by heart

I have felt more and more like a fish out of water throughout this last semester, especially the discussions in my senior ethics seminar for the sociology/anthropology major. Maybe I’m outgrowing my tank, or at least just getting restless. I’ve written this paper thousands of times before; I’ve read that book millions of times already. I practically know it by heart. My mind has burned out. I need to take action to replace the fuse.

This all started back in Anthro Theory two years ago. I recalled to the sophomores at the Quo Vadis retreat how

I was suddenly buckling under the weight of a looming lifetime of responsibilities and expectations. Suddenly all my unstable idealistic conclusions fell apart, nothing seemed certain, and I was left in a directionless void of moral relativism.

In my frustration I wrote a pretty angsty journal entry declaring my decision to do classes for myself, to root these airy theories in my own life experiences, to write what I wanted to write. I waxed poetic about the fact that none of my professors seemed to share my goals and standards for my schoolwork, and I was overwhelmed. At the time, I actually hadn’t articulated any of my own goals or standards, but I felt for the first time ready to think about what I wanted out of my education.

Ideals to Action? This moment could have endeared me to the bright and airy principles of my chosen college; but these first inklings of frustration actually distanced me from the institution and anything involving the mission statement. I didn’t believe a word of it. But it suddenly occurred to me to figure out a way that I could say honestly and forgivingly: Ideals to Action—My Way. Now, I have gotten something valuable out of my St. Olaf education:

I have learned to know by heart.

In many ways knowing by heart seems hazardous. I am aware that knowing by heart makes me susceptible to the kind of conservatism that runs in my Swanson bloodline, the stubborn-mule-with-blinders-on conservatism that only reads books written by people from its own camp. It also puts me in danger of being ostracized, or of shutting others out, because of the intensely personal understandings I hold toward everything I claim to understand at all.

I have written so many different kinds of papers with the invisible subtitle “Who I Am and What That Means.” In my current state of frustrated upheaval I am trying desperately to squeeze something newer and deeper out of that invisible subtitle for this last paper. I’ll start by describing the fixtures in this fishbowl that have rubbed my scales raw.

SPEAKING ANTHROPOLOGY
The problem with getting a bunch of anthropologists together is that we all speak the same language. This might seem advantageous, but when the common tongue was created to deal with language barriers, the resulting intellectual atmosphere is implosive. Collectively we have struggled to be meta-critical.

Instead, we wax regular-critical about class and gender divisions, liminality, performativity, legitimization, dominant discourses, social construction…! (Microsoft Word doesn’t even recognize many of these terms, and neither would, as Liz pointed out once, many of the subjects of study.) Frankly, we’re bullshitting ourselves. I’d rather talk about our circumstances in street-talk and four-letter words, ground them in actual experience, because (believe it or not) ideas do exist in the colloquial Everyday, and hypotheticals will always be too far away.

LABELING
I am not a feminist. Because I don’t want to be associated with the heavy connotations of the word. Because I actively disagree with many alleged feminist methods of achieving goals I only half-agree with. Because if I can’t define a feminist, how can I say if I am one or not? I want to be consistent, and if you want to know what I think about women’s role in society we can sit and chat about it and you’ll get a more valid snapshot. The same goes for religion and social policy. My positions are more complicated than a single word.

This is why my classmates chose Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Cosmopolitanism as my required reading personality. Liberals and conservatives may argue, Oles and Carls may fight, but “when the stranger is no longer imaginary, but real and present, sharing a human social life, you may like or dislike him, you may agree or disagree; but, if it is what you both want, you can make sense of each other in the end” (99).

I am the product of a mixed-up world, and at this point I see little value in discussing the merits and disadvantages of globalization. I understand why we need to generalize and categorize, because we cannot individually understand the 6 billion-plus other people on this planet. But to me the One-in-a-Million contains infinite potential, which fades when people are reduced to millions.

GUILT
My aunt mentioned once that she has always been frustrated with my dad for being so “good.” Her husband, who met my dad before they both quit medical school, said he is one of the kindest people he knows in an unkind world.

Growing up in my father’s shadow, tinged by the lingering self-regulation of evangelical Christianity, I have spent a lot of time feeling guilty. I also spent a lot of time being exploited because I would rather be trampled than trample. I recently recognized that my enormous burden of guilt has been weighing me down to the point that I can hardly move or act. The danger in shedding it, though, is in forgetting to care if my actions hurt the people around me.

After spending years developing wariness toward feeling guilty, I read Jamaica Kincaid. Guilt and ethics tangle together so easily. Naomi Klein points out that, “particularly in the United States, particularly on elite college campuses, there is so much privilege that we mistakenly believe that guilt is the best motivator” (Global Values 101, p.110). A Small Place bears a huge load of bitterness—and so immediately my hackles raised. As if I haven’t committed enough terrible deeds on a small scale, now I have to take on centuries’ worth of colonial guilt on top of that?! I decided to let myself off the hook. I feel bad about these things, but what can I really do about them? Not, perhaps, the best way to start out an ethics seminar.

I need to hear Paul Farmer legitimize the “small victories” (Global Values 101, p.236) because I can’t conceptualize big ones—at least, not yet. I split up even routine tasks into smaller checkpoints because otherwise I freeze in the face of the insurmountable. Right now, I have to imagine myself happy to say at the end of my life, “I have loved and been loved by a lot of individuals, and although we have failed each other many times, we have also forgiven.” I will not drive a gas-guzzler or leave the faucet on all day, but I can’t expect myself to spawn the Idea that will singlehandedly end world hunger and global warming—and that if I don’t, it would have been better had I not been born.

Sometimes even my responsibilities to my loves can be too taxing. I can only make so many sacrifices before I cease to exist.

RELATIONSHIPS
I care about people. I care deeply about how we treat each other, how we coexist. I feel mildly devastated whenever a relationship goes sour or even when it fades. I am protective of my friends but I try to let them fight their own battles. I am surprised when someone lets me down, and I almost always ache to give them another chance. I can usually appreciate multiple vantage points conflicting on an issue, especially relationship negotiations.

For a long time I forgot this simple fact, but I started to remember again around the time we read Righteous Dopefiend. I felt conflicted about our class discussions judging the moral and ethical negotiations Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg faced within their research. Steven Lukes poses “a direct conflict between what core morality requires and what a particular moral code requires of its adherents” (Moral Relativism, p.144). Under the circumstances, juxtaposing the “ethnographers’ culture” with the “dopefiends’ culture” seemed far too simplistic given their profound personal relationships.

As I think about setting off into the World Beyond [St. Olaf], I cling to the idea of Community. Small towns with close-knit neighborhoods. Community: where we look out for each other like dopefiends, where we depend on our neighbors like the Kabre, where we care about impacting our habitat the way Bill McKibben suggests (over and over and over again) in Deep Economy.

TO LIVE BY HEART
I have (almost) learned to know by heart, though my frustration hints that I am perhaps just shy of enlightenment. I am anxious now to act by heart, to internalize my values and principles so that I don’t get caught in an eddy of ethical thought experiment each time I have to make a decision. So that my moral and ethical code becomes my habitus. So that I am standing firmly rooted in my essence of being, but able to roll with the kicks and punches. I want someone to need me to express my ideas about marginalization and agency in four-letter words, high fives and unself-conscious hugs. I want to act by heart so that nobody has to ask, “Are you a feminist?” Because it will be obvious.

The thing about hearts is that they break. They always hide there inside our chests, but they still get splintered, pierced and shattered. A person who cares must constantly respond to changing circumstances within the surrounding social environment. Complacency does not stick easily to this person.

I have forgotten how to do this, and Janelle Taylor suggests I might not be alone in my selective dementia. Under the pressure to “make a difference,” to “change the world,” to convert the ignorant to socially- and environmentally-responsible ways of living, I have forgotten how it feels simply to care.

Setting forth from here, I cannot simply order myself to be compassionate and have it be done. I couldn’t even tell you what I would do in a specific situation; I could say what I would like to do, but I’d rather not waste my time on thought experiments. I wrestle every day with the balance between protecting myself from pain and leaving myself open to new beauties. But I can continue to practice and continue to struggle, and do my best to live by heart.

elementary karma economics

I’m feeling generous today.

Which is not entirely to be expected, considering the fact that I had to get up early for a meeting this morning even though I don’t have class today, and the fact that I had to walk into town in the soft, slippery, blindingly white snow.  You might also think I would be stingy these days, since I am supposed to be keeping close track of my finances and I was sure that such a task would prevent me from throwing down money at the drop of the hat.

Okay, I haven’t been doing that – obviously throwing money at hats is more than mere carelessness.  I think the fact that I have not been doing this is a good sign.

***

I’ve been realizing this year that hospitality style has a lot to do with friendship.  I’m not suggesting you set out frilly towels and dust ruffles for houseguests, and I definitely do not mean to imply that if my host(ess) fails to decorate the guest room to my liking, then our friendship is going nowhere fast.  I mean that I don’t keep a tab with my closest friends, and they don’t keep one with me.  We just keep tabs on each other.  These open bars just keep on feeding each other drinks.

One Monday evening last semester I got out of work early to ride with Mary up to visit Bethel College.  She was going to a seminary open house there, and I thought a change of scene would be welcome and productive.  Plus, I like to think about my parents there 25 years ago.

Unfortunately I had to skip dinner to make it there on time, so by the time we got home it was very late and I was famished.  We stopped at Subway and I ordered a sandwich and when it came time to pay the cashier said, “I’m sorry, this card is being declined.”  I looked at the register: $6.42.  Seriously?  Mary lent me some cash, but in some detached universe I was mortified.  The balance of my checking account turned out to be just over two dollars.

Our guest speaker in class yesterday works for Wells Fargo and she gave us the lowdown on credit.  She explained that sometimes, if you have a common name like Smith or Jones, items that factor into your credit score can get mixed up with items that belong in someone else’s credit score.  “I think that’s what happened here,” she said of her example (with all identifying information blacked out), “because I work with this person, I know him well, and he’s much better than a 720 credit score.”

My desperate hope is that, despite a rejected six-dollar charge on my debit card, or any other current or future blemishes on my credit report, I am much better than an 850 credit score.  (For those of you who don’t know, 850 is the maximum credit score you can have, and pretty much guarantees you the lowest interest rate on any credit cards you apply for.  I would just hope that my credit score has little or nothing to do with my overall character.  Please vouch for me here.)

***

How much does a change of scene, a few hours of free Wi-Fi, patrons-only restroom access, and uninterrupted to-do-list-ticking-off time cost?  Is one almond chai bubble tea and a 25% tip enough?

The problem with Personal Finance is the inherent susceptibility to obsessive number crunching, receipt hoarding, and penny pinching.  And a reversion to that economic theory of relationships (tell me again, Dr. Treen: who spearheaded that theory?).  I’m also fascinated by NINJA (no income, no job) loans.  They sound like such an adventure!  Just like credit card advertisements.  (I just heard one on the radio claiming that a Discover card can make you a millionaire.  Also, something to do with an emergency chocolate stash.  I almost laughed out loud, but just in time I balanced my personality checkbook with a quick subtraction of financial nerddom and salvaged my sense of humor and pride.)

Fortunately, I hadn’t lost sight of myself to the extent that I couldn’t stop when I saw a woman’s tires spitting out snow in front of the post office.  She wasn’t going anywhere, so with my recently discovered gumption I called out and asked if she needed a shove.  “Maybe,” she called back, and gave it some more gas.  She wouldn’t ask, but I got behind the car, wedged my boots sideways in the slippery mounds of snow, and put my whole weight behind those spitting tires.  (Reason #2 that I’ve been working out…  I’m flexing right now.  Oh yeah.)  I heard a man’s voice make some exclamation from the post office steps, but before he could come over and lend his manly muscles to the task she was on her way, and waved her cigarette hand at me while she drove off.  I grinned and left to get me a tea and get down to business.

***

I’m g-chatting with Liz in Ghana right now, and she just marveled at the “plasticity of friendship.”  (Plasticity, like the unlimited credit balance on our friendship complete with automatic monthly payments…  Without interest and without hurting us in our hospitality banks.)  We joke about how our shared therapist must have a field day with the two of us – maybe sometime we’ll do a double session.  It would be like an ethically-questionable counseling sitcom.  Until then, though, “I love how friends are also life coaches at times.”  Free of charge.  This open bar is still open, baby.

opposites attract

Monday, January 3, 2011.  MGMT 231: Personal Finance.  Day One.

As usual, the course introduction includes, more or less, a definition of Personal Finance and an explanation of why it is important to our lives.  “I do have to point out, though,” says Professor Emery, “that money is not even ranked one of the top two most important factors in happiness.”  Those spots are generally saved for our human relationships.  “But!  More than half of married couples say that finances eventually put the greatest strain on the marriage relationship.  So this is important.  And,” she adds, “you will probably marry someone with the opposite financial style to you.”  Everyone laughs, but something in her statement sends me through a rabbit-hole…

***

There were two fifth grade teachers in my elementary school, their classrooms separated by a flimsy foldaway wall.  We did a lot of things separately, but the other class came to join us for social studies and we all piled into the room next door for science class.  We drew pictures of the water cycle in our Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers and learned how magnets work.

When I was in eighth grade, I came home from a double period science lab with a first-hand understanding of electrical currents after building our own small circuits and hooking them up to D batteries.  The first thing I did was burst into my 10-year-old brother’s room, forgetting the simple fact that he is a genius who always read science books for fun, and casually mention batteries so I could explain how they worked (better than I possibly could today).  “Yeah,” he said, and then picked up where I left off using terms that far surpassed my scientific understanding.  I backed out grumbling to myself, consoling myself with, “Well, at least I am the best writer in the eighth grade.  He can be good at science and art.”

Four or five years later, I found out that he was writing elaborate serials for the school paper that had the whole school holding their breath in anticipation of the next installment.  Time to throw in the towel, I thought.  I’ll just become self-aware and learn how to have healthy relationships.

In the spring of my sophomore year I dated a super-hot chemistry major who liked to sleep all day, stay up all night, and sometimes go days without talking to anyone.  He was incredibly smart, but cared far more about the chemical makeup of drug compounds than he did about St. Olaf’s social networks.  After we broke up, I discovered that the best way to explain my sociological interests to him was by spelling them out in a different alphabet: the Atoms and Bonds of Chemistry.

The most important thing I learned back in Mrs. Sollecito-Pritchard’s fifth grade science class, aside from the water cycle, was a simple scientific fact that applies to magnets, batteries, atomic bonds and relationships: “Opposites attract.”

***

I spent New Years’ Eve-Eve at my great-uncle Richard’s house in Alameda, California.  Our little party of six discussed a whole range of highly engaging topics, among them the fact that Uncle Dick indirectly convinced his older brother, my grandpa, to buy his first-ever television because of the movie My Cousin Vinny.  “Only to watch movies, of course,” he said.  “You know, I get three Netflix a week, and he’s happy with just the one…  Then again, I think I own enough movies to watch a different movie every day of the year and not repeat!”

Across from me, Aunt Karen was performing a subdued but equally pointed rendition of my classic eye roll.  “My Cousin Vinny is really funny,” she conceded, “if you can get past the F-yous…  But I don’t care for Kate and Leopold” – my grandpa’s other favorite movie – “or Lost in Austen” – Uncle Dick’s current fave.  “I hardly watch a movie a month.”

(This summer Uncle Dick told us a story about a party whose secret purpose was to hook him up with Karen.  “I went up to the prettiest girl in the room,” he said, “I don’t remember her name—but she didn’t know anything about anything I cared to talk about.  So after awhile I gave up and went to go talk to the second prettiest girl in the room.  Now, she knew everything about everything I could ever want to talk about and more.  And her name was Karen.”  At least that was the general gist of the story.

December thirtieth was evidence to this brilliant intellectual matchwork, and also to the hilarious microcosmic juxtapositions in their relationship.  Such as the fact that, according to Uncle Dick, all women like to pick the chocolate bits out of the nougat-and-nut ice cream topping and leave the nuts behind by themselves in the jar.)

***

“Sometimes I forget what different worlds we come from,” said Spencer, laughing at me when I mistook his Polo sweater for Ralph Lauren.  “That’s like not knowing what Doc Martens are.”

“Well, I’ve heard the name,” I replied, “but I don’t think I’d be able to pick them out of a lineup.”  His jaw dropped, but his eyes were sparkling.

His different world includes, in addition to Polo shirts and Doc Martens, under-the-table Mexican hired help, a splintered family life, creatine powder, and knowing what to do with weight equipment.  Mine includes Goodwill and Salvation Army, under-the-table Mexican houseguests, a planed-and-sanded family life, baby powder, and knowing what to do with writing equipment.  I believe in love, even if I get injured a thousand times before I find it again.  He is of the opinion that pain and anger are signs of weakness, and that crying is just a cheap way to get happy by boosting endorphins.  He believes that love makes us vulnerable, and to me vulnerability is proof that I am fully human and living as hard as I can in this perilous world.  I believe that everyone is a little bit good, and he says that everything good people do is selfishly motivated.

My suspicion is that we are just looking through different sides of the same glass-bottomed boat, and he thinks I’m overly optimistic.  I may well be, but I’m stubborn so I love him anyway with a few inextricable fibers of my deepest core.  Not because he’s opposed on principle to most of the things I say, but because I think secretly we are the same.

***

At the risk of spending another New Years’ Eve falling asleep in front of pirated copies of Avatar, I emailed my legendary great-uncle and asked him what kinds of parties San Francisco throws to Hail the New Year.  “I’m always down for a good adventure,” he wrote.

(As it was, New Years’ Eve-Eve mainly consisted of telling stories, over one of the few bottles of wine I have ever seen my parents drink, about the adventures he, Karen, and their friend Helen had had in times past.  Once, when we lived in the U.S. Virgin Islands, they set out in their sailboat to visit us on St. Croix.  At that time Hurricane Mitch was taking its whirlwind tour through the Caribbean, and based on their projected course we were sure they would stay out of each other’s way.  But they didn’t show up on time in Christiansted harbor.  Weeks later we learned that they did indeed do battle with Mitch’s raging 20-foot waves and had to limp back into the treacherous harbors of Nassau, in the Bahamas, for several months of repairs.  They never did make it to St. Croix before we returned to the mainland.)

When I wrote back a few weeks later saying I couldn’t actually stay in San Francisco for the holiday and had made other plans, his response was that I’d let him off the hook, because he’s not as in-the-loop as he used to be about fun parties in the city.  He let me in on a theory: “Perhaps at some subliminal level young people stay up past midnight because the alternative is going to bed lonely.  Whereas in my case I get to go to bed with a friend of the opposite sex, which is fun (I mean Karen, of course, just so we don't start any odd rumors.)  We often watch the ball descend in N.Y. and then say good night to whomever and head for our own bed.”

***

At 0:00 hours on January 1, 2011, I watched the ball descend in N.Y. and then (after a few more hours) said good night to whomever and headed for one of the unclaimed beds, futons, or couches at my friend Zach’s house in Hudson, Wisconsin.  I was, and still am, young, single, and surrounded by good friends.

We are opposite in many ways.  Some of us are blond and some of us have dark hair (or hair the color of spiced rum).  Some of us like sweet champagne and some like dry; some like Phish and some like Ke$ha.  Some of us get horribly hungover and some of us drink empty champagne bottles full of water before we go to bed.  But at the end of the day we’re all toasting and kissing each other in disbelief that, this time next year, we will be scattered.

Someday, I’ll figure out my morning-person/night-person dilemma and meet someone who is the opposite.  He will also be a Saver rather than a Spender; a scientist, probably shy, probably conservative; and a pessimist who likes driving, knickknacks, and politics.  And when I shake his hand for the first time I will feel my extra protons plug like a puzzle piece in between his extra electrons, and everything will become right in the universe.  Some people call it love, but I don’t believe a word of it.

everyday drama

One of these days around Christmas, two dogs show up on our porch, panting at the window and wagging their tails every time anyone shows signs of food.  My sister has found her calling taking care of the neighbors’ animals while they are away for Christmas, and after a few days of keeping an eye on things the dogs get lonely and decide to come hang out with us.  We tend to be indoor-dwellers, though, so I can’t imagine it would be very interesting for them to sleep outside our door all day waiting for someone to pop a head out and tell them to go home.

Whether or not the dogs are amused, Grandma’s cat, Missy, is most definitely not.  She prowls the windows all day, occasionally sticking her head out the cat door to sniff for any sign of Abby and Max.  Grandpa suggests we just open the door and throwing her outside, but none of us dares betray her so.  Instead, Grandma finally coaxes her outside by holding the kitty door open until she is safely crouching just outside the window.  She works her way out from there, tentatively scouring the grounds to find out exactly the extent to which the intruders have encroached upon her territory.

We can see her sitting among the bushes, getting comfortable and watching out for signs of the dogs.  Next thing I know, my mom is out front yelling, “MAX!  LEAVE OUR KITTY ALONE!  SHE BELONGS HERE!” (unlike certain dogs we know of) and there is a great commotion at the cat door as Missy tumbles through it, terrorized, and Max pulls up short right outside, panting excitedly.

She leaves muddy footprints on the kitchen counter.  Her tail is the size of a toilet brush and each of us takes turns trying to soothe her, hoping she got a chance to pee before the big black dog discovered her courageous jailbreak.

***

After lunch Grandpa recruits a team to go fix the roads.  I jump at the opportunity to get out of the house, although for a split second I think, “Pouring tar?  Ambitious…”  Then I remember that it takes at least 45 minutes to walk to the nearest paved road, and that what we’ll really be doing is pouring gravel.

This must what I’ve been lifting weights for.  (And yes, I am a little sheepish to admit that I have, in fact, been lifting weights.)  I join the boys, secretly excited to claim the title of “Girl Who Isn’t Afraid To Get Dirty And Play With The Boys.”  I have the flat shovel, which means that on top of shoveling three loads of dirt in and out of the wheelbarrow, I have to rake the dirt flat once it’s filled the potholes so Grandpa can tamp it down.

This is a very important task, you know.

***

While we’re fixing the road, Grandpa’s discussing the pros and cons of solar power versus wind power, and complaining that the guys at the fair are going to charge him $15,000 for solar paneling and installment.  “I don’t want them to sell me installation of solar panels,” he says, “I want them to sell me solar panels!  Today I’ll buy a few, and I’ll make the frames, and then I’ll come back and buy a few more, and before you know it, I’ll have a whole farm!”  The windmill costs $7,000 without the stand or controls.  “What’s the point?!”

Next on the list is cattle guard versus a gate, and what the neighbors have to say about these projects.  Grandpa is the ultimate DIY-er, and most of us are certain that he will die falling off a ladder on a Habitat for Humanity building site.  Once he broke his hip doing just that, and instead of staying in bed for six weeks and staying away from ladders and unfinished houses for a few months like he was supposed to, he got out of bed after two weeks and drove cross-country to build a retaining wall behind our house with recycled slate and rocks.  He was just too restless to stay in bed any longer than that.

But by the time we use up all the gravel and get back to the house, he says, “OK, now we’ve done all this hard work, I guess we’d better go do something FUN!”

This is a legacy I am proud to carry.

***

“You got balance from your mom,” my uncle Juan Miguel told me once.  “I think that’s good.  Because your dad’s side of the family tends to get caught up in things.”

We are well aware of this fact.  My mom says that what I got from them is “making things special,” and while this is definitely true you could easily substitute the word complicated for special and hardly notice the difference.

Thus the ten-foot-long scale model of the solar system that I built in fifth grade out of wood, wire, and papier-mâché.  In order to make this even fit inside of a building, I used one scale for the planets, to make them all proportionate to each other, and a different scale to measure the distances between them.  The planet scale started from the width of the wire I was using to mount the planets on the wood, the tip of which was the smallest any of my model planets could possibly be.  I made the sun out of newspaper, and I think it ended up being at least 8 feet in diameter.  I was devastated when somebody mistook it for trash and it disappeared before the presentation, but that was the least of my worries.  To fit it in the car, we had to make the base into two five-foot puzzle pieces that linked together in the middle, with half of the solar system on either side.

Most of my classmates stuck foam balls from solar system kits inside of shoeboxes they’d painted to vaguely resemble the universe.  I’m not judging them for this, especially because I’m sure they didn’t spend the ride to school splattering the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter with an old toothbrush, trying not to get gray paint on their cute little Aeropostale jeans.

I bet you can guess who helped me with this project.

That’s right.  My dad.

A few years later I decided, for another class project, to quilt a resources map of the United States out of cloth.  This one was my mom’s idea, but instead of suggesting more three-dimensional ways to mark resource mother lodes, she was urging me to go to bed at 2am when I was crying over tangled bobbin thread.  “Why don’t you get up early in the morning and do that?  Go to bed now,” she coaxed.  “You’ll do a better job of it.”

I’m still not sure whether I am a night person or a morning person, which is a problem since I have deduced that the key to a successful marriage is marrying a person who is the type opposite of what you are.  I think my dad said something along those lines once, probably in jest, and I took it as the ultimate truth.  There is no going back.  I’m sure my type will suddenly become apparent to me someday, just as I suddenly realized that I am, in fact, an extrovert.  (I’m not sure if extroverts and introverts are also complementary, but I’m sure that information will be useful someday.)

The student teacher almost certainly gave me “100%” on the Quilted Map of American Resources.  It practically made me into the next Betsy Ross.

(I wonder if she came from the same Scottish clan as my ancestors?  Grandma found a Ross-clan tartan necktie in the trunk of heirlooms and gave it to my brother for Christmas, and I’m a little jealous.  All I got from that side of the family are the Ross hips.  And a pair of Iron Man briefs to cover them.)

Grandma also feels the same way about knickknacks as I do: just another thing to clean.  Not that I don’t appreciate pretty things, because I do—another Swanson Family Legacy…  But I got balance from the Buckners.  We’re historically not wildly materialistic, so the best Things in life are both pretty AND useful.

…Just like me ;-)

the search for love

Today is like a movie.  Your letters make me feel like I am sitting in front of a roaring fire in a hardwood living room, with snow sifting down like flour outside the picture window.  I can hear your voice echoing inside my head as though you are narrating this scene of my life, and I will suddenly get up with the last skills I need to tackle the crisis from Act I.

This isn’t the first time I’ve felt like this today.  At eight o’clock I left Ytterboe and noticed the snowflakes falling in time with my booted footfalls, each one carefully chosen to keep me from wiping out on the ice from yesterday’s rain.

It’s funny how fast things change.

You’ll be back before long; all my projects will be finished and I will be crossing my fingers for good weather in Denver on my way home for Christmas.  I will be thinking about December 20 last year, and inevitably mulling over the conclusions of 2010.  2011 is coming soon and I will be a different person.  Harder, like JJ said – jade is only possible under pressure.

***

It’s an evolutionary game of chicken.  The two phenotypes – wimps and machos – are competing for the Fittest.  It seems obvious which one will win in this classroom full of football, hockey, and rugby players majoring in economics – but as it turns out, there is only a single polymorphic strategy.  The population will settle at an even number of wimps and machos.  If one more macho walks in, no matter how brawny and invincible he is, he will lose the game of chicken.

I sit there in class laughing, the wimp among the machos, and think about the implications of this game for hegemonic masculinity in the United States today.  If we glorify the football players, is it because the majority of our men are wimps and we need more machos to even the score?

I wonder if the fact that I’m thinking about this makes me more evolutionarily fit in the long run, or less.

Or maybe it really is just a game…

***

I hope I never become not fun.  I hope I never find myself in a place where I can’t laugh (at dumb jokes and bad puns and double negatives) and I hope that I never lose the ability to start a dance party, even if I’m alone in the room.

Thanksgiving resolution: laugh and be merry, dance ‘cause you can’t help it and sing even if you can’t hit the notes.  It sounds cliché, but that’s just because it’s important.

***

A few Wednesdays ago I noticed that Mary’s laugh was different.  Louder, sharper, from the gut.  I thought it was desperation at first, but maybe it’s just happiness.  When I said something about it, she told me I was crazy.  Maybe it had just been too long since I’d heard her really laugh.

A few semesters ago my roommate told me she didn’t like the guy I was seeing because he made me laugh unfamiliarly.  I was actually really worried about it, and mulled over it for days until finally bringing it up with someone else who said, “Yeah, he makes you giggle like a middle schooler with a big whopping crush.”  If we’re being honest, it’s probably for the best that I didn’t laugh like that around my roommate.

***

I don’t need a man.  None of my friends do either.  At least that’s what we always say.  We just like them, and we like having them around, and we like when one of them likes us.

Sean sent me a poem about how everyone is just constantly searching for love, and how that quest is what drives everything we do.  His latest letter turned into something of a philosophical rant about love-seeking, and how our society corrupts, hides, delegitimizes that search because we’re all afraid of ultimately being rejected, or maybe even afraid of love itself.  I’m sure it would have made a very good narration to this scene in my life.

unexpected

She has always loved old things. She loves a lot of different kinds of old things; her driveway and garage are bursting with beautiful pieces of furniture, kitchenware and dishes, clothes, classic VHS tapes, jewelry, games, toys and trinkets. She has even more items in storage, and never stops buying. She can easily judge the worth of different pieces and she can really drive a bargain!

She sidles up to me and whispers that if I think anything is unfairly priced, we can “talk” about it. While we look around marveling at all her offerings, she mentions that she wanted to start an antique shop, but that this was what came of it. As I watch her man the aptly-named Treasure Sale, I suddenly understand that this is far more than an overpriced garage sale. There is more to this than a tired old woman clearing out the leftovers of her life dream. The significance of this venture suddenly seems much greater than it did at first. Everything looks much shinier, like dreams come to life. I turn back to ask for an interview, and she seems hesitant at first. But as she writes down her contact information, her husband appears from the back room and says, “That would be great. I’ve always said she could sell the Brooklyn Bridge without cracking a smile!”

She hands me her phone number, with a twinkle in her eye, and says, “He’s always told me I could sell snow to an Eskimo.”

***

She grew up in Manly, Iowa, in a home where they didn’t have much. She was inspired by the spirit and energy of her mother, a childhood victim of polio, and in high school she started working for a restaurant in town for 35 cents an hour – a 10-cent increase from her babysitting job. She worked through her lunch hour and between school and basketball practice, until close every day. One day she came home in a huff, vowing to quit. Her mother told her, “Sharon, you’re going to take a lot in life – you’re going back to work.” So she did. She became friends with her boss, building the first in a long series of positive work relationships and the root of a dependable, hard-working reputation.

That restaurant closed a few months before graduation and the Coffee Cup Restaurant lured her with a 50-cent-per-hour cooking position. Sharon, who graduated high school with plans to be a masseuse or a beauty operator, stayed on as the sole cook, working in the kitchen from the early morning until close, seven days a week, at 65 cents per hour. The Coffee Cup manager called her “the best help I ever had.”

She told me she always planned to open an antique shop someday. She started out selling antique dolls, picking up good specimens at flea markets in Mason City. Her focus quickly expanded, though, as she bought furniture, collectibles, and glassware. She did not buy pieces because she liked them, but because she knew they would sell, and over time she developed the ability to judge the value of a piece just by picking it up and looking at it. She knows the big names and she knows how to find her way in an unfamiliar city full of garage sales – full of treasures someone else mistook for outdated kitchenware.

In between flea markets, she got a job in sales with the Fuller Brush Company and eventually became branch manager. Her boss found her so indispensable that, when headquarters eliminated all branch managers, he paid her out of pocket. She was offered a position selling insurance, and eventually took the offer. She passed her license test on the first try and ended up joining the Million Dollar Club for selling over $1 million in insurance.

In 1976 she studied for and passed her real estate license and moved to Storm Lake to sell real estate. She eventually quit, because of shady business practices and frustration with the inefficiency of the company. She decided to get her broker’s license and opened her own real estate business in Sioux Rapids.

Throughout her job history, she held onto her principles of integrity, took her work seriously and built long-lasting trust in relationships with both bosses and customers. In the 1970s she and her husband bought a brand-new $3000 car, the envy of the street and a marker of great success for a woman who grew up with “lump soup” lunch breaks.

She sold real estate in her own business until 1984, when she became very ill. A long series of doctors eventually diagnosed her with a genetically-based autoimmune disease of the liver, and told her she had two years to live.

By this time she had accumulated about 100 boxes of glassware, among other items. It was only a matter of time before she moved from real estate to antiques. But she no longer had time. “When you’re terminal,” she said, “that [possibility] goes out the window.”

So, not wanting to leave her husband with the daunting task of selling her collection, she hired an auctioneer. In one day the products of her lifelong collecting were all sold. She calls that day “the hardest day of my whole life.”

Through a series of miracles and a good bit of asserting her will to doctors, Sharon secured a prescription for a brand-new test drug that brought her back from the brink of death. “It’s hard to kill a bohemian!” her mother used to say. “You’re just too stubborn!”

Over the next 25 years, as she regained her strength and continues to struggle with the disease, she has refurbished her collection. With characteristic persistence, she still gets up at the crack of dawn some days to drive up to the Twin Cities and go treasure-hunting. She says she is probably too old and tired to go on, but she loves it too much to stop.

In the beginning, when the Treasure Sale was still a garage sale on neighborhood signs, she held sales all summer long. When some neighbors got upset and complained to city officials, they instated an ordinance prohibiting more than three sales a year by the same person. Sharon changed her signs and started her three annual holiday-weekend Treasure Sales: Memorial Day weekend, Fourth of July weekend, and Labor Day weekend or Defeat of Jesse James Days. She puts up big signs from her real estate business on Highway 3, Highway 19, and on the interstate near the Elko flea market. She also sells year-round on eBay and Craig’s List, meeting clients in the Twin Cities or in Northfield to make transactions. Some buyers, like her, buy to sell. Others ask her to find specific items for their purposes, and still others think that her Treasure Sale is just a garage sale, not fully understanding the value of the collection they are looking at.

She tells me she will probably continue holding Treasure Sales until she dies, at which point she will leave her treasures to her son, who will hire an auctioneer to evaluate prices and sell everything at once. Until then, she vows not to slow down or move into a retirement home, because “whatever you do in your life, I think you become your surroundings.” She sees no reason to give up her passion or become complacent – she is “not ready to die! Too many sales to go to… There are a lot of miles left in these legs!”

***

When evaluating owners of other shops, she says it is important to control what comes into the store and make sure it is of high quality. A business owner must also know how to present herself to the public, with appropriate, professional dress and behavior. One shop owner now going out of business had her “hands in too many pots.” Coming from such a multi-skilled woman, this evaluation holds particular weight. Sharon herself, although she has done many things throughout the course of her life, has put a lot of effort into completing one task at a time, while constantly working toward her ultimate dream. While she never officially opened her antique shop, she overcame substantial obstacles to sell her beloved old things in a creative and resourceful way.

This creative expression of her unrelenting drive, her determination to achieve her goals, is the spark that first attracted me to her and her seemingly small-scale venture. I am amazed at her application in studying for her various licenses and her resounding success on every test. I am amazed that she had the confidence and assuredness to tell her doctors what she wanted and how she wanted to be treated as a patient. I am amazed at her full-scale immersion into the working world at a time in history when women were just beginning to populate the workforce and rarely entered the business arena. I am amazed at how much she knows about antiques, how she will drop names and models of glassware and speak of their value, both monetary and intangible. She pinpoints herself as a type-A personality, a controller, and a doer. “Usually in a family there is one doer,” she says, proudly. She is most likely an implementer, and certainly believes that her aspirations are within her reach. Her delight in her work is inspiring and is no doubt the source of much of her strength and success.

Sharon’s story provides an unsettling example of the reality of unforeseen circumstances. Such an active, ambitious young woman would never expect to be stopped short by a terminal illness in her early forties, but she was. Although she was very proud and passionate about the track she was taking, earning one license after another, she might have missed out completely on selling antiques if her passion for life had not made her fight to keep it. That same passion led her to start buying antiques again in spite of the vividly precarious nature of her life. Her lifelong investment in her love of old things in the end has had worthwhile returns economically but, more importantly, in her quality of life.

I wanted to talk to her because of the tangible passion with which she conducted her business over the course of that hour. I could tell, although I did not know at the time what she had gone through, that the Treasure Sale was the result of long years of planning, some setbacks or complications, and an incredible set of dreams. The entrepreneurial spirit emerged distinctly from the collection and arrangement of items and her thorough knowledge about them, and was clarified through my conversation with her. I came away from our meeting somewhat overwhelmed, but also inspired and deeply touched by the possibilities that are available to someone who is determined to move forward, to use her gifts to their fullest capacity and approach the end of life with a sense of pride, satisfaction, and a life well-lived.

bearing the name

It’s a long drive across New York. On the way, you pass exits for Cairo, Delhi, Bethlehem and Troy, Amsterdam, Rome, Liverpool and Geneva, Bath and Babylon, Cambridge, Carthage, and Corinth, Jamaica, Manchester, Versailles and Valhalla, Lima, Greece, and Greenwich. In most cases, the name is the only thing they have in common with their twins abroad; maybe, if they’re lucky (or desperate), some long-forgotten history or a founder from the namesake.

I-90 heading for Boston. Take the Arlington exit. There’s an Arlington in Minnesota too. And New York. Also Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Massachusetts, Nebraska, South Dakota, Tennessee and Washington. Iowa has an Aplington, a mere typo, no doubt, and Illinois has Arlington Heights. Apparently Arlington, whatever or whoever it was, had some great impact on American history—now, that impact is lost on myself and probably most people I would talk to.

It means different things to us now.

***

My name is Clara Swanson. It’s the name of my Swedish great-grandmother, and there was one other Clara in the family before me. (She descended from a girl cousin, though, so her last name is Rapson.) Five years ago, when the extended family got together, my second cousin David called during church to announce the birth of his daughter – Clara Swanson. Like me, she can easily project how old she will be at any given family reunion (in multiples of five); she is an unbridled spirit (and I pray that no one tries to break her); and she busts a move at the slightest suggestion of a beat.

I passed by her lunch table at this summer’s reunion and her family said, “Oh, YOU’RE the other Clara Swanson! She’s been dying to meet you!” I had been dying to meet her, too, but at the actual prospect of such an anticipated meeting we both suddenly became very shy. We greeted each other and I didn’t linger long, but walked away with the odd feeling that I had just shaken hands with myself.

I remember when Grandma Clara died. I was five, and I stood next to my cousin Paula while they lowered her coffin into the ground. I remember the exact moment of understanding what was happening, when I looked around and realized that a lot of people I knew very well were crying. I remember wondering what they knew that I didn’t know, feeling that I should be crying too. I teared up—but I stopped myself, thinking how stupid it would be to start crying just because everybody else was. Then someone threw dirt into the hole, onto the coffin, and I realized that Grandma Clara, the 100% Swedish, 98-year-old version of myself, was not going to get out of that box and spend time with me ever again.

***

My name is Clara Lee Swanson. The Lee is on my mom’s side. I carry the patriotic legacy, in my name and on my government-issued ID, of an illustrious old Southern family. From Gram-B, a legendary link in our history: my great-grandmother, Allene Lee.

In fifth grade, I developed a penchant for tragedy, specifically the sinking of the Titanic and the so-called American Civil War. Maybe it was just a fascination with history, with the history of people, which through some lenses seems like a long series of tragedies and their resolutions. Anyway, my mom mentioned in passing that I was somehow distantly related to the great General Robert E. Lee, a piece of information I took back to class and announced during an educational visit of a representative from the Sons of the Civil War. He blinked, looked down, cleared his throat and after collecting himself managed to say coldly, “Yes, well, there is also a group called Daughters of the Confederacy.” I struggled for years with his dismissal before finally deciding that General Lee was a tactical genius and a man of good character, and that I was proud to be the eight-times-great-granddaughter of his brother Henry.

***

In some cases—online, and in my notebooks from high school, and, in theory, on the cover of a novel or a book of poetry someday—my name is Clara de Tierra. It was the Shot Heard Around the World in my personal War of Independence. I desperately needed to find my place as a citizen of the world, beyond the several countries I could claim as my father- or mother- or brother-sisterland, beyond belonging to my father because I bear his name—I wanted to identify myself as a human being living in unfathomable society with the rest of my (absolutely fascinating) species. Plus, it seemed like a good way to integrate my official traditional Ecuadorian name (Clara Lee Swanson Buckner) into my life in the States, without cutting out my mom’s Indian influence. By changing my name, even unofficially, I ceased to be Clara Lee, son of Sven, and became Clara, daughter of the earth and everything else.

At the time my favorite writer and greatest inspiration was Madeleine L’Engle, author of the Wrinkle in Time series and a ridiculous number of other books (I have by now more or less exhausted them). I was reading the first Crosswicks journal, which chronicled one of her summers spent at a rambling, teetering manor in smalltown New York with several generations of family members popping in and out at various intervals. Her husband, Hugh, was an actor whose last name was Franklin; she took his name when they were married, but on the covers of her books she remained always Madeleine L’Engle, because how can anyone make a name for themselves if they just go changing it every other novel or so?

I took this detail to heart and thought it was high time I think ahead to the days when I would no longer belong in name to my father but to some other man; and decided instead to take matters into my own hands and foray into the world with a blank slate and some extra space in my name. That way, I could safely create a name for myself without instigating any political uprisings among the men in my life…

And besides, Clara de Tierra rhymes.

***

I do not have a name like Dessa or Shihan or Felony. At the National Poetry Slam, established poets take the stage to speak their word. In a still-unfamiliar poetry culture, the pre-poem silence fills up with shouts of “C’mon, poet!” The Slam is not about fame, so it’s not about a name. It’s about poetry. It’s about the Word. So each of its speakers is just that: one piece of the poetic stereo. One letter of the Word. One soloist in the chorus and one shout in the crowd.

“Yeah poet!” So they speak. About themselves, but for the world. For our shared experience.

***

One late-August morning, almost exactly three years ago, I sat in a diner in Rome (New York) with Nate, Elisabeth, and Dave Preisinger. I’d known Nate for a long time, since we were both on the Foothills Regional LYO board, but I was feeling shy then that he was where Elisabeth and I are now—entering his senior year at St. Olaf College. “Actually, I’m kind of jealous of you guys,” he said with theatrical enthusiasm. “You get to start fresh. You can be whoever you want to be. You can change your personality completely! You could even change your name!”

At that, Elisabeth’s dad and brother started suggesting the most farfetched nicknames they could think of. “What about Eli?” Dave cackled, and we all tried it out. “Do you think it would actually stick?” Nobody could imagine people actually calling her that.

Three years later, people at St. Olaf ask me if I know Eli Preisinger.

And Math Matt, for the life of him, can’t remember my real name—he still calls me Scheherazade.