life – Page 10 – Kelley Eskridge

Other worlds

We’ve believed for years that there are planets outside our own solar system (science fiction writers have known it a lot longer than anyone else, wink.) Recently, scientists have been able to see Doppler and infrared images of some of those extra-solar planets, which was very exciting and made all the SF writers sit up a little straighter.

But we’ve never had an actual picture before.

Check it out — the first “show me” evidence of other worlds. Maybe I just haven’t had enough caffeine, but seeing these little planets busily spinning around their star makes me need to go off and wipe my eyes. I’ll never see those places for myself: but someday, someone will. And right this second, I feel amazingly connected to her, whoever she may be.

Getting shrunk at school

This is another one of those posts where I have to excuse myself and take my parents off into the corner of the internet for a moment to break some news. Hi Dad, hi Mom. Remember the drugs in high school post? This is the sex in high school post. I just thought you should hear from me first before I told the whole goshdarned internet that yes, I’ve had sex.

And you know, I would rather have swallowed my own tongue than talk about it when I was 16.

Ah, well. The universe sometimes likes to have fun with us around this kind of thing, doesn’t it? So when I was 16, in the winter of my junior year, I was completely hot for a senior boy named John. He was very cute. Was he a nice person? You know, I honestly have no idea. I didn’t know him well at all. I don’t know why he started talking to me in the dining room common room one night after dinner. I don’t know what he found attractive in me, apart from my fairly obvious attraction to him. I don’t know if he liked me or was just being opportunistic. And it doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t blame him, and wish him nothing but well.

Because hell, I didn’t know much about myself either. I do know that I was very curious about sex, very personally reserved, and conscious/self-aware in ways that fooled people into thinking I must be very mature about everything. Hah. I wasn’t mature. But I was responsible, in spades. I got a double dose of the responsibility gene from somewhere in the ancestral chain (raises eyebrow at father through the internet), and so when it became clear to me that sex was a possibility, I took myself off to the school infirmary, and tried not to throw up from anxiety while I asked the doctor for a prescription for birth control.

This was 1977. I was at boarding school, and the school was expected to act in loco parentis for me. Giving me an Rx for the pill without parental knowledge was one of those huge gray areas — I was of legal age, I wasn’t breaking any laws, but I’m sure they imagined the lawsuits and the bad publicity of being accused of condoning or promoting sexual activity among students.

The thing was, they were doing their best. Social realities were so much less well-articulated in the 70’s: we did not have general cultural conversations about teenage sex or domestic violence or drug addiction, etc., to the same degree that we do now. We certainly didn’t involve the young people in those conversations. So I was very much putting them on the spot by openly acknowledging that I was intending to have sex, and by asking them to help me protect myself from pregnancy.

But it turns out the school had a process for this (I’m guessing it wasn’t the first time it had come up, grin). The doctor would write the prescription if I would agree to participate in a research project on teenage sexual activity by talking to the school psychiatrist. I don’t know if there really was a project, or if this was just a creative way of dodging liability issues. I said okay because it was the only way I knew to get what I needed, and the next afternoon found myself in the shrink’s office.

Nothing bad happened. He didn’t get prurient about my sex life or ask for Too Much Information. He was more interested in figuring out why I wanted to have sex. No, really. Apparently being 16 wasn’t enough of a reason. It was a pretty surreal conversation, because there was no way I was going to sit in a strange middle-aged man’s office and say anything like well, I want to have sex with this guy because every time he touches me I feel like my brain is turning inside out and my body is trying to achieve orbit…. I wouldn’t have even talked to my best friend about that, never mind the shrink. But, you know, we had a deal. So I just talked about being curious and I think he ended up assuming that it was some kind of intellectual exercise for me, which maybe didn’t sound so weird in a school like St. Paul’s. I don’t know. We talked for an hour and then I got to go to the infirmary and get my little piece of paper.

And then I had to take a taxi to downtown Concord, NH (not the most progressive community on the planet back in the day) and endure the utter disapproval of the pharmacist. He couldn’t deny me the pill, but he could and did explain how to use it at the top of his conversational voice so that everyone else in line got a real earful.

Ah, the 70’s. Good times.

I’m partly moved to tell this story today because yesterday Nicola gave an interview to a young woman — probably about 16 or 17 — to help with a school project. They had a 20 minute conversation about writing, and how to prepare for a career in writing. It was the first such interview this young woman had ever done in her entire life, if I understood Nicola’s report correctly — so Nicola was also modeling behavior about how to conduct an interview, how to open and close a professional conversation, what kinds of questions might be good. Not “teaching” this woman, just showing her through example and suggestion, and leaving it to her to absorb whatever of those techniques was best for her right now.

It matters how adults interact with people generationally younger. Things rub off. When we’re young, we take behavioral lessons and values lessons from even the most casual encounters — and it matters when the other people involved have more power and authority than we do (which when you’re 16 is pretty much everyone…). The lessons, even the bad ones, stick.

The lesson I took from the shrinking experience was that sometimes being responsible means jumping through hoops that make no sense. That was very instructive, really, because it turns out a lot of life is like that (another grin). And now, looking back, I’m glad I didn’t learn that it was okay to publicly humiliate people less experienced and more vulnerable than me. I hope I never do.

Yes, we can

That’s the true genius of America. That America can change.

— President-elect Barack Obama, November 4, 2008

It’s a good day.

The Great Conversation

I’m a communicator. I’m a writer and a professional facilitator, and I like to talk — to share stories, ideas, feelings, beliefs. I like to listen, and learn, and I like to understand. Much of the joy or healing or growth in my life comes through conversation.

And so this election season has been deeply frightening to me because so many of us have stopped talking to each other. We’ve divided into our issue groups and our party affiliations, raised our voices at each other in outrage, called each other names, demonized each other. And here we all are, hundreds of millions of us, looking at each other across enormous gaps of values and beliefs about what is good for us and for the United States of America.

The United States of America.

Nicola and I talk about how people can surprise each other sometimes. I think one of the things that has often surprised her is my absolute passion — my brand of patriotism — for the founding principles of the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are brilliant as documents and as foundations of government.

I love these documents. I love what they mean and what they promise. They are living ideas for me, and they literally move me to tears. Through these tears, I ask that if you’ve never read them, please please do. Because they are the work of people who overcame deep differences, competing needs, and radically different beliefs to unite. To come together as a nation. To frame a better government than any they had known before. And because of who I am, I look at these documents and I see the United States of America as a great ongoing conversation.

It is in this conversation that we as a nation expose and then explore our differences, and ultimately take action. I believe that the worst parts of our history as a nation come straight from the refusal to listen; and the best parts come from the willingness of people to keep talking, even when it’s hard.

The bedrock of that conversation is our vote.

Please — even if you feel shouted down, marginalized beyond repair, oppressed, ignored, angry, aghast at the drift and discord and divisions that have arisen between us all, please do not leave the conversation. Because if enough of us do stop talking to each other, we will never, never understand. We cannot build bridges through silence. And refusing to vote is the first step to the ringing silence that breaks even the best of ideas and the best of nations.

Please vote. And regardless of the outcome, please, let’s all keep talking to each other.

The story below is long, but I offer it in the spirit of conversation. It’s from the book Bono: In Conversation with Mischka Assayas.

Bono: Harry Belafonte is one of my great heroes… He told me this story about Bobby Kennedy.

Harry remembered a meeting with Martin Luther King when the civil rights movement had hit a wall in the early sixties: [impersonating croaky voice of Belafonte] “I tell you, it was a depressing moment when Bobby Kennedy was made attorney general. It was a very bad day for the civil rights movement.”

And I said, “Why was that?”

Harry said: “Oh, you see, you forget. Bobby Kennedy was Irish. Those Irish were real racists, they didnât like the black man. They were just one step above the black man on the social ladder, and they made us feel it. They were all the police, they were the people who broke our balls on a daily basis. Bobby at that time was famously not interested in the Civil Rights Movementâ¦. We knew we were in deep trouble. We were crestfallen, in despair, talking to Martin, moaning and groaning about the turn of events when Dr. King slammed his hand down and ordered us to stop the bitchinâ: ‘Enough of this!’ he said. ‘Is there nobody here whoâs got something good to say about Bobby Kennedy?’

“We said, ‘Martin, thatâs what weâre telling ya! There is no oneâ¦ There is nothing good to say about him. The guyâs an Irish Catholic conservative bad ass, heâs bad newsâ¦.’

“To which Martin replied: ‘Well, then, letâs call this meeting to a close. We will re-adjourn when somebody has found one redeeming thing to say about Bobby Kennedy, because that, my friends, is the door through which our movement will pass.'”

… that was a great lesson for me, because what Dr. King was saying was: Don’t respond to caricature — the Left, the Right, the Progressives, the Reactionary. Don’t take people on rumor. Find the light in them, because that will further your cause.

— from Bono: In Conversation with Mischka Assayas

I have been angry and I have been afraid. But today I am looking for the light, and I hope you will too.

This post is in support of Blog the Vote. Please visit the link to read other folks’ powerful stories and passionate thoughts about voting.

A liberal rant for a Saturday

Good morning, people of the world.

Today I was going to post a cheerful music video (details withheld to prolong the suspense for the next post)… but I just got off the phone with my friend Mark, who pointed me to this little story about his special experience with political campaigns this week.

Warning: it’s totally not non-partisan, and if you are sensitive to criticisms of John McCain you may wish to avoid it. Although if you are a McCain/Palin supporter and can persuade yourself to read beyond the tone of Mark’s post for the factual content, it would interest me to know your response.

Go read. Have fun. Music later. Tea now. Happy Saturday.

It grows back

I’ve had some disappointment this week, and have been wrestling with some choices about which I am highly ambivalent. The details aren’t important: we all have disappointments and unhappy choices. What I think is important is how we respond.

I told Nicola last night that I was a little worried that if I posted this cartoon — which I’ve had on my wall for years now — people would think I was depressed, suicidal, or bitter-and-twistedly out somewhere kicking down little kids’ sand castles. Me, I’m just here smiling — I think the cartoon is wicked funny and absolutely true.

Sometimes things don’t work out the way I want them too. And for whatever reason, apart from finding it disappointing or scary or frustrating or threatening or meh, no big deal, I also often find it humbling in a way that I’m not sure I can articulate well. Well, okay, yes I can. It’s wounded pride, and it comes from the cultural notion that if we are good enough, strong enough, just work hard enough, we get what we aim for. So if we dream beyond our reach we somehow deserve to fail — we’ve “got above ourselves” and shouldn’t be surprised when the axe falls. For whatever reason, we’ve taken the truth of the matter — sometimes we don’t get what we strive for — and turned it into a personal cause-and-effect failure of character. Hey, you, yeah, the Eskridge kid over in the corner, what the fuck were you thinking? Go sit down.

And the tricky thing is, of course it’s often about personal failure. And there’s also the randomness of the world, the needs and fears and dreams of other people that bang into ours, the Great Whatever that is part of the story of why things don’t always work.

Sometimes it’s hard to parse. And so I’ve decided not to. It only turns into the blame game or the I-am-not-deserving game or, gods help us, the it’s-not-fair game. I’ve been to all those places, and I don’t even like the t-shirts. And I don’t want to sit down.

My dreams and my skills either match, or they don’t. I can walk away, or I can get more skills. If I get more skills, they might still not be enough. So it goes, brothers and sisters, so it goes. We don’t know what will happen. But until the axe falls for real, I’ll be back with my dreams, occasionally getting my pride chopped off.

Because it’s only pride. It grows back.

Lurgy

So what if the OED doesn’t think it’s a real word? It sure feels real to me.

Nicola and I woke up sick today. We will be hiding away from our screens drinking hot tea and canceling appointments, and you may perhaps not hear much from us today.

I sure hope your day is much less sore-throated than mine.

Every picture tells a story

Good photography of all kinds really rocks my world. Good photojournalism is just amazing to me. I connect more with news when I can see it than simply when I read it. And when the person capturing the images is herself connected through long-term exposure to the subject, with all the opportunities — and perspective — it brings, the results can be pretty astonishing.

So I recommend this photo essay by Callie Shell, who has been following the Obama campaign. There’s a companion photo essay by Stephen Crowley on the McCain campaign. Whomever you support, go take a look at the human side of the politicians.

The fairy castle

When I was a little girl, I found a book in the library….

A side trip here. My mom was the librarian of my grammar school, which I’m sure is why I love libraries so much (apart from, you know, all the books). Thanks, Mum (waves at mom through the internet). So I’m not sure if the book I’m telling you about was in the school library, or in the Tampa Public Library which we also frequented, and I’ll tell you what — that one might have had more books, but it wasn’t nearly as good as our school library, seriously. All the books were hard to find (card catalogs, kids, these were perilous times..) and a lot of them hadn’t been checked out in years and smelled like cat pee.

… anyway, I found this marvelous book:

And I fell so hard in love, I just couldn’t stand it. Colleen Moore came from a wealthy, connected family and she knew architects, artists and artisans, designers… and they helped her create a miniature fairy castle (which cost a half million dollars in the 30’s, so you can imagine the opulence).

And it’s awesome. There are teeny working electrical lights, miniature Royal Doulton china, the world’s smallest printed bible. 2,500-year-old Roman statues. Silks, tapestries, murals and paintings signed by famous artists, color everywhere, and all just dripping with imagination… I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I think it was the first time I was seized by fantasy in this way — I was always captivated by story, but I don’t remember any distinctive fantasy stories lodged in me until this book, when I started making up my own stories about the people who lived in these rooms.

When I was older, we took a trip to Chicago and visited the castle in the Museum of Science and Industry. It was very cool to see it in person, but also, in the way of exhibits, it was a bit of a letdown — not because the castle itself was disappointing, but because the experience didn’t have the intimacy of all my hours with the photographs. Reading the book, I could be close to everything. I could stand in every room, imagine the process of creation while reading the text, see it come alive. But in the exhibit, standing at an appropriate public don’t-touch distance behind a barrier — well, that says it all, really.

And so I remember best the castle of the book. But it’s still in the museum, and through the magic of the interweb you can see it up close and personal too. (Be sure to click through all the tabs — under the “Exhibit” tab there is a series of photos of the rooms.)

Go take a look. Tell yourself a story while you’re there.