Failure

All right, I can't any longer not talk about this. I had it once again shoved in my face this morning, in double-dosage. You see, what happened was that a friend posted on Facebook a really cool article, written by a lady who was homeschooled, entered college at age 13 (yes, true story), proceeded to take every ceramics class they had available four times over, aced them all, and went on to a job with the Laguna clay company (the potters among you will know what that means).

Great. Love the story. So wonderful for this young lady; I'm so pleased she had that opportunity and that it worked out so well for her. It's a beautiful success story. And it's by no means the only one of the kind I've ever heard.

But you see, that's precisely the problem. I've heard these stories over and over. There are people who write whole books about them, glowing success stories of what happens when you homeschool your children. And I believed those stories. I believed them deeply, fervently, whole-heartedly. I invested my life in that belief.

And then I experienced failure. Because what I really believed when I clung to those stories was not that homeschooling worked out great for the Colfaxes and the David Alberts, but that it would work out great for me. Because that's the message that's behind all those stories, unspoken in some cases, loudly articulated in others: if only you do things this way, this is the success you will experience.

So I tried doing things that way. I tried my darndest. And tried, and tried, and tried. And failed. From almost the first year of our homeschooling, things did not work the way I was told they would. And I felt, not to put too fine a point on it, like shit. Because if you do things right, then you will be successful - isn't that so? So if you're not successful, you've obviously doing something wrong. You've failed. You have failed.

And this issue does not just pertain to homeschooling (even though, I think, homeschoolers can take the attitude to unusual heights). No, it crops up in every walk of life. Anne Lamott, this morning on Facebook (and that was today's second instance of having my face rubbed in this topic), posted an article she wrote on why she hates Mother's Day. That's right, it's Mother's Day coming up in just a few days. And Lamott hates it because, as she says, "it celebrates the great lie about women: that those with children are more important that those without". The failure of not having children - either by choice, or by circumstance. And we drive home the shaft deeper each time we perpetuate the story that motherhood somehow equates to a form of success.

And marriage - there's another one. Having a "successful" marriage. And if you don't - if things break down between you and your spouse, or (perhaps even worse) if you never found a spouse in the first place, you've failed. You're a failure. Because a happy marriage is what makes you a worthy, successful person. Or so we tell each other.

Of course, it equally applies to school, and work, and health, and possessions, and pretty much anything else our life it made up of.

It all comes down to the stories we tell each other. If we do such-and-such, then so-and-so will result, and that will be success. But more often than not, things don't pan out that way. We look at the right side of the equation, at the result, and see "not-success", we see failure. And we conclude that obviously, we suck at math and might as well give up and go eat worms. But it never occurs to us that maybe we need to look at the left side of the equation, at the premise we started from. We need to look at the stories we're telling ourselves.

While we keep telling each other the stories of what constitutes success, of how we, or someone else, did this-and-that and look how well it turned out, without admitting to the times we fell on our faces, we will be forever stuck in the prison of our own making. We lock each other up in a jail of shame.

If you've never listened to Brené Brown's TED talk on Shame, I suggest you do so at the earliest opportunity. Her conclusion is that the most effective weapon against shame is sharing - the simple words "Me, too." Yes, me, too; I, too, have failed. No, I was not successful at what I set out to do. I landed on my face, and damn it, it hurt.

Because when we do that, we undercut the lies that are built into the stories of what constitutes success - and even better, we re-define what it means to be successful. We shine the light on the fact that the premise is faulty, that A+B does not, in fact, necessarily equal C, because perhaps there's a few Arabic and Greek letters in the alphabet soup to the left of the equal sign which do not lend themselves to neat Roman-cyphered answers. We change the story. And with that, we change the outcome.

I don't know about you, but I, for one, badly need a different outcome. I badly need to change the story that I tell myself, that I tell everyone else.

And so just to let you know: I've failed. I've blown it. I did not succeed the way I was sure I would when I started on this journey. There, that's my story - my new story. My new premise. And it's a little bit of a scary one. It's an uncertainty, it's messy. I can no longer point to a neat and clean premise, to an equation that says "IF - THEN". I don't know what's right any more, don't know how things ought to be done correctly for the best possible outcome. And you know what's the awesome thing about that? I'm okay with that idea.

Life, the Universe, and Failure. Changing the story is a powerful thing.

Farewell Fishies

My aquarium just moved out, complete with inhabitants. I've had fish tanks of various sizes for more than a decade. And then a while ago I was saying to my daughter that I'm kind of done with aquaria - I'm tired of cleaning the tank, or, rather, not cleaning the tank and then feeling guilty about it. I'm tired of chores, and the fish tank had become just another chore. Then a few weeks ago, some of my daughter's friends moved into a basement suite together, and they were over here admiring our fish tank (in spite of its not being terribly clean at the time). So, guess what? The fishies moved house today.

It all started more than thirteen years ago with a ten-by-ten-by-ten-centimetre plastic cube which contained some gravel, a small aquatic plant, a snail and two pretty little common guppies. The whole setup called itself an "Aquababy" or some such thing; it should have been more accurately named a fish killing device. However, in my ignorance, I bought one of those things from the stall in the mall (it was Christmas time; I suppose that's considered an adequate time to murder innocent little fishies by the dozens), brought it home, and put it on the shelf by the computer. It had a fairly tight lid with a 3mm hole in it, through which one was meant to insert a toothpick dipped in fish food to give the darlings their required nourishment. Oxygen, it seemed, was not necessary for their survival - or rather, the vendors said the fish would get enough of that from the small piece of hornwort stuck in there with them. You know, it's a plant, so it makes oxygen. Right.

Well, let's draw a veil over the whole sorry episode. In my excuse I can only plead ignorance of the finer points of fish keeping - well, to be honest, of any points at all, fine or coarse. Suffice to say, the ignorance lasted no longer than those first little fish. They had become martyrs to the cause of my education - I thoroughly caught the aquarium-keeping bug. I researched, researched and researched some more, got books and found websites, and finally treated myself to my first real aquarium, a small 1-gallon thing with an undergravel filter. Then the neighbour gave us an old 5-gallon tank (with chrome edging, no less!) which was quite large for our really small house, and finally I got a 10-gallon and then a 20-gallon tank (and a larger house to set them up in). I've had guppies (common and fancy), goldfish (ditto), some zebra danios, red-eyed tetras (very boring, those. All they did was hide behind the plants), and I think even some neon tetras at one point. Oh, and a few Siamese Fighting Fish (one at a time), those were fun.

Most of them were fairly short-lived. I don't know if there's an equivalent of a green thumb when it comes to fish keeping - a scaly forefinger, perhaps? Well, whatever it is, I haven't got it. I finally decided I was only ever going to keep simple fish any more - common goldfish or guppies. So that's what I did. Some time ago, probably five or six years, I bought three pairs of fancy guppies - one blue, one red, and one yellow male, and their corresponding plain-grey girlfriends. Into the ten-gallon tank they went, and they've been merrily reproducing ever since. In the current generation the colours and patterns of their ancestors are thoroughly mixed up - there are some multi-coloured iridescent fellows with long black tails, some yellows with leopard spots, some with lots of red and some with mostly blue.

And now they've moved out, those fishy friends. I have a lovely empty spot on my kitchen counter now, and no more responsibilities for monthly algae scrapings and water changes.

They were lots of fun while I had them, those fish. And now I'm glad that someone else will get to have the pleasure of watching them undulate through the water, greedily swarming to the top when you turn on the light and open the lid, and chase each flake of food as if it were the last they will ever see. I hope they enjoy each other, the fish and their new people.

Life, the Universe, and Piscine People. Farewell, dear fishies, and thank you for the enjoyment of having you around.

Something Old, Something New...

Something Borrowed, Something Blue. Don't worry, I'm not getting married. Nor is anyone else in my immediate family, immediately. No, the Something New I'm talking about is this: http://quillandqwerty.wordpress.com/. It's my new blog, for school. The Something Old is the dip pen I'm using for the cover illustration (which also has Something New, namely my netbook keyboard). And of course the subject of the course I'm in (more on that later). Something Borrowed, or, more accurately, swiped (with permission) is the title. A friend posted a picture on Facebook of her keyboard and a pen, with the caption "The quill and the qwerty", and I thought it was so catchy I promptly went and reserved a blog address under that name. I just parked it for a while - had no idea what to put on it, until my new prof suggested keeping a blog for my research. Bingo!

You see, it's so perfect because the course I'm taking is on Jane Austen (gasps of surprise from the audience - none of you knew I'm an Austen fan, of course. Yes, I hid it well.). She wrote all her books with a quill, as steel nibs weren't invented until 1822 (she died in 1817). And of course, now I, along with countless real scholars, ramble on about her works via QWERTY. Grad school - the excuse to re-read Austen, go rabbit trailing off in all kinds of directions on the topic, and then write big long papers and (hopefully) shorter blog posts on it. What's not to like?

Oh, what's the Something Blue? Me, sometimes. Unfortunately. But we'll deal with that when it arises. And the Caps Lock button on the left of the picture, that's blue too.

I'll still be here on amo vitam, rambling my ramblings, but if you feel like it, come on over to quill and qwerty and take a look. You don't have to stay if you don't want to.

Life, the Universe, the Quill and Qwerty. See you over there!

The Euphoria of Completion

SQUEEEEEAK! That was the sound of me squeaking in just under the wire with my term paper. Okay, technically I could have had until the end of June to finish this course, but I wanted to get it done before the summer semester starts tomorrow. So I buckled down, and got 'er done, just. And oh, does it ever feel good!

Have you ever felt that, the euphoria of completion? Post-term-paper euphoria. Post-exam euphoria. Graduation. Reaching the mountain summit. Crossing the finish line on a marathon. Okay, okay, I've never experienced the last one, being an inveterate couch potato. And the one before that only under duress - when I was a kid, they made me go hiking in the Swiss Alps in our holidays, when I would have much preferred to stay home with a book. I was so put-upon, I was. Once I got a bit older, I did go hiking voluntarily, especially when there were friends involved. But really, I usually preferred the easier hikes, not the ones that were really strenuous. The mountain tops were still quite nice there, but I'm pretty sure that the thrill of the summit is directly proportionate to the strain of the climb.

That's why it feels so great to have these term papers out of the way. You see, I do get in quite a flap about writing those things. My stress level rises to the roof, my blood pressure tries to follow suit, and my acid reflux... well, you get the picture. So why do I do these things in the first place? Why did I get myself into this degree program? It would have been so much easier to rest on my laurels (or my BA certificate, as it were. Except it wouldn't be very comfortable, and probably get crumpled, which would be a pity.). Well, why do you climb the mountain, or run that marathon? Because you know you have to, that's why.

And so you lace up your hiking boots, boot up your computer, lay out your paintbrushes and strap that four-foot canvas to the easel. You go to the library and check out foot-high stacks of books on Goethe and Kate Chopin, get the 1:50,000 topographic map that shows all the little hiking trails, do your training runs along the back roads of your town. And then you just get down to it. You run the race, climb the climb, paint the picture, write the paper. On and on, and on some more.

And then it's done. You crest the summit. And put your signature in the bottom right corner. And cross the finish line, type the last sentence, format the references, finally click "submit".

And you abandon yourself to the head rush of completion. Yesss!! You take a few deep breaths of the mountain air, and just take in the view. Look, there's the path we came up on! Oh, see, that's the spot where the cat wiped her tail through the ultramarine blue. Hey, that reference came from the article on Goethe and Chopin, that was fascinating. And aren't you glad somebody had a bottle of water for you at the half-way point? Now that you're done, you can look back, and turn the experience into story. You can start telling others how you got here. But first, you have to get here, you have to finish.  And when you do, it's all been worth it.

Life, the Universe, and The Euphoria of Completion. There is no other feeling like it.

World's Best Cup of Coffee

World's Best Cup of Rooibos Tea

I heard on the radio this morning that a barrista from Toronto is going to be representing Canada in the "World's Best Cup of Coffee" contest in Australia. Well, congratulations, Josh Whatever-your-name-is. I sincerely hope you have a marvellous time in Oz, whether you win or not.

But it got me to thinking: how silly is that? World's best cup of coffee? What a strange society we live in. Everything we do, everything that exists, must be graded on a scale from bad to good, with one item, and one only, at the very apex as "world's best". One "best cup of coffee". We set up committees (lots of doubled letters in that word. Almost like Mississippi. World's most-overloaded-with-double-letters word?) to determine just which cup of coffee is THE best - the BEST! - which means we have to determine who is the best coffee taster in the world - because obviously, only the best coffee taster can determine the best cup of coffee. So now we have the apex of the human pyramid, with ultra-coffee-taster at the very top, far above the dull and witless masses who are only able to enjoy their ordinary, un-best, dull and witless coffee (by the potful, no less), not comprehending the quality, the sheer superiority of the Best Cup of Coffee (note caps).

But, wait - the witless masses enjoy their coffee. That first sip from your favourite mug, poured from a freshly brewed pot of the roast you like best, on a morning when you're still half asleep, but the birds are chirping outside in the sunshine because spring has finally arrived - I defy any barrista, even the national coffee-making champion, to brew a cup to match that bliss. Okay, I'm talking just a little bit through my hat here (or through my teacup, as it were) - I don't drink coffee, never have. So the "you" in that preceding sentence is intentional - it's your first sip of coffee, not mine. Mine's the sip of tea, of which I consume gallons (being a confirmed teaist). But the principle is the same.

Because, you see - there is no "world's best cup of coffee", at least not one that everyone, everywhere will agree on. World's best cup of coffee was not, as my favourite radio show host would have it, brewed yesterday in Toronto, and it won't be brewed sometime next week (or whenever that contest is held) in Australia. World's best cup of coffee, if you're lucky, will be brewed in your coffeemaker, by you, maybe even today. And again tomorrow. And the day after that. Or maybe your husband will brew it for you. Now that would take it right over the top. A blissful hot drink, served to you by the person you love best - it doesn't get better than that.

Sorry, champion barrista - I'm sure you make an amazingly good cup of coffee (at least good for those who like coffee). But it's not the world's best. It can't be. Because the best cup of coffee is the one right here, right now. As is the best cup of tea, the best piece of cake, the best bout of lovemaking. There is no apex to the pyramid, because it's not a pyramid. It's about the here and now. Best is what I have today. And perhaps tomorrow, or the day after. Best is mine.

Life, the Universe, and World's Best Cup of Coffee. Pass the tea, please.

Greetings

Steve waving at you

I was driving home today along our little country road, about one kilometer from the highway to my house. It's a popular road with people going for walks - not that it's a particularly interesting road, just sort of straightish and flattish, wending its way through orchards and houses on largish lots, some pretty, some not-so-pretty (I'll give you three guesses which category my yard falls under. No, not that one.). Actually, looking to your right, as you walk northwards, you see the lake. I guess that's pretty spectacular, all right, so it probably accounts for the popularity of the road.

Anyway, point being: I was driving home. And there were people walking on the side of the road. So I waved a greeting at them. It's what we do, us country folk - we greet people who walk on our road. When I was a bike-riding teenager in the countryside of the Bavarian Alps, I used to take fiendish delight in startling poor unsuspecting tourists, hiking along the roadside, by shouting a cheerful "Grüss Gott!" at them as I whizzed past on my bike. You see, being city folk, out in the country on holiday, they weren't used to being greeted by strangers; in the city you stare straight in front of you and avoid eye contact. So being said hello to always made them jump. It was quite amusing.

But around here, people aren't as jumpy, so it's not actually for entertainment value I greet them. I just do it for ordinary country-folk friendliness. So there was one stranger with her dog, and I waved at her as I passed. And then there was another one, stepping out with a brisk exercisey kind of stride, and I gave her the same wave. She waved back at me, and then I recognised her: she was a neighbour, someone I know by name and like to talk to. But by then I had already passed her, and could no longer amend my wave.

Because, you see, there are different kinds of greetings. There's the ordinary for-anyone greeting, a generic wave, just a lift of the hand or, if you're on foot yourself, a "HE-llo!" or "GOOD morning!", called out in a cheerful sort of voice that says you don't know this person, but isn't it a nice day and you hope they're enjoying their walk. Sometimes the from-inside-the-car wave amounts to a kind of Albrecht-Dürer-ish hand signal - I don't even raise my whole hand, just the first two fingers, and the thumb and remaining two fingers form a little ring below them. (Pax vobiscum, my children.)

 And then there's the I-recognize-you-as-my-friend kind of greeting. On foot and verbally, that's a "Oh hi, [insert name of person if you know it]!" said energetically (with a higher pitch on the "hi"). It means "I recognize you and am glad to see you, personally". The from-inside-the-car equivalent is an energetic wave - your hand has to waggle back and forth at least a couple of times, with the express purpose of making sure the other person has seen you and your wave and knows they've been acknowledged. Usually they'll waggle right back

I think my friend today recognized me before I did her; I'm pretty sure I got the more enthusiastic wave from her. But that's okay. Next time I see her, I can wave at her extra-energetically, so it'll be evened out again. Or perhaps a special emphasis on the "HI!" if the encounter is verbal?

Life, the Universe, and the Fine Art of Roadside Greetings. How're you doing today?

Whom

Random picture of cat hanging out on towel shelf

I was reading this most excellent little book the other day: Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Kleon. Great book, really. And then suddenly I run across this passage: "First, you have to figure out who to copy. Second, you have to figure out what to copy. Who to copy is easy. You copy your heroes - the people you love, the people you're inspired by, the people you want to be. ... What to copy is a little bit trickier. Don't just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style. You don't want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes" (p.35/36). It's another articulation of Kleon's main point: There is nothing new under the sun. Everything we do has been informed by the work that's gone before us, so we might as well acknowledge it and capitalise on it. Oh, and if you're wondering what the difference is between good  theft and bad theft (of ideas, that is): good theft credits, bad theft plagiarises (i.e. claims the idea for one's own). So I've just committed good theft here, because I'm crediting Kleon's great book. Go out and buy a copy, it's worth it.

However, that's really not what I was going to waffle on about. What got me to writing this is the little matter of a missing "m" in the first sentence. Did you spot it? "...you have to figure out who to copy." And then again: "Who to copy is easy..." Urgh. The grammar nerd in me is drumming its heels on the floor right now. Whom, people, whom! But then, I had to tell my grammar nerd, just shut up. Because the fact of the matter is that normal people, people like you and me, don't actually say "whom" in daily life. Well, okay, maybe you do - I don't. "Figure out who to copy" is exactly what I would say if we were talking about rip-off artistry in real language, the spoken tongue-and-lips variety, right now. And Kleon's book is written just as if he was talking real-life talk; he writes colloquial. So, I vote, he can get away with it.

Because, you see, language changes. Yes, "whom" is the correct form. And I'm going to keep using it where it's appropriate in my writing, because I'm kind of anal that way. But to turn up one's nose at those who cannot or will not use the accusative of the interrogative pronoun where it is called for is a sign of mental immaturity. Or, in normal language, don't be a snooty so-and-so about using "whom", it's childish. As I said, language changes - we no longer say "whence" for "from where" either, and I bet it first started with spoken language.

However, if you do have, somewhere in the depths of your being, a long-held desire to plumb the mysteries of said interrogative pronoun - in other words, if you want to know when to say "who" and when to use "whom" - let me give you a little hint. The form "whom" is called the accusative because it's the word we use when we accuse someone. Whom do we accuse of being a snooty so-and-so? Him, that's whom. Who does the accusing? He, that's who. See? It's pretty easy. When the answer is "him", you use "whom", when it's "he", use "who". That's why, strictly speaking, in Kleon's sentence it should be "whom", because when you copy Van Gogh (or Austin Kleon), you copy him, not he.

And then there's this writer I met who told the story of how he was standing in line at the deli counter in the grocery store. The sales lady turned to him and the people next to him, and asked: "What can I get for you?" The writer, being of the well-spoken variety and not entirely clear on who was next in line, asked: "To whom are you speaking?" Without missing a beat, she replied: "To youm!"

Life, the Universe, and Interrogative Pronouns in the Accusative. Whom are you going to read next? I recommend Austin Kleon.