Thankful things

Thanksgiving has been one of my favorite holidays for quite some time. Since I began trying to live mindfully of the people I love and things I do, I've found that gratitude for all parts of my life puts everything else in perspective. Suddenly, things that seem overwhelming or frightening become opportunities for growth and development. In that vein, here are some things I'm thankful for:

• Work. I have three jobs I love. They are immensely fulfilling and amazingly fun, pay my rent and allow me to live a rich and full life.
• Deadlines. Though writing challenges me to learn constantly, it also provides me with a solid alternate source of income. Though I have six deadlines coming up within the next week, they are proof that I've made an amazing amount of progress in my career. I can't wait for the stress of this spell of deadlines to be over, but I'm more excited to see the results of this intense spell of writing.
• Friends. My friends are my support system. I'm doubly lucky that I count my coworkers as friends, so I'm able to spend time with my loved ones even when I'm at work. They're amazing.
• Cooking. The Crockpot is my best friend. I'm able to make large batches of relatively healthy food...while I'm writing or bartending or elsewhere. Sharing food is a beautiful way to show love, and large quantities help with that tremendously.
• Family. Outside of my blood relatives, I have developed an amazingly loving family that accepts me totally and completely. Not only that, I have a kind and handsome man to share my life. I am deeply lucky to spend even the tiniest corners of time with my Adam, and can't wait to see what the next years will bring.

What are you grateful for?

Man, I feel like a woman

Last July, one of my friends linked to this article from The Rumpus about the power of female friendship. After reading it, I sent it to those in my circle who might not have seen it otherwise. Then I sat quietly at my desk with a few tears sneaking out while I stared at a point somewhere behind my monitor. My mind kept circling back to Emily Rapp's description of her realization "how much people diminish and poo-poo the real power and strength of female friendship, especially between women, which is either supposed to descend into some kind of male lesbian love scene porn fantasy or be dismissed as meaningless or be re-written as a story of competition. Here’s the truth: friendships between women are often the deepest and most profound love stories, but they are often discussed as if they are ancillary, “bonus” relationships to the truly important ones."

Even now, this excerpt stops me cold. Growing up, my mom's best friend was like a second mother to me. She taught me how to knit when I was four while her sons were watching "Babes In Toyland" (it's creepy). For the first few years after we moved to Alabama, her house still felt more like home than ours. It was only after reading that article that I truly began to appreciate the scope and scale of the love in their relationship and that which was present in my own life.

A few years ago, I sat with a friend and knitted as she stared into the rosemary bushes in front of her porch. We didn't talk because we didn't need to. As another friend says, "That's what friends do. They sit."

They sit through heart breaks, painful anniversaries, new beginnings, medical diagnoses, grief and anger. They have a beer waiting and introduce you to Cake Wrecks and Hyperbole And A Half on weeks when you invite yourself over because you're about to explode. They laugh and cry with you and call you when they need support. They're family.

Being a woman (or a compassionate human being of any gender) in this society is not easy, but it can be beautiful. Today, women take advantage of opportunities their mothers and grandmothers fought for, even though they have to fight to keep the position once they're there.

We still have a long way to go as a culture. I am amazed that reporters will still seriously ask a female politician about her clothing or a mother about her daughter's fashion sensabilities. It frightens me sometimes that men have so much control over the political process -- with the number of issues that specifically affect women, it just doesn't seem right. I can say, though, that I look forward to seeing and contributing to moving the conversation forward.

Love me like a rock

According to Merriam-Webster, the term "nuclear family" was coined first in 1947. Because of its Cold War origins, the phrase has several layers of meaning. In an atom, the nucleus is tightly packed and contains only two types of particles, which might be considered analogous to the expected male and female roles within the family.

In a solid, the atoms are rigidly structured, much like suburbia in the 1940s (and today). However, outside of the nucleus, the electrons are most likely moving in a certain area most of the time. Young, newly formed families were moving far away from their kin, much like the particle movement in an atom.

The other layer is the explosive potential demonstrated by the atomic bomb only two years before the term was coined. Here, energy is generated by a particle hitting the nucleus of an atom, which induces a change in the nucleus. More on that here. During the 1960s and 70s, social movements started challenging this newly minted convention.

Returning Vietnam veterans and war protesters deepened the generational divide, women's rights became a visible issue and the Cold War dragged on. All of these factors were like particles rushing towards a nucleus to bust it open. With all these changes, typical family structures became, well, not so typical. Thus, the post-modern family was born.

Nowadays, some believe that non-nuclear families provide unsuitable environments for childhood development. I find this generalization simplistic. It assumes both that the entire concept of home is rooted in the Rockwellian vision of the nuclear family and that the households that don't fit into this vision do not -- could not -- provide the same things. Granted, there are some parents who cannot, either by choice or circumstance, but many of my beautiful friends grew up in single parent households or are raising children as single parents. They work harder and sleep less than any other group of individuals I know, and they do it all for their kids.

There's also another component to family that hasn't even been mentioned. To quote Eustache Deschamp, "friends are the relatives you make for yourself." Both my blood relatives and friends are beautiful, messy and imperfect and have taught me that love and home come in different shapes and forms. They have supported me while I learned the difference between love that inspires growth and love that burns away the edges of what you love about yourself. They have comforted me and helped me build back the singed parts with a stronger foundation. Love is everything.

Today's title comes from Paul Simon's "Love Me Like A Rock." When my family went on car trips, my dad would spend hours beforehand making mix tapes for different parts of the drive. Because all of us knew all of the lyrics to most of Paul Simon's songs, either a song or an album usually cycled through the mix during the trip.

Full disclosure: the first part of this post was adapted from an essay on the role of "Sesame Street" as a (seriously) post-modern family structure.

Give thanks, y'all

Last year, the list of things that make me thankful was scribbled on the cover page of a physics problem set along with my drawing of a turkey. This year, my list is even simpler.

I'm thankful for: 1. My family by blood. They might be 50 shades of crazy, but they raised me to be focus more on what I have and how much love is in my life. 2. Adam. My friend and partner holds me tight and keeps me (as) sane (as possible). He has phenomenal taste in people who have welcomed me with open arms. 3. My family by choice. I have a community of friends who've supported me through heartbreak and anger and celebrations. Their strength and love has been a true inspiration for healing and growth. 4. Social media. I've met many amazing people through Twitter, and Facebook allows me to keep connected to friends and family all over the world. 5. Beer. Birmingham's craft beer scene has grown exponentially as I've watched, thanks in part to the work of Free The Hops. I have gotten to know many wonderful individuals in real life over beers in the city. 6. Bonfires. I'm pretty sure lighting fires within city limits is illegal, mmkay? Because it's illegal, none of my friends would ever do that. Ever. Now that's out of the way, some of my favorite memories are from my friends' backyard snuggled into winter coats around a bonfire with a bowl of stew. 7. Photos. They add beauty and can remind you of people and places that would not be present in your life otherwise. 8. My tiny apartment. It's not large, glamorous or tidy, but it's weatherproof and feels like home. 9. Tutoring. I love this job, and getting the chance to relearn entire subjects is so much fun. Work-wise, only writing comes close to the satisfaction of watching my kids' moments of discovery and comprehension.