Dilemma

I keep wondering about how to find language to explore the dilemma that is my metaphysical, spiritual life. I can't believe. I don't believe. That I admitted some twenty-five years ago. And I still feel at peace with that recognition. I spent the first thirty-five years of my life dutifully trying to believe, to do the right thing. And at some point so much had shifted that I had to admit to myself that I couldn't. And wouldn't. And that has described my life. And I've been releaved, at peace with that admission.

But I remained fascinated by religion. By its good, bad, and ugly. By the hair that can divide the believer from the non-believer. I read a book recently that made me think for the first time about the term agnostic. A-gnostic. Not a gnostic. That describes me. Not a believer. But where does that leave me. Not an atheist either. Atheism seems like a belief. So stable. So satisfied. So right. So ready to stop and live right there in that place--perhaps a very narrow place. I find exploration, questioning what describes me. Not staying some place. Not being comfortable. The notion of belief assumes such a stable world, a stable place to stand. I haven't found that. Not really looking for that any more. What I want is a way to keep finding the string that starts to unravel. It's that quest that sustains me.

A conflict of interest?

I spent last Saturday at a symposium sponsored by Sunstone. Sunstone publishes a magazine on Mormon history, literature, pop history, politics, you get the idea. Sunstone also sponsors a yearly symposium in Salt Lake City and smaller symposia in local areas. I visited the one in Seattle.

The magazine and the symposia live on a short list of publications/groups/events the official church (of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, substitute Mormon) at best ignores and at worst harasses. Some 20 years past a number of folks who had published or spoken in venues like Sunstone were publicly excommunicated. I had a bit of a brush with the church over content I had published in Sunstone during that period. But I managed not to fight. And I'm still on the official roles of the Mormon church (but that's another story).

So here's the story on my background and why I'm thinking about this now. Some 20 plus years ago I worked as an editor for Sunstone magazine. I was part of the group who sponsored the original symposium in Salt Lake City. I was the editor for all(yes, I do think all) the articles or books cited as justification for the excommunication of the folks in the 90s. That's my history. Editor. Magazines. Books. Print. Design. The printed word.

That's my past. My present? I work for a software company in Seattle. I create documentation--help systems, tutorials, user guides. I get frustrated every day at work by silly folks who cling to the printed word. I want folks to move online, to the web, and now to Web 2.0--to blogs, WIKIs, tag clouds, community, interactive, up-to-date, way cool communication (so okay "cool" shows my age).

So what did I do last weekend. I found myself volunteering to help with Dialogue--yet an another very Mormon, very much old hat, PRINTED magazine. And over the past couple of days I've been e-mailing back and forth about the younger intelligensia of Mormondom. They don't read the old "liberal" magazines. They flock to the blogs.

The blogs. At work my hope of the future. And at home. My son, my daughter-in-law, they rule in the blogosphere, the bloggernacle (that's the Mormon, mostly faithful, sphere).

So here's my dilemma. Why I'm thinking I may have a conflict of interest, an unresolved tension in my life. How do I bring together my impulse to join the greying crowd who care about a magazine, a print artifact, something bogged down in the past? And my impulse to embrace the web, the community the interaction, the immediacy of the blog, the web, the community--web 2.0 as it's styled by my crowd at work.

I just plain worry about what it means to lose the boring reality of these old print venues. My son blogs very persuasively that the problem is the quality of the work. I often agree that's true. But I find something very troubling in much of what happens on the web, in the blogs I read, as well.

Such short spurts of argument. The emphasis on controversy (lots of comments, fights only generate lots of comments), popularity (again comments and links). And brevity. Again a conflict arises here. I value, conciseness, elegance in the word. But I also worry about the lack of attention, of digging through. I find myself rejecting any comment that goes beyond two paragraphs. What does this say about what reading attention tends to be online. (I still read very long books.)

So you see it here. Look at the length of this mess. Way past the rules of good blogging. Too rambling, too undisciplined to make it into print. Alas, where has the world left me.

A plan is emerging

I have decided that I am going to bring my lovely idiot girl to Seattle. Lots of planning to complete. But I've decided that I'm going to take time off from work to find a decent place and settle us all in. I'm also hoping to cut back on work. More time for Bevin. More time for life. The goal is late January or February. I'll try to make an account of this.

So far I've learned that Bevin can't apply for services in Washington until she's living here. That means she is no longer living in Utah. That is a gamble. She is far away but she has a decent place and good people. No guarantee here. If I bring her here I'm back on call. And that's difficult. For my life. For my relationship with my husband. But I've decided that being her mother is the most important thing here. I need to take some risks for her. I've had my time. I want to be a good mother. I'm hoping that we can both have a good life--here in Seattle.

I'll try to write more about this.

Can Idiot Girl come to Seattle

My heart won over my head this weekend. I went to Utah, in large part to spend a weekend with my Idiot Girl. I visited friends. It was a perfect weekend for Bevin. We ate out twice on Friday. Three times on Saturday, with an additional picnic. That means this is how the days went: eat, drive, eat, drive, eat drive. What is more perfect for Bevin. Her topic desires: eat, ride, walk (and the fourth is cuddle). That is at least what I do with my Idiot Girl.

A grand weekend. On Sunday, we ate, drove. And then I took her back to her group home. A very good place. 15 girls or so. But they care, are responsible, do their best. It isn't a scary place. Not in the world of places where a young woman (she's 26) like my dear Idiot Girl, my Bevin, can live on her own.

I stopped at the home. And she was just plane mad at me. On the roam as I took her back. Now this is where it is difficult with Bevin. She get's over it. I knew that she'd settle down. Her grand ability is this: she's happy, she lives in the present. But it was so striking for me. She was angry, she expressed her feelings. She seemed to care, if only for the briefest slice of time.

But it broke my heart. I drove away, but I couldn't leave. So I brought my Idiot Girl home with me. Definitely heart over head. I have a job. My daughter has a family of small children. Bevin, for all her charm, can be very difficult. And as I called around today to begin the assault on the officialsom of this state. It's not easy. It's a catch 22.

So what do I do. I have made so many compromises in my life around my children. They know I love them. And the other two have done fine. Truth to be told. Bevin is doing fine too. But am I? I want to take care of her. Touch her. Love her. I just can't let this go on. My easy life. My Idiot Girl isn't in Seattle. She's hundreds of miles away.

And that is what I must fix. For my heart.

Me

I think I'm safe

So I've had this blog for several years. And as near as I can tell, no one has visited it. So I think I'm safe. Maybe I could try writing something just a wee bit public. Push these lazy fingers. Lay myself out there a bit.

We'll see

What I distrust

I haven't been writing. Because I don't think? Because I'm private? But who is reading this? So I'll proceed and see if I can write.

I just saw a clip of Ronald Reagan and his famous "tear down that wall." I suppose I've come to believe that Ronald Reagan was a good man. And listening to an abridged version (I hesitate to admit) of his biography, I'm also willing to think that he was more accomplished than I gave him credit for. Particularly in being able to articulate his own vision.

But I still can't respond to someone like Ronald Reagan. Even if in the end it turned out better than I might have thought. And certainly, given what I distrust, things have gotten more troubling, not less. (Now I'm thinking about George Bush.) So what do I distrust. A person who trusts an idea, a belief, without submitting that idea, that belief, even a "gut feeling" if that's what it is, to inquiry, thought, investigation, skepticism. I just can't trust belief. And it's not that I trust reason or thought either. But human animals do have the ability to reason. The ability to discover a view of where we are standing, a sense that it's one of many places we might stand. That's what the ability to reason can help to glimpse. Another way things might be. A sense of this place, this context, a horizon. And a horizon, a view, that might just be different. That is what I value. What I try to find. Another way to think about this. Then I have a way of choosing, valuing, my view. Otherwise it's blind. So what I continue to question, to distrust is the true belief, the only belief, the obvious, the one true way. One.

And one that has an easy enemy, an easy other. My husband always tells me this leaves me in a murky, muddled place. But I have worked very hard to get to this murky, muddled place. And I value those things I can still value so much more, living in this place. So I continue to distrust the Ronald Reagans of the world. True believers. Even if kind and benign. I can sometimes admire. I can wish. But I just can't trust. I can't trust trust.

Idiot Girl at Inn N Out

I've been reading the new book by Temple Grandin, "Animals in Translation." Grandin is interesting because she is autistic and has enough language and ability to generalize to talk about what it is like to be autistic. My daughter Bevin is not autistic. She belongs to that broad spectdum of disabilities that autistic belongs to, however. And I learn more about her when I read about autism than anything else. Autism is diagnosed on a spectrum--it's like you get points and so many points add up to autism, a few less to autiistic like, and a few less--you have my daughter. Little language. Profoundly out of it.

Grandin is a gift because she can talk about what it is like to be inside a mind that must be something like my daughter's. As she talks about her experiences, I often feel a sense of recognition.

One thing that she focuses on is the way that she thinks in pictures. That she doesn't have memory or thought stored away in language. She has that memory, that experience, that wisdom stored away in pictures.

An instance yesterday that reminds me how profoundly--and weirdly--visual my daughter is. (My fondly named "Idiot Girl"--the source of my name.)

I took her driving yesterday. Left to sit at home, she'll either cover her head with a blanket and sleep. Or roam the house, clearing off surfaces, stuffing things in closets, beg for soda. Driving, she is amazingly engaged. She looks around, at the cars, at the scenery. And she will not fall asleep. It doesn't matter how far or how long you drive.

But to the incident of yesterday. And to the visual memory. We were driving yesterday. And we stopped for lunch at Inn N Out Burger--a popular chain in California. I set us up at a counter with high chairs and a view out onto people waiting for their burgers. She thought it was great fun. We ate our burgers, fries, and she took her drink along. When we returned that evening we went out for a drive to visit friends with my husband and his son. They decided to stop for a burger at an Inn N Out Burger. All of these chains are set up in exactly the same way. Bevin trounced in with great confidence (she is great for ritual, repeated experience). Before I realized what was happening, she recognized her chair--the second chair from the right in the middle bar with the high chairs. She threw her self into the chair with great gusto. And greated the three teenage boys sitting in the remaining 3 chairs (of the four) in the group. "Hi," she smiled.

She had remembered her place, the pattern. The three teenage boys were beside the point. This was her place, her chair. The place she gets good food and has great fun.

Mr. Deeds goes to the Blue City

Last night my husband and I watched the Gary Cooper movie, "Mr Deeds Goes to the City" (is that the title?). Mid-way through the movie my husband commented, "This movie has a lot to say about the world today. Red states and blue states. The urban, the blue. Elitist, without heart." I lost it. "You've always lived in a city. You've never lived in a rural area in your life! Does that mean, you're blue." I was furious. He had turned this lovely movie into a tale about who voted for George Bush.

I shouldn't have screamed at him. That doesn't help. But this alarms me. My husband is semi-retired. Works out of our house in California (that's another story). He has a great deal of time he can use as he will. He spends hours each day listening to conservative talk radio--Rush Limbaugh in the morning, Michael Medved in the afternoon. And later in the day the likes of Michael Savage and others. He watches Fox News. And he reads books that tell about the elitist bias of the news, books written by the likes of Ann Coulter. Listening to his comments on the movie, made me think about the world he is inhabiting these days. It is so polarized: red and blue, democrat and republican, conservative and liberal. There is a moral struggle that falls along these lines. The good and the bad, the moral and the not moral, the duped and the wise.

I could definitely see a moral for our age in the Gary Cooper movie. But I don't see things falling out along these smooth, easy lines. And it is disturbing, alarming to see my husband stuffing the world into these categories. He is a kind and good man. An odd duck I love. He escaped Vietnam as a conscientious objector.

I wonder how many others live in this either/or kind of world. I hope not so many.

By the way, I've let the flag fly over my house over the past year. I make what I will of symbols. I love America. It's my flag too. I won't let him make the meaning of that.

I listen to audiobooks. I started this when I had a 140 mile-3-hour commute every weekend. It kept me awake while music put me to sleep. Just enough engagement of the mind to fight off exhaustion from the week and sleepiness. Last year I asked for an iPod for Christmas. And that device and Audible.com have been my friends for the past year. Now I can listen to audiobooks without fighting with multiple cds or tapes and finding a place to store all the boxes. I still read. But this extends my ability to read.With my iPod, I broadcast books through all the radios in the house. So I can "read" while I clean or cook or just sit in front of the fireplace and watch the fire. I can listen in the car. I can listen while I walk around Greenlake (yes, I do live in Seattle).

It's luxurious to be read to. It slows the experience down. I read too quickly. And I cheat. I skim. I skip backward, I skip forward. This way I must concentrate and be in the moment with the story. With a very good reader, it is a wonderful experience. And with a good book, a bad reader is tolerable.

My best listen of the past few months. Rohinton's Mistry's "A Fine Balance." Devastating. Hopeful for people, if not for society. I recently listened to his second novel, "Family Matters." More later.

It's been a long time. I had forgotten I did this. I navigate most evenings to my son's blog. It's pretty entertaining--and impressive. He and his friends are mostly lawyers, very opinionated, and very verbal. I like the fact that he has a good sense of shape for what he writes, and mostly he understands that more is less in a good essay. I'm impressed by blogs that have a public shape and a bit of thought to them. Not that impressed by blogs that sound like journals, personal musings that don't face externally, don't have a sense of audience. So what is this? Not entirely sure. I'm so caught between multiple worlds. I often think it's a good place to see things. But I don't seem to have the patience to write, to stick to something long enough to explore in depth and shape what I have to say. I flit from thing to thing.

I have a soft spot for Wordworth's poem the Idiot Boy. That's where my blog ultimately finds it name. In a roundabout way to be sure. Early in my graduate school career I wrote a paper on Wordsworth's poem that I liked a lot--and it was pleasant that my professor liked it too. That paper ended up getting me into a surprising amount of trouble. I chose to read the paper at a professional conference in a Wordsworth session rather than another paper I had written on a woman writer named Ivy Compton-Burnett in a session on feminist writing. That decision was read as anti-woman by some of my graduate school peers, and that was the beginning of my own private version of culture wars. I felt my reading of Wordsworth was as critically sophisticated and as "feminist" as my reading of the woman writer. But of course that opens up a whole other story. Just another lesson in how easy it is to end up on the outside.

A good part of why the term and the poem has such deep meaning to me, why it was the sentimental favorite in my choice that fall, has to do with my own "Idiot Girl," my last daughter. She is now in her early twenties and still understands the world much as she did when she was one or two. She just came to visit me for the week--so this is in celebration of my own beloved Idiot Girl in Seattle.

My husband recently posted an American flag on our front porch. Quite a few things you need to know about that flag. First of all, he didn't ask me if I wanted it there. Second, I have a house in Seattle and my husband has a house in Sacramento. That we have two houses certainly isn't an accident. Almost six years ago we were separated. A favorite thing I like to say (and it's pretty much true) separation saved our marriage. I got a job. I got my own place at a distance of 140 miles plus from Sacramento. And I decided, for better or worst, that I love him and would stay married. I often revisit that decision. But I made that decision. And at least for the time being, I have no interest in going there again. I'd rather spend the energy making my peace with that decision.

So the point. We survive to this day because there is distance. At one point the distance was the 140 miles between Sacramento and San Jose. For almost two years now it's been the distance between Sacramento and Seattle. And that's been for the better from my point of view. I have enough distance to win some distance, think about things a bit, and survive.

The flag in a way signals the very complex patterns of that survival. The flag is there because he's here in Seattle and I don't want to fight. The flag is definitely a statement. If I fight against the flag, it really is war, for us. I'm still thinking about the flag. And frankly waiting for him to leave so I can probably take it down--though I haven't totally decided yet. That flag does "flag" a new tear in our relationship. Here's what happened.

I can't even remember what started the struggle. But I said something about my frustration with the whole discussion about "patriotism," flagging someone as an enemy because of criticism about America. My husband is very much in the middle of the conservative talk radio scene. And I have to say little before he's angry at me. It's always a little difficult to figure out why, to figure out what I've done. That's the way I feel about this particular discussion. It's out there in something of a blur. Not sure what I said. But it was enough to start the free associational slide that leads him to a sense of high anxiety, frustration, fear. About America, about it's danger from socialism, about all the things that threaten freedom, life as it is now. I can't even make sense of this. But it makes him crazy. And before I could do anything about the slide, he was there. . . . Where I'm the threat, the enemy. And in that place he says things I can never quite forget or forgive. And this time he was going on about how he shouldn't associate with someone with such dangerous ideas. He should catch a plane a fly back to Sacramento. I cried. Mourned yet again my wishes, my hopes, my disappointments. And of course he didn't leave.

What he did do is buy a flag. And while I was away from the Seattle house, he put the flag there. It wasn't worth a question about why, what it means, the agression of putting it there in the wake of those words to me. But it's been flagging there for almost two weeks now. Us not talking about it. He'll be on his way to Sacramento again next week. And then I'll need to decide what I do with the flag.

Again, I find myself painfully in a place by myself. I'm very uncomfortable with what that flag means to him. I don't like that, and there's a great deal of anger in me that will come out in the vicinity of that flag.

But I'm also thinking of a conversation I had with a friend back last winter. The sense that the flag means something bad. How can that be? That seems really negative. It's like my husband hating to go to coffee houses because negative people go there. Being frustrated with listening to a favorite musicians because suddenly he's favorite with the "unwashed." How can I refuse to love the flag, love my country because it means something particular to the left, something particular to my husband. Where do I stand. Am I intimidated by his anger, his judgment, the negative things that happen between us because I refuse the either/or (that's a whole other discussion)? Or am I intimated by the man across the street with his Impeach Bush sign in the window. I'm so alienated by both.

So what do I do with that flag??

Still struggling with the war, obviously.

But now I'm trying to go back to a previous place--and move forward. I have five weeks off from my technology (software job). I'm using it to go back and do excavation of a previous life. That was where I did historical research and was an "all but dissertation" graduate student. I'm reading, writing, trying to get back to where I can do work on this. I'll feel very sad if I come to my old age or my death and have nothing more than a software manual to show for it. Even a photoshop software manual. . . .

I'm struggling with the war. Yet again I feel out of sync. I missed the upheaval of the Vietnam era, despite the fact I was in college. Well actually because I was in college--at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. The Vietnam war mostly missed Provo. No political discussions. No protests. No discussion that really touched me. But all the young men I knew quietly trying to avoid the draft.

I encountered the Vietnam era protests in the spring of 1970 at the University of Washington campus. I went there with my soon to be husband who was soon to be a graduate student in Seattle. We arrived in the midst of huge protests; the campus was full of students and many of the buildings had been shut down. I was afraid, but excited.

We married that summer and moved to Seattle and I encountered the sixties--at a safe distance and late enough to keep my head in that city. Co-ops and community gardens and social awareness and dreams of living off the land and living together in a community of the like minded and listening to Watergate on the radio day after day. And finally feeling vindicated for what I had felt in my gut day after day listening.

Now I'm back in Seattle after 30 years. And the protests are happening again. And I'm on the outside again--this time more from choice than accident. The peace movement is ignoring too many difficult issues for me to feel comfortable there. But I don't have any trust of Bush and his gang. What a mess.

So I'll give this a try. I've kept a journal pretty much since the fourth or fifth grade. But a journal is private. I'm curious what happens when you post to the world. (Even if no one is reading.)

I've taken the name Idiot Girl in homage to Wordsworth's poem the "Idiot Boy." From my view, Wordsworth's Idiot Boy tells the story of a poet or story-teller. I love stories. I am now in Seattle--deep in the heart of the technology revolution. I'm in my mid-fifties and started in Idaho--in potatoe farming country. My story has a few jigs and jags from Idaho to Utah to California to Washington. One thing I know, I've been on the cusp of lots of change. The woman's movement, I caught it just late enough to cause lots of complications in my life. I've had a number of lives one after another: farm worker, house wife, magazine and book editor, academic, writer/historian, and now creater of instructional content for software Help and Web sites.

We'll see if writing this way is anything very real.