You're Welcome

Oh hey, just kicking gender norms to the curb.  What are you doing?

Capable

I didn't check my email this whole vacation week.  Not once!  It was amazing!  And then this evening, standing in my kitchen, making my dinner, I started to get anxious.  My mind began racing through all the things I need to make sure I'm on top of when I go back into work tomorrow.

Oh no!!  The red flashing alarm lights started going off in my head!  Sirens began whirring!

And then, all of a sudden, a golden thought arose.

"I could get all of that stuff done in an hour.  Before class starts, everything that is making me anxious right now could be taken care of."

There could be calamities in my inbox tomorrow morning. I'll take care of them.

There could be dramatic political shit that has developed while I'm gone.  I'll handle it.

Boom.

And it's not because it's easy stuff, thoughtless, or unimportant.  It's simply because I'm a fucking capable woman, bitch.

Childfree So Far

At this point in my life, I don't want to have children.  Thankfully, my husband is on board with this. Whew!  (I checked it out before we got married.  It's a good idea to know how the other person feels about these things before agreeing to do life together.)  Usually, when asked whether or not Peter and I are going to have kids, I answer with some variant of "Future Lisa and Peter can decide that."  I don't want to rule out the possibility of having kids, but right now I definitely don't want them.  And that may not ever change.

This isn't to say that I think deciding to have kids is a bad idea.  I have a hard time reading child-free blogs where the author spends all his or her (mostly her) time talking about how miserable people who have kids are.  Yes, having kids is stressful and time-consuming and mind-numbing at times, but I know that it can  be rich and joyful and fulfilling too.  I am not anti-kid, nor am I anti-other people having kids.  It's just a different choice.  And not one that I and my husband should feel obligated to make.  

This is where the conversation gets tricky.  I feel like many people will then try to convince me that I will change my mind or tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about.  For those of you who know me, those are some surefire ways to raise my hackles.  How should I know whether or not I will change my mind?  And what would be wrong if I didn't?  

Here are the most common reasons given for why we should decide to have kids:

1. We'd be great parents.  
2. We really like kids and get along with kids.  
3. We don't know what we're missing.  
4. There are things in life we'll never learn and ways we'll never grow if we don't have kids.
5. We'll regret it if we don't.

While some of these things are true - Peter and I love kids and are really great with them - I don't think these are good enough reasons to have children.  Here's the bottom line:  Peter and I should not have kids unless we really want to have them.  

I would like to respond in more depth to two of the above points now.  Bear with me.

The argument about regretting it if we don't have kids is, I think, a really dangerous one.  This one in particular should be banned from all conversations with women or men who are deciding whether or not to have children.  Parenting is not something you can try on or test before you buy.  Once you decide to be a parent, you can't quit.  Or rather, you shouldn't quit.  And while you will love your kids, you may discover that you don't enjoy parenting!  There is no way to know what you may or may not regret in life and having kids so that you won't regret not having them is among the worst reasons to have children.

The second dangerous argument is that I don't know what I'm missing.  Of course I don't know what I'm missing!  But that doesn't mean that our choice is bad or that our life will be less rich if we decide not to have kids.  It will be different!  And different does not mean better or worse.  It means different.  And maybe good.  It is possible (and okay!) to live a full, meaningful life without procreating.

This would be good time to mention that while I never get excited about having my own baby, I get ridiculously excited about being a real and adopted aunt.  I love love love the idea of being involved in the lives of the kids of my friends and family.  I am a drama teacher who is around kids of all ages every day.  I love kids.  Liking kids has never been the issue.  (Hint:  liking kids and wanting your own are separate things)

Once again, the bottom line:  unless Future Lisa and Future Peter reach a day where they discover that they want to have children, that they ache for their own kids, then we will remain child-free.  And that will be okay.

Holy Moses

Things that have Recently made me Cry:

1.  A Vampire Diaries episode
2.  Neil Diamond singing "Sweet Caroline" at the Boston Red Sox game
3.  Anything related to the Boston Marathon shooting
4.  A Ted Talk on vulnerability
5.  That girl's dad on The Voice looks like my dad!  and he's crying!

I cry a lot.  I cry driving in my car almost every day.  Not because I'm sad, but because someone said something on the radio that made me cry.

This isn't some tear-welly thing either; this is a good old-fashioned sobbing.  

There are more I could add to the list.  This last month, I thought, "I should keep track of the things that made me cry."  There were too many!  Like I said, I cry everyday.  I'll tell you what ignites the waterworks tomorrow.

Aie-aie-aie.

Update:  6-10.  Every time a dancer cries on So You Think You Can Dance.

Hyphenation!

Dear Wonderful Women at NPR,

Karen Grigsby Bates
Barbara Bradley Hagerty
Lourdes Garcia-Navarro
Nancy Marshall-Genzer
Shereen Marisol Meraji
Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
Ofeibea Quist-Arcton
Dina Temple-Raston

Your long-ass names make me feel like less of a crazy person.

Love,
Lisa Gilham-Luginbill

Wild Sooth-Sayer!

"I need more grace than I thought."  

Today is a common day.  We walked in the sunshine.  I sat on the grass.

The cat sat in my shadow.

I bought some gin and mixed it with lime in a drink and drank it.

We held hands and felt crazy because we think so differently.

     He wanted to poke the rat, 

              I wanted to save it.

I was taught that we know the truth.

         I only feel what I feel.  Don't ask me to defend it.  

A little sunburn and a feeling of fullness of spirit.  It's a Sunny Spring Day.  

Li Po says, 

The birds have vanished down in the sky, 

Now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me, 

until only the mountain remains.

It will be sunny tomorrow.  We'll continue talking of tiny houses.

Stop it, Ursula. Just stop.

I love Ursula K. Le Guin.  I've read many of her essays and her speeches, but this is my first time reading her fiction.  It's finding a home right inside me.  I've been devouring the Earthsea series.  And at the end of The Farthest Shore, I've found some of the most beautiful things written about death and life.  A young person is falling into the trap of searching for a way to Immortality.  In fact, the whole book is about people giving up all their art, their luck, their lives for the hope of Immortality.  Only one wise old person is able to withstand that call and it's because he won't listen:

"I, who am old, who have done what I must do, who stand in the daylight facing my own death, the end of all possibility, I know that there is only one power that is real and worth the having.  And that is the power, not to take, but to accept."

The whole book is such a hard and horrible and precious look at what we give up when we seek Immortality and what it takes to ultimately come face to face with death and the truth about the end of life.

"There are two, two that make one: the world and the shadow, the light and dark.  The two poles of the Balance.  Life rises out of death, death rises out of life; in being opposite they yearn to each other, they give birth to each other and are forever reborn.  And with them all is reborn, the flower of the apple tree, the light of the stars.  In life there is death.  In death there is rebirth.  What then is life without death?  Life unchanging, everlasting, eternal? - What is it but death - death without rebirth?"

The following is spoken by the older person to the young person to bring this young person sharply into focus on life, while holding hands "in a hard grasp, so that both by eye and by flesh they touched."

"(Insert your name here), this is.  And thou art.  There is no safety, and there is no end.  The word must be heard in silence; there must be darkness to see the stars.  The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss."

 Now you see why I say, Stop it, Ursula.  Just stop.