Loving the Simple Moments

Originally published on the Kent Patch, June 4th, 2012.

It's summer now, by the school calendar (but still technically spring until the solstice!) and routines are changing.  Kids are at home, camp, grandparents, or a babysitter's, teachers are preparing for next fall, farmers are in full swing running between the field and the market, some businesses have new hours, and the library is open on Sundays.  This can be a stressful time, and for most of the families I know, it requires some careful planning, especially if summer activites like lessons or sports are involved.  When we have our routines, life is pretty comfortable.  One doesn't have to think much, just repeat what you did yesterday, right?  Changes tend to be difficult for humans.
At the same time, sometimes seeing things through a new perspective, or facing new challenges can help us grow and learn.  We never know how much we are capable of until we're forced to go a little further than we have before.  And routines can let us go a little too far into "auto-pilot" mode at times.  Autopilot is great for not having to think, but it's not so good for being mindful and observant, noticing what's going on around us. Finding the right balance between routine and change is important for most people to live their best.
Funny thing is, we humans aren't the only ones who need cycles as well as spontaneity.  The whole universe is built on this combination and finding that balance.
Today marks the full moon, specifically the strawberry moon by some accounts, or the last full moon before the solstice.  The moon phases are a great cyclical phenomenon.  They're predictable, constant, and familiar.
Tomorrow, June 5th, marks the Transit of Venus, visible in our area starting at approximately 6:04 PM EST and continuing until about 10 PM.  This is where we can actually watch the shadow of Venus pass across the sun as it travels in between us and the sun in straight line.  The entire transit will take six hours, but that pesky night sky will interfere with out view of the last four hours.  The transit is actually a cycle, but it won't recur for another 105 years.  For real spontaneity in the skies, think of meteorite showers which should appear in July and August.
Remember wether you're looking at the moon tonight, the transit* tomorrow, meteor showers later this summer, or a starry sky any clear night to break out of your routine a bit.  Try something new, push yourself a little harder, and never forget to take time to notice- really observe- what's going on around you.  Even if you have to schedule it.  If you don't, you might wake up one morning and realize that you're the only one that missed something extraordinary.

*A word of caution on this one- NEVER look straight at the sun without the proper equipment, which is shade #14 welder's glass.  If you don't happen to have those lying around, other options for making a home projector can be found here.

Thoughts on The New Normal

Tonight premieres NBC's take on surrogacy, The New Normal.  Brought to you by the folks that brought you Glee, The New Normal highlights David and Bryan (a gay couple who have decided to pursue surrogacy) and their surrogate, Goldie, and follow the journey to parenthood.  There's a requisite woman-bouncing-on-a-man sex scene for the ex (briefly, and not much skin shown- It *is* NBC, after all), over the top stereotypes, a bigoted grandma and adorable daughter, and a "uterine terrorist" for the first surrogate Bryan and David meet.  Even with all this, the pilot is worth a watch, and I have hopes that they can fix the mistakes. 
The show has a lofty goal- to try and make families headed by same-sex couples more widely accepted and understood, and bring surrogacy into popular culture conversations.  To quote a friend of mine who is a father via surrogacy- "I think even if they get it partly correct it will help. Look at modern family. It's largely based on stereotyping but at least it's gotten people to talk about families like mine. :-) A step in the right direction! :-)"  And that shoot-for-the-stars-reach-the-moon attitude has worked enough times in the past, there's no reason to think it won't this time.  
Really, the more we talk about this, the more we get alternative families out in the public, the better we are because we get closer and closer to fully accepting them as just another form of family that picks up the thrown peas one at a time like ourselves.  If you're wondering about the possibilities, or have been a part of alternative family building, then you might want to weigh in on your experience over at Living the New Normal on Facebook.  That page is put together by the same organizers bringing about Men Having Babies, where I'll be speaking as part of a panel on September 22nd.  Follow along, find information, and make your voice heard.  

Love is Love, Family is Family.  And it's time everyone understood that.

More Fun Stuff on the Horizon

The press releases have gone out, so it looks to be official.  I'll be speaking at Men Having Babies seminar in New York City on September 22nd. 

New Writing Gig

For anyone reading who enjoys music (and if you don't, you should), check out Buzzard Tracks: Northeast Ohio Music News and Reviews.  You might recognize a friendly face there, but the main author and brain-master of this project is Jeff Wanser of the Hiram College Library.  This is an interesting site focused on highlighting music and artists from Northeast Ohio specifically.  If you weren't aware, Cleveland is in fact the home of rock and roll, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Even if you aren't a fan of rock and roll, we're lucky to have a *thriving* musical scene with huge diversity, from indie to folk to chamber to roots (of many nations).  So check out Buzzard Tracks, check out local artists, and learn a bit in the process.  If you're a musician with an album out, check with Jeff- he's always looking for new tunes for the library and the blog.

A Matter of Convenience

My son's been two-wheeling on his bike for about three months now, and we've been riding to and from school every day.  He thinks it's "AWESOME!!!" because the bike rack is reserved for third through fifth graders (and he's a first grader) unless you ask the principal (which we did).  It's totally understandable, because who wants a first or second grader riding to school on their own?  We do it as a family, and the principal is OK with that, so he gets to be one of the cool kids, as far as he's concerned.
Since he's still new to bicycling, he isn't that confident about, well, anything other than straight.  He's getting better, but starting, stopping, turning all make him a tad nervous, which is good because frankly I sometimes wonder if he has any self preservation drive at all.  Typically, we ride as family with me in front, Kenny in the middle, and Dwight behind.  I usually get pretty far ahead, about a half a block, and then wait for them the stop signs to catch up.  Since he dislikes stopping and starting the most, and to speed things up, I try to time when I leave as close to when Kenny and Dwight pull up as possible.  He thinks that's pretty cool, too, and announces "That sure is convenient!" every time he can just kind of glide through an intersection.  We've tried explaining the idea of forethought and planning a few times now, but to no avail.  He attributes the ease of his riding to fortune, or sometimes his own skill, but never thinks that others might also play a part.  It's understandable; he is only six. 
So I have to wonder when the Republican National Committee will grow out of this phase.  Their convention theme of "We Built It" shows a similar logic pattern of ignoring others' contributions to individual success.  Employers did not build the workers they employ, and the skills those workers possess.  Entrepreneurs did not build our highways and roads and interstate system.  The railroads did, in fact, build the railroads, but on 200 mile swaths of land granted them by Congress, the unneeded parts of which could be sold to pay for the building process.  Plenty of research is courtesy of grants from the government, and not just crazy speed-of-ketchup studies- medicine, physics, computer science, chemistry, biology, and more all have made significant progress in the last fifty years due to public funds. 
Now, I'm not trying to say they haven't done anything, but there are plenty of factors that have allowed business to thrive in this country that have nothing to do with individual business owners.  I'm the daughter of a small business owner and entrepreneur, I grew up in that world.  Heck, I owned a small business myself for a few years, but when I didn't want to put the time into it, and had done with it what I wanted (mainly advocacy and education), I backed off of it and focused on my career (not blog writing, oddly enough, but biology teaching and research). But they need to have a little perspective, and recognize what others have done to help them get to where they are today. 
This is a society, a community, and we work together or we don't work.  No one can do everything that needs done by themselves, or at a profit.  And frankly, it's a lot better world- in my opinion- when we have friends and neighbors who are collaborating instead of competing.  It's better to work together than to fight with each other, that's just a waste of energy, time, and resources. 
I hope my son soon grows out of this "phase" and understands long term repercussions and empathy, and I hope the Republicans do, as well.  This is not Ayn Rand's world; Atlas is not all he's cracked up to be- he's a myth.

Interview

Originally published May 12, 2012, on The Next Family.

TNF: How has it been blogging for TNF? 

It’s been great.  I love reading all the different perspectives here, and all the types of families.  I especially enjoy seeing the common themes across all families (“Am I doing the right thing?”  “My kid isamazing!”  “How do I explain this to a child?”  “Parenting is hardwork!”  those sorts of minutiae), and how those themes are interpreted through different lenses (adoption, surrogacy, same sex parents, single parents, etc.).  And let’s be honest- writing about something besides invasive plants and native amphibians is a great distraction from my dissertation, even if my advisor disapproves.

TNF: How is your family like every other family and how is it different?

We’re the same as every other family in that we love each other, even if we do sometimes struggle.  We have to juggle work, house work, social life, school, community work, extended family, and much more. We’re our own best support system, and know we can count on each other.  But, like every other family we have our own unique variation of life.  I’ve heard that most kids don’t attend professional conferences for vacation.  And I’ve heard a rumor that it’s not normal for a six-year-old to know more about TARDISes and Daleks than s/he does about sports.  I guess our main difference is our extreme collective geekiness.

TNF: Did your family accept you and your lifestyle? If yes, explain and if not, explain what you have done to help them to accept your decisions and your lifestyle.

Eh, some members of the family accept various parts of our life more than others.  I don’t think that there’s anybody in either Dwight’s or my family that 100% agrees with how we live and the choices we make, but for the most part, the differences are in the details, not the broad picture.  Some family members aren’t fond of surrogacy and/or our closeness with the LGBTQ community, others dislike our activism. A few family members disagree with our choice to pursue higher education, and some just wish we didn’t live where we do (usually wishing we lived closer).  But if we all agreed on everything, life would be dull as all get out.

TNF: How do you juggle the work at home with your jobs?

Hahaha!  I’ll let you know that answer when I figure it out, probably sometime after I conquer the mass of clothes to fold.  I don’t tend to balance things, more often than not there’s one area of life that gets lots of attention, while the rest is ignored.  And then something that was being ignored gets all the attention, while everything else is ignored.  And the cycle continues…

TNF: What lessons do you feel are the most important to teach children in this day and age? Are there any lessons they, or perhaps we as parents should unlearn?

Most important: There but for fortune, go you or I.  Don’t hold someone else’s situation against them, because you could find yourself in a similar situation someday, and then you’ll need others to be understanding and supportive, as you’ve been in the past.  Practice not sympathy, but empathy.  Lesson to unlearn: Judging others.  We’re all in this life together, and we can choose to either be a positive influence or a negative influence, and prejudice, discrimination, all the “-isms” preclude our being a positive influence on the world.

TNF: Any words of wisdom to pass on to our readers?

Look past direct effects.  Yes, they’re easier to understand, but they’re less interesting and don’t show the whole picture.  And you can do a lot if you just set the bar low enough.  Either do a few things well, or try a bunch of stuff.

TNF: Anything you want our readers to know about you or your family?

Know that I’m not trying to be a jerk or insult anyone ever, I just don’t often have the right words.  And I’m about as blunt as a club. But I do care- a lot.  So feel free to call me out when I screw up getting the point across.  I’m a work in progress.

The Post in Which I come out (but not in the usual way)

In the summer of 2011, I finished one journey as a surrogate, something I had done before.  A few short weeks later, I began a new journey as the survivor after the loss of an immediate family member, something I had also done before.  The synergistic effects of these events’ timing was to lead me on a completely different journey than I ever expected, but that has helped me grow to accept who I am like never before.

            Last week was the start to our family’s summer break.  I know it’s late, but that’s how we tend to roll.  My husband, Dwight, and I are graduate students (but I’m almost done!), and he works over the summer at his side job, so we have the summer off from our “real work” but with everything else that was going on, we hadn’t had any time to do anything as just a family so far; everything had involved other family members and/or at least some working.  So on Thursday evening, while sitting in front of the television watching some Doctor Who on Netflix, Dwight popped the question.  “Why don’t we go to Cedar Point tomorrow?” 

            Sounds reasonable enough, right?  Since we’re only an hour and a half away it would be a simple day trip.  We also have season tickets to Cedar Fair parks- which include Cedar Point- it would even qualify as a cheap day trip.  Our son Kenny had never been to Cedar Point, but he’s tall enough to go on any of the rides, and he had been asking about going to “the big kids’ kiddy park.”  After all of five minutes of discussion, we made the decision and set our alarm for early the next day, planning to be on the road by 8:30 AM, to put us there at 10 AM, when the park opened.  We went off to bed, and visions of Raptors and Mantises danced through our heads.

            The alarm didn’t quite work out as planned, so we awoke late, but the next morning, we worked on getting everything ready to go as efficiently as possible.  Well, I did that, and Dwight did something with his computer in his office that I wasn’t completely clear about at the time (and I remain so- he likes his private space and I’m kind of afraid to ask).  Shower and clean clothing- check.  Breakfast- check, but not anything really breakfast-like.  Kid out of bed- check, with bonus tantrum and fit-throwing.  Time to hit the road if we were to get there when we wanted- check, but it was another half an hour before we finally left. 

            If this sounds like a far cry from a well-oiled machine to you, then you’re a keenly observant reader.  If this sounds like a sure-fire way to make my head explode, then we’ve obviously met at some point.  And explode my head did, somewhere around the turnpike on ramp, when I realized we were running too late for me to get a coffee and doughnut.  By the time we got to the amusement park, I had in fact calmed down and was ready to have some fun.  A great time was had by all, although the day was not perfectly smooth sailing, but that tends to be how anything with a six year old generally goes.  By the time we got home that night, everyone was ready to relax some, and head to bed early. 

            All of the melodrama could have easily been avoided with some careful planning (or even some not-so-careful planning, like throwing food in the cooler the night before).  I’ve always known that I function better with lists and plans, and I’ve made this point to Dwight on many occasions, but this time it simply didn’t happen; spontaneity isn’t supposed to involve lists and plans, right?  All of this chaos is to introduce you to an all too normal chain of events for me, and to point out one way in which my Pervasive Developmental Disorder- Not Otherwise Specified (or PDD-NOS, for short) happens to show itself. 

            You can easily check into PDD-NOS if you like, but suffice it to say, this is one disorder on the autism spectrum.  Forget everything you think you know about people on the autism spectrum, because one of us might be sitting next to you right now.  Someone you considered “quirky” or “a bit odd” might indeed fall into these same ranks.  Ask my husband, he’ll tell you that he would never have imagined his wife of eleven years to have been on the autism spectrum.  But earlier this year, after living with it for thirty-one years, I was told that I do indeed have PDD-NOS.  It wasn’t until then that I had even heard of this, but all of a sudden friends of mine in psychology were chiming in with “Oh, yeah, that makes sense” comments.  I found this out after I hit a metaphoric brick wall while talking to my grief counselor after my sister’s violent and sudden suicide. 

            I had always felt different growing up, never quite fit in, and always had problems communicating with others, let alone relate to them.  For me, this was not necessarily a welcome pronouncement, but one that held a measure of relief and helped to give me some reasons.  It’s not been entirely helpful, in part due to the stigma and preconceptions around autism spectrum disorders, and in part due to my own reactions to the label, but overall it’s been useful at the very least.