Mother to Dozens

Rod Haden

I was thinking about my mother today, because yesterday was Mother’s Day, and I was out of town, and I didn’t honor her on her day with anything but a couple of text messages. I did go to lunch with her last week and wish her a Happy Mother’s Day then, but it’s not the same. So here is a list of reasons that I honor and appreciate my mother.

1. She set out in the world on her own, leaving behind parents who saw no reason for her to leave them or their provincial existence. She was not taught that she was beautiful, or smart, or capable, or strong, but she took off on her own anyway, and she never looked back.

2. She was an elementary school teacher for years before becoming a mom, lifting up other people’s kids and doing it with purpose and creativity. When she did become a mom herself, she went all in. She went from single and childless to married with 2 (step)children in the matter of a few months. She made mistakes, as anyone would, but she was always earnest and sincere. Then, after birthing 2 more children, she waited 6 years then started fostering. She was mom to 38 more kids this way, some for a few days or weeks, some for years. 38 babies in 13 years. Or 42 kids in 23 years? That’s a pretty amazing run. That’s a lot of kindness for strangers, too.

3. She started a career as a social worker 13 years after ending her career as an elementary school teacher. When most normal humans would say, “That’s it. I’m done.” She said, “That’s it. What’s next?” And she picked an exhausting, underpaid, underappreciated job and did it well. She even became the support system for the other social workers, putting candy, a rocking chair, and a big ol’ teddy bear in her office so her coworkers could come and rock and vent.

4. After retirement, she reinvented herself again. She worked out. She became a vegan. She became healthier and stronger and more fit than she had been in any other period of her life. She went to the community college and learned pottery and creative writing. She started with Reiki and kept developing and evolving her spiritual and meditative skills along a path that grew and changed along with her. She made new friends.

5. She wrote 2 books, a novel and a memoir. I’ve only ever talked about writing books. She did it. Twice.

6. She kept on adapting, growing, and evolving. When my Dad was facing health problems, she willingly left her home of 40 years behind to move to a new city to be close to her kids. She started taking care of the man who had always been fiercely, quietly, stubbornly independent. She gave up the friends and the spiritual community she had spent her retirement building in her old hometown and embraced starting over in a new home and a new town. And she’s working, slowly and surely, to build a new community for herself while still staying focused on taking care of her husband in his new health situation.

7. She is proud and supportive and encouraging to her kids and grandkids.

8. She knows her limits, and lets herself be who she is. She’s not comfortable driving far from home or in new environments. She prefers texts over phone calls. She communicates her boundaries clearly and asks for help when she needs it.

9. She laughs at herself, loves wordplay, and teases those she’s close to with love and kindness. I think it’s her diet, her physical activity, and her humor that have kept her healthy enough to maintain her independence all these years and make it possible for her and Dad to still be living in their own home taking care of themselves.

10. She gave birth to a great guy who is kind, loving, smart, and funny. And in case my brother is reading this, it’s me. I’m talking about me. Though you’re all right, too.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom! I love you, and I’m proud of you! Keep on rocking it!

Gearing Up

One of the best things about the modern world is that the world is your office if you choose to make it so. I’m blogging on a carpet of leaves, beneath a lowering sun instead of flickering fluorescents. I’m about to conduct an interview, in a musician’s studio, not among the trees, though this particular musician makes a practice of performing beneath the sky and among the trees.

But I wanted to take a moment to let you know we haven’t forgotten you or forgotten the Goo. We’re hard at work. We have new interviews completed and new interviews planned. We have new ideas and new collaborations. And I finally got tired of my ancient laptop letting me down as a recording device and invested in a Zoom H5. I can’t wait to try it out! 

So keep on growing, keep on transforming, and keep on sharing your story. We’ll be back for a second season soon! 

American Pathological Optimism

Rod Haden

This American Life replayed an episode from 3 years ago, and it got me thinking about the power of optimism, or the power of pessimism. The episode, "#550: Three Miles", tells the story of how a few of different high school students perceived a program that takes kids from a public school that's "97% black and Hispanic [and] ...located in the poorest congressional district in the country, the South Bronx" and takes them on a bus trip to visit "one of New York City's elite private schools [that's] ...70% white... [where annual] tuition was $43,000."

One of the kids has an intense anxiety reaction and wants nothing but to leave, immediately. She sees from the moment she steps on campus that this place is not meant for her and represents a future that she cannot attain. She instantly foresees a future where the "we" to which she belongs is destined to career options where "we" work in service positions to "them," the wealthy, white upper class represented by the private school kids. Another of the kids sees it as an eye-opening introduction to another world she didn't know existed, and it motivates her to work her way into an elite private college and beat the odds by earning her degree. A third student also works his way into an elite private college after the experience but can never shake the notion that he is not worthy of the place he's earned and ultimately fails out.

A decade later, that first woman is still struggling with the idea that class mobility is not possible for "us," and she's working at an "upscale supermarket" that serves exactly the "they" she was sure as a 15-year-old she would some day be serving. She not only is upset that it wasn't available to her, but is upset at herself for accepting that it was unavailable, for not believing she was worthy of it and therefore not fighting to be a part of it.

And that got me thinking about how sociology is really individual psychology in huge numbers. Every one of us is the product of a complex, interconnected network of influences that make us who we are, and all of those individual psyches taken collectively are what create sociological trends. It's fascinating to me how I, the cis white male for whom all possibilities are available, who grew up knowing he would go to college because that's just what people do, whose parents told him daily in the mostly white suburban neighborhood with good schools that he was exceptional, still managed to grow into an adult who believed that he wasn't particularly worthy of love or success, that settling was the best he could hope for. And at the same time, for a host of complicated reasons, a woman whose teachers and peers affirmed to her repeatedly her exceptional abilities, who came within inches of winning a full scholarship to an elite private college, came to believe that none of it was really for her.

One of the phrases used in the story is "American pathological optimism," where we believe that all things are possible for all of us, and the only thing that separates us from success is hard work. The pathological part is maybe in reality, success is not the norm, that class mobility is not the norm but the exception, that if someone with natural abilities doesn't achieve, then maybe "this is what happens all the time, that the supermarket might be full of Melanies." To believe otherwise is a pathology.

I know that for the Melanies and Raquels and Jonathans of the world, there are deep, wide, systemic barriers that make it infinitely harder, both to achieve and to believe that achievement is even a possibility. But for me (myself, personally), the individual living and working in a system in which all the advantages are mine, it doesn't matter what the reality is. It doesn't matter if I actually rise, actually succeed, actually move up into a new level of economic success. What matters is that it is better for me, it is better for my daily, individual health and happiness, to believe. Having lived under the dark cloud of self-doubt, of fear, of flying under the radar lest I be found out to be a fraud, and now living under the bright sun of believing that I am worthy of wonderful things, I would rather live in the sunshine. It is better for my daily health and well-being to believe I am a good person capable of great things. To believe in possibility is better for me than to believe in impossibility.

Relationships that affirm our value rather than confirm our shortcomings, that lift us up and allow us to lift up others, are a huge help. But I've had relationships like that and still did not believe, and so did Melanie. Even after crossing over myself, I'm still not sure what the alchemy is, that pushes a person from one side of that line to the other. I think that's why I'm drawn to stories of transformation. Maybe someday I'll figure it out.

Sound

Rod Haden

It’s astounding that we live in a world where someone like me, with no experience or credentials, with no budget, can produce and publish audio content just because he wants to. Our best recording device so far has been an iPhone, though my next interview will be recorded on a USB microphone from Amazon, plugged into a laptop that was new in 2011. The software is free and open source. The publishing platform is free both to the producer and the consumer of audio content, and it’s accessible to millions, though millions have certainly not discovered our little product. The investment so far has mostly been in this website, and that was relatively cheap, considering.

What I love most about this project is learning by doing. Interviewing has been fun, both as the subject of an interview and the one conducting interviews of others. But the part that keeps me up at night because I’d rather work on it than sleep is the production, editing, cutting, mixing. I’m under no delusions that what I’ve done is art, or even shows any level of skill. But I’m progressing. I’m learning. By listening to what professionals produce, listening to what we’ve produced, letting my mind wander over and over again over the differences, then experimenting with ways to actually apply those lessons, I’m living in joy and discovery and slowly getting better at making something.

In 1999, one of my bosses said, “We have this thing called FileMaker. Can you take a look at it and see what it can do?” I did, and over the next 2 years really poured myself into it. Every free moment at work and many free moments at home I spent learning the power of calculations and scripts. I created solutions that replaced paper systems based in typewriters, three-part forms, and 3X5 index cards. My solutions spread throughout my organization, and most of them are still in daily use 15 and 16 years later. At the peak of my powers, I could make FileMaker get up and dance.

This feels kind of like that. I think about it when I’m not doing it. I lose track of time when I am doing it. I can’t wait to get my hands on more raw materials on which to practice and work out solutions to problems. I’m living in joy.

What I’m thinking about now is the power of the pause. I’ve been cutting out as much silence as I could, because I thought pauses would kill emotional intensity and increase boredom. Now I think I should learn to trust the pause. That and my music levels are too high. And I need to let the musical lead ins play longer, and fade the volume out less abruptly. Recording with a mic should help with some quality issues. Maybe 2 mics, so the questions aren’t quieter than the answers. There’s a lot to be said for making the interviewee comfortable, though. And the music... I wonder if any of my musician friends would license some music for me, in exchange for nothing more than credit and gratitude? And who am I going to interview next? 

In conclusion: hobbies are fun. The end.  

Breakdowns when no dating fating allowed

After I read the article, “The importance of having a breakdown,” I felt that I had a story to share from my own life, two of my own breakdowns. My first small breakdown was when I was 17, a senior in high school. My big breakdown (that’ll be another blog), when I almost took my own life, happened in my college dorm when I was 22. That was 2 decades ago. After that, there was nothing that was going to stop me from learning to live, really live. Something beautiful was waiting when I actually walked through darkness and fear.

My experience of growing up in a Bangladeshi community within the larger American community had its ups and downs. There were certain expectations I felt that had to be met, to be worth all the sacrifices my immigrant parents made, in order for all of us to be deemed successful. Success and failure were seen as a group venture; individual desires and achievements were seen as selfish. For one, I had to have straight A’s in all my classes. I remember one time I misspelled one word in my spelling test, and my mother had me write that word 100 times. But I was one of the lucky ones in my community, because I didn’t get beat with brooms and wooden spoons if I earned an A-, like some of my cousins. Or maybe it was because I seldom earned anything less than an A. I got slapped across the face when I shaved my legs for the first time at age 11, with no explanation. I should’ve just known that doing grown up women stuff probably meant that I was going to do some dating “fating”, and that was one of the biggest fears of my mother. No dating allowed, arranged marriage was the only option, even in America. I never got the story of the bird and the bee, nor any information about menstruation. Google didn’t exist back then.

Before I go on, I have to say that I love, admire and respect my parents immensely. Even though they faced poverty, war, violence, and discrimination, they are full of kindness and love. They go out of their way to help those in need. So if my version of my childhood seem a bit harsh, please know, their intentions were always good. Their childhood was a thousand times worse.  

On top of struggling with the usual adolescent insecurities (why can't I be skinnier? why don’t boys fall all over me? why am I so hairy? why can’t my parents be like her parents? why is my closet full of cheap, tacky Alexander’s clothes? why can’t my parents let me hang out with my friends? I wish I was pretty), I felt an immense pressure to protect the reputation of my parents. I didn’t realize this pressure I felt until my breakdown, in my senior year of high school.

Reputation is one of the holy grails in my parents’ community. If one of the aunties said the following about one’s daughter, the shame one would have to live with for years is too unbearable (might as well have been stabbed with a knife in the heart by one’s daughter). Picture this: a night of gathering at someone’s house, probably 20 or 30 people (it’s not a gathering if your house is not overflowing with women in sarees, men trying not to get in the way of passing the assortments of Indian sweets and chai, kids screaming and running around in a 900 square feet of space). In such a gathering, as usual, the aunties have gathered to bitch about their overworked husbands, naughty children, and shameful teenagers. When one aunty abashedly proclaims, “You know the other day, “vwhen” I went to shop, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw Seema! You know, the daughter of Zilfer, who is the cousin of my sister-in-law’s brother’s wife? Yes, yes, you know her, l’ll show you a photo from Shilpa’s wedding when you come to my house next. Seema and this boy (in a hush hush voice) they were talking and laughing, just them two! (with her right hand on her forehead like modern day version of smh) What kind of shame is she going to bring to her poor parents’ house. Girls these days are so selfish!” While I was, again, one of the lucky ones, because my mother allowed me to have friends of both sexes, I was not allowed to hang out with any friends outside of school and my house, even when I was 22! Unmarried women cannot be trusted out of sight of their parents. After all, puppy love can sway us to do shameful things, like laughing too loudly with a boy (what will people think?). She only let me sleepover and hang out at my best friend’s house, because she was also from my country, her parents and my parents were lifelong friends, and her parents were a million times stricter than my parents. Her mother could smell it when you even thought of a boy, and she could whip that shit out of you in a blink of an eye. Oh the memories.

During my high school years, I finally began to push my boundaries and try to be somewhat of a normal American teenager. Even though I’ve liked boys since 5 or 6, I never dared to voice that or act upon it until I was 14. I went through some very challenging issues in my family for most of my life, and I just came to the point in my life where I felt, “fuck it, I’m doing it anyway.” So I secretly kissed a few boys. I had my first secret boyfriend, a fun long relationship of two weeks. All these “relationships” were all in school and over the phone. When my parents were busy with their own challenges to keep up with what was going on in their children’s lives, I started venturing off on outings with my secret boyfriends by the time I was 16. I tried to be cautious, so no aunty or uncle would see me.

Being so careful of what I wore (no short or tight dresses), of whom I was seen with, of getting perfect grades, of not disappointing my parents, of not ruining their reputation (I tried too hard to counter the shame, the dark cloud that surrounded our family name because of my parents' divorce), of participating in cultural functions where I felt inauthentic, of being expected to marry someone only my parents approved of, of finding a career path that would make my parents proud, of finding scholarships so my parents would not have to take on more jobs to pay for college, of being a good daughter, felt like a tremendous boulder on my shoulders. And one day, it broke me.

I went to a local grocery store near my house with some of my friends (males and females) after an event at my school, to which I was surprisingly allowed to go. As my friends and I were making inappropriate jokes too loudly and laughing our heads off in the store, I noticed that the owner of the store was Indian looking. I froze. I went back to my friend’s car. I asked them to drop me off at the end of the block instead of in front of my house, because I felt something bursting inside of me, and I needed to leave them as soon as I could. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I jumped out of the car without saying bye, and I ran all the way home without turning around. I’m not even sure if anyone was home, because I was blinded by the tears that were pooling in my eyes, while I ran up the steps to the bathroom. And I violently cried for a long, long time, while I had the shower running to drown out the noise. Later, my friends asked me what happened, but I still didn’t have the words to explain, because I also didn’t know what happened. It was years later, when I realized I was a pressure cooker ready to explode.   

I didn’t listen to my break down then, I didn’t understand that my soul was crying out for freedom. It took another decade to understand. It took another breakdown, a major one, to start the road to be my authentic self and find happiness.

“We haven’t become ill; we were ill already. Our crisis, if we can get through it, is an attempt to dislodge us from a toxic status quo and an insistent call to rebuild our lives on a more authentic and sincere basis.”

“The reason we break down is that we have not, over years, flexed very much. There were things we needed to hear inside our minds that we deftly put to one side, there were messages we needed to heed, bits of emotional learning and communicating we didn’t do – and now, after being patient for so long, far too long, the emotional self is attempting to make itself heard in the only way it now knows how. It has become entirely desperate – and we should understand and even sympathise with its mute rage.” http://www.thebookoflife.org/the-importance-of-having-a-breakdown/

Flora's Journey into Goo

Relationships are complicated as fuck! Actually, no. Scratch that. Human beings are complicated as fuck. We let simple things, like love, manipulate our brains, make our mouths spit out words that years later torment us, change us, split our psyche, divide us from others, shame us, bend us to our knees, expose our wounds, and yet, and YET, we yearn to do it over and over again.

I want to know why. Do you want to know why? And I guess the “how” is also important. How do we love? How does it change us? How do we change our loved ones? How does it fall apart? How do we stitch it back together? How do we love day to day? How do we love in the big ways?

I want to focus on romantic relationships. Marital relationships. Divorced relationships. Dating relationships (monogamy, polyamory). I will do interviews that you can listen to, and maybe write a few blogs on this topic (although I’m not a writer like my partner is, and I’ve never written blogs...yikes!). I will also, fearfully, post a few of my poems (I don't think they're very good, but these days I do more of what I'm afraid of).

My itch to dive into this topic probably has something to do with the last four years of my life (or maybe since adolescent years). I’ve been divorced now for over two years, dated, and now in a committed monogamous relationship. My divorce story is a unique one (like we still say “I love you” to each other with no romantic feelings attached to it. Weird, huh?). I’ll tell you about it one day (maybe both my ex-husband and I will do a podcast to share that story). I feel I’ve gone into my truth and found meaning in my experiences that opened a channel to beauty and love in ways I didn’t fully understand before.

Growing up in a South Asian family, romantic love was something that only existed in Bollywood movies. In reality, seeking love and happiness was seen as selfish. We always had to think of the collective good, what benefited the entire family line. I can understand why. When one grows up not knowing if there will be enough food for everyone, or enough money to send the kids to school, kinship with extended family members was the only survival skill that needed to be fostered and passed down.  For some reason, falling in love and choosing your own path went against that survival mode.  So arranged marriages happened.  But all I saw (with my “selfish” eyes) was unhappiness, repressed desires, affairs, and people shaming each other for breaking away from status quo. I didn’t believe in love. I thought I would be arranged into a marriage of convenience, make some babies, and then die. But secretly, I hoped I would be proven wrong. I’ll write more about my journey on the next blog.   

Now, at age 41, I believe in love. I believe after all the falls, what stitches all of us back together again are honesty with ourselves, kindness towards ourselves and others, sharing our vulnerabilities, courage to do what feels right, and strength to feel the sadness so we can feel real happiness.

Let’s find out together the transformative power of love through Caterpillar Goo.

My name is Flora Folgar. I am a mother of two (ages 8 and 13). I work in a high school serving a unique population of students from ages 17-50, who are transforming their lives and stopping the cycle of poverty in their family.

Diving Into the Goo

My name is Rod Haden, and this is Caterpillar Goo. It's an exploration of how people transform. It will be a blog and a podcast, with interviews, live storytelling, fiction, poems, and essays, focusing on stories of the circumstances in people's lives that caused changes in them. A caterpillar, before it becomes a butterfly, enters a state in which it completely breaks down before rearranging its basic components into something entirely new.

There's a Scientific American article here that describes the process. My favorite line is, "First, the caterpillar digests itself." I can relate. The first six months of my life after my wife first told me she wanted a divorce could accurately be described as me digesting myself.

So that's the idea behind the name. I think we are all caterpillar goo in one way or another, even while we are the caterpillar, or the butterfly. All of us are any or all three of those things at any given moment in our lives because change is constant. Can you think of many different instances in your life and describe who you were before that, how you were changing at that moment, and  who it was that you were becoming?

The first episode is an interview with a 78-year-old woman who devoted her entire adult life to service to others, as a teacher, as a wife and mother, as a foster parent, and as a family services social worker. When she retired, she focused on the things she had always wanted to explore but had set aside for later: self-discovery and spiritual exploration. She hits her stride, only to find that the challenges of aging reach into every aspect of her life, including her nearly 50-year marriage.

It should be out soon. I'm editing the interview now, and will add music and other touches after that. I am new to every aspect of the process, so I hope you will learn with me as we go. I'm having so much fun and already learning. I'm collaborating with my love on this project, and I'm looking forward to hearing her first project. I have no doubt that her style and mine will be radically different, but that will only add depth and richness to our partnership.