July 7

"There is so much I am seeing and understanding for the first time." Always

1966 (Mexico)

Went to the club again. Antonio had promised to be there, but came just as we were leaving. I asked him what school he attended and he told me “preparatoria”. That’s a level, not a place. Tomorrow I ask again.

At night I spent from 7 to 8 singing for the girls at school. Ooooo my aching voice.

Susi isn’t coming, so Sr. C is going to contact his nephew Juan for my university tour.

We argued until midnight about manners. Mr. D seems very selfish about it. He wants to save himself work, and says that women are soft enough already.

Comment 2023

Of course, I had to look up Mr. D - George Doring. This longtime Spanish teacher, avid Red Sox fan, passionate defender of New Milford’s environment, who waged a years-long battle to close a local landfill, died in 2006 at the age of 66. That makes him about ten years older than me; just 26 when we traveled to Mexico. I can still hear his thick Massachusetts accent in my head. He taught me the right way to pronounce his hometown of Quincy (Quinzy). He loved a good argument, and his beautiful artist wife, Chris. I doubt that he was serious about his stance in that midnight discussion.

1979

My fear of failure is becoming more and more apparent to me, in everything I do. Being aware of it makes me feel more capable of dealing with it, but I wonder how to do that. Perhaps with one step, then another…Like my aversion to calling strangers. I’m not over it, but I do it anyway. The sense of accomplishment when I finish a list of calls is terrific. Yet I may never get to the point when I feel neutral towards phone calls. What else am I afraid of?

Having my work rejected by publishers.

Having my ideas rejected by my superiors and teachers.

Those are really the main ones right now. I feel fairly comfortable with other graduate students, or as a teacher. It’s my attitude toward my superiors that gets in the way, in addition to a definite insecurity about the value of my ideas and work. That’s only natural; I’m just starting out. Won’t ever learn unless I try and am willing to make mistakes.

As Wayne Dyer said in the magazine, “Failure is absolutely necessary if you’re ever going to learn and grow”.

It doesn’t make me eager to fail; that would be a really inappropriate response . It makes me feel more accepting of the possibility. After all, I do want to “learn and grow”. (“Yes, I do,” she wrote, smiling to herself.)

Later that day:

Culture proposes limits to behavior; the possible variations in one’s lifestyle are one set of limits. The question is, does expansion of options increase or decrease human creativity? Is our clothing more inventive for all the variations permitted by fashion, than the clothing of Japan during the Edo period, with all its restrictions?

Comment 2023

These grad school-era journals are a gold mine of half-formed ideas. Sometimes I am not even sure what I meant at the time, as is the case with that last but about creativity and choice. I do know that I was very taken with a Japanese proverb I read a few years earlier: “Enter the mold, then break it”.

I still hate phone calls. 

1986

It was hot yesterday. And it is supposed to be even hotter (near 100) today and tomorrow. Why do we have to have a summer like this when I am pregnant? (As if it were a personal affront.) I guess I can take a few days of this at a time, if we get breaks in between.

Comment 2023

Central air conditioning in our house was still a year away.

1994

Well, the summer class is almost over, Kiddo 1 is in Canada, and I am up to Chapter 4 in the book. If I am lucky (!!) I may be done with revision and footnotes by fall. Whoosh! When I get right to it, it’s fine. But getting to it is so hard. Still, I’m getting there. Watching Kiddo 1 fly away was strange and a little sad. What an irony that childhood seems so short and so long at the same time. Good thing parents don’t  get their wishes. They’s either end up with a kid who grows up overnight and moves away or one who stays stuck at seven forever.

1996

The summer teaching stint is nearly over. What a great class! I have tried so many new things, and the class has been wonderfully responsive. I tried a long-distance chat with some Korean students, with mixed results. The social chat worked best, I think. Teaching is really what I do best. Teaching and helping students learn. Does it really matter whether or not I write books and become a full professor? Yes..and no.

Comment 2023

To every thing, there is a season.

1997

Kiddo 2 is back from scout camp. I know because he woke me at 7:15, with questions about the computer. Lovable little troll. Kiddo 1 is babysitting this week for a couple of toddlers in the neighborhood, making something like real money.

I was going to take another computer class this week, but am just too far behind. So I will step back to where I was two weeks ago, the day Mom died and I had made such headway on the summer’s tasks.

Notes on Living less stressfully, from “Loving and Leaving the Good Life” by Helen Nearing.

1. Do the best you can, whatever arises.

2. Be at peace with yourself.

3. Find a job you enjoy.

4. Live in simple conditions; housing, food, clothing; get rid of clutter.

5. Contact nature every day. Feel the earth under your feet.

6. Take physical exercise through hard work; through gardening or walking.

7. Don't worry; live one day at time.

8. Share something every day with someone else; if you live alone, write someone;

give something away; help someone else somehow.

9. Take time to wonder at life and see the world; see humor in life where you can.

10. Observe the one life in all things.

11. Be kind to the creatures.

2019

World Cup Final today! We are going to Franklin’s in about 45 minutes, hip hooray. I will call Helen C. tomorrow, Tuesday at the latest. In the meantime, I will write ONLY one page as a warm-up for wake-up because I am eager to get back to the Sears data gathering and from there to my chapter draft. Is there enough there?? I have no idea. It seems so thin and yet somehow so rich. There is so much I am seeing and understanding for the first time. Each time I wish I could ask Mom about what I am reading. And yet I can’t go from that desire to a regret that I didn’t take on this project years or even decades ago. In a way, I did, without knowing. All of my research into gender and clothing came from my own experiences and my questions about them. Even when I was studying 19^th century men’s dress, I was wondering about gender rules and where they came from, and how they help to shape our identities. How we used clothing to express new identities. It’s complicated, as I like to point out.

Current situation 2023

Thanks to a week of sea air, I have turned my writing schedule on its head, in a good way. Instead of transcribing my journals first thing in the morning, and then working on the new book project with whatever energy I have left (usually none), I start with the book stuff and then do the transcriptions and comments. Can you tell the difference? I hope not! 

2024

Maybe it’s time to get over my dislike of phone calls. The alternative is losing touch with those I love.