Influential Authors

This exercise is going around Facebook, but I'd rather post it here.

The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who have always influenced you and will always stick with you. List the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes, and they don't have to be listed in order of relevance to you.

1. Madeleine L’Engle
2. Richard Rodriguez
3. Annie Dillard
4. JRR Tolkien
5. Elizabeth Kadetsky (in person)
6. Flannery O’Connor
7. Anne Lamott
8. Kathleen Norris
9. Elizabeth Gilbert (not in a good way)
10. Father Thomas Ryan (in person & in book)
11. Louis L’Amour (influence? maybe not – stick with me? yup)
12. Sister Elaine MacInnes
13. Lila Abu-Lughod
14. Patricia E Wrede & Robin McKinley
15. Maxine Hong Kingston (in person & in book)

Wee Bit Wednesday

{one} do you still use a checkbook?
yes. it's fun.

{two} what size shoe do you wear?
43 European. American size varies - and women's shoes generally only go up to size 42. :(

{three} scary movies or happy endings?
happy endings. this question feels like a false binary.

{four} do you prefer spontaneity or stability?
both - although on a scale, stability might win out.

{five} what is the most embarrassing cd that you own?
michael w. smith's "change your world" - although i might have given it away by now.

{six} do you watch reality tv?
no. drives me nuts.

{seven} what is your favorite home-made meal?
see now, this question is interesting: "home-made" could mean most anything. right now, i'd have to say my husband's philly cheese-steaks made with home-made seitan.

{eight} do you have any allergies?
ragweed. mold. dust. pittsburgh's very clean air.

{nine} if you could open your own restaurant/store, what would it be?
some sort of combo between a bookstore/game store/coffee shop/yoga studio. tables would be used for board game nights, studying, and writing workshops.

{ten} would you ever go skydiving (or have you been)?
no. (no.)

Inner Dialogue

This post is a duplicate of one on my other blog, Imperfectly Whole Yogi. I'm still trying to figure out its identity. If you don't know that I post there, you should.

Today was one of those days. You know the kind: you work and work and work and see no progress. You thought you'd worked the whole morning on something, but at the end, the result was... dissatisfying. In my head, the dialogue sounded like this:

"You've been working for an hour now - what have you read that's worthwhile? What have you written that's worthwhile? Two sentences?! You have two sentences? Seriously, now - you can do better than this."

By lunch, I was mentally spent - and I had nothing to show for it.


Lately, on my days writing from home, I've been stopping at noon for some pre-lunch yoga. It seems to work better than morning yoga. The backbends feel aMaZiNg after a morning of slouchy-computer-pose.

Today I cranked the music and the heat up and began some serious sun salutes in an effort to sweat away my sluggish mind.

Monkey critical mind wouldn't stop, though. It kept going. "You're doing this pose wrong. You should go deeper. Oh! Congrats on stretching that hamstring. Now go deeper. Careful on the low back with that Up-Dog -- you're bending too far. Careful. Careful. Oh - and you must be doing something wrong because I'm still thinking."

Mantras didn't work. Ujjayi breathing didn't work. Changing the music didn't work.


So I turned the music off and sat with the voices in my head. They were the same voices I had heard at the computer earlier. The same mean monkey voices.

I breathed - alternate nostril breathing.

In my head, I focused on my breath. I focused on remembering something else, too:

Last week, a friend talked about her work as a psychologist in a classroom of troubled students. She said that it was hard to measure success in such a classroom, and that she had to choose small victories every day as success. I remembered thinking that on days I write, I need to adjust my measure of success.


Adjustment: A successful day of writing starts with healthy, positive inner dialogue.

So does any successful yoga practice. Thanks, yoga mat, for readjusting my thinking today - yet again.

"You have forgotten the faces of your fathers"

So, Kylie and I are reading the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, and this idea of the "faces of your fathers" always comes up. Roland, the main character, often invokes the fathers as an admonishment to his friends: "Remember the faces of your fathers" or "You have forgotten..." In Roland's world, it has sacred connotation, as if by remembering your ancestors, remembering where you came from, remembering whose you are will help you complete your task straight and true. Help you live true.

This morning, Roland sent me a text message: "Buen dia. Check out 'The imitation of Christ' by Thomas a Kempis, ch III, pt 3." (Okay, so it wasn't really Roland, but it might have been Ka.)

I got the message while I was on the bus to school--where it was standing room only on a rainy morning. I was crabby: I didn't sleep well last night; didn't get enough done yesterday; felt K.O.'d by the world; had to face Long Thursday. I got to school, prepped for classs, taught class, and sat down to eat my lunch, pulling up "The Imitation of Christ" on the computer.

I'm not quite sure why Roland sent me to this chapter except to say, "Chin up, girl, quit your whining. You have forgotten the Face of your Father. Remember what you're here for."

Here's what jumped out at me from a Kempis:

"Be thou ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea speaketh."[32] And if you ask why, listen to the cause: for a small gain they travel far; for eternal life many will scarcely lift a foot from the ground. They seek a petty reward, and sometimes fight shamefully in law courts for a single piece of money. They are not afraid to work day and night for a trifle or an empty promise. But, for an unchanging good, for a reward beyond estimate, for the greatest honor and for glory everlasting, it must be said to their shame that men begrudge even the least fatigue. Be ashamed, then, lazy and complaining servant, that they should be found more eager for perdition than you are for life, that they rejoice more in vanity than you in truth.

Sometimes indeed their expectations fail them, but My promise never deceives, nor does it send away empty-handed him who trusts in Me." (emphasis mine).

Oh. Right.

Why am I here (existentially)? What am I working for? A trifle?

No. I work because work is inherently good. It is good to work, to be part of society, to put my talents to use. (see Image Bearers III when it comes up.)

Why do I live? Ah-a different question. I don't live to work myself into a worried, complaining frenzy. I live... to be. (see earlier posts) I live to be a reflection of God. I live because I exist.

I might not fight shamefully in the courts for a pitance, but I sure to fight shamefully inside myself, berating myself when I don't work enough hours or when I'm not effective enough with my time.

The point: for a bit of time, I have forgotten the face of Jesus, who wants me to live with a whole heart and who wants me to trust. Oops. Forgot that.

For today... I want to remember the faces of my fathers. (Not the Protestant work-ethic ones. Go back further: The Grace One.)



There's more I could say, but I gotta go do that work thing. Chau.

Inquiry

Right now I’m encouraging my students to break out of the five-paragraph essay format of writing that they’ve always known. I’m asking them to write something called Inquiry. Inquiry is the new thing in education.

I first ran across the word when I was working with the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project two years ago. A few of their members had spent three years “performing an inquiry” into the WPWP—where its strengths and weaknesses were, etc. It seemed that “inquiry” was the word the humanities used when they were doing a study. In business terms, this questioning into one’s own organization is compiled into a report called “white papers.” Every discipline has a way of questioning its own processes.

So what, then, am I asking my students to do? I keep telling them that an inquiry is an essay with a Thesis Question rather than a Thesis Statement. Instead of declaring what inquiry is, as a class we explore what inquiry is together. This makes for a complicated class. Instead of declaring what they know in a really one-sided, persuasive way, I’m asking them to question what they know.

It’s an inquiry into what they think.

This blog post was a quick inquiry into what I think inquiry is.
Good job, Renee. Back to work.

Wee Bit Wednesday

So... it's raining, I'm cold, and I'm bored with what I'm working on. Perfect time to be distracted by my friend Suz's blog, who participates in Wee Bit Wednesdays! Today I've decided to participate too - just unofficially. :)


{one} grilled or fried?
Fried - on my own stove. (or not :)

{two} if you could change one thing about where you live, without worrying about money, what would you change?
Heat & AC. Getting the heat fixed is more urgent, though. :)

{three} what is your favorite time of day?
Evening - when Kylie reads The Dark Tower aloud.

{four} what’s your favorite cereal?
Generally: Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds.
Special treat: mix of Life and Golden Grahams.

{five} do you open your mouth when you put mascara on?
Sometimes. This is a weird question. Makes me think of: do you fold or crumple?

{six} if you could make any fictional character come to life, which would it be?
oh gee. Richard Castle. Or the Littles. Possibly Mary Poppins or Spiderman. Who am I kidding? Starbuck.

{seven} what are your favorite pizza toppings?
Mushrooms and pepperoni.

{eight} are you a heavy or a light sleeper?
In between - depends on how frisky the cat is.

{nine} what is your favorite board game?
Right now? Citadels. In general? Race for the Galaxy, which is technically a card game. So, in sum... Lost Cities or Alhambra.

Is this question kidding? You must not know who my husband is.

{ten} what star/celebrity do most people say you look like?
Anne of Green Gables - even though she's not on the fictional character list, above.

A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet

I’m on the verge of changing my e-mail address. In the past year, I’ve changed my address twice, I’ve changed from being student to faculty, and I’ve changed my name officially with Social Security. The e-mail address – the most abstract change of them all – is next, and it feels like the final step of changing my identity to Renee Prymus – whomever she is.

In December, I chose to take my husband’s last name as my own. My maiden name is now my middle name, and I’m finding that without “Prymus” behind it, “Aukeman” looks lonely. When I introduce myself to people as “Renee Prymus” and then give “renee . aukeman” as my e-mail, it feels funny. I am, somehow, becoming Renee Prymus, and the process is weird.

Logging into Pitt’s computers is the weirdest part. The computer says, “Prymus, Renee Aukeman.” When I started the MFA program at Pitt, I had just moved to Pittsburgh to live “on my own” and “follow my dream” of writing. In some ways, it was a bigger deal than moving to Bolivia. Seeing “Prymus” on the computer takes away the “single chica independent” thing. It’s a textual shock that reminds me to look up and see how much my life has changed.

In the yogic understanding of the individual self, there are five koshas, or sheaths surrounding the self. Physical, emotional, spiritual, etc. In trying to understand this concept, I’ve been thinking about my labels as simply that – labels for sheaths that surround my inner self. Even though my job has changed, my marital status has changed, my name has changed, my homeownership status has changed – I have not changed. “Renee” is not identified by these outside labels.

Renee just is. She – I, my true self – exists full of value outside any of those labels. Changing my e-mail address will, in some ways be more convenient – eventually. In the meantime, there’s a bunch of e-mails and usernames that I’ll need to change. Changing my e-mail address is just the final piece of “Renee Aukeman” becoming “Renee Prymus.” It’s nothing more than that.

It might mean, however, that you have to change something in your e-mail address book. ☺