Category: Uncategorized

Fall Down Seven

On By MezzoSherriIn Self-Acceptance, Stuff about Stuff, The Voices in My Head, UncategorizedLeave a comment

fall down calvinMy 5×5 ritual fell a bit by the wayside last week. Knowing that choir rehearsal would pull focus on Wednesday, I “doubled down” on my goals last Tuesday as preliminary compensation — but somehow, that day’s interruption in routine caused a general halt in momentum. Said halt was, of course, further perpetuated by the number of hours this weekend that were devoted to matters choral.

But, as the old saying goes,

Fall down seven times, get up eight.

[Word-nerd digression.]

There’s part of me that’s always wondered about this saying. To my sometimes overly-literal way of filtering words, the scenario’s math just didn’t work out. If you’re choosing to demonstrate perseverance in a circumstance where you fall seven times, then you need to stand up only and exactly seven times: one for each time you fall.

I’d even wondered is maybe the saying got mistranslated along the way, but today’s office hours with Professor Google suggests that the common translation of the phrase is pretty accurate:

this Japanese proverb reflects an important and shared ideal: “Nana korobi ya oki” (literally: seven falls, eight getting up)

So now I’m simply telling myself that the first time one stands in this proverb  is when getting out of the bed in the morning and prior to the first of fate’s knock-downs. I find linguistic comfort in that notion.*

[End digression.]

So, in yet another round of the “practice, not perfection” movement in my life, I’m re-engaging in the nightly rituals of house care.

Even though I had yet another choir rehearsal tonight, I have already met my daily quotas for folding laundry and addressing the clutter. Now it’s time for some unpacking and putting away of things.

Persistence.

* I know: none of this demands the level of thought and attention I have lavished upon it, but this is how my inner nerd operates.

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Image credit: http://calvin12345.blogspot.com/2010/07/blog-marathon-post-failed-failed-failed.html

My Fair Lady

On By MezzoSherriIn Pop Goes the Culture, Practicing in the Heart, Spirituality, The Voices in My Head, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I’ve been thinking a bit about fairness the past few days, and the ways I value and desire a sense of fairness in things. My thoughts are a little scattered tonight, so I may just rocket through a few different angles on the topic, rather than pretending I have a cohesive essay to share.

standardizedanimalsOne of the most common adages that comes to my mind when I invoke the concept of fairness is that old saying: “Life isn’t fair!” And there are times that I do remind myself of that fact. Because sometimes my wishing for fairness does come from the a child’s magical-thinking place, where I’m wanting a “big daddy in the sky” sort of God to pave the way for me to have an easeful and trouble-free life.

So when I’m invoking the term fairness as code for “privilege,” it is something that deserves to have a question mark placed in there, with the reminder that fairness in one’s external circumstances is never guaranteed. And also, for whatever mishap might have me wishing life were more fair advantageous, the fact remains that I have received many gifts from life for which I ought to be grateful.

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One of the things we talk about at work is the way that “fair” does not necessarily mean “equal.” Since we spend some portion of our time working to serve students with learning differences or other special needs, it is likely unsurprising that we would resonate to the insights of Dr. Richard Curwin in this recent(ish) Edutopia post:

But what is fair? Many define it as treating everyone the same, but I would argue that doing so is the most unfair way to treat students. Students are not the same. They have different motivations for their choices, different needs, different causes for misbehavior and different goals. I think this is good, because wouldn’t the world be very boring if we were all the same?

The cartoon above signals some of this, as does a quote I have up on my cubicle wall:

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.*

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The one place where I am most deeply studying fairness is the depth of my desire for people to emulate fairness in our dealings with each other. I know I am driven crazy by those petty sorts of individual inequities that arise during interactions — people changing the rules on each other, situations where I might hold myself to a looser standard of behavior than I ask of those around me (or vice versa). And then, more deeply, there is the heartbreaking injustice of systemic unfairness wrapped up in cultural ills and prejudices.

It is with these areas of human unfairness — whether on a personal or a systemic level — that the adage “life isn’t fair” rings hollow to me. Like it’s just a cop-out to spare ourselves the effort of practicing deeper levels of kindness and compassion with how we see each other and hold each other in regard.

* If you were to google this, most sources would cite this quote to Einstein, but that’s probably an apocryphal attribution.

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Image credit: http://www.joebower.org/2014/03/what-can-we-learn-from-honduruss.html

In Case of Radio Silence

On By MezzoSherriIn Uncategorized2 Comments

I’m making a hairpin turn away from the normal subjects of this blog — can I even consider myself to have established a standard of what’s “normal” for here based in 6 posts? — just for the sake of laying some cards on the table.

My father died two months ago. We did a memorial service for him then, down south where he and Mom had retired. This coming Sunday we’ve got another memorial service for him — this one up in New England, where we have lots of history and family ties. I can feel the emotional big-ness of this approaching, so if I go underground any time during the next week, I’d chalk it up to this. ‘Cos there’s lots of times that the grief has caught me unawares*, and then there’s moments like this where I can just feel it wrapping around me like tendrils of fog.

The weird flip side of this is a brief errand we have set up for Saturday. Matt and I have decided to do our wedding up in New England next summer (see note above re: history and family ties). One prospective site is very near the memorial location, so we’ve planned a very quick site visit to evaluate the place.

And I don’t really have words to express the oddness of these two movements happening at the same time in my life. Losing a parent, learning about bereavement in a much more significant way than ever before, losing a huge anchor on which part of my self-hood and identity was formed. And, 180 degrees away form that, the whole process of planning a wedding, forming a new family center, making a lifelong heart-commitment to Matt.

In this week, in this moment, that simultaneity is kind of wearing me down, in a hazy-foggy quasi-depressed beyond-words kind of way.

I’m sure things will cycle and I can get back to being more purposeful and thematic about my writing here. Today, however, is not the day for that. And I’m not so sure about tomorrow, either.

* Like last weekend at the movies. Though if I’d been a bit more alert at the switch, I might have realized that going to see the film that contains the heart-breaking death of Harry Potter’s final remaining and all-along most significant father figure might just be a little bit hard for me to take.