Wood

 I had to head up north to pick up my son from my parents' place, as well as help my parents with the winter’s wood. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the trip; an early six hours drive time but with a bad night’s sleep before hand and a very stressful couple of weeks at work to start the break.

An unexpected calm has taken over me. It wasn’t really on my radar either. I’ve been drawn to make the week meaningful with my kids, to let them know how much I think about them. I’m usually not this paternal, but the pull I’ve felt with them has been quite strong. I’ve been splitting wood for my parents and this morning, I realized that my three oldest kids were out there with me. A memory of mine was being made.  It was odd in that when I was growing up, I hated all wood related activities, yet here I was appreciating my own children and their doing this for their grandparents. Maybe what was remarkable is that they didn’t complain a bit. Not a bit. Now, I know I’ve changed too. I am not bothered anymore on the task. I’m the first one out the door, just to get it done, if for no other reason.

Changes. Perhaps that is what has been striking me.

The past few years have brought a lot of changes to my life. I’ve had to ask myself some very hard questions. I’ve asked myself what I truly believe, and that answer has turned my life upside down, putting me on a different path than the one that I had been forging for the past 30+ years. I’ve spend a large amount of time trying to understand, really understand, what I feel and some other things in my life. I know I can’t change the decisions in my life, but I had to understand them in the newer light that I’ve accepted. I needed to know that they were decisions that I can live with.

Who do I want in my life? I know I have little control over that particular portion of my life. I cannot make those decisions for others. I have a new set of friends, different things to talk about. Is this really what I want?

All these things kind of fade in the background as I once again embrace my past. I look up at the moon overlooking the family farm and realize that I’m at peace with where my life is right now. There are some things that I’d rather change, but over the past couple years, being at peace where I am is something that I have been pursuing relentlessly. Maybe I have arrived.

Cat Love

Yeah, I'm kinda weird. I stumbled upon this intimate moment while looking for work for the kids to do, because I'm kind of a tyrant that way.

Because

Because I should have listened to myself when I was a teenager.

Because I was driven by gratitude.

Because I was thirsting for acceptance.

Because she tried to trap me and I was confused.

Because I needed something at the time. Anything.

Because I met some wonderful people, the best people in the world.

Because I was lost, frustrated, starving, depressed, and arrogant.

Because I had nowhere else to go.

Because I was crazy about her. I loved her.

Because it was easier than thinking about it.

Because there were friends there, and they cared about us, and we cared about them.

Because it was a good place, and it was so hot here.

Because I missed her.

Because nothing else was happening, we might as well try it.

Because she lived next to a volcano.

Because we had money. Can we ever do anything better with it?

Because I needed to apologize.

Because my daughter asked if we were atheists, and I could tell her that she can believe whatever she wants to believe.

Because I was tired of trying to make it work, trying to have it make sense.

Because after so long, honesty was easier.

Because I was tired of hiding.

Why I Post What I Do

I've gone through several phases of what I post on Facebook, and what I post on this blog. I think that just speaks to the phases that all people go through as they go though their lives. I've had three distinct phases since joining FB. In my first phase on FB, I posted a lot of jokes. I was getting re-aquainted with some of the people in my past. I was just beginning to wrestle with some of my feelings that something wasn't right.

The second phase was one of frustration and reflection. My life was being turned upside down by some of the people I knew and met. My world was becoming much, much wider and I was trying to take it all in. I was questioning everything and coming up with different answers than I had in the past. My relationships were changing, becoming deeper and more varied. It was a very turbulent time in my life, and the life of those with me.

I'm currently in the third phase. It is one of rediscovering some of the things I was when I was a teenager. It is one of honesty with myself and those that I am intimate with. Long talks. Long letters. My children are getting older. I am communicating with almost everyone on a different level.

When I was contemplating this blog post, I was going to respond to a post I found online about men's greatest fears. I'll see what it is like answering why I post and also respond to the article. I warn that this might give you more information about me than you ever cared to know. If you stop reading now, I won't tell anyone.

Fear #1: My sexual desires are not okay

Ever since puberty I've been ashamed of what I thought, what I felt. I was a christian. I was told by Jesus that I shouldn't look at a woman, to lust or desire. I don't know about you, but with all the testosterone being pumped in a male's body, I don't know how a boy can do anything but think of sex and girls all the time. We are, quite literally, wired to do just that. Well, that was evil. I'd never make it to heaven, would I? I spent decades being ashamed of how sexual I was. It was damaging.

I was also a romantic. I wanted an incredibly intimate relationship with a woman. I didn’t want just a girlfriend, I wanted someone I felt honest enough to share my fears and hopes. I wasn’t that interesting a person, I realize, but that is what I wanted. I wanted something that I thought wasn’t very masculine. Why would a woman want someone like me? I’m highly emotional. I’ve no looks to speak of. I have nothing to really attract a woman, did I? Yeah, I can do math pretty well, but that isn’t really a selling point, is it? And I wanted something that the bravado of youth frowned upon. I didn’t really care about what my male friends thought, I was more interested in what my girl friends thought. Even more internal conflict….

I didn’t date in High School. I didn’t feel I was mature enough, and I didn’t think anyone would really want me then. What interactions I had with girls didn’t work out very well.

Even after decades of marriage, I’m still unwrapping my anxieties. It is much, much easier now. I’m more willing to talk about things than in the past. I’m slaying my demons as fast as I can. That is why I am currently posting a lot of thoughts on romance. Many of them are things unsaid, feelings that I had that went unexpressed. I wanted to be this honest, this open when I was dating, when I was married, when I met the wonderful women in my life. They were so wanted, and I was too afraid to let them know, too afraid to show what I felt.

And really, have you read how some people can write and express love, longing, and desire? I wish so much that I had that talent. As I’ve spread out into more varied reading, oh the things I am finding. My wife bought a book of love letters a few years ago. It was a revelation. Someone else had also felt these things, and they wrote them down with such talent and art.

Fear #2: Other men will think I’m weak

Men must be tough and overcome all obstacles. Never show fatigue or fear. Do not show anything except strength and confidence, right?

To be honest, how I’m perceived by other men is the absolute last thing on my mind. Never cared. It wasn’t with men that I wanted any kind of deep relationships.

What I did care about was how women perceived me. Dating was awkward. I wanted dates to go well, sure, but I didn’t like all the pressure on me, as we were on a date “together”. I couldn’t just come out and ask for suggestions, as that wasn't, um, normal. I did try to make my dates interesting, but a lot of it was just goofy stuff, and the most memorable weren't necessarily planned. I'm not good at entertaining. Entertainment isn't what I wanted out of a date. I wanted a romance. I wanted to know the girls I was out with. How does one do that when you are also afraid of rejection, afraid of not showing confidence? The big answer, you don’t.

 

I had expectations of what kind of a person I should be, and I couldn’t live up to that. Somehow, I was to be all things to her. That is what I was told by media, church and friends. I should be strong, handy, romantic, aloof…and I couldn’t be all those things. Almost everything drove insecurity into me during my teen years. About all I could do is think. I liked to think. Plumbing or carpentry? Nope. Cars? Don’t care. Quadratic equations? Now you’re on to something! What kind of a man is that to attract women? “Hey! I know how an operational amplifier works. Does that turn you on? How about single side-band radio or differential multivariate calculus? I bet that makes your motor purr!”

All I wanted was someone to talk about what my life was like, what her life was like. To hold hands on a walk. To tell bad jokes and play horrible tennis and climb a mountain or two. I wanted someone to let me run my fingers along the side of her neck and let me whisper how much I love being with her and how beautiful she is. I wanted her to close her eyes and think of me. I wanted someone I could tell my fears and be accepted. I want to accept her and everything that she is. What I wanted is love. That is what I craved.

I never gave a damn about what a man thought of me.

Common Core

I've been seeing numerous posts about Common Core recently, mostly negative, showing math problems that students are required to solve using methods other than the standard algorithms. After reading up on what Common Core actually is and at the risk of inciting a riot, I have to say that I don't think these math frustrations have much to do with it. For the last seven years, I've been homeschooling my kids using a curriculum that met state education standards for all 50 states. This year, we switched to public school and the schools my kids are attending are already using Common Core math textbooks. The math they are learning and the methods they are being taught this year are pretty much exactly the same as what they were learning here at home in many respects. Now, I know that many people reading this put their fingers in their ears and started "La la la-ing" as soon as you heard the word homeschool. But please here me out...there is more than one way to conceptualize and solve any of the four standard math operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.) Learning multiple methods makes a lot of sense, considering we all learn differently. If I had known, as a child, that I could conceptualize long division a couple of different ways, I think I would have embraced math and not felt so tortured by it. The standard algorithms work for most people, that's why they're standard. But gaining a deeper understanding of why 56 divided by 8 is 7 may require more than memorizing that particular math fact. I advocate memorizing math facts, but I also advocate understanding the process and if there is any connection to Common Core, it's that particular nugget..

Glitter Soap

Rather than lots of little posts on Facebook, I decided to do a single post here.

The other day I was taking a shower and as I was washing some sensitive parts, I felt the soap was particularly, oh, scratchy. Soap isn’t supposed to be scratchy. I looked at the soap and realized one side was red. White soap isn't supposed to be red. So, I put that soap aside and used another bar to finish the deed. After towelling off, I looked more closely at the soap and noticed glitter in the red coloring. Since I wake up so much earlier than anyone else in my family, I just set it aside and decided to address it later. Later happened to be the next day, when I learned that Tracy already spoke to the kids about it. It appears that not one of the kids painted one side of the soap with nail polish. Must have been me, as there isn't anyone else owning up to it. So, this wrapped up another episode of strange happenings in parenting. Because I'm a parent, I washed my genitals with glitter soap.

I watched an episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation the other day and the old Scotty, James Doohan, starred. In it, Jordie and he were discussing their first starships and how much they loved them.

Scotty: Ah, it's like the first time you fall in love. You don't ever love a woman quite like that again.

I thought long and hard about that line. I think there's a lot of truth in it. The problem is, in my case, I wasn't all that good at it. I would hope that engineers in a starship are a bit better at their job than the first time they fell in love.

I sent Tracy a link to a blog post recently. Shame in LDS Culture. I only had a few thoughts beyond that expressed in the article. I remembered back to last Summer when we visited Utah. I was concerned with the current modesty culture that is underway in Utah and how it might affect my daughter. She likes wearing tank tops and I didn't want there to be any issues with any interaction she might receive there. Nothing happened that I recall. My only other thought on this is that regardless of what might be taught culturally, males will like females. In the article, it was cleavage that was what was discussed, but that is a narrow way of looking at how men view women. The curve of a breast, shape of a thigh, turn of an calf, profile of the face, depth of color of the eyes, all of these can cause a man to look at a woman. It is hardwired into the genders. We will attract each other, regardless. Men like women. Women like men. Yes, theoretically, a woman should be able to wander naked and not be leered at or looked at with an objective gaze. But, to be realistic, we should wear what is comfortable and realize that no matter what we do, we can't control what others do with it or think about it. Stop shaming our daughters into not liking their bodies, and stop shaming our sons for being attracted to girls.

"Will I Be Pretty?"

I stumbled upon this on a friend's FB post:

Will I Be Pretty?
Katie Makkai

When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, “What will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?” What comes next? Oh, right! “Will I be rich,” which is almost pretty depending on where you shop. And the pretty question infects from conception, passing blood and breath into cells. The word hangs from our mothers’ hearts in a shrill fluorescent floodlight of worry. “Will I be wanted? Worthy? Pretty?”

But puberty left me this funhouse-mirror dryad: teeth set at science-fiction angles, crooked nose, face donkey-long and pockmarked where the hormones went finger-painting. My poor mother.

“How could this happen?! You’ll have porcelain skin as soon as we can see a dermatologist. You sucked your thumb, that’s why your teeth look like that! You were hit in the face with a Frisbee when you were six, otherwise your nose would have been just fine! Don’t worry, we’ll get it all fixed,” she would say, grasping my face, twisting it this way, then that, as though it were a cabbage she might buy.

But this is not about her. Not her fault–she, too, was raised to believe the greatest asset she could bestow upon her awkward little girl was a marketable facade. By 16, I was pickled with ointments, medications, peroxides; teeth corralled into steel prongs; laying in a hospital bed, face packed with gauze, cushioning the brand-new nose the surgeon had carved. Belly gorged on two pints of my own blood I had swallowed under anesthesia, and every convulsive twist of my gut like my body screaming at me from the inside out, “What did you let them do to you?!”

All the while this never-ending chorus droning on and on like the IV needle dripping liquid beauty into my blood, “Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?” Like my mother, unwinding the gift wrap to reveal the bouquet of daughter her $10,000 bought her, “Pretty. Pretty.”

And now, I have not seen my own face in ten years. I have not seen my own face in ten years, but this is not about me. This is about the self-mutilating circus we have painted ourselves clowns in. About women who will prowl 30 stores in six malls to find the right cocktail dress but who haven’t a clue where to find fulfillment or how wear joy, wandering through life shackled to a shopping bag, beneath the tyranny of those two pretty syllables. About men wallowing on bar stools, drearily practicing attraction and everyone who will drift home tonight, crestfallen because not enough strangers found you suitably fuckable.

This, this is about my own someday daughter, when you approach me, already stung-stained with insecurity, begging, “Mom, will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?” I will wipe that question from your mouth like cheap lipstick and answer, “No! The word pretty is unworthy of everything you will be, and no child of mine will be contained in five letters! You will be pretty intelligent, pretty creative, pretty amazing. But you, will never be merely pretty.

Will I Be Pretty?