Five Words ~ by Jay

I asked Orange for five words to describe me and she obliged. She's off in Brooklyn now using more than five words - good luck, Orange!

The deal is she gives me five words that she associates with me, I write about each one and offer to provide five words for any readers who would like to do their own. If you're interested, let me know in comments and keep checking back - I'm at a conference and responses will be slower than usual.

So, back to me.

1)Mothering: To mother, mothering, motherly - all those words evoke nurturing, selflessness, advice-giving - these are all qualities that are present in many of my relationships, not just my life with Eve, and thinking about it now I see that I really want my mothering to be facilitative, not directive. I give less specific advice and direction than most of the parents in our circle. I am less invested in the outcome, in the specific behavior. Giving advice is easy; listening and encouraging Eve to make her own choices is much harder work, at least for me. I realize that I've been feeling a little less-than, a bit not-quite-a-real-mother because I don't manage my daughter's life in the same way as many of my friends, and I realize, looking at it squarely, that I need to let that go. Mothering is also offering comfort and unconditional love, and I do that - oh, do I do that. I may not have a biological connection with my daughter, but I can feel my love for her in my body, as well as in my heart and mind.

2) Feminism: Means never being able to enjoy a movie, a book or music on the radio. I've been listening to some old favorite mystery books on my iPod while I drive around. Lately it's been Dick Francis and J A Jance. I started reading Dick Francis' books while I was in high school, and his prolific days are long over, so it's been a while since I picked up some of these. Never mind the lack of women protagonists - I've been overwhelmed with the parade of virago wives, rejecting mothers, and manipulating sisters. There are brilliant and interesting women, as well, but all seem to have something lacking in their lives until Our Hero shows up and shows them what they're missing.

Jance is more complicated. I've been listening to her Joanna Brady series. Joanna is an Arizona county sheriff, and she experiences and stands up to repeated expressions of sexism. And in the later books in the series, she remarries and ends up with a guy who becomes the stay-at-home parent. Cool. But I've been immersed in these books one after the other, and noticed things that aren't obvious when you read one every year or so, as they're published. There are at least two books in which Jance writes about domestic-violence-that-wasn't, about men who are victimized by false accusations of abuse or who were "justified" in beating up their wives because the wives were such horrible people.

I know Jance and Francis aren't Kurt Vonnegut. They're not openly misogynistic. That's the point. Misogynistic ideas are so embedded in our culture and our literature that they show up, anyway, even from authors who are open in their admiration for and support of women's equality.


3)Hospice: What all medical care should be. Symptom-focused, relationship-centered, multi-disciplinary, home-based; open to negotiation of the goals of care with the patient's agenda given priority; acknowledging the emotional lives of the caregivers as well. It's a damn shame we only do this for people who are dying.

4) Solitude/downtime (you get so little!): Part of the reason I have so little is that it kind of scares me. I'm only just becoming comfortable with real solitude, as opposed to solitude with the phone or the computer or the TV. Some of the activities I schedule for myself are restorative - going to synagogue, drumming, being here at this conference. And much of my "real" life is restorative, too; I get a lot back from my patients, my hospice colleagues, my family....but I am feeling drained. This category gets an "under construction" sign.

5) Achievement: In my heart of hearts, I don't see myself as having achieved anything. Yes, I graduated from a fancy college, but I was admitted as a legacy. And besides, Sam was summa cum laude and I wasn't. Sure, I went to medical school, but not a very good one. Granted, I do good work as a doctor, but I'm not on a track to be the director or chair or chief of anything, and I haven't been able to sustain work as a clinician/educator. And of course, I am raising a child, but only one, and she's pretty easy, as kids go - no special needs, no sleep problems, no homework battles. I passed the boards, but I have an easy time with tests - it's not like I worked as hard as others did. Plus I have such advantages - no financial worries, supportive and encouraging parents, a husband who "helps". Who couldn't do what I've done if they had the start I was given?

I know this is fucked, I really do, but when I start to think about owning some of my accomplishments I think "oh, Jay, you really should be more focused on who you are rather than what you've done". It is possible to recognize and appreciate one's privilege without discounting real achievement, and it is possible to be proud of one's work without being an other-focused caplitalist sellout. I'll keep working on it. And, in the meantime, I will hold on to those moments of gratification: the look in Eve's face when she sees me after I've been away. The patient who says "I always feel better when I come to see you". The hospice nurses who cheer when they find out I'm increasing my hours. The rare, elusive times when I feel truly at peace with myself.