Being yourself

staying with the process

parenting vehd has been "easy", would say many objective observers. i don't know about that. it has been what it has been. if it has been hard, its because of how i have responded to his natural inclinations. on my recent retreat to orcas i had a moment of silence and realization like none other. i wrote the following piece the next morning ...(fyi -- vamshi was on a two week trip to india when i went to orcas and vehd was demonstrating his frustration around his father's absence by not engaging in a healthy eating process) ...here it goes ..

"I have pondered loneliness, Vehd's eating and my parenting of Vehd in greater depth in the last week than I have ever before. In all my pondering, which might I say is a futile exercise for the most part because it is all brain chatter, there have been some meaningful moments of stillness. There have been moments when it all just came together -- me, vehd, parenting, the sky, the loons in the water and more -- to tell me one thing and one thing alone -- that all there is is the process.

I was sitting on the deck in this house on Orcas gazing at the water rippling along, feeling the setting sun, resting knowing that Vehd was comfortably asleep when I asked myself, "so what if Vehd sits in a chair and eats all the food on his plate handsomely?". The other half of my brain responded with, "then we can travel more easily". To which the first half said, "and, so what?". And that was it. There was a space that suddenly opened in which I felt an ease like I have never before. Vehd eating a certain way is not a destination to get to. My loneliness at Vamshi's absence is not a destination to achieve. Him returning is not a destination either. My parenting of Vehd cannot be geared towards any destination because there isn't one. There is nothing for me to "become" as a parent or for Vehd to "become". As much as my achievement oriented mind would like to create a product out of what are choicelessly natural life processes, there is nothing there to achieve. Why? Because there is really nobody there to achieve. Do I see that last sentence for what it really is? Only intellectually. That is a start though. That said, recognizing that there is nothing to get to or to become hit me clearly as it ever has in the moments when I saw the flowing water yesterday. There really is just flowing water. It is not "going anywhere". Sure I can see the direction of its movement and state that it is headed to the shore but really it isn't. I am like that water, aren't I? There is no me. I am beginning and ending in every moment. There is only change. Vehd is always growing and changing. So am I. It is all impermanent.

There is no destination to get to. There is only the process.

Okay, so I had this "aha". What did I do? I got up this morning and stayed with Vehd every moment -- playing, being, seeing him with no agenda (as much as I could). We had a walk in our pjs, ate breakfast, went to the beach, threw rocks forever, came back and played with Japhy, walked again and he ate a handsome lunch. He never asked for "de de". He had had his "anoo yeyaa". He did not need "de de" (breastmilk) to get her. Instead he nourished his body with lots of food. He got terribly tired. He pooped like a champ and is now slumbering away as I smile at seeing a messy room, a dirty kitchen and a content mamma and boy.

So, the house might be dirty if the cleaner doesn't get to it, Vehd might be fatter, I might be walking in my pjs along green lake with Vehd, all because we have nowhere to get to."

building community

i declared 2009 as the start of my deep effort to build community in and around where i live. people are the main reason i live where i live but ever since i became a parent, i have found my being and so my life changed in deep and unfathomable ways. i have felt reborn. it is time to reconnect to the people around me. so, i have been focusing on community this year.

here's what i have been doing ...

.. staying off electronic communities like facebook. i need to connect first with people in flesh and blood before seeking out their virtual forms. there is enough virtual in real people. no need for another layer.

.. getting to know my neighbors. we dine together, help each other out and see each other every other day or so even just to say hello.

.. being a part of the sustainable greenlake movement to make greenlake more green.

.. being active with the greenlake moms list to raise awareness on parenting issues and to connect to like-minded moms.

.. getting away with my favorite mom-tot friends for a retreat.

.. starting a dinner tradition with a few other indian families.

.. starting a neighborhood game of cricket or some other sport.

.. rock-climbing with another young mom.

.. planning a few other events like berry-picking and jam-making with another family, hosting a dinner for our circle of golf friends, planning a moms/women's brunch, hosting a dinner for all my mentors.

.. planning a family vacation in fall.

and, finally..
.. going to india at the end of the year.

up, down and turned around

that is what parenting does to you. parenting has been my primary occupation since June 2007 when the little chap was born. while i am also a full-time student, still connected to the school i taught at and involved in several other community projects, parenting remains my full-time occupation, forcing all other endeavors to fit in where there are gaps. this is by choice. i have never felt this responsible towards myself, another human, my young family, my extended family, the community i live in or the earth since i became a parent. i have not had such deep realizations about myself as i have since june 2007. this is my greatest meditation, my most trying practice, the only thing that will teach me to truly love. it is also the thing that will teach me balance.

so while parenting has been my #1 occupation, what else have i been up to since january of this year when i last wrote ...

... we planned and planted our garden for the full cycle of the growing year. we now have a hummingbird garden, several fruit trees giving fruits, vegetables including onions, tomatoes, basil, squash in varieties, berries galore and some more.

... i almost done with my teacher certification coursework.

... i applied and got accepted to do a Masters in education, still with Prescott College in AZ. i start in 3 weeks. i am excited as can be. when i was younger, i studies because i had to. the teacher certification work was also a requirement to be fulfilled towards my future work as an educator. the masters is my treat to myself. i am doing it because i really want to do it. i think it is going to bring together my world -- what i want as a human, who i am as a parent, who i want to be as an educator ...

... i will start teaching again as part of my practicum work this fall. i return to PSCS to teach part-time. this marks the slow transition of my return to full-time teaching.

... we went to whistler for a spring vacation. vamshi treated me to a night at the four seasons which i hate to say is nothing special when compared to the club intrawest time-share we have up in whistler. we spent the vacation in water, eating good food, taking walks and being with each other doing nothing much. we truly wound down.

... we are off to prescott in 3 weeks.

... vehd and i have been rock climbing this summer. he is intrigued by it though it is clear that it is a little early for him to really hit the rocks.

... urban adventures and deep in the woods walking have marked how vehd and i are spending our summer. we have been taking the street car and monorail some days and on others we are walking in ravenna park by the creek or on golden gardens doing beach combing.

... vehd and i spent 3 days on orcas island at a friend's home enjoying the view, exploring the natural landscape with another mamma/toddler pair. it was a great mom-tot retreat.

... i am deep into building my community. more on that in another post.

... four more weeks to the end of summer (well until school kicks in for me). how else will i let this season of leisure guide me?

its time to commit

we returned from India almost 4 weeks ago but even now, it feels like we returned just 24 hours ago. the memories are so fresh, the experiences so raw and so real. for almost 10 days after we returned, i remained in a fog. our days and nights were intertwined as vehd took his own time adjusting to the 13.5 hour time difference. i was sick with the worst sinus infection had ever had and it was gray and cold in seattle. most importantly, i was no longer knew what it meant to be home. i had returned with the grave feeling that i no longer knew where my home was any longer. for those 10 days, i remained quiet and lost, unwilling to make contact with anyone out there. i called no friends, i saw nobody. some might say i was depressed. i was simply giving myself the space to adjust to this feeling of not being at home, anywhere.

today, the feeling is more settled within me. i am at rest not knowing where my home is any longer. seattle is not home .. it doesn't have the weather, the smells, the food, the language or all the people i grew up around. india is not home ... i am not intellectually challenged, not in control of how i spend my time, not able to enjoy the recreational activities i adore and life off of, not where i can find the space to hear my own thoughts and not where life seems full of possibilities. then again, seattle is home ... it is where i grow my own food, pursue my greatest intellectual passions, exert my body to no end, and, where i have a house that is slowly becoming a home. but then, india is home too, its where i can rest my head on many shoulders, nod a certain way and feel completely understood, see my parents and grandmother all i want and witness vehd absorb all those little things that make me who i am. you get the gist of why i am so lost?

i am letting the unknown take its place in my life. letting each day unfold as it should so i can do the most i can in each moment, feeling at home within myself as much as i can so it doesn't matter where i am. this is hard to do. i am not at home within myself all the time. i have a long journey ahead. and it is one i am committed to.

i am committed to finding a home within myself so i can always be 'at home'.

in hiding

i have been hiding. in 2 blogs other than this one -- Vehd and Education. my life is now focused on these two areas and i am writing about my experiences on 2 blogs, one for each. i hope for you to read those to catch up on me. of course there is more than just Vehd and Education that happens to me and when it does, i will write about it on this blog.

in the meantime, i'll see you in those other spaces ...

too cool to be green!

i've delcared friday night as take-out night. owing to vehd's 7pm bedtime, we haven't gone out to a restaurant in a while now but i still like for us to enjoy a variety of foods. so, the take-out night. one of my favorite places to get take-out from is Blue C Sushi. i love standing by the conveyor belts picking up all the sushi i want. after doing this for 2 weeks, i decided we needed to take our own bag to get home the boxes, just like we do going to the grocery store. i also wanted to take back the boxes we had got the previous times (which i had washed and put away for creating seed starts for our vegetable garden) but they were out in the garden so i let that go.

as i walked into Blue C Sushi, i felt eyes upon me. it felt like people were watching me bring my own bag to take away the take-out. was this for real or was it my imagination. whichever it was, it made me wonder if people are not green because it ain't yet hip to be green. it is becoming more and more hip to be green but we aren't there yet. it is hip to be green today when what you are using is well-designed and good looking and, green. green, being the last adjective in that list. it makes me wonder when being green will be the first adjective used to describe something cool. then, it will be cool to be green, simply because something is green, not because it is ALSO green.

when will that happen? when we think so.

welcome 2008!

at the start of 2007, i wrote an entry about how new years eve celebrations and the start of a new year has lost meaning for me. i like to think of myself as someone who regards everyday as a new day and every moment as a new moment. oh, well!

as 2008 came around, i couldn't but help take stalk of my life. perhaps its because my life changed more dramatically in 2007 than it ever has -- what with Vehd's birth. i am still trying to hang on to the hope that new years will lose their meaning for me and i will some day be able to regard every day as a new beginning. in the meantime, i made some intentions for 2008.

2008 is about finding my connection with myself and my close community. the following are some of my intentions for the year ...

... daily practice of yoga, meditation, journal writing and some nature contact along with vehd
... learn to play a musical instrument
... read a book a week or at least every two weeks
... create a mindful parenting group -- a group of parents making very mindful choices about their parenting
... create seasonal celebrations with friends
... restart rock-climbing
... take meaningful family vacations

... these are some of my intentions. time will tell how well i get connected ...

onward to 2008!

Its Time To Take Another Look

Why consider a different educational program than the one that your neighbors are talking about and that you have known of since your now middle-schooler was in Kinder garden? Why step aside from what is known and tried? Because what is known today did not even exist 20 years ago and what we know today will be replaced in the next decade. We live in rapidly changing times driven by enormous amounts of new information. Pause for a moment to inspect that last statement. It is the unique duality of both rapid changes and huge amounts of information that make this an era like none other. So staggering is this combination that the knowledge acquired by a college student majoring in a technological field will be outdated by the time she is in her junior year. Add to that the fact that the US Department of Labor expects today’s children to hold between 10-14 jobs; all by the time they are only 38 years old. Half of the working population today works for a company they did not work for 5 years ago. Enormous amounts of information that is easily accessible in an age of rapid change beckons us to consider that knowing how to handle the information is more important than knowing all the information yourself. This is just the beginning of why we might want to consider a different educational approach for our children.

Information is not the only commodity in abundance. We live in a society and a time of abundance in which most all commodities are available in abundance. Stephen Covey speaks of the 8th habit to add to his list of 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People. He cites the fact that of 23,000 working people, only about half were satisfied with what they had done in a week of work. So, while information and other commodities are available in abundance, satisfaction and happiness are not. Covey’s 8th habit is about finding your inner voice, your life’s calling. In an environment of abundance, external gimmicks are less and less likely to fulfill us. In this age, as Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind cites, we need to be searching for Meaning. Meaning and fulfillment, two words describing the same inner voice come from knowing ourselves and relying on our inner beings to be happy. Must we wait to be grown and working adults to find this voice or can be inculcated at an early stage in life? At PSCS, we believe that self-awareness comes hand in hand with the growing self.

The availability of information where we want it and when we want it is making the world a smaller place. Today’s children will have to interact with others from around the globe. In keeping with this, developing ‘Global citizens’ is the hype in modern education. What does this really mean? At its very core, being global implies being able to relate to people of all backgrounds. It is diversity in its deepest sense. The ability to connect with all people comes from starting to relate, to yourself and your immediate community before expanding out to the larger community of the globe. This can only come from being immersed in a community in which learning happens from having to balance personal needs with those of the rest of the community, where freedom, responsibility and the choices you make have real implications to those beyond yourself and that you need to factor in.

In these changing times several experts have spoken on the need for new kinds of minds and the development of new skills. The aforementioned Daniel Pink, speaks of right-brain skills being first among equals with left-brain skills. He calls attention to Design, Symphony, Play, Story, Empathy and Meaning as the critical right-brain skills of the future. In the same vain, acclaimed education psychologist, Howard Gardner speaks of the Five Minds Of The Future in his new book. According to Gardner, the Disciplined Mind, the Synthesizing Mind, the Creating Mind, the Respectful Mind and the Ethical Mind are the ones to reckon with.

In my work at the Puget Sound Community School, we have synthesized the work of these and other experts along with data on the society of the future to create a pioneering middle school program. The program will launch in Fall 2008. If this intrigues you in any way, respond with a comment to this post and I will get in touch with you.

And, take a look at these other head-turning links:

Time Magazine cover article on Bringing Schools Out of the 20th Century
Shift Happens Video
A Vision of Students Today video

signature strengths

Martin Seligman, professor at UPenn and Director of the Positive Psychology Center at the university has a test to identify your signature strengths. I have come to appreciate the fact that Seligman's work is going to come front and center in the next several years as we turn away from an overwhelming emphasis on left-brain thinking to right-brain thinking.

i took the test today and discovered that my core strengths are as follows:

Your Top Strength
Industry, diligence, and perseverance
You work hard to finish what you start. No matter the project, you "get it
out the door" in timely fashion. You do not get distracted when you work,
and you take satisfaction in completing tasks.

Your Second Strength
Appreciation of beauty and excellence
You notice and appreciate beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in
all domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to
everyday experience.

Your Third Strength
Honesty, authenticity, and genuineness
You are an honest person, not only by speaking the truth but by living your
life in a genuine and authentic way. You are down to earth and without
pretense; you are a "real" person.

Your Fourth Strength
Zest, enthusiasm, and energy
Regardless of what you do, you approach it with excitement and energy. You
never do anything halfway or halfheartedly. For you, life is an adventure.

Your Fifth Strength
Bravery and valor
You are a courageous person who does not shrink from threat, challenge,
difficulty, or pain. You speak up for what is right even if there is
opposition. You act on your convictions.

Free Rice

if you are a vocabulary quiz fan like me, you'll enjoy freerice.com. for every word you get right, 10 grains of rice get donated through the UN to a nation that needs it. i grew up word powering through Readers' Digest but have long since dropped that habit. it is refreshing to relive an old pastime in a new way.