Navel Gazing

What Maternal Instinct?

Stephanie Zvan2 Comments

I was over at a friend’s house last night. I held her two-month-old baby for a bit because, you know, it’s polite to express some interest and it had been a while since I’d held a baby. One gets to thinking of them as fragile if one goes too long without touching them. Well, I do.

The baby was well-behaved, past the wrinkly stage, mostly healthy. Everything that is supposed to make babies so adorable was there. Tiny, wee fingernails? Check. Dimpled fingers and wrists and knees? Check. Instant grasp of proferred finger? Check. Deep dent in the upper lip? Check. Overlarge, luminous eyes? Check. Impromptu, trusting nap? Check.

Impulse to talk baby talk? Nope. Desire to have one of my own? Huh uh.

I was perfectly comfortable holding her. There was no fussing or crying. I recognized when she got hungry and gave her back to her mother. No relief. No regrets.

I know people who are kid-phobic. I know people who think children are the most annoying things in the world. I’m not one of those people. Kids are fine and all–for other people.

I just don’t find them interesting, aside from their being examples of human development in action. They stay dull at least until they’re verbal. I did enjoy teaching the two-year-old how to say “preposition.” They don’t get really interesting until they start to separate their identities from their parents’. Then they’re human.

Until then? Yawn. I’m glad they make my friends happy, but I have other things I’d rather do.

What Maternal Instinct?
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Rockets’ Red Glare

Stephanie Zvan

As unlikely as it sounds, I’m one of those people who cries at the “Star Spangled Banner.” I can’t tell you whether I do it for the same reasons as anyone else, because I don’t know anyone else who does it. I can tell you that the reasons have changed somewhat over the last few years.

I’ve always, as long as I’ve understood the words, empathized with the soldiers who dreaded the rockets but looked to them to know the flag they fought for still survived. How desperate does their need to know have to be to make it worth looking up instead of covering their heads? How much of a relief must dawn be, and how great their fear of bad news that they have to ask instead of looking for themselves?

I can’t answer those questions, but even asking them makes me cry.

In recent years, though, my attention has been a bit distracted by the rockets–the trials and dangers that briefly illuminate our long night. I’ve been watching them fly overhead, hearing them explode all too nearby. I’ve been peering through the darkness to see what they can tell me about the state of our flag. I haven’t seen much that I can be sure of, but I’ve made myself look.

But now, with a light on the horizon, I find myself understanding the soldiers better than ever. There should be a flag there, battered though it may be. Not everyone has put their heads down. Many kept fighting despite the rockets. When the sun finally rises, we should see the flag.

Will we? And how many of us will even be able to look?

Rockets’ Red Glare

Never That Simple

Stephanie Zvan3 Comments

I think it is very hard to be absolutely honest with oneself, especially if words come easily. Before I write, I have to ask myself what I think, and if the answer comes too quickly, I have to stop and ask again — Now, what do I really think.

–Reeve Lindbergh in Forward From Here

Every once in a while, along comes a quote that makes me take a step back. Reading this was one of those “Hey, I’m not the only one” moments.

It’s so easy to go arguing along, laying out the evidence, and find that I’ve followed a tidy path to a conclusion I don’t believe. It’s even tempting sometimes to leave that perfect little argument in place, to let it stand as a monument to its own rhetoric.

But no, I know better. I have to backtrack to figure out what I’ve misstated, and I always find it in the same place–the tidiness. It’s always the same mistake: I’ve allowed myself to be seduced by the elegant simplicity of my own thesis as I build it.

It’s funny, because simple is the one thing no one who knows me will buy. It’s the argument I never get away with. I’m the queen of qualification. I get suspicious when I don’t see contradictions. The one common theme of all of my stories, even the tiny 500-word ones, is “It’s not that simple.” So back I go, to rip my original thesis apart and expose its flaws on the way to saying whatever it is that I really do think.

I sometimes have to do the same with people, particularly people I don’t know well. I’m so used to telling stories about the fictional people in my head that I can slot new people into their own little narratives if I’m not careful. Small behaviors mark larger character traits in fiction, why not in real people?

Because real people are masses of contradictions that would never be tolerated in even the most “literate” of fiction. And because if I tell myself simple stories about the real people in my life, I’m missing out on all the wonderful oddities that appealled to me in these people in the first place. Back I go again, to separate memories of what was actually said and done from the structure I’ve built up to store them in, to reject the story and embrace the messy reality.

It always hurts a little to let the story go, even though I’m much happier when I’m done. In the end, real people are so much more satisfying than imaginary ones.

But that doesn’t mean I won’t do it again. It’s just so simple to do.

Never That Simple

Discontent

Stephanie Zvan

I’m restless, twitchy, dissatisfied. My attention span is shot, and blue skies aren’t doing it for me. Any second now, someone is going to come along and be just the wee-est bit presumptuously clueless, and I’m going to lay them out on the ground with scars that will last. I won’t even enjoy it.

What’s the problem?

Nothing in particular. Existential ennui.

I’m not writing.

That’s the real problem. My time has been so broken up lately that I’ve been filling in with instant-gratification writing substitutes: revisions, submissions, outlining, research, blogging, correspondence. But I haven’t sat down and let my fingers really dance to the music in my head in a couple of months. I haven’t challenged myself the way that only writing challenges me. I haven’t proven to myself that music still exists in the world. I haven’t added anything to that music.

It’s time to fix that. Now, before someone, maybe even me, ends up with new scars.

“Dad? Have you sent that letter to Mom yet?”

(to be continued)

Discontent

Unhealed Wounds

Stephanie Zvan14 Comments

How to tell when your recovery is incomplete:

Greg Laden posted a Wellstone quote about equality on his blog yesterday. One of the commenters suggested that Wellstone meant equality for everyone but Wellstone. I very, very, very carefully did not rip said commenter’s heart from his ribcage and feed it to him, but only because he clearly didn’t know who he was talking about. Unfortunately, I don’t really have a good use for the adrenaline spike just at the moment. Time for a walk, I think.

Update: The walk helped, but not as much as hearing the busker in the skyway singing Obama’s praises. I don’t know whether he was secure in his audience or just so committed that he didn’t care whether he got any tips during that song, but either is fine by me. Hurrah for unbridled enthusiasm!

Unhealed Wounds

Specialist Envy

Stephanie Zvan

I am not a specialist. I’m a generalist and a good one. My primary skill is learning. I break unfamiliar tasks down quickly and optimize and mechanize processes. I read material aimed beyond my knowledge because I can mostly fill in background from what’s implied as well as what’s stated, and I know how to spot what I’m missing and have to look up. I synthesize and project ridiculously well. Drop me into unfamiliar chaos, and I start tidying, building a coherent whole from the scattered pieces, even while my hindbrain screams in panic that the task is impossible. It’s just what I do.

But oh, I must admit to a bit of the generalist’s envy of specialists. I sit down with someone who knows their field inside and out and I feel like an unschooled child. Following along suddenly seems like faking it. Not having that kind of command of anything, I feel just a wee bit useless.

I could make myself feel better by changing the subject, talking about things I do know, where the specialist would be the one having to follow. I don’t lack options for other topics. But I never do it. The generalist in me can’t let these opportunities pass (knowledge, resources, ooh!), no matter how uncomfortable they are.

I try to tell myself I shouldn’t be uncomfortable. I remind myself, in between moments of paying very close attention, of everything I said above. Under the envy, I do know my strengths and that they’re not inconsiderable and that they’re not really compatible with the dedication being a specialist requires. I know I’m a very good generalist.

But oh, why can’t I be a specialist too?

Specialist Envy

Community for Loners

Stephanie Zvan2 Comments

I joined Facebook last weekend. There are folks I’d like to spend time with who are using it to arrange meetups, and I want to be a part of that. But I’m still ambivalent.

I’ve spent most of my life resisting community. I was miserable in Girl Scouts (really, who packs nail polish and cute outfits to go to camp?). School was one arcane set of rules and expectations after another, very few of which actually involved learning. Freedom finally came with a transfer to the U of M, which was big enough to pull communities apart into individuals. Every job I’ve had I’ve shredded the fixed job description, so I’m the only person doing exactly what I’m doing, and I’m working with people across the company.

Some of my disinclination toward community is natural introversion. I can spend days on end alone without noticing. I can go months or years without talking to people I really like. I read and appreciate blogs while rarely needing to contribute my opinion. None of this is community-building behavior, and communities reward active membership.

Some is contrariness. I don’t know how much is natural and how much is survival strategy, but I have an unholy love of argument, counterexamples and logical loopholes. The more time I spend as part of a group, the more I emphasize me/them differences, the more I pick at the underlying basis for cohesion. (Strangely, I often don’t hit this point with individuals.) This does not always make me popular with the group.

Some is a really strong identity. I’ve spent years figuring out what I like, what I want and what I’m capable of. Yes, my identity evolves, but the parts that aren’t in flux are quite solidly fixed. Even the most diverse community, over time, tends to develop its own identity. “We think…” “We believe…” Swinging off the ends of bell curves as I often do, it can come down to a choice between the group identity and my own. Which do you think I’m going to go with?

So I tend to drift into and out of communities. When I enter, I do so gingerly. When I leave, I generally keep in contact with one or two individuals. Facebook could be a great way to hang onto these people. But its purpose is to build community, so I’m a little twitchy at the moment.

Community for Loners

Heh

Stephanie Zvan
What Be Your Nerd Type?
Your Result: Drama Nerd

You sure do love the spotlight and probably have a very out-going and loud personality. Or not. That’s just a stereotype, of course. Participation in the theatre is something to be very proud of. Whether you have a great voice for musicals, or astounding skills for dramas/comedies; keep up the good work. We need more entertainment these days that isn’t television and video games (not that these things are bad, necessarily.)
Science/Math Nerd

Literature Nerd

Social Nerd

Artistic Nerd

Gamer/Computer Nerd

Anime Nerd

Musician

What Be Your Nerd Type?
Quizzes for MySpace

It has some trouble differentiating between historical and current geekery. It’s been eighteen years since I was last on the stage. And interestingly, singing is not musicianship. My choir director might have had something to say about that.

Heh