Verfremdungseffekt

I remember learning about Brecht in college Theatre History class. I loved how Brecht told stories and I loved this word: Verfremdungseffekt. Mistranslated as the Alienation Effect, I prefer the concept of distancing to alienating. It describes the way you feel when you are watching the play and suddenly the scene shifts and the character sings directly to the audience. You feel pulled out, distanced, from the story, but still connected.

Our professor gave us the example of the way we feel when we return home from college for the first time. The story of our family and our hometown continues but we have changed and suddenly, we are singing directly to ourselves inspite of the ongoing story.

I still feel distanced when I return home and I struggle with it. I am a very different person from the me at 18 when I drove to Indian with my parents. I am a very different person from the me who drove to Pennsylvania 5 years later. And I am even a different person from the me who visited last summer.

There are the obvious differences between my story and the story of the family and my hometown, but that isn’t it. So I’m pregnant, so my parents have moved, so parts of the city have changed. That makes a bit of a difference, but the real difference is deeper, and I don’t know that I really understand it.

I feel like I can’t go home again. My home isn’t Pensacola anymore. My family has expanded (and will continue to) and I feel incomplete without David (not in the co-dependent way, but in the balanced way). I feel incomplete without my stepkids.

I never felt so happy to get back to Reading. Not because I dislike my family or hometown, or even because I like Reading so much. But this is where home is. Now.

Practicing Practicing Yoga

It’s not a typo.

In yoga, we say we are practitioners. The Sanskrit word I like to use is Sadhaka, which is more like a dedicated-to-the-path-of-yoga-practitioner-and-devoted-student, but that obviously doesn’t translate simply into English.

My practice has changed so much in the past few months, which was to be expected. It was one thing I was really looking forward to about being pregnant (yoga practice, interesting. back pain, lack of sleep, excessive burping, less interesting).

At 7 months pregnant (29.5 weeks, but who’s counting), I feel like I have to learn how to practice yoga all over again. Which is humbling. And challenging.

We all have different labels we wear all day, and in yoga class, it isn’t always different. I was “flexible” and “a back-bender.” Those and many other identifying aspects of my practice are gone now. I’ve been a “pranayama-practitioner” and a “restorative pose lover” by my own labeling.

It turns out these are both things I needed in my practice. I have grown to love and depend on pranayama, as I’ve written about before. The art and skill of lying or sitting and just breathing is a huge challenge for me, as movement-y as I like to be. But I feel how much better my day goes if I spend the 30 minutes in the morning doing it.

And, for similar reasons, it was always difficult for me to practice restorative poses on my own. It feels so indulgent to lie around in yoga poses and rest. Isn’t that what sleeping is for?! But it turns out to be a very different kind of rest, one that I know I’ll need when Raspberry is born and as he (and the other kids) grow up.

In a few months, it will be time to move on to the post-natal practice, which means serious abdominal work and strength building to get myself back to “my practice.” My challenge to myself: Learn how to practice both of “my” practices and reap the benefits of both.

photo/photoshop credit: Emma Chong

What Arts Education is not…

I put this article aside about a month ago. I’ve been thinking about it since.

Cultural Participation is Not Arts Education

Agreed. BUT, it is better than nothing, which is what many children are getting from their school and family these days.

Cultural participation means going to a play. Arts Education means doing a play. Very simply.

Last week, the 4th grade classes where I teach Neighborhood Bridges went on a field trip to see Sideways Stories from Wayside School (I snuck in too – my friends were in the show and I wanted to be able to discuss the play with the kids). On that day, Neighborhood Bridges was cancelled. One of the 4th grade teachers said something like

I guess they thought the play would be enough art for one day. They want us to get enough academics in.

The they here is the principal and administration. I know they are under tremendous pressure to raise test scores and get kids to a certain level. And I want to hug and kiss them all as a (creepy) way of saying thanks for having the open-mindedness to see the value of arts education and spend their limited funds on this program.

BUT. Can you really have enough art in one day?! And isn’t art academics?!

All of this is a step in the right direction, and I don’t want to complain. I am so grateful to have the job I have and work with the teachers I do. But if the administration could have heard the questions the kids raised about the play and the process of creating a play, seen their excitement to read the books the play was based on, and read their creative writing inspired by the play, I think maybe their tune would change.

Little by little.

 

 

Rodin

David and I went to the Rodin Museum today in Philadelphia. We had both been to the one in Paris (ooh lala!) and decided to check this one out too. My old favorite sculpture was there.

And I have a new favorite.

Beauty in stone.

I also couldn’t help but notice two incredible things about his sculptures of human faces.

1. they are incredibly expressive. you can see the character oozing from them.
2. many of them don’t have eyes, but still are so expressive. if we believe that the eyes are the doorway to the soul, how do we see so much in these faces?

So I got to thinking…could these faces (or any visual representations of the human) be inspiration for developing characters or a play? Could these faces be turned into masks to use for theatrical performance or exploration?

Of course, as I was thinking about character and story, David was measuring proportions. It is fun to go to the museum together, a scientist and an artist.

Rabbi/Yogi

There is a Rabbi in my yoga class.

I spent a while talking to him after class one day about Judaism and yoga. Now he periodically shares tidbits of Torah that tie to the yoga teaching of the day.

Today in class, our teacher mentioned something about the windiness of fall and how we must hold on to our practices to get through it. After class, the Rabbi came up to me to share that this week, in Parshat Noach, as Noah builds his ark, he (and I can’t remember exactly…darn pregnancy brain) he is told or he decides he must cling to his practice of building the ark in the midst of the chaos all around him. Focus his mind. Just as our teacher told us to cling to our yoga practice.

On my drive home I was thinking about the habits I cling to, especially when the chaos hits. I feel like so many aspects of my life are out of my control – being a step mom, having a boss, being pregnant – my decisions are not always my own.

But I can eat Raisin Bran for breakfast. That is a habit that I don’t like to break. I find myself looking for raisins and bran all day if I have to eat something else.

In yoga, we are taught aparigraha, non-grasping. For a while I was trying to eliminate habits and routines from my life, thinking if I did, then I would have the freedom and mental space to be a real yogi. But now, being that I am a householder, a parent, a wife, a worker, etc and a yogi, I realize the value of these habits and how much I need them. How much I depend on them.

For me, in the boundaries of time, I find freedom.

Danger is my middle name

This is an op-ed about a new book called Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do). There is a blog too. I am reading this more as an educator rather than a parent.

I am concerned when I walk into a classroom and kids don’t really know how to think for themselves. They can repeat everything they’ve been taught by the principal or their parents, but they can’t create an original thought.

And they don’t know how to work together. Compromise, listening, contributing are all very difficult for them. All of school time is programmed so they will be prepared to pass NCLB tests and afterschool time is spent rushing from activity to homework to dinner to bed or to TV to TV to dinner to TV to bed.

I was at the grocery store with the skiddoos one day and they asked to get something in the frozen dessert aisle. I said yes, but they could only get one thing and they had to agree. An older couple was walking by around this time and laughed out loud at me and the man said “Good luck with that. ha!” And in about the time, the kids had chosen a box of popsicles (Scribblers, their favorite – “look, we can scribble on you, Vicki!”) and were carrying it together and giggling together. I was very proud.

I’m concerned about the future. But I think the kids in our house will be ok.

Creativity

From Mr. Fish over at Harper's Magazine

I was concerned that I was losing my creativity, but I think it is back. Or coming back.

I mean, I’m creating a baby, which is about as creative as you can get, but it is different from creating art. Obviously.

I never thought I would say this, but I’m really enjoying working less. I’ve been quitting jobs or not renewing jobs (David is continually shocked), which is a big change from my usual work-a-holic self. But it isn’t like I’m sitting around sipping Mom-tini’s all day: I’m doing some work from home, keeping our house organized and tidy so we can enjoy our time all together, and making things. This is the best part, the making.

I’m also getting to read a lot, sometimes books and sometimes internet articles. Here is a particularly good one and a cause of personal concern on the Creativity Crisis. Best part of the article:

When faculty of a major Chinese university asked Plucker to identify trends in American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing. “After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud,” Plucker says. “They said, ‘You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.’ ”

How can we do this to ourselves and our kids? Teaching arts-in-education programs in schools, I see how desperate the kids and teachers are to be creative (and the teachers have so many good ideas on how to do that). But there is so much pressure on the administration (all levels of it) that they cannot even do creative writing or arts.

I’m looking forward to when the pedulum swings back in favor of real education and life.

PS: I want to go to there.

Our Father, Our King

Shanah Tovah – it is Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, a time of reflection and preparation for the year to come.

One of the prayers that we sing on this holy day is Avinu Malkeinu (translated: Our Father, Our King). As we approached the this prayer, Rabba (our female rabbi prefers this title) asked the congregation how we feel about the image of G-d as King.

Note: I belong to a Reconstructionist Jewish congregation, and I love the thoughtful discussions we have about liturgy and everything.

Many congregants shared that they struggled with this image. Some shared that they also struggled with the image of G-d as Father, some preferring Parent and others preferring nothing to do with parenting at all.

This made me think (perhaps my favorite part of the Reconstrucitonist congregation): What does the image of G-d as parent mean to me. And what kind of parent am I/do I want to be.

I’m still thinking. I am comforted by the image of G-d as parent, but a little put off too. Comfort comes from the love, acceptance, and warmth that a parent should give to a child (should being loaded, I know). But put off because I do not like personifying G-d. It helps me to think of it as a simile: G-d, like a parent. But because parent is so loaded for so many people, myself included, the simile carries a huge weight that perhaps isn’t right for G-d.

Being a step-parent and a soon-to-be bio-mom, I see the role of parent having many different meanings. I emphasize to my step kids that while I am not their Birth Mother, I am one of their parents.

But what does that really mean? I love them, I care for them, I want the best for them. But I feel that way toward many people in my life, not just my kids.

I also emphasize to them (as I will to my offspring) that they have many parents – grand parents, great grandparents (aren’t they fortunate). Each of us has a role. It is not always clear what it is.

And perhaps, because of the lack of clarity of what it means to  parent,  this is a wonderful word to describe one aspect of our relationship to G-d.

Complicated, unclear, but always full of love.

I love Ken Robinson

He is a brilliant mind, thinking on behalf of education and creativity. And he’s hilarious.

Yoga in Schools

Wouldn’t it be great if, instead of playing tag every day during gym, sometimes the kids got to learn yoga?!