost and found

I found Wesley (3) this morning, uh, engaging a pile of fresh vomit someone left in a parking lot. I scoffed at the challenge. I can - and do - clean vomit when I'm half asleep. Day, you'll have to do better than that to intimidate me!

Yesterday, however, the day got the best of me. I leaned down to zip Max's (2) coat at the YMCA, and when I stood up Oliver (3) was gone. I panicked. I searched for him in nonsensical places and didn't look in the one place he likely would be. I couldn't think because my mind was filled with demon voices hissing, "You're going to lose all your children. You're a loser of children. All you will ever do is grieve. You're a fool for trying to be a mother." In my mind, Oliver instantly left my litter of living children and joined the litter of the lost.

About five minutes later, or maybe only two, someone shouted out a sighting. Oliver was standing outside in the pouring rain behind a wall, hiding and smiling. I had seen him exploring that wall earlier, and had my mind been clear, I would have remembered his interest in that area. A stranger touched me on the shoulder and said, "It's OK now. You need to calm down," and watched all three boys while I took 15 seconds to gather my marbles.

For the rest of the day, I found myself wanting to reject the boy. I thought, "if I stop loving him now, I won't have to miss him so much later when I lose him for good." Future loss became the challenge -- facing it, preparing for it, not being bullied by it. But it isn't possible to control the future, to prevent loss or to minimize its impact. There aren't any bonus points for dealing with someone's death ahead of time.

Later that day, on the precipice of a small hill at the park, I leaned down to tie Wesley's shoes. Max disappeared down the slope on his trike, lost to me. I found him four seconds later with a scraped head and blood and wails pouring out of his mouth. I checked for teeth (all intact), and then held him tight. Abhorring sacred silence as preschoolers are prone to do, Wesley shouted, "Mommy, mommy!"

"What, Wesley?"

"I want hotdogs for supper!"

Right! Hotdogs! We don't live in our minds, with demon voices snarling or future disaster looming. We live right here, playing at the park, getting hungry, and going home for supper. That's how we do it.

I found all three of my boys: one vomity, one wet, and one bloody. And I found myself again, in love with them and hungry for a hotdog.

What I'm writing these days

I may not be blogging, but I sure am writing:

- responses to e-mails that begin, "Dr. Paris, I'm sorry, but a ______ ate my homework" or "Dr. Paris, I'm sorry about not getting that paper done, but I haven't slept since _______."

- comments and grades on papers, about 350 pages so far

- final exams

- grocery lists, summer clothing shoping lists

- appointments in my work calendar - it's crazy from now 'til commencement, and I'm not even a student!

I suppose none of this counts toward being "a writer", but it sure is a lot of writing.