Joy and Graduate Design Research

          What I talk about when I talk about this research is joy. What joy is, is times of feeling intimately connected to the world around you and the people in it. I know the solemn, intentional joy of being alone and feeling that connection with clouds and sunlight and plants and pavement, being part of all of that. But what this experience has been so full of is the distracted, unselfconscious joy of feeling connected with other people. What has happened is, I have made friends. These people who don't have houses or apartments, who I used to feel estranged from, even afraid of - I think of them when the weather is bad, and I visit to see if I can help. I dream about some of them at night. They have winked into being in the constellations of people in my life. I’ve experienced devastation with them, watching them stare around, lost, at the waste of the meager structure they had to their days. I’ve seen their ability to be human even in that situation, to be so angry and scared yet to be able to step back and say, “I don’t hold it against them; they’re just doing their job.” I don’t care who else they are, or what else they are, or whether they could find work if they tried harder, or whether they could get housing if they’d just go to a case worker. I suspend judgment during my time with them, the same way I do for other friends. I don’t listen because I have to; I want to listen. Laughing at a story they tell me, or shaking my head in disgust at the injustice they are facing, or watching the creases at the corners of their eyes as they smile, reflecting my smile. The gradual process of being accepted as someone they can talk to, someone they can trust, has thrilled me more and more and more deeply in each instance of contact. I want to be part of their meetings, their informal gatherings. I am hurt if I think I have hurt them. I don’t romanticize our relationship or think that I mean the world to them, but I do not take for granted the glory of their recognition. Taking the time to cultivate a relationship so that when you see someone, you smile at each other and greet each other happily, is the most joyous thing we can do with our time. It is not the most productive thing; productivity is also part of this but belongs to another realm. It is not the most economical thing or the most helpful thing (though some may argue that it is). But connecting and being joyful in the bond is the most important thing for a healthy human being to have, of this I am sure. What they have given me over the course of these months of work is not something I can talk about academically. I hope for them. I trust them. They have changed me so. The feeling I have now approaching a campsite is as night is to day with the feeling I had approaching the first time. Hesitation is now confidence. Fear is now excitement. Uncertainty is now command. I know what to say, how to look them in the face and not be so aware of our relative positions in life. If I drive up in my car and they sit on a railroad tie with all their belongings in a backpack beside them, it doesn’t matter because our relative positions are pretend, formed by stories we tell about the value of money and of objects. We are adjacent and joined by the only position that is real between two humans: two simultaneously beating hearts, a whole history of experiences that we begin sharing the moment our brains look out through our eyes, meeting. I read once that you know everything you need to know about a person the first moment you look into their eyes, if you are paying attention. It’s true, because all you need to know about them is that they are a person and all they need to know about you is that you are one. We know exactly how to acknowledge the light, the soul, whatever you would like to call it, that shines back at us. We pretend not to know in our fear and doubt. Once we have practiced and learned to let the fear and doubt go, all that is left is the joyfulness of transfer, of empathy. I can see your emotions in your eyes. I care about the state of your mind. Once that is in place, everything else falls easily into a natural rhythm and formation. Then if your friend says, “Can I have $1.50?” and you say, “Yes,” and hand them two dollars because you don’t have coins and they say, “Make it three,” and you say, “No,” and they say, “Okay,” neither of you have lost anything in the exchange. You have both been honest about what you need and what you are willing. It is as simple as meeting at a coffee shop with an old friend. You might both offer to pay. One of you might offer first and insist. One of you might find yourself short and ask for a favor. We take these small moments in stride because we trust ourselves and we trust our friends. You can understand and use the trust you have in people who don’t have a house in the same ways. You are unafraid to say things like, “You need to leave me alone now,” or “I have to leave.” You are unafraid to admit that you have no cash, and you are unafraid to admit that you do but you need it for something later. You are unafraid to say, “I can’t help you with that,” or “I think I know someone who could help you out.” You’re unafraid to hug them or cry or apologize or turn away or do any of the other things people do with one another, because you have become unafraid of your own vulnerability around them – which is really what we’re all afraid of. The precariousness of our own position. That their homelessness will negate the legitimacy of our own standing. It doesn’t have to. You can have your own life and love it and not give it all away. They understand. They really do. And that is magic.

The best thing we can do for each other is cry together

On Monday, midmorning, in a cold wind, I visited the camping grounds under I40 as I frequently do, to say hello to the people living there. This day I was investigating who was camping and whether they had a need for firewood. A friend had offered some extra she had from a felled tree in her backyard. I approached a group of five who stood and sat around a green metal barrel with a fire in it. I hadn't met any of them, so we introduced ourselves with smiles. After confirming they yes, please, definitely needed firewood, the man closest to me offered some labor and then volunteered some personal information about his recent experience. He was speaking of extremely difficult things - loss of a loved one, violence, prison - but he spoke with an uplifted chin and the unmistakable air of a person with hope and a plan. As he talked and I listened, the cold wind blowing into my face began to make my eyes water. I felt one tear then another trickle from the corners of my eyes, and, embarrassed, I tried to wipe them away without his notice - but after a few more moments his eyes began to water too. Amazement bloomed in my chest as more tears flowed down my face and then two spilled from his eyes. Neither of us acknowledged it with our words, but as he talked, we stared into each other's faces and cried with stillness and silence. Then my tears were no longer from cold but with a concentration of raw empathy, the kind of thing we don't have to force or be taught. We see each other's real-ness and acknowledge it in each other. Nobody said, "I'm sorry." Nobody said, "I feel pain." But there was pain, and there was sorrow, and there was the knowing that all of that was going to be fine. We smiled at each other with the saline drying on our cheeks. I said goodbye and walked to my car, new.

A Thoughtlet [or a tiny thought]

The other day I saw a train going the opposite direction trains usually go on this particular track. Disoriented, my first thought was, "Why is the train going backward?"
It's like that. When I see something happening in a way it doesn't "normally," meaning in my familiar experience, I probably tend to assume it's wrong or backward. But things go different ways. People know where they're going. They just have a different aim in mind than I can see.

Happy Birthday Ambrose!

Happy Birthday Ambrose!

My foray into fondant; I made it from a recipe I got here:

http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Rolled-Marshmallow-Fondant

 Because it is such a great book (and Ambrose likes to poke his fingers through the holes in the fruits) and because when Ambrose was wigglin' round inside me, he made me a Very Hungry Caterpillar and now he is a Very Hungry Caterpillar too, I decided to theme the party on that marvelous work by Eric Carle.

On Saturday, he at through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice cream cone, one pickle . . . 

The Beautiful Butterfly as a clothespin-tissue paper refrigerator magnet.  Party favors for the little kids and grown-ups.  (As a side note, my unbelievable husband stayed up with me till one in the morning watercolor-ing all those wings.  I do not deserve this man.)

Party time!  Nice day on the patio.

Babies everywhere!  The other two are the children of two of the other girls in my Centering Pregnancy group at the Lisa Ross Birth and Women's Center.

I mean, really?  Can he get any cuter?

Give.  Me.  That.

Om-nom-nom-nom!

That's avocado frosting and banana oat cake.  Recipes here:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/avocado-icing/  http://www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com/healthy-first-birthday-cake-recipes.html

That's delicious.

 I made "hand kites" from napkin rings varnished with olive oil and beeswax.  I got the idea on etsy.com and the process from another blog: http://gsfool.blogspot.com/2011/08/ribbon-hand-kite-tutorial.html

Loves playing with his Grandpa!  I think it was a successful party.  We also passed around a book for everyone to write to Ambrose about his first year.  And I'm already excited about what I will do next year!  What an awesome day!

In the year I have known you

One year ago today I was holding my two-day-old son and wondering simultaneously how I ever got so lucky and how I was going to make it through the night.  He had so many tiny perfect parts; how was I ever going to keep track of them?  And those were only the parts I could see.  He had tiny lungs and liver and spine and how could I go to sleep unsure he would keep breathing while he slept?

I have forgotten now how long it took me to stop going into his room every 5 minutes while he napped, to convince myself his chest rose and fell, as always.

This year Ambrose learned to swallow pureed food, then soft whole food.  In fact, this year he learned how to mush up and swallow pretty much anything we give him.  He learned how to roll from his back to his front.  He learned how to sit halfway up, propped on one arm, unsure where to go from there.  He rose to hands and knees and rocked, and crawled.  How his "hungry" sounds have changed and changed again, but oh how he has never failed to let me know he is hungry.  He can throw things now.  He can pick up a pea, a dust bunny, a crumb.  He understands the things I say.  He knows where his mouth is, and his nose and his eyes, and will move these body parts accordingly when I inquire about their location.

"Ambrose, where's your nose?"
*snnffff snffff snnnff*
"Where's your eyes?"
*blink squint blink*

And so on.  If I ask him, "Where's your sock?" he grabs his foot.  If I ask, "What does a police car say?" he makes a funny little siren noise that is like melted butter poured over my heart every time.

He smiled at me for the first time back at week 5, then he laughed at me, and now he talks to me.  "Mama," he looks at me and says.  "Bo," he explains as he points to the birds out the window.  "Mo," he demands, folding and unfolding his little hands impatiently.

His once unfocused and strangely blue-smoke eyes are tack-sharp and sky-bright and have such intelligence behind them, such person-ness.  He has three times the repertoire of facial expressions that I do, I feel.  He's got character.  He was two cells, and now he's got character.  He loves to make me laugh, too. 

Today we threw him a party.  I had no idea the drive I would find within me to go completely overboard, doing things I'd never done before to have a party that Ambrose won't even remember.  I made FONDANT, for heaven's sake.  I varnished wood with beeswax.  I got 5 hours of sleep three nights in a row.

But I NEEDED to show everyone and Ambrose and myself how desperately I love this kiddo.  How enthralled I am with his growing and being and learning, how in love with his expanding existence I am, how I would find that fabled lever and move this planet for him.

I'll add a post of party pictures later because right now my photos aren't showing up when I browse for them.  All in all I think it was a good party.  The occasion has been marked; I am ready to move on.  For as lovely as all my memories are of the last twelve months, the next twelve months are so much more exciting.  Oh Ambrose, you are like Christmas every day of the year.  I can't wait to see you in the morning, to discover what year: 1, day: 3 has in store for you.  

a mug full of writing utensils, half of which don't work, on your cherry sideboard

Every day, Ambrose does something he has never done before.

I read once that maybe death is not one big thing but rather many small things, like someone wandering around your house taking things one by one until you just don't have anything left.  So you leave.

Ambrose has everything left.  Hardly has he discovered one thing than something else captures him.  He's spent the last 4 baths in a row playing with his bottle of shampoo and nothing else; he keeps finding something else interesting about it.

The Fountain of Youth is a fountain because fountains constantly renew themselves and always have more left.

Let us love like the young, explore like the young, create like the young.  Let us live like fountains, our houses in a pleasant clutter of kitchen utensils, half-finished paintings, stacks of records, books we want to read.  Let us look at something we see every day and see what we have never seen before.

What haven't we ever done before?  Snow skiing?  Cooking curried lentils?  Being genuinely kind to someone who was completely rude to us?  Biking to the store?  Volunteering at a Boys & Girls Club?  Attending a wine tasting?

Ambrose is only beginning to find some of the hundreds of thousands of things that will keep his fountain flowing.  Remember yours.  Find a few new ones.  Celebrate where others find theirs.

Thirst.

Ambrose crawls

After all the rocking, the pushing up on hands and knees, the hesitant hand-lifting and leg-lifting, he just did it.  Monday morning (11.14.11) he crawled after the broom as Brian swept.  Monday evening he crawled to the clothes rack and took down one of his wipes that was drying there.  He crawled to his changing table and pulled out his clothes drawers and began pulling everything off the bottom shelf.  He crawled to my phone on the floor.

I cannot believe how my heart leaped and pounded, as if I were seeing a species long thought extinct - - or more, one that never existed, like a unicorn.  To me, all my life, the stages of baby development were part of a sort of mythology; I believed in some way it existed out there for someone else and as such I never regarded it as something quite real.  But to watch the growing product of your own DNA code rise up on hands and knees and move forward of his own accord is something you almost can't believe as you are seeing it, like an astounding magic trick, and you're just wishing you could figure out how it works - - but just knowing that figuring out how it works would ruin it, and it is for someone else to know.

He crawled later in the week at my parents' and at his Great Nana's house.  He crawled for Christie and Jaime.  Now he is angry when I insist he lay on his back for a diaper change.  He makes his whine of protest, and sometimes it ends in a scream and a scowl.  "I can go places now, mother.  Let me."

The week before last we noticed him shaking his head sometimes.  Since then he has started doing it when we do it.  Now he does it when you say, "Shake your head!"  His first verbal command as far as I can tell, and another little miracle I can't quite process.  He also plays a game of exchanging noises, back and forth, using his voice in a tiny conversation.
"Uh."
"Uh."
"Uh."
"Ah."
"Ah."
"Uah."

He knows we are there when he cannot see us.  He looks after us when we leave a space.  He cranes over to look for things he drops.  

His whole being seems keyed toward destruction.  Last night in the bath we made stacks of his stacking cups, and we sat him at the other end of the tub; he reached and strained and finally got a knee under him and crawled to the cups so he could knock them over with one swipe.  He will not let even one cup stand atop another.  All must come down; disassembly is the name of the game.

He is picking up on others' feelings and attitudes.  As a test, Brian pretended to start crying the other day, and Ambrose fell apart, scared and confused and sad.

He is exploring his pincer grasp and thus is obsessed with zipper pulls, buttons, buckles, pebbles, bits of food.  And speaking of food, if we are eating it, he wants to eat it.  And with his own fingers or his own hands on the spoon, thank you.  I can do it by myself mother.

I started to get frustrated with his spoon-grabbiness, but I realized that this is part of exactly the point and purpose of raising a child: to structure a world where s/he can become a fully independently functioning person.  Yes, Ambrose.  You can to it by yourself.  I'll watch and glow with smiles you know nothing about, and I'll scoop you up when you bonk your head again and wipe your hands and chin in the aftermath of early spoon usage.  How I love you, Little Monster, getting to be a Bigger Monster all the time.

                                                                                                                                                                -Me