Waiting for the bus my daughters and I read the papers. When we can afford it we revel in the New York Times. (A friendly delivery man knows we like the Globe too and drops us one when he has a spare.) Lately, though, it's just the incredible shrinking Hartford Courant - our state's capitol city paper, emerging from rounds and rounds of buyouts and sales and layoffs.
Reading the entire paper in 10 minutes has its advantages, I guess...fewer to take to the curb. Less put into landfills. But half the front section seems like police report transcripts. Be afraid, it seems to intone - be very afraid. We talk about that: what's reported, how it's easier to copy a police report than to analyze complex records and events, how the paper we hold in our hand represents something that is not proportional to reality.
So you see my kids have a steady diet of news. And commentary about news.
Maybe I am teaching my kids to be dinosaurs.
Cooking dinner recently, one of my daughters stated a nearby town is poorer than ours. Really? I queried. Yes, I've been there, came the confident reply. So I explained different ways to measure community wealth and resources. They quickly grasped the notion of a Grand List, adding up all the taxable property and dividing by the number of people. We have a house, we have a car; they could relate.
Later, I thought ruefully that of course my clever middle school children could grasp the basic elements of a municipal budget, drilled into me as a 21-year-old reporter covering a town. But there are fewer and fewer people know how to report on these things, or opportunities to read about them.
Recently I was in a panel discussion reflecting on whether our current state of media - massive corporate ownership, diminishing reporting and investigative resources - is a chicken or an egg problem. Or has a chicken or egg solution. Do we as a society expect and seem to like such shallow reporting because that's all we get? Is that what we get because that is what over time we have shown we want? Is that what we want because it's all we know? Or all we have time for?
I remember feeling from my own reporting days that I was often just writing into a well. You work your ass off, break a fabulous story, and no one cares or acts on it and nothing changes. That's a good part of why I left journalism, and now, after a lot of years of trying in other ways to change the world, I can see how even the best reporting got to be part of a much larger and more concerted campaign. You need the analysis, and the content in that 30+ inches of unbroken copy, but you've also got to call out the important parts and hit people over the head with it. Again and again and again.
There are actually some good things about the incredible shrinking Courant. I do see they are calling out information in new and visually appealing ways. Good! What's still lacking, though, is analysis, and any context. How about a police blotter that also tells us whether crime - by any measure! - was up or down or the same as in recent weeks and years.
Maybe this is one of those things that will work itself out with time. Perhaps the upsurge in blogs and online news will fill the gap - although I am afraid I agree with those who point out that online communities too often consist of people who agree with each other or are interested in narrow and specific topics (left-handed dentists, Buddhist parents.) They're not learning about things in their own community and they are not talking to anyone with a different opinion.
I cling to the notion that as an informed citizens we should have a grasp of certain facts and processes and benchmarks. What's our tax rate, how do we compare to other places, how are we educating our kids and taking care of our seniors, and so many more. And I haven't found a better place we should be able to look to for that than our media.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Hundreds of words for snow
I don't know it it's true, the ubiquitous urban myth that Eskimos, tied to and living off their land, have 100 different words for snow.
Lately I have been feeling that way about leaves.
I am still raking, and now, on the weekend where I have time off from work and my daughters are at their dad's, I am determined to finish up.
Today and yesterday the leaves are very damp and even wet. Tarps weigh many times their usual weight as I drag them to he riverbank. I have to switch hands, feel myself develop Popeye forearms.
Raking them is different too. My yard is not completely level and in some places leaves have gathered in small depressions; here they are packed and wet. In other places, under the eaves of the house, there are pockets of leaves that are entirely dry, fluffy, still colorful and easy to rake.
Most of the yard now has been cleared at least once, so when I go back over and sweep three or four inches worth of these damp leaves, it feels good.
Lately I have been feeling that way about leaves.
I am still raking, and now, on the weekend where I have time off from work and my daughters are at their dad's, I am determined to finish up.
Today and yesterday the leaves are very damp and even wet. Tarps weigh many times their usual weight as I drag them to he riverbank. I have to switch hands, feel myself develop Popeye forearms.
Raking them is different too. My yard is not completely level and in some places leaves have gathered in small depressions; here they are packed and wet. In other places, under the eaves of the house, there are pockets of leaves that are entirely dry, fluffy, still colorful and easy to rake.
Most of the yard now has been cleared at least once, so when I go back over and sweep three or four inches worth of these damp leaves, it feels good.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Home Depot Illimunati
I used to joke that if the Illuminati does indeed exist, their greatest accomplishment is Home Depot.
I thought of that again this morning as I was taking leaves. My home office window looks out into my lovely yard, graced with numerous enormous maple and beech trees. Unchecked, leaf accumulation gets to a foot or more of wet, packed, smelly mouldy matter by spring. This year I am resolved to keep up with it, and get out there to clear small patches, even though the trees above are still half filled with trembling, turning leaves.
Weeks ago I was rather stressed, eying my finances (which do NOT include leaf removal) along with the ticking by of the season and what I know to be the massive job ahead. I've had some success in moderating the stress by simply acknowledging making note of it and letting it go; also, though, by not leaving it all till the end, and taking advantage of every free half hour on a nice day to enjoy the air and revel in the exercise.
And so I was out there this morning, and I remembered my old joke about the Home Depot Illuminati.
It goes something like this:
If indeed there is a giant powerful international cabal, intent on seizing and holding control of our political and economic systems, what better success could they hope to have than Home Depot?
Think about what Home Depot successfully promotes.
If you are a homeowner, it is your single largest and greatest investment. If you are not, you are supposed to aspire and work toward it. After all, the greatest form of middle class welfare given the mortgage interest tax deduction.
Well, this, your home, is in constant and unending need of improvement. Even if it isn't actually falling down around you, you are continually told - through trillions of dollars of very well developed glossy commercials; entire sections of the newspaper - that is needs to be brighter, prettier, glossier, larger. Marble. Stainless steel appliances. Skylights! Renovated kitchens!
If you even halfway listen to this constant drumbeat you can spend every spare cent (hell, go into debt if there's none to spare) and every spare minute improving your home. Otherwise you are worthless! Inadequate!
As Betty Friedan said about housework, home improvement now expands to fill all available time.
So, back to the Illuminati part. If the goal is a populace that doesn't care about politics, or public policy, or how society invests its resources, what better way to achieve it than this? (Or doesn't have time to care; maybe the same thing.)
Cause or effect? Kinda doesn't matter.
I've seen Michael Moore's Sicko since developing this theory and think he's got it even more right. Americans are overworked, overextended, and feeling fundamentally really vulnerable about the increasing disconnect between the lifestyle we are told to want, the actual cost of living (even without plasma tvs), juxtaposed against real earnings; and the fact that for many years we have experienced no political hope or sense of our own power and effectiveness. In France, the government is afraid of the people, Moore concludes; here, the people are afraid of the government.
I do have to say, I almost can't bear to watch any more news. The unavoidable economic black hole combined with the possibility (however remote) of a McCain/Palin administration is almost too much to bear. (Although I do feel increasingly free to prepare to celebrate Tuesday.)
However: I have decided to enjoy raking the leaves this year. I do not have to bag them, instead throwing tarps full off a steep hill that leads to a riverbank. That's a kind of wild, joyous feeling in itself. It makes a wonderful, massive compost pile, and the kids love to jump in them. And I can use the mental time to muse, reflect on work and other things, dream up barely read blog posts.
I thought of that again this morning as I was taking leaves. My home office window looks out into my lovely yard, graced with numerous enormous maple and beech trees. Unchecked, leaf accumulation gets to a foot or more of wet, packed, smelly mouldy matter by spring. This year I am resolved to keep up with it, and get out there to clear small patches, even though the trees above are still half filled with trembling, turning leaves.
Weeks ago I was rather stressed, eying my finances (which do NOT include leaf removal) along with the ticking by of the season and what I know to be the massive job ahead. I've had some success in moderating the stress by simply acknowledging making note of it and letting it go; also, though, by not leaving it all till the end, and taking advantage of every free half hour on a nice day to enjoy the air and revel in the exercise.
And so I was out there this morning, and I remembered my old joke about the Home Depot Illuminati.
It goes something like this:
If indeed there is a giant powerful international cabal, intent on seizing and holding control of our political and economic systems, what better success could they hope to have than Home Depot?
Think about what Home Depot successfully promotes.
If you are a homeowner, it is your single largest and greatest investment. If you are not, you are supposed to aspire and work toward it. After all, the greatest form of middle class welfare given the mortgage interest tax deduction.
Well, this, your home, is in constant and unending need of improvement. Even if it isn't actually falling down around you, you are continually told - through trillions of dollars of very well developed glossy commercials; entire sections of the newspaper - that is needs to be brighter, prettier, glossier, larger. Marble. Stainless steel appliances. Skylights! Renovated kitchens!
If you even halfway listen to this constant drumbeat you can spend every spare cent (hell, go into debt if there's none to spare) and every spare minute improving your home. Otherwise you are worthless! Inadequate!
As Betty Friedan said about housework, home improvement now expands to fill all available time.
So, back to the Illuminati part. If the goal is a populace that doesn't care about politics, or public policy, or how society invests its resources, what better way to achieve it than this? (Or doesn't have time to care; maybe the same thing.)
Cause or effect? Kinda doesn't matter.
I've seen Michael Moore's Sicko since developing this theory and think he's got it even more right. Americans are overworked, overextended, and feeling fundamentally really vulnerable about the increasing disconnect between the lifestyle we are told to want, the actual cost of living (even without plasma tvs), juxtaposed against real earnings; and the fact that for many years we have experienced no political hope or sense of our own power and effectiveness. In France, the government is afraid of the people, Moore concludes; here, the people are afraid of the government.
I do have to say, I almost can't bear to watch any more news. The unavoidable economic black hole combined with the possibility (however remote) of a McCain/Palin administration is almost too much to bear. (Although I do feel increasingly free to prepare to celebrate Tuesday.)
However: I have decided to enjoy raking the leaves this year. I do not have to bag them, instead throwing tarps full off a steep hill that leads to a riverbank. That's a kind of wild, joyous feeling in itself. It makes a wonderful, massive compost pile, and the kids love to jump in them. And I can use the mental time to muse, reflect on work and other things, dream up barely read blog posts.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Prescription Religion
An old boyfriend once had a T-shirt with a marvelous and pithy list that summarized the major world religions with a quick irreverent quote for each.
After being raised Catholic, I became a more generic Christian, moving eventually to Buddhism in my thirties.
How do these two things relate?
I sometimes think that Buddhism - for all it has kept me grounded, given me great insights, and meditation - might be the worst thing for me. Truth be told, I've always been a very compassionate person. (Look at my choice of career and political views.) Being able to put myself in another's shoes has never been something I've had to work particularly hard at. In fact, what I often think I need is assertiveness training - to get better at standing up for myself, recognizing when I am being taken advantage of, being firm and clear about what I want and need and will and won't accept.
Which has led me to the belief that what we may need, in place of this modern western ability to shop with impunity for pretty much any faith or spirituality that speaks to us, is someone ELSE to tell us what we need.
Prescription religion.
I look at myself lately - 40 years old and staring hard at my second divorce; glaring questions there about my judgement, at least in one major area! The last thing I need is to sit around thinking and talking about the need for compassion and emptiness! I need some stronger stuff....Wrath of God, chosen people. Maybe I need to ingest some a couple of shots of fundamentalism and start getting ready for the Rapture. Maybe I need to go back to confession, list sins and be absolved.
Sigh.
I am kidding, of course. Mostly. I am reading commentaries on the Diamond sutra lately. I was lucky enough to go to a daylong seminar on it, years ago, and have always loved the realization that only transcending emotions lets you see them; that "all form is emptiness, all emptiness is form," meaning that for all that they consume us at the moment, emotions are really only in us and don't exist otherwise or on their own. From there it's a short leap to being able to hold yourself above or apart from them to really see them.
(Except when you are consumed with primal tears at odd times. On hearing a song that hits you the wrong way. Driving home.)
I have asked the old boyfriend for the T-shirt and he doesn't have it anymore. Couldn't find it on line, either. I think I will spend some time on a comparative religious study, taking snippets as needed.
Later: Stepping in dogshit.
After being raised Catholic, I became a more generic Christian, moving eventually to Buddhism in my thirties.
How do these two things relate?
I sometimes think that Buddhism - for all it has kept me grounded, given me great insights, and meditation - might be the worst thing for me. Truth be told, I've always been a very compassionate person. (Look at my choice of career and political views.) Being able to put myself in another's shoes has never been something I've had to work particularly hard at. In fact, what I often think I need is assertiveness training - to get better at standing up for myself, recognizing when I am being taken advantage of, being firm and clear about what I want and need and will and won't accept.
Which has led me to the belief that what we may need, in place of this modern western ability to shop with impunity for pretty much any faith or spirituality that speaks to us, is someone ELSE to tell us what we need.
Prescription religion.
I look at myself lately - 40 years old and staring hard at my second divorce; glaring questions there about my judgement, at least in one major area! The last thing I need is to sit around thinking and talking about the need for compassion and emptiness! I need some stronger stuff....Wrath of God, chosen people. Maybe I need to ingest some a couple of shots of fundamentalism and start getting ready for the Rapture. Maybe I need to go back to confession, list sins and be absolved.
Sigh.
I am kidding, of course. Mostly. I am reading commentaries on the Diamond sutra lately. I was lucky enough to go to a daylong seminar on it, years ago, and have always loved the realization that only transcending emotions lets you see them; that "all form is emptiness, all emptiness is form," meaning that for all that they consume us at the moment, emotions are really only in us and don't exist otherwise or on their own. From there it's a short leap to being able to hold yourself above or apart from them to really see them.
(Except when you are consumed with primal tears at odd times. On hearing a song that hits you the wrong way. Driving home.)
I have asked the old boyfriend for the T-shirt and he doesn't have it anymore. Couldn't find it on line, either. I think I will spend some time on a comparative religious study, taking snippets as needed.
Later: Stepping in dogshit.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Garden Darwinism
It's that time of year when I long for the desert - when the lush, overwhelming greenness of New England threatens to overwhelm the senses, choke off paths and driveways when untended for a week. When I'm reminded how any bare patch of dirt in these parts, left untended, will be covered in a month with scrappy Queen Anne's lace, sumac trees, bright weedy wildflowers.
When my local walking trails seems sultry and overgrown, with a steamy, closed in feeling, that would render me unsurprised should a brontosaurus poke its head around the corner.
My vegetable garden goes through the same wild process every year around this time, and I am too weary to intervene. I go away or get busy for a week or so and return to find that the tomatoes are overtaking the squash, the oregano is totally out of control, and the sweet peas are staging an invasion again the neighboring asparagus with apparent success.
Garden Darwinism, I call it.
This year's vegetables have been haphazard. I planted all my tomatoes at once and am sure they will all come ripe at EXACTLY the same moment, when my car crosses the state line on my way out to vacation.
In the back row I whimsically planted come climbing moonflowers right in front of some lovely tall sunflower seeds. Unfortunately I did not also then install string for the moonflowers to climb, so as they came of age they lurched inexorably forward and established a mutually lethal stranglehold on the sunflowers. I finally ran some string and coaxed the resultant moonflower-sunflower conglomeration up the ropes, feeling vaguely like I was violating the Prime Directive.
If they survive, I thought, it'll be lovely, if odd. The moonflowers so far seem okay.
Who would think that the fragile, tapering leaves of the moonflower - blossoming only at night, slender trumpet blooms - would overpower the thicker and sturdy trunk of the sunflower? Yet that seems to be the case.
Sometimes at this time of year I feel sympathy for the Pilgrims, who, starving, must have looked around at all of this lush, fantastic growth - not much of which, occurring on its own, seems to have the nutrients to sustain human life...yet how accommodating the land, with just a little knowledge.
I am descended from some actual Pilgrims. Growing more and more allergic every year to poison ivy, I now think of it as nature's way of saving to my ancestors: get back on the boat and keep looking.
When my local walking trails seems sultry and overgrown, with a steamy, closed in feeling, that would render me unsurprised should a brontosaurus poke its head around the corner.
My vegetable garden goes through the same wild process every year around this time, and I am too weary to intervene. I go away or get busy for a week or so and return to find that the tomatoes are overtaking the squash, the oregano is totally out of control, and the sweet peas are staging an invasion again the neighboring asparagus with apparent success.
Garden Darwinism, I call it.
This year's vegetables have been haphazard. I planted all my tomatoes at once and am sure they will all come ripe at EXACTLY the same moment, when my car crosses the state line on my way out to vacation.
In the back row I whimsically planted come climbing moonflowers right in front of some lovely tall sunflower seeds. Unfortunately I did not also then install string for the moonflowers to climb, so as they came of age they lurched inexorably forward and established a mutually lethal stranglehold on the sunflowers. I finally ran some string and coaxed the resultant moonflower-sunflower conglomeration up the ropes, feeling vaguely like I was violating the Prime Directive.
If they survive, I thought, it'll be lovely, if odd. The moonflowers so far seem okay.
Who would think that the fragile, tapering leaves of the moonflower - blossoming only at night, slender trumpet blooms - would overpower the thicker and sturdy trunk of the sunflower? Yet that seems to be the case.
Sometimes at this time of year I feel sympathy for the Pilgrims, who, starving, must have looked around at all of this lush, fantastic growth - not much of which, occurring on its own, seems to have the nutrients to sustain human life...yet how accommodating the land, with just a little knowledge.
I am descended from some actual Pilgrims. Growing more and more allergic every year to poison ivy, I now think of it as nature's way of saving to my ancestors: get back on the boat and keep looking.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Like a Mole
Yesterday, standing the in the parking lot of the elementary school where my daughter and some other kids were sledding, I started to examine the growing rust spot above the wheel well of my car with a sense of detached fascination and dread. It was something like looking at a little noticed mole on your body. You only have to worry when it changes, right? I thought, peering at the growing dark center , the widening area of raised metal, what appeared to be layering near the center edge. I became afraid to poke it for fear of going right through.
My car is a 1994 Accord, making it older than my children. It was bought by me about three years ago in a period of financial distress, for $4,000 in cash, from a repair shop small enough and marginal enough that my car's true history and origins have always seemed vaguely murky to me. The title said one previous owner, but a series of random systems malfunctions (too expensive to correct, only intermittently inconvenient to live with) suggest otherwise: antenna doesn't work, gas gauge broken, odd leak into back seat area. On my frequent trips to the repair shop, I think I have a Katrina car. Otherwise I try to revel in not having a car payment.
I was standing next to my friend and neighbor, having just been admiring his new Toyota truck that seats six and had spaces for DVD players. We were chatting, leaving just enough free brain space for my eyes to return again and again to my small Rorschach test of rust. It looked definitely bigger than the last time.
I was a little on edge anyway. I was there with my older daughter, and my neighbor and his three kids. My younger daughter had been all set to go with us, but was home now, due to her soaking herself to the waist minutes before we were due to leave. I'd given her a hot bath, and some tea, and was anxious to get back to her.
How big can a rust spot get before your bumper will fall off driving over a bump, I wondered.
My car is a 1994 Accord, making it older than my children. It was bought by me about three years ago in a period of financial distress, for $4,000 in cash, from a repair shop small enough and marginal enough that my car's true history and origins have always seemed vaguely murky to me. The title said one previous owner, but a series of random systems malfunctions (too expensive to correct, only intermittently inconvenient to live with) suggest otherwise: antenna doesn't work, gas gauge broken, odd leak into back seat area. On my frequent trips to the repair shop, I think I have a Katrina car. Otherwise I try to revel in not having a car payment.
I was standing next to my friend and neighbor, having just been admiring his new Toyota truck that seats six and had spaces for DVD players. We were chatting, leaving just enough free brain space for my eyes to return again and again to my small Rorschach test of rust. It looked definitely bigger than the last time.
I was a little on edge anyway. I was there with my older daughter, and my neighbor and his three kids. My younger daughter had been all set to go with us, but was home now, due to her soaking herself to the waist minutes before we were due to leave. I'd given her a hot bath, and some tea, and was anxious to get back to her.
How big can a rust spot get before your bumper will fall off driving over a bump, I wondered.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
What are your views on television?
Here is a request for input from other parents.
What are your views on television?
The topic is becoming a battleground lately in our home. For a long time we had a no-TV-during-the-week rule, which has grown relaxed of late around others who like TV during the week. (And I must confess, the girls and I would often watch the Daily Show together even before then.) My 12-year-old has a seemingly insatiable apatite for all Disney Channel programming. Even as she is saying she realizes how inane it is, she is drawn to it like a moth to flame.
Some advocate letting her regulate her own TV as long as her chores and homework have been done. I resist this, not wanting her brain filled with the crap I know she will watch.
Disney and other shows seem to me to promote a wise- assed tween world where all adults are idiots, kids walk through life leaving a trail of soda cans that the maid picks up, and the prevailing attitude among kids is cliquey, know-it-all, preternaturally adult, snooty and condescending. When my kids spend hours sitting and consuming that carefully branded and marketed lifestyle, yeah, it rubs off. Don't tell me Disney and Diet Coke don't spend millions on the country's top child psychologists t figure out exactly how to motivate and sell to these kids, I told my husband. There are only 24 hours in every day, and I don't want to spend my time and my kids' s childhood fighting this.
I've always advocated watching TV with my kids. Early on we started talking about commercials, asking, What are they trying to sell us? I've always kept an eye on what they see (although lately they are trying to watch South Park with their cousins...not sure I am ready for that.) But now it just seems like trying to find the right balance of freedom and rules is like grasping a slippery pig.
I know every generation says this, but here it is for us: I remember going out and roaming the neighborhood for hours or days without adult supervision or knowledge. Now we live on a busy state road, and even if we didn't I'd hesitate to let my kids out entirely untended for that much time. More time outside would certainly be good for everyone. But it's not the panacea.
I also know I can't control their every wish or action. What I want is to teach them the habits and controls that will give them persistence and creativity. I am pretty sure that four hours a day of the Disney channel are not the way to go.
Has anyone else struggled with this?
What are your views on television?
The topic is becoming a battleground lately in our home. For a long time we had a no-TV-during-the-week rule, which has grown relaxed of late around others who like TV during the week. (And I must confess, the girls and I would often watch the Daily Show together even before then.) My 12-year-old has a seemingly insatiable apatite for all Disney Channel programming. Even as she is saying she realizes how inane it is, she is drawn to it like a moth to flame.
Some advocate letting her regulate her own TV as long as her chores and homework have been done. I resist this, not wanting her brain filled with the crap I know she will watch.
Disney and other shows seem to me to promote a wise- assed tween world where all adults are idiots, kids walk through life leaving a trail of soda cans that the maid picks up, and the prevailing attitude among kids is cliquey, know-it-all, preternaturally adult, snooty and condescending. When my kids spend hours sitting and consuming that carefully branded and marketed lifestyle, yeah, it rubs off. Don't tell me Disney and Diet Coke don't spend millions on the country's top child psychologists t figure out exactly how to motivate and sell to these kids, I told my husband. There are only 24 hours in every day, and I don't want to spend my time and my kids' s childhood fighting this.
I've always advocated watching TV with my kids. Early on we started talking about commercials, asking, What are they trying to sell us? I've always kept an eye on what they see (although lately they are trying to watch South Park with their cousins...not sure I am ready for that.) But now it just seems like trying to find the right balance of freedom and rules is like grasping a slippery pig.
I know every generation says this, but here it is for us: I remember going out and roaming the neighborhood for hours or days without adult supervision or knowledge. Now we live on a busy state road, and even if we didn't I'd hesitate to let my kids out entirely untended for that much time. More time outside would certainly be good for everyone. But it's not the panacea.
I also know I can't control their every wish or action. What I want is to teach them the habits and controls that will give them persistence and creativity. I am pretty sure that four hours a day of the Disney channel are not the way to go.
Has anyone else struggled with this?
Identifying the moment
They happen every day, these little moments where a spark of insight goes off in your head and you realize that this was a turning point: a marker has been passed, a shift has occurred.
Yesterday I was sitting at my desk working while my younger daughter puttered around, fulfilling the maternal mandate that she spend a half hour playing the violin and piano (to balance the hours of television she'd ingested over the holiday weekend.) She's had a great spurt of enthusiasm this year for violin this year, fueled I think by an energetic young teacher at school who's found the right way to motivate her. She also takes piano, and seems to delight in trying to stump her teacher with detailed questions about music theory: what happens if this or that occurs? Why is this like this, what would happen if that...? I secretly love it.
She was going back and forth between her instruments when she suddenly fixated on the violin and how to play different scales. She wanted to show me the fingering and how you had to turn the neck to play various notes. I turned to give her my full attention. (I am so happy at these moments to be home.)
As I was listening and watching, it occurred suddenly to me, with the force and clarity of absolute truth: She is so far ahead of me now in all her musical knowledge and abilities! She is 11 years old and she is miles and miles ahead of me and I will never catch up. There was an undertone of feeling just a little old within this realization - but also there was the certainty that she had diverted from me in this area, in this one fork of the many many roads of life. I could study music full time for years and likely never achieve the mastery she is beginning to show. And to think, I'll now spend consistent or even increasing energy to make sure that she continues to practice and learn.
I took piano lesson myself as a kid, but don't even remember how old I was or how far I got when my parents decided I didn't practice enough and the lessons were summarily discontinued. Not that I was a prodigy suddenly deprived of my passion; probably I was happy to have more time to watch television uninterrupted.
But I was very happy for my daughter yesterday. Even the distance I sensed opening up between us was a good thing, a natural thing, and the right thing. Hopefully she will continue to grow and surpass me in many ways. And I guess I'll also be grateful when she keeps coming back and wanting to show me what she's up to!
Yesterday I was sitting at my desk working while my younger daughter puttered around, fulfilling the maternal mandate that she spend a half hour playing the violin and piano (to balance the hours of television she'd ingested over the holiday weekend.) She's had a great spurt of enthusiasm this year for violin this year, fueled I think by an energetic young teacher at school who's found the right way to motivate her. She also takes piano, and seems to delight in trying to stump her teacher with detailed questions about music theory: what happens if this or that occurs? Why is this like this, what would happen if that...? I secretly love it.
She was going back and forth between her instruments when she suddenly fixated on the violin and how to play different scales. She wanted to show me the fingering and how you had to turn the neck to play various notes. I turned to give her my full attention. (I am so happy at these moments to be home.)
As I was listening and watching, it occurred suddenly to me, with the force and clarity of absolute truth: She is so far ahead of me now in all her musical knowledge and abilities! She is 11 years old and she is miles and miles ahead of me and I will never catch up. There was an undertone of feeling just a little old within this realization - but also there was the certainty that she had diverted from me in this area, in this one fork of the many many roads of life. I could study music full time for years and likely never achieve the mastery she is beginning to show. And to think, I'll now spend consistent or even increasing energy to make sure that she continues to practice and learn.
I took piano lesson myself as a kid, but don't even remember how old I was or how far I got when my parents decided I didn't practice enough and the lessons were summarily discontinued. Not that I was a prodigy suddenly deprived of my passion; probably I was happy to have more time to watch television uninterrupted.
But I was very happy for my daughter yesterday. Even the distance I sensed opening up between us was a good thing, a natural thing, and the right thing. Hopefully she will continue to grow and surpass me in many ways. And I guess I'll also be grateful when she keeps coming back and wanting to show me what she's up to!
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