Dichotomous Celebration

In my 5th grade classroom, we're studying classification systems. The students are learning all about Carl Linnaeus and big words like taxonomy and phylum. We started the lesson with shoes, classifying the student's shoes into a hierarchy from their Kingdom (they're all shoes) to their Phylum, Class, Order, Family and then finally, to the exact Genus and Species of each shoe -- they're red Nikes with pink laces, or as we came to name them, Pinkosis nikiderma.

Next, we introduced dichotomous keys -- the classification system that does exactly what its name implies -- divides things into twos. Again, we used shoes. We divided our shoes into those with laces and those without. Then we divided the without laces pile into those with leather and those without. Next we divided the without leather into white and not white shoes until eventually, working our way through all the divided piles, we ended up with 16 different types of shoes to match the 16 different students each with their own name and distinguishing features and characteristic.

"It's all about the name," I told them. "It's how we make sense of the world around us. We name it and the name becomes the thing and the thing then becomes the name. An individual. Unique and beautiful."

I like dichotomous keys. They make sense to me. Something is either this or its not, no middle ground, no ifs ands or buts. It is this or it isn't. A plant either flowers or it doesn't. A animal either has feathers or it doesn't. It's kind of like a puzzle, one concrete detail after the next until you end up at the thing itself, named and solid and uniquely it's own entity.

I think a dichotomous key would be handy for a person like myself who is gay, but who lacks "gay-dar" -- the ability to spot another gay person simply by their appearance or perhaps their energy.

I'm not sure why my gay-dar never developed or if I even had it at all, but I've always struggled with "knowing" if someone is or isn't like me -- in the same Family, so to speak.

That's why I think those of us who are "gay-dar impaired" should create a dichotomous key (or perhaps it could be called a "dyke" -chotomous key) -- a handy chart for identifying if you are or aren't gay or lesbian.

The chart might look something like this:

Two columns with separate headings -- Lesbian versus Not-Lesbian

On the Lesbian side the division would continue -- Owns a Truck; Does not own a Truck (that would be me...though it's an SUV and close to a truck)...followed by Owns a Large Dog; Does not own a Large dog.

Here's where the fluidity of the key would get interesting. I once was a lesbian with truck and a dog and now I'm a lesbian sans truck and no dog (though one is destined for my future). The usefulness of the key would be that you could flip from one side of the dichotomy to the other and still, in fact, stay on the Lesbian side. Your sexual identity would not change though your attributes would -- like a tulip that lost its leaves is still, according to the key, a tulip.

But I digress.

Continuing on, the chart would reflect other stereotypical markers --Androgynous/Non-androgynous; Short Hair/ Not Short Hair; Vests/No Vests; Fleece/No Fleece; Softball player/Not a Softball Player; Carharts/No Carharts -- until you get down to the finest details that would distinguish ME as an individual lesbian -- unique and beautiful -- but still, in essence, a lesbian.

For instance, Lesbian with Children/Lesbian without Children. At a time when lesbians and gay men are reproducing (however oxymoronic that may sound) as fast as rabbits, this category winnows out whole groups of lesbians who must now be distinguished by something other than their offspring or adopted offspring.

And so I continue: Married/Not Married; Job in the Trades/No Job in the Trades; Fashion Sense/No Fashion Sense (an important distinguishing feature in the lesbian community and perhaps even in the gay community...though maybe not so much as I've rarely met a gay-man who didn't have a fashion sense or act as if he did); Decorating Sense/No Decorating Sense (similar to Fashion Sense -- it distinguishes the Lesbians who live in purple houses with green trim from those who don't). Vegetarian/Non-vegetarian -- which can be further split into Vegan/Not Vegan.

Cultural Divisions -- Indigo Girls Music Collection/No Indigo Girls; Theater-going/Non-theater-going; Opera season ticket holder/Non-Opera season ticket holder; WNBA season ticket holder/Non-WNBA season ticket holder.

Political divisions are important as well: Democrats/Not Democrats; Radical Feminists/Not Radical Feminists, which leads right into religious distinctions -- Religious/Not Religious; Traditional Faiths/Non- Traditional Faiths from which many further divisions can be made -- Woo-woo beliefs (like Wiccan or New Age)/Non-woo-woo beliefs (like Catholics and Baptists).

I could go on, but the idea would be to sell these little Field Guides -- small hand-held books or maybe even small handheld electronic versions -- that let you calculate your observations, work your way through the key, until you figured out that yes, that woman in the short skirt wearing make-up and high heeled shoes is really a lesbian (of the category non-androgynous, long- haired, non-softball playing, truck-owning variety).

Such a key would not only help gay people like me who suffer from gay-dar dysfunction, but it might help straight people avoid embarrassing situations like the ones I've experienced:

Example#1
I'm at the University Bookstore. It's summer. It's 90 degrees outside and I am in shorts and a tank top, sandals on my feet. I walk into the restroom and a woman, who is just opening the door to come out as I'm pushing the door to go in, stops in her tracks and says, "You can't come in here! This is the woman's restroom!"

I have very broad shoulders. I have short hair. Sometimes I shave my legs, but mostly I don't. I have long hair on my legs. It's dark hair. I have muscles. I am tall. I wear tank tops that have room in them, not tight-fitting spaghetti strapped numbers that look more like underwear than shirts. My shorts are baggy-ish and the hem hits just above my knees. I can see how she'd make the mistake, glancing merely at the features that say man, not man. I fell into the category of man in her eyes and all else was disregarded -- my breasts for one, my earrings (though that doesn't always help) for another.

If she'd had a handy-dandy hand-held key, she could hold up the device, have it scan me and then say, "Have a nice day, sweetie" instead of insulting me with her ignorance.

Or

Example #2
I'm meeting prospective families at our school's open house. We call it Wooing Night and our job is to charm parents into sending there kids to our school. I'm talking with a mother of a precocious 4th grader who interrupts our conversation by twirling on her mother's arm.

"I see you're married," the mother says, pointing to my wedding ring.

"Yes, I am," I say, avoiding the details.

"What work does your husband do?" she presses on.

"I don't have a husband," I say, "but my partner teaches fourth grade."

Wedding Ring - No Wedding Ring; Husband - No Husband -- it would only take seconds for the prospective parent to assess me and then avoid my frustration and anger that I must, yet again, question the dominant culture's assumptions of me.

Of course, we'd have to include the category of Likes Labels/Doesn't Like Labels, but even the non-label-lovers could see the value of such a key I would think. Not only would people know you better, but maybe then all the negatives and bigotry that come from assuming they KNOW your labels would end.

It's all in the name, I say -- we name the world to understand it. How much happier we might all be if we could just take the guessing out of it.

Lesbionic specialous. A rare, yet beautiful flower.

Rivers and Reflections: The need for eddies in education

I've just returned from a writing retreat at the Environmental Learning Center in the North Cascades. A beautiful setting, amazing weather, and three very different, but equally talented writers/instructors.

I have many thoughts about the retreat, which I'm certain I will write about over the course of the next few weeks, but today I find the rain particularly pleasant after a week of sunshine and mountains, lakes and fall colors.

When I woke last night to the sound of rain on our new roof, I was thankful for Ann lying next to me. Her rhythmic breathing provided a gentle back-beat to the softness of the rain and I curled up in my pillows relishing restful sleep.

The writing retreat was a mixture of awkwardness and reflection for me. I always have a hard time trying to fit into these events, searching for people with whom I can find alliance in political as well as emotional perspectives. Of course, at a nature writing retreat environmentalists are in abundance and I doubt there was a Republican among us. If there was, s/he was probably feeling more awkward than I was throughout the week.

My awkwardness stems from many things: Lack of confidence in my writing, in who I am as a person, in an inability to feel comfortable in social situations, and the need to know that I am liked and accepted by those around me. I battle it wherever I go, but this week it took me longer to figure out my place in this world of nature writers.

I don't see myself as a nature writer per se. Yes, I write of human nature and being in a wilderness setting makes me far more reflective than I am in the city, and preserving nature IS extremely important to me, but I don't see myself learning the names of plants and trees so that I might incorporate it into my writing. Still, it was exactly what I needed this week -- clean air, blue skies, water and mountains.

It is, perhaps, a need for reflection that nature provides me. My life is busy with teaching and all the whirlwinds that surround my work. We were asked, before I left, to call all of our students' families, to check in and see how they were feeling about the school and their daughters' experiences. I resisted making those phone calls for many reasons, and in the end, I didn't get around to it. During the week, the Dean of Faculty was going to call me and ask me to make the phone calls from my writing retreat. Luckily, my teaching partner stepped in and not only prevented the Dean from calling me, but took it upon herself to make the calls.

Finding this out made me realize how often my time for reflection is interrupted by obligation and soon I am caught up in completing this task and that, filling my time with a long list of jobs I must complete before I permit myself to just sit and reflect. Often that permission never comes.

And then I think about what lessons we are teaching the girls. When they see us run around and frazzle our way through a day, what message are we sending them? To do is more important than to rest? A full plate makes your life more meaningful than one filled with select and thoughtful choices?

Often I hear students claim that they are bored. More and more I'm thinking it isn't about boredom, it's about not being comfortable with reflection, with one's own thoughts, with the fullness of our own presence in the world. Perhaps that is what I was feeling at the beginning of this week -- an uncomfortableness with myself not being busy, not having a task to complete, not having an obligation other than the ones I made for myself.

I was never bored. I've learned over the years that boredom is an excuse more than a state of mind, but I often found myself stymied by what to do next. Write? Read? Hike? Nap? Find someone to talk with? I moved sporadically through the empty times when we were not required to be in a workshop or a lecture. I found it difficult to ground myself within the time where I was without obligation.

Eventually, a rhythm developed and I often chose to be alone, on a hike or by the lake reflecting or writing, reading or unintentionally meditating with my eyes closed to the October sun. When I got back home yesterday, Ann was out with our friends. She left a note telling me when she'd return and while I was disappointed she wasn't here to greet me, I was thankful that my re-entry into the city didn't require too many expectations.

I made the mistake, though, of checking my school email where about 70 messages slapped me with the reality of my work. There were meetings and parent communications, there were announcements about workshops and contacts from community partners with questions about upcoming field trips. I couldn't read them all. I scanned, only stopping at the ones I thought might be of interest.

During the writer's retreat, we sat by (and in) a creek during one workshop. We were asked to sit quietly with our eyes closed and just listen. The water was icy on my feet, the filtered sun made patterns on my closed eyelids, and the wind moved the trees where chattering squirrels scolded us. I loved the sound of the water and soon found myself opening my eyes to watch the creek carry the water along channels of moss-covered rocks, over submerged logs, and down into swirling eddies lined with yellow and brown leaves.

Water in a creek moves constantly, but unlike my work, it rests along the way. It pools behind boulders, it moves upstream and then back down slowly into an eddy until finally the pull of the creek gathers it back into a push downstream. This is what I wish for in my work life. I am not afraid to move downstream. I am not afraid to push and roar and even thunder, but I need the eddies, too. I need the time to swirl and turn, to be caught in relaxing -- where the sun can catch me, where detritus can collect, where I can wait for the stream to pull me back in and push me on over the next rocky length.

This then is my charge. To carve out my eddies of reflection. To model such rest and contemplation for my students. To help them see that boredom is an invitation to feel one's presence in the flow of the world. In it's light. In it's reflection. It is, at times, dark and twisting, but more than anything, it is necessary. The eddy is as important to the creek as the rapid water over smooth, time-worn rocks.

My Footprint

For the past three months now, The Sun magazine has sent me postcards and letters and extra wrappings on my magazine warning me that my subscription is about to run out.

Today it did. I received my copy in this afternoon's mail along with 3 catalogues, 2 coupon flyers, and another letter from The Sun magazine telling me this is it.

I'm torn. I really love the magazine -- the beautiful photography, the thoughtful writing, the ad-free pages -- but I'm also trying to "simplify", which may see odd as we just finished remodeling our house, adding 950 square feet to our existing 640 square feet.

I'm torn because I'm trying to reduce my "ecological footprint" or the impact I have on the environment. This was of great consideration when we remodeled. "Green" homes, or homes that are environmentally friendly get ratings. 5 stars is the highest rating a green home can get. We have 4. We didn't have the money for a gray-water system or solar panels, but everything else meets the environmentally friendly code.

While our house is bigger, it's by no means extravagant. In fact, the cover of a magazine I saw in the grocery store exclaimed, "How to live in small spaces: 1700 square feet or less." Wow, we lived in 640 square feet for 4 years and in an attempt to "save" the house (built in the 1900s) we remodeled and now live in 1590 square feet. The new house just built on the corner last year boasts a whopping 3500 square feet and the house up the street called the "ghetto mansion" by the locals is 6000 square feet. What would one do with all of that space? Fill it up with magazines?

We also own only one car. Granted, it's a SUV, but we drive it minimally and both of us either ride our bikes to work or I generally walk to work while Ann carpools with a teacher-friend.

We keep our heat at 65 degrees and I challenged myself this year to not turn it on until October 1. We made it until today (October 3) because it is colder than 65 degrees outside and the house has a chill. Still, 65 degrees is pretty good and since we're gone most of the day, it only comes on for a few hours in the evening.

We compost our food scraps, we recycle religiously, and all and all, we really don't overconsume with purchases (though we have had to buy more furniture for our now larger house).

We buy organic with fresh vegetables and fruit delievered to our door every other week and a trip to the local farmer's market when we need extras. And yes, we ride our bikes to market.

Truly, we live mindfully, but the decision to re-up my subscription to The Sun was a tough one for me. Yes, I like the magazine, but it feels like an indulgence. I could just get on my bike and pedal to the library four blocks away (or walk, for that matter) and read the monthly magazine there.

While the magazine boasts of no ads, every month they sent me a card in the mail urging me to get my friends to subscribe or offering me a chance to resubscribe early at a slightly reduced rate.

That's a lot of paper. That's a lot of energy.

My mother has a list at home of all the catalogues she receives. Diligently, and only as my mother could, she has called the various businesses who send her these catalogues and asked the companies to stop sending them. By each catalogue name on the list is the phone number of their customer service office and little check marks tallying the number of times she's had to call them.

Some checks go on for quite awhile.

If I wanted to save paper, I could do the same...call all the companies who send me catalogues and tell them to knock it off, but when I look at my mother's efforts, I get discouraged. I don't have that kind of time to call and complain. (Not that my mother does, the busy Democrat that she is!) Instead, it's easier not to resubscribe.

So, I decided last month that I would not renew my subscription and when the last one arrived today, I read the article by Bill McKibben and had to chuckle. His article, entitled "Dream A Little Dream," is about reforming our supersized society, about considering the costs to our planet of overconsumption.

He writes: "The Achilles' heel of consumer society is that it hasn't made us as happy as it promised it would. Although Americans have tripled their prosperity since the mid-1950s, the percentage who say they're 'very satisfied' with their lives has declined...We've pursued the American Dream to no real apparent end."

He goes on to talk about global warming and the shift away from farming to technology and gluttonous consumption.

I love reading this. I love hearing someone say what needs to be said, but when I hold the recycled paper of the magazine in my hands, I feel that thin line between hypocrisy and conviction and cringe a bit.

Recycled paper is better than non-recycled, but still, the energy it takes to recycle it, the energy it takes to send out little postcards every month or a letter reminding me that my subscription is almost gone is immense.

Yet, here is my dilemma: If I do not subscribe to the magazine, they will lose money. If they lose money, the may not be able to publish their magazine. While the loss of Newsweek or Time or those ghastly rags at the checkout stand would be an actual blessing, the loss of the information published in The Sun would be devastating...or the loss of Mother Jones or even the now trendy and woo-woo-fied Utne Reader.

Still, it feels dishonest to me to be reading an article about reducing my consumption in a magazine I pay to consume...in a magazine that consumes resources...in a magazine that uses energy to consume resources.

But then I think about how many other people subscribe to The Sun and Mother Jones and The Atlantic Monthly, and all those other people who subscribe to Newsweek and Time, or worse, People. Will my cancelling a subscription to one magazine make a difference?

Now you see the quandary. How does one live simply in such a complex puzzle of American society?

I guess it's by one magazine at a time.