My Parents Were Awesome November 25, 2009
Posted by Sarah in Blogs, family, My 2 cents, Photography.1 comment so far
My parents were awesome features all that was awesome about parents in their heydey. Short boy shorts and shocking amounts of 70s body hair aside, there’s something sweet about the content.
Maybe I’m drawn to this blog because I never heard my parents talk about being happy. They married just before my maternal grandmother died of cancer, and my dad’s world came crashing down a year or so later when the Air Force, his dream career, rejected him for health reasons. If there were happy newlywed stories, I never heard them.
I can only guess what life has been like for any of the featured couples, but the spirit in which kids submit photos of their parents is certainly life affirming.
If I’d Known Then November 20, 2009
Posted by Sarah in Books, Inspiration, My 2 cents.9 comments
What if you could write a letter to your younger self? What would it say? This little book contains just those letters, written by famous, successful women to their younger, struggling selves.
The question of what I would write lingers on after each letter I read. I have no doubt to when I would write – the summer after my freshman year, when a lonely, isolated girl listened to the Cure and cried herself to sleep every night. So much of what I know now would be absolutely incomprehensible to that guarded, cynical girl who was so very unloved, but that makes my letter so much more important.
Sarah,
You are unspeakably unhappy, and you do not know why. Everyone tells you that you have everything you could possibly need to make you happy. Let me tell you right now: they are wrong. You have every reason to be unhappy, and your ability to recognize this will drive you to a better life. Let me promise you a few things:
You will always be there for yourself. One of your college professors will teach the parable of the crawfish, who gets into heaven by backing out of hell. I can’t promise you heaven, but whenever you find yourself in hell, you will back yourself out of it. Every time. Your faith in yourself is one of your best qualities, and it will get you places you can’t even imagine right now.
You will not always be so heartrendingly lonely. Don’t listen to that nonsense your parents feed you about nobody liking you. Sure, you’ve had to learn people skills the hard way, and you’ll learn a lot more as you go along, but you are going to have some amazing friendships in your life.
You will discover those inner worlds that you know exist but have no idea how to access. Not through drinking, or drugs, or the mysticism of the 60s lit you’ll devour in a year or two, but through hard work and learning to trust others. That step of asking for help will be your biggest challenge, but it will also reap the biggest rewards. However, the time for asking help comes later, once you’ve left your home town. For now, bide your time and give them hell. You’ve got some glorious showdowns coming up.
Hang in there. You get through each day by promising yourself that it won’t last forever. Every day feels like an eternity, but know that you are backing out of hell as each one passes.
Love,
Your future self
PS When you’re a junior, you’ll finally meet another Cure fan. Keep an eye out for dragon pants.
talking to trees November 4, 2009
Posted by Sarah in Blogs, My 2 cents, Outdoors, Photography.4 comments
During my first week back in the busy-ness of work, I snuck out to walk along the bay trail, sit in the sun, and absorb nature as I slowed my thoughts down to a manageable level, so I know exactly the feeling captured in this post. I’m also intrigued by the author’s completely sold-out e-course, “Unravelling, Ways of Seeing Myself.” Enough so that I might embark on my own version of the course…Hm.
“Value your inner life.” October 2, 2009
Posted by Sarah in My 2 cents, quotes.2 comments
After decades of secrecy, Carl Jung’s Red Book – a journey through his own subconscious – has been translated and is due to be published next month. My own knowledge of Jung, hazily remembered from psych 101, was that he was into dreams. (Freud had that ego, superego, id thing, and Skinner had his dogs. This is the learning that memorizing for a multiple choice test leaves you with.)
The NYT recently published an article about Jung and this book, which I found fascinating. Jungian thought has certainly seeped into pop culture, and I found it fascinating to read more about the source of ideas that have informed some of my favorite works. I was also fascinated by the example of man who who faced his unconscious head on rather than running from it. One quote I really liked, about exploring the deeper and more frightening aspects of one’s own mind is about exploring and writing down your journey, is
“If anyone tells you that it is morbid or neurotic and you listen to them — then you will lose your soul — for in that book is your soul.”
* Re: post title, according to the translator of the Red Book, “The basic message he’s sending is ‘Value your inner life.’ ”
Run Like a Girl September 18, 2009
Posted by Sarah in Blogs, Books, family, Fitness, Hockey, My 2 cents.add a comment
Mina Samuels is writing Run Like a Girl: How Strong Women Make Happy Lives and is looking for women’s stories. I sent her a brief outline of how sports have saved my life – brief because the full story would be an entire book by itself.
As I typed out my e-mail to her, I was struck not only by how important sports have been to my physical and mental health, but how they saved me from carrying on the family legacy of substance abuse. I’m even more amazed that, in the midst of all the anti-sport hysteria my family was flinging at me, I was somehow able to listen to the voice inside of me that let me know that what I was doing was right, healthy, and was my path to a better life.
I hope that Run Like a Girl makes it easier for girls and women to follow their hearts and play sports without fear, taunting, or recrimination from their families or communities. Read this blog post about an aspiring hockey player and tell me that this book is not long overdue.
Eileen Sheridan, 1950s cyclist September 8, 2009
Posted by Sarah in bicycles, Bicycling, bikes, My 2 cents, Video.add a comment
Click the image above to see the video clip. I’m betting that Eileen was a pretty amazing woman, but I’m also cringing at a time when many men believed a woman’s place was in the home! Thank you womens lib, and thank you Title IX.
The Legion of Honor September 7, 2009
Posted by Sarah in art, My 2 cents, San Francisco.add a comment
The Legion of Honor has never been my favorite museum in San Francisco – I generally prefer more modern work. Wandering around that museum today, I realized why – the galleries were filled with archetypal virgins and whores. All the artists were male, and it was difficult for me to appreciate the works of a society that marginalized woman to such a staggering degree.
My experience at this museum reminded me of a recent blog post from Amy Stein’s Photography Blog discussing the glorification of violence against women in art. It also bears on what I was trying to communicate in my last post about the power of bringing more voices to the public awareness.
If we simply marvel in their technical brilliance of several centuries of European painters, we are only learning a small fraction of what their work might teach us.
voice September 5, 2009
Posted by Sarah in Music, My 2 cents, TED talks, the arts.1 comment so far
This Alanis Morissette cover of a Police song that I’ve always enjoyed started me wondering about voice. She sings the same lyrics and melody as the Police, but suddenly I heard meaning and emotion that I’ve never heard before. I went back and listened to the Police version and thought to myself, huh, these guys were onto something that I never gave them credit for before.
That brings me to a point made by Steven Pinker in his TED talk, that one of the many reasons violence has decreased in modern society is cosmopolitanism – that when we hear the voices of others, we begin to see them as worthy of respect and dignity instead of annihilation.
Key to achieving cosmopolitanism are technologies that allow us to hear the voice of the other, beginning with the Guttenburg press, and moving through the cinema, radio, and the internet. The printed and spoken word have allowed us to walk in the shoes of the other and to know the universality of suffering in the human experience. With social media, voices that have been silenced throughout human history are able to tell their stories. Why should this matter?
In times of suffering, people ask the question, am I alone? When the answer is yes, they (and others) feel that the fault and blame lies with them. When instead, they see other voices speaking the same truth that they themselves know, they begin to realize that perhaps something is wrong with the world, and that maybe that something can be fixed.
If we can listen when we hear a new voice speaking an old truth – truths old enough to have mostly been covered under ten Thou Shalts and Thou Shalt Nots – suddenly we not only understand the reason for old dictates, but the imperative for valuing others as we value ourselves. We are no longer painting by numbers.
Christian Faur August 24, 2009
Posted by Sarah in Alcoholism, art, My 2 cents.add a comment
Artist Christian Faur’s series Forgotten Children – anonymous faces in greyscale, with contrasting bits of color floating through to show us what should have been.
You won’t meet many people who admit to an unhappy childhood, possibly from fear of mockery, possibly from fear of admitting it to themselves, but I am slowly acknowledging this to myself.
Sometimes it’s the way a piece of art resonates that triggers a feeling of how bad things were, sometimes it’s something much smaller. The other morning, reading a 40 something’s FB post lamenting his inability to sleep past 4am didn’t make me feel anxious about aging, but rather provoked a visceral reaction that not being able to sleep was a small price to pay for no longer being a child.
Much like Christian Faur, I don’t have the whole story, but I know that something was very wrong.
The truth August 19, 2009
Posted by Sarah in My 2 cents, quotes.2 comments
“When you tell the truth, it becomes part of your past. When you tell a lie, it becomes a part of your future.” Rick Pitino
This quote comes from a guy trying to dig himself out of a PR nightmare, but questions of his sincerity aside, I really really like the sentiment.
