The Attitude of Singing

It was a small thing- a direct result of too much talking, yelling, projecting, singing, etc. I was losing my voice at the end of each week, but surely it would come back once I stopped talking to an entire bus-load of students.

 It hasn't. 

"Severe muscle strain" were the words from the doctor with the white coat and credentials. "Months" was the projected time for recovery to settle in. Until then, this singer would need to be on vocal rest. No projecting, no whispering, and no singing.

Singing is part of who I am. It's been part of my daily routine in ways I never realized until it was taken from me. No more singing along to the car radio, rocking out in the shower, and no breaking out into song randomly because I feel like it. It's funny because I find myself compensating in other ways. I sing along in my head simply mouthing the words. I rock my foot, tap my thumb on the steering wheel, and bob my shoulders back and forth to the music. My whole body sings without any sound at all.

I can live with that in the privacy of my car, but not being able to sing is nigh unbearable when it comes to church. I turn away invitations for solos and participation in choir, but that is nothing compared to not singing the hymns. "For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me" (D&C 25:12) It feels so wrong not singing them. I feel like people are looking at me and thinking, "why isn't she singing? Maybe she chooses not to sing the hymns, or perhaps she isn't a very good singer." I'm neither of those things, but how could they know that I am sitting there desperately yearning to open my mouth and sing?

I was reading in the Book of Mormon the other night and came across a scripture that describes angels in the "attitude of singing and praising God; yea and my soul did long to be there." What exactly is an attitude of singing? I don't know, but I love it. My soul longs to be singing, but at least for the next few months the "attitude of singing"  will have to do. Here's hoping that my singing career isn't over just yet, but even if my voice never comes back...I surely will always yearn to sing the prayer of my heart and be grateful for the way singing made me who I am.

Oxytocin: The Bonding Drug

Can you be addicted to bonding?  

Oxytocin has been labeled as the "bonding" drug. It is what naturally occurs during childbirth, nursing, and intimacy.  However, it is also wrapped up in eye contact, holding hands, putting your arm around someone, a hand on your knee, hugs, kisses, etc. It's that warm bonding that happens from physical touch. 

Believe it or not, but people believe it has a specific use in healing wounds. Perhaps there's something to the phrase "Will you kiss it better?" Mothers have kissed their child's scraped knees for ages, but has anyone ever thought it might help the healing? I've certainly found that a hug, a lingering squeeze of my hand, and a kiss on my forehead heal a wounded heart. Love heals. 

In fact it was the topic of healing that first brought the bonding drug to my attention. I attended a Social Science / Human Development Conference with my roommate once during College. The topic of the conference was Pornography and I found myself in a few presentations specifically dealing with what to do when your loved one has an addiction to pornography. 

The presenter specifically mentioned the two "Love" drugs: Dopamine and Oxytocin. He suggested that both are present during sexual intimacy, but only Dopamine appears to be present during the viewing of pornography. This Psychologist's study focused on the benefits of the increasing of intimate touch when talking with a loved one, even when talking with a loved one about his or her addiction. It is as simple as touching someone's arm, knee, or hand. Oxytocin separates the fantasy from the reality. It's the "bonding" drug that says, "I love you," "I'm here for you even when things get hard," and "I want to stay with you." It's real. I'm real.     

 I realize there are people out there that love to be alone, but I believe no one truly loves being lonely. We are relational beings.We like bonding. This is why we seek relationships in our significant others, friends, family, co-workers, strangers even, and of course in the cyber world of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even this blog. We are meant to be in relationships.We want to give our lives to someone who will trust and understand. In fact, besides being a major contributor to romantic attraction and maternal bonding, Oxytocin also appears to heavily increase trust and empathy. What a drug! 

It feels good. I, perhaps more than most people, tend to crave that bonding and long for it when it is not around. It speaks to me more than words sometimes. I found bits of it when my Grandma would simply hold onto my hand at the table, when I would cuddle up with my mother while we watched a show, and in the silent snuggle listening for a beautiful heartbeat. It is in my two people "just being" moments. But, what happens when you are just one person being? You simply crave. 

Can you be addicted to bonding? Well, I sure am. 

A Happy Girl's Bout With Sadness

I consider myself a happy girl. 

In fact, I pride myself on my positive, optimistic, hopeful attitude. 

But, sometimes even happy girls feel sad. 

Though dealt with in different ways by different types of people, grief is something to which we are simply not immune. Some run through it, some sleep through it. Some talk it out among safe relations, some cry it out privately in the dark softness of wet sheets. And some, do a combination that is all their own. But this is not about the "some," it is about the "one." Specifically, it is about me, the happy girl, and my turn with sadness.

"There lives the dearest freshness deep down things" 

Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote those words. Our "deep down things" are perhaps some of our most precious and sacred. They make us who we are and shape who we become. Recently, I discovered a sadness aching deep down inside of me. As a happy girl, I tried to fight it off with the thought that I shouldn't be sad. But, there lives the dearest freshness in those deep down things and sometimes it's ok to be sad. There is beauty in sadness.

Still, I didn't want this sadness. I tried to sweat it off with exercise, wash it out with expensive shampoo, mask it with fancy makeup, cover it with a new dress, or simply push it aside with constant activity, but somehow it persisted. It sat by the door of my heart like an obedient puppy, a pain demanding to be felt. So, I felt it. I felt it singing in the car, finishing my book on the patio, falling asleep, waking up, showering, or sometimes simply gazing at the clouds. These were the days when tears streaked down cheeks like rain on car windows, and I wondered if perhaps tomorrow they'd finally stay dry. For a week they didn't, but there was beauty in that sadness. 

However, let me clarify...there is beauty in some sadness. The moments of sad/mad-ness, the screaming out, sinking into a ball, hitting the dashboard, illogical refusal of hope or help moments are not pretty. Not only physically does it leave you with eyes stinging and forbidding to stay dry (or open), but emotionally it puts you in a dark hole where no one can calm you and where "this hopeful stuff really just isn't helpful anymore." I don't like this kind of sadness and am glad it didn't stick around long. It just wasn't me and it wasn't beautiful. It's just horrible.

I'm the happy girl. I didn't want to be sad, I shouldn't be sad. I had so much to be happy about. I knew I was surrounded by loving family and friends, I knew i'd made the right choice, I knew God loved me, I knew I had so much going for me, and I knew so many other people had better reasons for sorrow. And still, I ached. And still, I cried. "Don't be Sad" was the whisper that entered my ear as my mother's arms enveloped my body. I really wanted to be happy, I did, but it was my time with sadness.

"Grief is not a force and has no power to hold. You only bear it. Love is what carries you, it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery" - Wendell Berry

You can't quit living because the world deals you a tragic twist of fate. Life calls us forward. It calls us into our bodies, our homes, our work, and the ones we most cherish. It bathes us in the passing of time and the taste of healing. It is in the people who offer us love and beckon love from us. It is in the ordinary pleasures of each separate day. It is my realization that I am laughing and smiling again, and that days have passed without the taste of tear soup. It is my acceptance that it is ok if tomorrow tears kiss my cheeks, nose, and lips. For there is beauty in sadness, and this girl is happy for it. 

Life Lessons

Some of the most frustrating moments of teaching teenagers occurs when you realize they are simply choosing not to be amazing. 

I'd spend hours preparing lesson plans, practicing methodology, waking up early, staying up late, eating yucky food court food, and all for what? - For the belief that this program could somehow truly make these students think differently about government and citizenship action.

I saw it work many times. Students who recognized the opportunity provided for them from either the wallets of parents, school funding, or fundraising, and made the most of it. I saw when students actually tried to answer the questions I posed, or do the assignments associated with our outings, they blew me away. They thought deeply and came out of the week wanting to be better and knowing both sides of most issues. They emerged empowered.

I also saw it not work many times. Students who came for a free ride around D.C, wanting simply to take photos and engage with their hand-held screens. They didn't want me to ask them any questions, they didn't want to "think," reading was too hard, and they just didn't really care.  I'd try my best to make them care, to pull deep thoughts out of them, to bring up interesting controversy, but in they end they choose what their experience was going to be. They emerged tired.

"It's so frustrating", I'd think. "I've prepared this amazing opportunity for them, and I know if they would just participate in it and allow me to help them, they would get so much more out of it. I know what it could be, and they refuse to enjoy it."

Then it hit me.

How often does God feel the same way? The, "I've prepared this perfect opportunity for you, your land of promise, and if you will just trust me and keep my commandments, which I've prepared diligently for your benefit,  I promise you will be so much happier." And how often do we simply choose not to participate, or feel that our plan for ourselves is far better? "I don't want to work hard, I just want to see the pretty sites and play around."

I need to trust. 

"For behold, I have prepared a great endowment and blessing to be poured out upon them, inasmuch as they are faithful and continue in humility before me" - D&C 105:12 

A Close Up look at my last 6 mos.

It's been a whirlwind of a six months. With weeks including 14 hour work days and the frequent 2 week stints with zero days off, I had very little time to keep up with this blog. Sorry. But, now I will give you the Close Up look at my last six months working in D.C.

I saw a lot of memorials, cities, plays, museums, office buildings, cemeteries, and hotels. I taught countless amounts of workshops trying to engage students in democracy. I made endless amounts of flip charts for those workshops. I attempted to teach my students how to make a perfect group circle, to think critically, and what the words Political Efficacy mean. I learned how to bus surf. I met senators, representatives, teachers, administrators, interpreters, advocates, kids from all over the country, and your good old average tourists. I told a lot of jokes. I traveled by train, bus, foot, car, and boat. I ate far too many food court meals, and certainly too many hotel continental breakfasts. (I'll be ok if I don't have another Taco Sunday for a while) I learned how to maneuver around New York City and not get completely lost in Central Park. 

But that's really not the gist of it all. Wrap up hundreds of students taking a stand on issues like federalism, gun control, immigration, healthcare, war memorials, and citizen action, a staff of awesome idealistic post graduates, and a city with endless possibilities and tons of history, and you get just the tip of my experience working here these last six months. 

This job sure made me think about history and politics in a new way

Meal time = "Me" time for the instructors, especially on a travel week with middle schoolers. 

The best moments are when I sit back and watch my students engage. Here they are about to reenact "Picket's Charge" in Gettysburg

This City really became home to me

At the end of the week, I had my students track their "Political Efficacy" (their beliefs about how participatory they are in democracy etc.) This week made me endlessly happy as students placed their markers off the chart!

I made some great new friends

I got to see children wanting to be "up close" and participating

So there's a peek at my last six months. Who knows what the next six months will bring?

The Big Apple

I had the pleasure of not only guiding my students around Washington D.C. these past six months, but also trekking them up to New York City. I loved watching my kids from the rural mid west clamp on to each other as they overwhelmingly looked upwards at all the skyscrapers and forwards at the hordes of people approaching us. Needless to say, they never wandered off too far from me.

New York is pretty dirty and there are SOOOOOO many people, but it also has a lot of character all its own. "So Here's to you, New York, New York!!"

New York has fantastic Art Museums

I saw Central park in nearly all its seasons

Sensory overload in Times Square

Top of the Rockefeller Center 

9/11 Memorial 

The only tree on the World Trade Plaza to survive 9/11

It was New Amsterdam before it was ever New York

I got to take Students to a Broadway play each week :) 

Dinner in Little Italy cannot be complete without a Canoli from Ferrara's 

The Chelsea Highline is a lovely example of citizen action in a community 

I could People- Watch in Central Park for hours

I guess you have to see Lady Liberty 

My Washington DC Favorites

1. Favorite Spot in the City = The Tidal Basin. Day or night, cherry blossom season or iced over - the tidal basin is lovely.

2. Favorite Statue = The Einstein Statue 

3. Favorite Restaurant = Ted's Bulletin. Art Deco, old time movies, milkshakes, good food, homemade pop-tarts!

4. Favorite Building = Library of Congress: I could stay in here forever!

5. Favorite overlooked art piece = The "Victory Day" bas relief at WWII memorial (Why walk around a mail box when you can kiss your girl over it?)

6. Favorite museum = National Gallery of Art (Obviously!)

7. Favorite Run Route = Taylor Creek and Potomac Overlook trail (Technically in Virginia)

8. Favorite part of my commute = the George Washington Parkway next to the river

9. Favorite Memorial = FDR memorial  

10. Favorite Secret to share  = Kilroy is on the back of the WWII memorial