To new heights

2015 was not a great year, in a lot of ways, for a lot of people. Aside from my friends and acquaintances who've suffered setbacks or losses, personal and professional, there's been a lot of garbage fires in the news. Hateful rhetoric and bullying by politicians (and wannabe politicians), war and chaos in the Middle East, epidemics in Africa, breathtaking mendacity and corruption in the halls of power.

But if I allow myself to refocus (and if you'll allow it, with all of the above stipulated and duly mourned), 2015 was a great year for me. I published a book, the culmination of four years of research, fieldwork, and writing. I was lured back into weekly TV reviews to write about Better Call Saul for the A.V. Club.  I lost 30 pounds. I sewed my first dress. I knit a lot of stuff I'm proud of (I'll post more about that over on the other blog). I left administrative work behind and debuted a successful new course, with others in the works. I celebrated my fiftieth birthday feeling stronger, healthier, more creative, and more content than I have in many years. My children continue to astound me, and my husband graciously allows me to bask in his reflected glory.

For causes I care about, too, there was good news. Marriage equality prevailed at the Supreme Court. Thanks to Obamacare, the number of Americans without health care coverage dropped to historic lows. A historic deal to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions was reached. Relations with Cuba were normalized, allowing travel and commerce to resume after decades of fruitless sanctions. Guantanamo Bay continues to shed its detainees, slowing bringing to a close a shameful episode in American history.

I think back a few years, and remember being fearful, frustrated, strangely lost. I cast about for disciplines and programs to try to regain control of what seemed to be slipping away. That time seems like a dream of a distant sickness. The prescription was simple: autonomy, fulfilling work, creative and nourishing leisure, loving and being loved.

Whether you are bidding a fond or a bitter farewell to 2015, I wish you greater things in 2016. May we find peace, empathy, and mutual flourishing there.

Welcome back

I finished a book in 2014. It's the first time I've done that all on my lonesome since the early days of my professorship, when I turned my dissertation into a book. Looking back at the process, similarly to that previous experience, it's hard to believe I had the discipline. The introduction was written during the spring, but it wasn't until early May that I had a chance to start the body of the book in earnest. During the twelve weeks of summer break I wrote five chapters -- a pace of 1 chapter every 2.4 weeks. I knew that once the fall semester started, I wouldn't be able to keep up that pace. But with a deadline of late November, I needed to get close to it.

I'll never forget the moment in early October when I finished chapter 7. For weeks I'd been mapping out the time remaining on my deadline. "Chapter 7 is the third from the end," I rehearsed to myself. "Then one in October, one in November, and boom -- I'm done." Then, after putting that antepenultimate chapter to bed, I turned to my master outline. Wait -- what's this? There are ten chapters in my book?! That's right. I had allowed myself to misremember based on the nine themes I was exploring, one per chapter. But chapter 1 was background, not one of the themes. I still had three chapters to go. Writing the third-from-the-end chapter again in October was a low point. And I knew that Thanksgiving was right out. So I told my editors it would be Christmas, and I worked through my trip to the annual AAR meeting in San Diego -- the one I thought would be a book-finishing party -- to finish chapter 9. Finally, on the Friday before Christmas, I submitted the manuscript.

Since then, it's been vacation from almost everything having to do with school or scholarship. We played tabletop games with the kids everyday, from their first day of the break through New Year's. I relaxed into post-Christmas-rush knitting, the very best kind, when the deadlines fade and the knitter can consider her long-term needs and goals as well as her short-term gratification. Football ruled on the television, and we snuck a few screenings of 2014's best movies into our schedule, too. Noel made the most amazing holiday food of our lives -- baked goods, prime rib for Christmas dinner, a Yule log, corned beef and cabbage for New Year's Day.

I knew that when the calendar rolled over to 2015, my life would look very different. There's no book that I need to push forward a few more pages every day. Without having to carve out an hour or two, whatever could be spared, in my schedule for writing -- without promises to editors looming -- my prospects seemed to stretch out before me limitlessly.

So I made some resolutions. Here I am fulfilling one of them -- I'm going to get back to freewriting every day. It may not always be blogging, but it's likely to be blogging, quite a bit of the time. I've got a year's backlog of projects to post on Toxophily. And I'm tired of having a thought worth exploring, thinking "I ought to blog about that," and realizing that I'm not going to because all my writing energies need to be bent toward my book. I'm going to blog about those, this year.

Because it's freewriting, it's not going to be priceless pearls over here every day, loyal readers. Some days it will be just a brain dump, or worse -- the writing equivalent of taking the garbage to the curb. I'll try to be discerning enough to leave the dregs in draft.

But I'm excited about being back here. It's part of a larger set of resolutions, about making time for people I care about. Far too frequently in the past two years, as I've researched then written this book, my students and colleagues have knocked on my door only to have me communicate to them, by words or attitude, that I don't have time for them. I've stopped reading blogs and participating in my online communities. Yet when I do spend time with people who need my help or just want my company, they receive far more from me than I am actually expending. This year, and going forward, they're going to be welcome in my office, on my schedule, in my life.

That includes you, if you're reading this! I'm here for you. Ask a question, suggest a topic, offer feedback. I'll see you back here often.

Hail the Gatekeeper

Janus was the Roman god of transition. It's a strange thing to have a god for, at first glance. But anyone who's studied anthropology will recognize why he's needed. Any beginning or ending, any movement from one state to another, is fraught.

We've arrived at the annual moment where our culture recognizes this. And for me in particular, the transition into a new year, with its accompanying look back at 2013 and expression of hope for 2014, is an especially rich story of beginnings and endings.

I'm spending this last day of 2013 interviewing the 84th subject for my research into the prayer shawl ministry, and reviewing and tagging a transcript from one of my earlier interviews. It's hard to remember that eight months ago I had yet to do a single interview. I was nervously anticipating the inauguration of this new project, looking back with some regret at the phase of textual research -- a process I know how to do! -- that I was leaving behind for uncharted waters. One of the most unexpected rewards of this research has been learning that I am good at these qualitative interviews, and that when I'm doing them I am a better person -- a more empathetic person, a better listener, a more attentive and responsive dialogue partner. Another surprise: Just when I'm most concerned about how much I'm asking of those kind enough to agree to an interview, they tell me how much I've given to them, by prompting them to think, by valuing what they say and do, by opening a space for them to speak.

Now the trepidation moves to 2014, when I have to leave the data-gathering phase behind and produce the written analysis. I am optimistic, but still, the unknowns of the process are daunting.

In 2013, I started leaving behind the world of pop culture criticism that I have pursued, in some form or another, since college. I hit my high point in terms of audience and influence in the process of that exit, with my reviews of the last season of Breaking Bad for the A.V. Club. In 2014 I'll review the last 11 episodes of How I Met Your Mother and write an overview of the series for the A.V. Club's 100 Episodes feature. And then I'll be done.

I'm looking forward to exiting that grind and focusing on the grinds that are more directly related to my academic goals as a teacher and scholar. But I'll miss the push to reflect critically and to appreciate expansively. I'll miss the readers and the community of TV critics.

It's almost hard to remember how I fit it in, but the other thing I did last summer was compile a massive four-volume application for promotion to full professor. That rank represents the top of my profession. As of this moment the application has successfully wended its way through two committees and two administrative reviews, and awaits action in 2014 by the provost and the board of trustees. I expect to remove the "associate" from my title this spring, just in time to also remove the "dean."

I'll never get used to this process of looking back and forward. When I turn my gaze to the things already done or set in motion, I can't believe I found the time and energy. When I imagine what current efforts will look like when complete, I can't picture myself as the source and the agent. It's a pleasant shock, though, to glance back and be flummoxed by what you managed to accomplish, and to peek forward and get all excited about what it will feel like to glance back this time in 2014. I hope all of you are having similar feelings on this day -- Janus's Day Eve.

The quantified life

I didn't think I was going to make any New Year's resolutions this year. Nevertheless, in my state of intense introspection, in my dissatisfaction with Business As Usual, in my desire to seize opportunities for intentional living, I ended up making many changes that roughly coincided with the start of 2013.

Exercise may be the most popular topic for resolutions, in our relatively sedentary land. I've been getting regular exercise for the past several years, but have been less and less enthusiastic about it. After injuring my knee last summer, I spent a few months away from jogging, and found myself equally dissatisfied with less high-impact ways of getting cardio, and filled with dread at the prospect of returning to running, which I find most satisfying at the moment it is over (and not a second before). Running's only attraction to me is that it enables me to get the most exercise in the least amount of time ... and I neither possessed nor wanted to devote any more time to the tedious process of staying fit.

At the same time, I was unhappy with the habit I had developed of driving Cady Gray to school 3/4 of a mile from our house, then driving to work, about a half mile from the house. It seemed quite the waste of mileage, gas, and stress about parking, when the distances were so eminently walkable. And so I decided that I would combine these two dissatisfactions and start walking to school with Cady Gray and walking to work whenever I could.

The plan worked admirably, putting me at work 15 or 20 minutes later than I used to arrive, but without an early morning class promptness was not of particular concern. And when I arrived, I had already walked more than two miles -- all before the day had even begun. The sense of accomplished engendered in me a desire to know just how much I was getting done. Am I managing to engage in enough activity during the rest of my day to make that 2.15 mile walk a significant part of my health maintenance regimen?

I needed more information. So I joined the ranks of the Quantified Selves by getting a FitBit One, a little device that hangs off my belt loop or clips to my waistband and records the steps I take, the mileage I cover, and the elevation I climb. I've learned that I manage to cover about 8 miles a day -- over 15,000 steps -- when I start off right by staying out of my car. And the desire to push that total as high as I can motivates me to walk across campus for lunch instead of grabbing what's closest. I've long climbed stairs whenever I could, regarding elevators as a unnecessary luxury, but now I welcome errands that take me out of the building because they mean getting two or three more flights climbed on my record.

While setting up this system, getting the devices registered and talking to each other, becoming excited about knowing more intimately how sedentary or active I am in a given day, I experienced a new dissatisfaction. I worked at the computer for hours at a time, sitting all the while. And at the edges of my perception lately, growing more visible and insistent, there is the research showing that too much sitting is bad for you, no matter how much exercise you get when you're up and about.  Noel has been using a standing desk for several months now, alternating between its front-room location for the writing he does while listening to music, and the living room where he sits for his writing while watching film or TV.  The more I became immersed in the ecosystem of personal tracking, the more it rankled that I was spending so much of my day perched on a chair.

I measured the height of my elbows atop my desk surface while standing, and found a nearly yard-wide ClosetMaid shoe shelf at Target that would raise my ergonomic keyboard to that level and have plenty of room for my trackball on the side.  A similar (narrower) shelf elevates my monitor, but not enough -- I really need to raise it another few inches to make it perfect.



Changes seem to beget more changes. When I alter my life in one place, I uncover nagging dissatisfactions with the way I've long arranged other things. I'm adapting to more walking, more standing, and devoting gym time to weights instead of cardio (while knowing I needed to do strength training, I've neglected it entirely for years because I was loath to spend any more time working out than I already did). The changes are dramatic, but don't require finding additional time in my day. I'm doing the same things I always have done -- getting my child to school and myself to work, tapping away at the computer, going to the gym three times a week -- but doing them differently, and carefully examining the data that emerges.

Spectives, retro and pro

Nearly all the bloggers I follow are looking back at their 2012 accomplishments and regrets, musing on the year past. I'm in that spirit, too. So I read all those posts with interest, peering between the lines to discern the joy or frustration, weariness or energy, tedium or adventure in their recollections.

I have a lot of summing up and looking forward I want to do. Much more than one post's worth. I made a lot of things. I watched my children (and my husband) change and grow. I found myself at a crossroads and began to engage in deliberate, regular introspection to understand its opportunities and pitfalls.

For today, I want to focus on one tiny thing that seems to represent my 2012. It's so insignificant, and yet that very fact indicates how critical it must be to my self-understanding.

I'm still making beds.

Every morning I straighten the sheets, smooth the blankets, pile on the pillows. I do it first in our room, then after I'm dressed and while getting out clothes for the kids, I do the same for their beds.

Why do I do this every morning? Nobody is making me. Nobody would say a word if I didn't. If they even noticed, it would be fleeting, with no emotional color one way or another. Even that driver of so many things we women do, What Would My Mother Think, isn't in the picture. I went for decades with unmade beds; any guilt I might have felt occasionally was diffuse and sporadic.

My bed-making appears to be unlike almost anything else I do. It is entirely voluntary. It is not a step toward a larger goal. It is maintenance work, undone a few hours later, then done again. Nobody and nothing depends on it.

Why do I make the beds? Why have I kept making the beds? Will I continue, and why?

Clearly I do it because I want to. But what makes me want to?

There is some satisfaction in the neat appearance of the made bed. There is a sense that something is begin attended to, cared for. There is the control I have over one tiny corner of my environment. There is the welcoming, inviting mood created at bedtime by the bed that is ready to be occupied. There is the division between time for sleep and time for waking activities, created by closing and opening the bedcovers in turn. There is the opposite of the "broken windows" effect for both me and my kids, where a tidied bed seems to lead to a room kept tidier and less cluttered, as if it breathes an energy that impels us to put our things away, or vibrates with a frequency that resonates with clear space and order.

All those things are true. I don't think about any of those things when I make beds, though. I have a fleeting thought, most mornings -- "I could skip this" -- and then it goes away, not with a sigh or a whimper, but just fades as irrelevant. I'm always surprised at how little time it takes. And then it's done, almost before I made a decision to do it.

In the rest of my life, I have two main areas of activity. There are assignments, deadlines, obligations, disciplines, and nagging areas where self-improvement is badly needed on the one hand. And then leisure, creative pursuits, contemplation, recreation, and escape on the other. In my current crisis thinking, the two are sharply delineated, and each defines the other; when pursuing activities of the second kind, I'm constantly aware of the obligations I'm putting off, and when doing work of the first kind, I'm longing and looking forward to the time I can put it aside for something of my free choosing.

Making beds isn't either. It falls outside the dichotomy. I think if I could understand my bed-making, I could find a way out of the trap of guilt and escapism that seems to form the shape of my mid-life crisis.