Passion and Pixie Dust…

Posted on November 1, 2015 by rangotti

The other day, I clicked on my memories in Facebook and when I did, this old blog came up. When I read what I wrote two years ago about the person I wanted to be, I had to be reminded that I am that person. I have the characteristics I admired in my friends, I have grown and allowed myself to become what I wanted to be. However, just like with many lessons in life, sometimes things need to be revisited.

View from the porch with the fog rolling down the valley

A year ago, I came off sabbatical, got a fabulous house, moved into a fantastic new job that challenged me and had the thought of “I have arrived”. Hmmm, it is almost like I regressed and forgot all of those lessons I learned. I have been in this “stuck” headspace, feeling something deeply lacking in my life and divorced from any sense of community. I have been on autopilot. So I realized it was time to renew the blog, and write another manifesto for where I wanted to go now.
Recently, someone pointed out to me that it is my spirit and passion that draws people to me, not my intelligence or sense of adventure. It reminded me that my friend Matt once said, “Robin, you have this beautiful carefree spirit that you put walls around by intellectualizing. Let that spirit out. It won’t appeal to everyone, just the people who want to be in your life.” I think I need a little more practice on that area.

So I started writing the manifesto and asking myself some questions like, now what? Where do I go from here? Where am I going in this life next?

The first words I wrote on the page were that I want to live my life with integrity and transparency, honoring the strengths that I have found in myself and not making excuses for the weaknesses. I want my words to match my actions in everything I do in life. Two years ago, I set out on a journey that made me focus inward and that journey was successful in helping me to be the person I am today. Now, having met all those goals, in order to move on, I have to focus outward. How am I giving back to the world that has given me so much? What am I doing to make my community better; personally, professionally, locally and globally? And how do I allow that spirit and passion to be infused in everything I do? Because to live with integrity, I have to let that spirited, passionate woman come out in all the areas of my life.

Software designed to help people learn math.

Professionally, I have a pretty well articulated vision of what I want to do and who I want to be. With the help of a great group of colleagues from around the country, the vision remains crystal clear and I have no problem striving toward it because it flows from my passion. I want to be an integral member of a department that is willing to take pedagogical risks to research and find the best practices in mathematics education for all students for the 21st century. I don’t want mathematics to be a gatekeeper, weeding people out of STEM disciplines. I want it to be a gateway for any student who chooses to walk through the gate on their way to whatever career they desire. I don’t believe we will solve the problems of the world by doing the same thing over and over again. We need new ideas from places we haven’t thought of for humanity to move forward. That means more scientists, engineers, computer programmers, mathematicians that are from underrepresented groups in those fields. I want my voice to add to the conversation of how to make that happen.

Nana and Brody dancing in the kitchen

Baking Easter Cake with Brooklyn and Charlotte

Personally, I haven’t had as clear a vision. I just know that I have been feeling a soul-sucking lack of community lately. The only time I feel that I am fully connected and being myself is when I am around my grandchildren. With them, I am this carefree spirit, willing to take personal risks of looking stupid or failing, in order to achieve real connection with them. A whole continent separates us, so I don’t want to spend our precious time together having to peel through layers of social constraints. I am present with them, in the moment, and in the moment we don’t care what our hair looks like, how fit we are, or what our bank balance is. We are just there.

Joy

I listen to what their dreams are, take into account what they want and need, and then allow myself to be outrageously myself while I try to meet those needs in ways that encourage their growth. And through their failures and successes, I listen to their laughter which, in turn, floods my soul with happiness. We dance around the kitchen, bake cookies, go to the library, play in the park, look at nature, pretend we are horses and gallop around, we make mistakes and celebrate tremendous successes. The word that defines how I am with them is carefree. I am a Nana who is doused with pixie dust that I want to spread al over them.

Climbing Seminary Hill during the 7 Hills of Kirkland Ride

I want to find a community in which I can be that way, where I can let that spirit and passion be present and be accepted. Matt is right, to find that, I have to be that because people who will accept me will gravitate toward it. So my personal manifesto is to embrace my crazy. I want to be that person that lets her spirit and passion be first and foremost in her life. In looking outward, it is that carefree, passionate part of me that will impact my local and global community the most. There are lots of people in the world who are more intellectual than I am, who have way more financial resources than I do, who are more beautiful, more fit, more creative. But there is no one that has my unique spirit.

Rachel riding a coffee ride with me. I know I have made as much of a difference in Rachel’s life as she has in mine.

So who do I want to be? I want to be a Pixie Dust spreader. I want to be this carefree person who uses her passion (for adventure, art, cooking, travel, cycling, mathematics, learning, people, and whatever else happens to interest me) to engage with other people, especially those who have not had the same opportunities as I have, not for my own self-gratification but to give back to a world that has given me so much. I want to be a person who asks about other’s dreams and goals, who listens to what they need, and then who helps in whatever way I can as they make their dreams come to fruition. I want to be supportive when they struggle and I want to celebrate with joy the accomplishments of their hard work and watch as they thrive. I want to be a person who commits my time, resources and passions to people that are willing to try, to risk, to live. I want to give back to the world to honor all the people who did that for me.

“Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers.” ~Howard Thurman

Lesson Five: Be who you want to be

Posted on August 30, 2014 by rangotti

One of the best things about writing this blog has been all the responses I have received from people around the world. Some said “thank you for sharing so openly, it has helped me realize I am not alone”. Some have told me their stories. Others have asked for advice, questions such as “I am over my head in debt, how do I pay it off” to “I am not happy in my life but I don’t know how to change it, can you help”. I am not qualified to give anyone advice. I can only tell you how I dealt with similar problems.

One of my greatest take-aways from sabbatical is that I don’t just have to be who I think I am. I can be who I want to be. All my life, I have wanted to be this adventure girl. I wanted to be joyfully spontaneous and just willing to try things on a whim. I wanted to be athletic and participate in adventure sports such as mountain biking, kayaking, skiing off-piste, paragliding, climbing… you get the idea. I also wanted to be the sophisticated urban dweller and world traveler. I put those dreams aside when I had children and raised my family. I was responsible, a great high school teacher, a good university professor, a decent mother and wife. I took care of everyone. When I got divorced an moved to Seattle, I was a frumpy, middle class, 44 year old housewife from a small town in North Carolina, and I thought those kind of adventures were behind me. If you have read this blog, you realize that moving to Seattle was when I met Matt Tony, Ken, Rachel, Shaun, Deloa, Melinda, Rachelle, Keri and so many more great friends.. the list goes on and on here as well as all my friends from the Lounge and my own children, Patrick and Jessica who have cheered me and encouraged me every step of the way.

My friends opened my world and my mind to all the things that were possible, regardless of my age, weight, marital status, debt, … none of that matters. Those were all excuses to keep me paralyzed to whatever dysfunctional fear I happened to be harboring at the time. The one single thing I needed to learn was that all I had to do was try. I didn’t have to be perfect or even successful the first time, or the 27th time, I just had to keep trying. It didn’t matter if I was laughed at, judged, or taunted. I have learned that those kinds of limiting comments from other people aren’t about me, they are about the shallowness and fears of the person who is uttering them. I don’t take those kind of comments personally anymore. I am a different person. I am the person I have always wanted to be.

I set out on a journey to carve out a new identity. I thought that meant discovering who I am. It didn’t. I realized that it meant creating who I am. It is funny, as I have been reflecting on sabbatical and all the years since I moved to Seattle, my train of thought started with “I didn’t”, and “I am not” until about a month ago when trying to write this blog post and I asked myself, “so what HAVE you done?”. It was a perspective altering question.

I have rolled a kayak, climbed mountains, and jumped off those mountains in both a harness and with a wing on my back. I have skied through powder, down fall lines, under chairlifts and on glaciers. I have ridden bikes on several continents, in varied conditions with incredible people. I have ordered great wine and decadent food in restaurants all over the world. I have met new people everywhere I have gone and listened to their stories, learned about their lives, and shared the fires of the passions that light up their souls. I gave away all the trappings of my former life, my furniture, clothing, and emotional baggage. I have lived without a home or safety net to return to. I have fed endangered vultures from my hand both on the ground and while gliding in the air looking out over the Himalayas. I have traveled alone, with no plan and no itinerary, going where I wanted, seeing what interested me, meeting new people. I have faced loneliness, fear, isolation, sickness, different cultures, ostracization, and just about every human condition you can imagine.

When I read that list, what is clear to me is that I am not the person that I was anymore. I am strong, courageous, adventurous, athletic, urban, classy, loving, compassionate, giving, open… in other words, I am the person I have always wanted to be. How did I, a non-athletic, frumpy, boring, small-town, middle-class housewife do it? How did I learn to roll a boat, ski off-piste, order great wine, solo travel, talk to strangers, and give up all my possessions? The answer is simple, I tried. I set out on a course that was hard and just kept going. Overcoming obstacles, wanting to quit (many, many times), I learned and grew. I refused to stay in the dysfunction I was in and did the work necessary to have the life I wanted. Even though that sounds simple, it was the hardest, yet most rewarding thing I have ever done. I have no regrets.

Before I left on sabbatical, I had a chance to change course and stay in Seattle to be able to get the perfect house. I wanted that house so badly, I almost didn’t go on my journey because of it. The house was just an excuse to hide my fear however. Instead, I listened to my advisors and went on sabbatical anyway knowing that there would be another perfect house when I returned. I have thought of that house many times while I lived my homeless, nomadic life. In the last couple of weeks I started house hunting again. Guess what? THE house, the same one, was available and now it is mine. So for all my worry, I took the chance anyway and walked away from the safe choice. Now I have a house again or at least I will on Sept 15 and not just any house but the house I dreamed of. Until September 15, I am hanging out with my beautiful granddaughters waiting for their brother to come into the world any day now. So at the end of this incredible year, not only am I a new person but I will have a new home, a new job, and a new grandson.

It makes me happy to know that I am setting a great example for my grandchildren that life isn’t about limits, it is about challenging what limits us. Our biggest limitation is believing that we can’t change who we think we are.

Lesson Three: Take Bigger Steps

Posted on July 12, 2014 by rangotti

In Madrid, struggling to figure out who I was and what to hell I was doing in Madrid, I texted Matt and said I was taking two steps forward and three backwards. Matt’s answer, “take bigger steps”. At the time it made me laugh and I thought he was just being funny. I had no idea how profound those words really were until much later.

My plan after leaving Madrid was to travel around Spain and I was just stuck as to where to go and what to see. I hadn’t left the US as a tourist but as a traveler and there is a huge difference. People kept giving me advice as tourists. (go here, see that, do this) but traveling with no definitive itinerary and no plan isn’t the same thing as being a tourist. So I was floundering. Matt’s next words to me were “come to Nepal” which is where he and his lovely girlfriend Amanda happened to be at the time. Lonely and ready to see someone familiar, I threw my stuff together, left Madrid and flew to Katmandu. What I didn’t realize at the time was, I just took a much bigger step. It was a step which, eventually, would propel me forward out of floundering in a major way. My time in Nepal was magic. It was a catalyst for healing my soul, developing my identity, fueling my passion for life, and getting in touch with my spirituality in a profound way.

I didn’t realize how much Nepal had changed me until I got back to Seattle months later. Coming down from the mountaintop experience where I had clarity about my life and all I was seeking, I had to then return to my actual life with its challenges and opportunities. Trying to integrate the new growth with the old life was probably the most difficult period of all of my sabbatical. From January to April, I struggled more than I can ever remember. I would use the word depression but I wasn’t sad, just stymied. I couldn’t figure out where the girl I had left on top of Sarangkot, the girl who did yoga and mediated every day and then climbed mountains for fun, I couldn’t seem to find that girl again. And that is the girl I wanted to be. Instead, with no structure to my days, I was on the couch in my pajamas at 7:30 pm after never even getting dressed all day. I was again moving two steps forward and three back.

It was mid April and I realized I had to take bigger steps. Movement is life and I had to start moving, physically, mentally and emotionally. The next day, I was up at 4 am for meditation, to greet the day, and was at the gym at 5 am. I have started my day the same way on the majority of mornings since. And guess what? That girl that I left on top of Sarangkot? She’s back.

When you are stuck and you feel like you are doing the right things to be on the path you want to walk but you don’t seem to be moving anywhere, take bigger steps. It is funny how that is actually true in so many things. Physically, I had plateaued in my fitness. I added Tabata training to my regular working and that propelled my fitness level upward. Intellectually, I needed a challenge so I changed jobs and jumped into a visualization project that is totally stumping me and, even though it is frustrating, I can’t put it down. It is a huge intellectual challenge for me and I am loving it. Emotionally, pushing myself to go back to therapy after I swore I would never trust another mental health care professional again, was a giant step forward. All these things have helped me get to a place where I am stronger in all those areas than I have ever been in my whole life. It is a great place to be. I feel integrated and whole, that my internal view of who I am meets the external life that I display. It is a pretty awesome place to be.

You don’t have to jump off mountains or get up at 5 am. But you do have to keep moving, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Whatever your challenge is in your life, wherever you feel stuck and can’t figure out what to do, take bigger steps. Do something that will defibrillate that area. Challenge yourself physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Movement is life. Live it.

Lesson two: Sometimes a woman has to let her garden get out of control to see what sticks

Posted on July 3, 2014 by rangotti

Once, when I working on my yard and garden, I apologized for it being a little out of control with new plants springing up everywhere. I am used to gardens being orderly rows, not a chaos of wildflowers growing up everywhere. My friend Deb said “sometimes a woman has to let her garden get out of control to see what likes growing there, to see what sticks.”. And that is sabbatical lesson number two.

My friend Matt has never given me a tangible gift in the 7 years that we have been friends. He has paid for dinner a few times, he tried to pay for a paragliding lesson once but I paid him back, but he has never given me something that I can touch for a present. Simultaneously, he has given me the best gift I have ever received in my life.

For most of my life, I strove for perfection. I had goals and expectations for my behavior that were ridiculously high and I met them. There was no space for spontaneity, no time for emotion, no allowance being out of control. People would have described me as dependable, stalwart, and driven. Then my life got divided by zero and life as I knew it fell apart. Throughout the next year as I tried to Band-aid it back together with marriage therapy, I grew more spontaneous, but slowly, in a planned controlled way. I didn’t really understand truly letting go, to not be constrained by standards of polite society. And then, I met Matt.

One of the first times I ever allowed myself to loosen the grip on perfection around Matt was after a Sunday morning kayaking pool session. Matt wanted to go to brunch but I didn’t have any hair ties to contain my wild “Albert Einstein mad-scientist” hair. He said don’t worry about it, just come to brunch. Since it was a new friendship, I was torn between wanting to spend time with my friend but worried about him rejecting me or making fun of me. I decided to trust him and see where it all fell out. So we are sitting at a nice restaurant, outside in the sun, with all the other well-dressed Sunday brunch goers. I am dressed in a t-shirt and shorts and have wet hair. As my hair dried, it got crazier and crazier and I got more and more self-conscious until one moment Matt looks over and says, “you’re hair is so wild, it is awesome”. Gotta love that kid. Hundreds of times in our friendship, that same type of scenario played out. He watched and encouraged me to engage in some of the most outrageous behaviors. And I was always rewarded with his unconditional acceptance.

One way I am outrageous is with all my “woo-woo” theories that I am always coming up with. My friends just roll their eyes when I get started on a new one. For example: I believe in using all of my senses as I walk through life, one of which (often overlooked) is the sense of smell. My theory is that perfume and cologne can kill a relationship. When we get to know someone, one of the things we filter them is through their scent, for example I loved the way my ex smelled. I believe that the problem with perfume and cologne is that they mask our natural scent. But when you get to know someone and like how they smell with fragrance on, what happens when they aren’t wearing any? Will that change the way you feel in a subtle way?

The cologne is an example of something we use to mask who we really are. Whether with cologne or outrageous behavior, this is the lesson. I only want people in my life who want to be with the authentic me. I don’t want to have to keep putting on airs or living a farce to be included as someone’s friend. What I have learned is to be myself, to be wild, crazy, and unrestrained. Those who want to be in my life will gravitate toward me, whether I am “perfect” or perfectly crazy. They have to want the whole package. If they don’t, then I move them to the outer periphery. There are only be a few people in my life who can handle my “crazy” and my crazy gives them the freedom to let their vulnerability show in return. Those are the few people I want to find and keep. The rest need to be let go.

Your “crazy” is a filter, it filters out those who want to truly be part of your life from those who only superficially want to be there. We need both kinds of people, but we give our hearts to the people who accept us as we are, authentically in all our crazy glory. I believe there are many people who never allow anyone to be that close to them in their whole lives. They never can give up the control and worry over what society will think of them if they allow their true selves to show. They are too hung up on being criticized and rejected.

One of the great aspects of this lesson is that I have learned not to take rejection personally anymore. When a relationship ends, I can hear Matt’s voice say, “it just wasn’t the right fit, try again”. I realize that not everyone is going to gravitate toward me and that is okay. Let them go be free to find the people they can be authentic with. My self-esteem will still be intact.

The gift Matt gave me is in allowing me to see what life looks like when we do let someone in that close. Life changes when we live with that kind of authenticity and whole-heartedness. It is richer, fuller, just more vibrant in every way. I now have a small core group of friends who truly know me and who I can be absolutely outrageous around. I wouldn’t trade them for 1000 superficial friends. I trust my friends love me and care about me always.

So let your garden get out of control and see what sticks. The joy and beauty of your life will open up in ways you never imagined.

Lesson One: The ride doesn’t start until you are ready for it to be over

Posted on June 27, 2014 by rangotti

As I start on the transition back from sabbatical, I want to reflect a little on the lessons I have learned through this year and then I will finish this blog in September

The kick-off event for sabbatical last year was a 24 hour bike ride to raise money for cancer research and patient support. This morning, one year and one lifetime later, I find myself again in Indianapolis riding with my friends from Team Collin. I am a different person. Sabbatical has change me profoundly.

I went for a bike ride the other day. I had planned to ride about 40 miles, but it was a beautiful sunny day so I struck out down an unfamiliar route and ended up going about 50 miles and then decided I was tired and would take the bus the rest of the way home. So I was sitting on the bus bench, eating the last snack that I had brought with me when I realized I didn’t have my wallet so I had no money or my bus pass. I was 25 miles from home. I probably could have talked the bus driver into letting me get on the bus but instead, I put my helmet back on and got back on the bike because one of the first lessons I learned on sabbatical is that the real ride doesn’t start until that moment when I am ready for it to be over.

I first learned this lesson emotionally when I gave up all my possessions last year and left Seattle. I was almost paralyzed by fear and wishing I had never decided to go on this crazy adventure. Facing the fear of traveling alone, meeting people who I didn’t know in countries where I didn’t speak the language, travelling with no plans and no reservations, no safety net when something happened, having to make decisions on the fly not knowing if the outcome would be positive or not, I just wanted the ride to end. I wanted to stay home in the safety of the apartment I had lived for the last 3 years. The reality was, I was in a holding pattern, stagnating personally and professionally and needed to make a huge change. That change truly began when I let myself face the challenges, pushed myself physically, intellectually and emotionally further than I ever thought I could go in my life. In the words of the great TerryB, “It is easier to stay in the dysfunction you are in than it is to do the work needed to have the life you want.” Changes won’t come by just doing the same thing you have been doing over and over and expecting a different result. They happen when you move into the discomfort.

Physically, intellectually, and emotionally, growth and learning happen when people are pushed out of their comfort zone. There is new research that says that physically, if you do the same exercise at the same intensity without varying it that at some point, your body stops responding. You won’t lose ground on your fitness but you won’t gain it either. As I teacher, I have always known from my own learning and by watching my students struggle that intellectual learning is hard work. Think back to your biggest life lessons, did you learn them because you did something perfectly or because you had to struggle through difficulty? Our greatest challenges give us our biggest lessons. Learning isn’t for the faint of heart. And emotional growth may be the hardest of all. We only grow emotionally when we are pushed beyond the limits of what we thought we could endure.

Seven years ago, I was pushed out of my emotional comfort zone when the man I married and loved with all my heart walked out on me without warning . I was pushed out of my comfort zone again when my father and sister died. And then my when my therapist, who was helping me through all of that, entered into an inappropriate relationship with me. Those situations pushed me to the brink of emotional collapse. However, those events also were the catalysts of the most profound transformation of my life. I wouldn’t wish for them to happen again, but I will not regret where they have brought me.

They call events like that life-altering. The reason for that name is because they actually alter your life (yeah I know that conclusion wasn’t rocket science). The event where you do the same thing every day for 25 years or respond the same way every time you have a conflict isn’t “life-altering”. There are so many people who I listen to who tell me they want to make a change in their lives, they aren’t happy with their circumstances….they aren’t happy in their marriage, with their job, the direction their life is going, etc. The way to change that is simple and yet, at the same time, extraordinarily difficult. If you want to make a change in your life, the only way to do it is to create your life-altering moment. There is no other way. It is at that point of change, that point of discomfort that you are ready for whatever is bothering you in your life to be over, that moment when you are ready for the ride to be over…. that is the moment where the real ride and the hard work begins.

My sabbatical lesson and take-away is that I have learned to appreciate that emotional discomfort that comes in difficult and challenging situations because I know it precipitates learning and growth. That doesn’t mean I like it, but I understand what is about to happen, change is going to occur, life is being divided by zero. I might whine about it still, but the whining is just noise, it isn’t life-stalling paralysis. All of life is embraced, every moment is cherished. The places where I am struggling the most are where the real work needs to happen.

A great analogy to this: You don’t keep repaving a smoothly paved road, you fix the road with the potholes on it. It is the same with your life, you fix the parts that are broken, you don’t just stay on the same smooth path. Life gets interesting on those side roads. And if you never take them, sooner or later life will throw up a detour and you will have no choice but to be forced down the side road. You need to fix the pot holes on those side roads before they become big enough to swallow your vehicle and keep your life stuck in one place.

So this weekend, I get to hang out with my friends, ride some bikes, raise a little money to kick cancer’s ass. I am a different woman than I was when I was here a year ago. On the road of my life and the development of a new identity, I have fewer pot holes, more miles of paved smooth road, I am stronger physically, mentally, and emotionally than I have been in a very long time.

Strength In What Remains

Posted on April 14, 2014 by rangotti

I have mentioned before in this blog that the circumstances that divided my life by zero have affected me in many unexpected ways. Realizing how seemingly unconnected events are connected is always fascinating to me and easy for me to see in other people but much harder to see in my own circumstances.

I used to be a voracious reader, both professional and personally. As an academic, reading is preliminary to writing and writing is the key to publications and advancement. In the past 7 years, since my marriage ended and through the years that I was involved with the abusive therapist, I have struggled to read. Why reading should be affected by those circumstances has been difficult to determine, but the result has been the same. I have struggled to read which means also struggling to write and publish in academic journals. I have however, for whatever reason, increased my grant writing skills so there is that.

I have several friends who know about this problem and they have wonderfully tried to help. My friends Tony and Jonathan have recommended books as well as helped me think through academic papers. Tony has co-authored papers with me. It has been a huge help. And I am finally understanding that I may never again read like I once did. I have changed. I am different and it’s okay.

I recently read a book that was recommended to me and it had a profound affect on me. It should be required reading for anyone who has ever had a traumatic incident that they have struggled to recover from, cares about someone in that situation, and for all mental health care workers. It is called Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder and portrays the story of Deo, a survivor of civil war and genocide in Burundi. Deo manages not only to survive but to make his way to the ghettos of New York and, without knowing English, gets a job as a grocery delivery person while living in Central Park. From there, he gets admitted to Columbia and then medical school at Dartmouth and becomes an American citizen before returning to Burundi to start a clinic to provide medicine, nutrition and clean water to a small village.

Deo’s amazing story of resiliency and courage is very profound, but what touched me wasn’t how he was able to come through things perfectly, seemingly without any difficulties because he didn’t. I was touched by his authenticity and imperfection. What touched me was seeing his changing emotions as he struggled with the memories. In his native language that phenomena of being triggered by memories of a traumatic event is called Gusimbura. To gusimbura someone means “that the individual, upon hearing the name of a dead loved one, is forced to relive the suffering and sorrow of that loved one’s death”. The idea is that it isn’t just a memory, the person who is gusimbura’d is actually reliving the events. I think in western psychology it would be called a flashback. But for Deo, it is culturally not acceptable to talk about the death he witnessed. Yet at the same time, as a survivor, it is profoundly necessary for him to bear witness to what happened by talking about it in order to heal the wounds of his soul.

Deo’s transitions between repressing memories and then having them come out in other inappropriate emotions when he was triggered, to facing the memories and seeing his rage and fear, to trying to move on from them explains a lot about the behavior of someone with PTSD. It shows the delicate balance between psychologically needing to remember yet simultaneously, needing to move on and not be caught forever in memories where you are only half alive.

Typically whenever I have read a book like this, the main character will be a person who survived significant trauma and then rose out of it in an exceptional way, seemingly perfectly “whole” and “normal”. What this book showed me is that, for all of us who have gone through trauma, we are irrevocably changed (although I would argue we are still “whole” and “normal”). We can’t go back. We have to find the strength in what remains. Those memories will always be there, like a disease which lives dormant in the central nervous system which comes out in times of stress. However unlike such diseases when society empathizes with the physical suffering of that person, somehow when it is the darker side of our emotions, society sees it as weakness in people and shuns them rather than empathize with them. Deo’s story which is so brutal makes it easy to empathize with him.

When you love or care about someone with PTSD or even just someone who is struggling to move on in their lives, or if you are suffering yourself, realize that sometimes emotions will come up in ways that you can’t anticipate and can be triggered by things that you don’t even realize until later when you are looking back. It can come out in simple ways like fluctuations in someone’s weight, overreactions to seemingly mundane events, substance abuse or more horrifically, in acts of violence. For PTSD sufferers it is imperative to stay as aware as possible, to realize that when you get that feeling in your gut, that churning that something is wrong or your don’t feel good… it is imperative to listen to what your body is telling you.

If you care about someone with PTSD, if the person is reacting in a strange way, don’t take it personally and don’t let their behavior scare you or push you away. The person close to you might not be reacting to you at all, but to a situation or circumstance from their past. I once remember being in a club at Whistler with some friends. All of a sudden, I had to leave, not in 15 or 30 minutes, but right at that immediate moment. I had to be outside. I had two good friends Kaare and Chris that recognized my panic and paid my tab and got my coat out of the coatroom for me while telling our other friends we were leaving. They didn’t judge, they just helped me. My friend Matt has done the same thing for me on countless occasions. I don’t think I have ever said thank you for that. I remember it took me a long time that night at Whistler, even in a roomful of my friends, to realize I was safe. My advice if you care about someone with PTSD is to be aware, be tolerant, just listen and accept them for what they are. Be patient while they find the strength in what remains.

If you get a chance, read the book “Strength in What Remains” by Tracy Kidder and check out Deo’s organization Village Health Works. http://www.villagehealthworks.org/

The right limit of (1 life)/x as x approaches 0 = infinity

Posted on February 28, 2014 by rangotti

Today was one of those spectacular spring days in the Pacific Northwest. The sky was this amazing shade of blue, the sun was out, it was relatively warm. It is one of those days that teases us that spring is just around the corner.

I love this time of year. It is the time of year that winter and spring war for dominion over the land so there are great swings in temperature and weather. The buds on trees are swelling with signs of the potential of new life. The deciduous trees are starting to leaf out and there are so many shades of green that it almost hurts your eyes. It is a season in which you can see the potential that the world holds, the promise of tomorrow. It makes my heart just sing.

On a day like today, I can’t stay in the house, I have to be outside. I also needed to exercise so instead of going to the gym, I ran to a nearby park that has a great jogging path around it. To get there, I had to go about a mile up a pretty busy street that has a really major hill on it. It is uphill there, downhill home. So I put my music on, went to the park, ran a few miles, enjoyed the beautiful sunshine, laughed at the unrestrained kids that wave back when I wave at them, just in absolute awe of the beauty of the distant mountains (both the Cascades and Olympics can be seen from the top of the hill) and then turned around to head home down the busy street.

On the way home, my music trifecta comes on: Good Riddance by Green Day, Learning to Fly by Tom Petty, and Wake Me Up by Avicii. They are songs that were made for moving. All of a sudden, with the sun on my face, birds singing, the glory of the big northwest evergreens all around, I just wanted to dance.

Now remember, I am walking down a really busy suburban road. When I lived on Capitol Hill in Seattle, the sight of a 50 year old crazy woman dancing down the street in her black capri leggings and a big purple University of Washington hoodie wouldn’t have even raised an eyebrow, in fact, there probably would have been people dancing with me. However, where I live now everyone drives, no one is walking down the street let alone dancing. Hmm… didn’t change anything, when it is time to dance it is time to dance. So I danced. Guess what happened? No one noticed. I didn’t even get one glance. People were so focused and in a hurry to get wherever they were going that they failed to notice a crazy woman dancing down the side of the road. The less they looked, the more outrageous I got trying to get at least one person to honk at me and smile.

Social media seems to be filled with people who are sad and lonely, people longing for simpler lives with less stress, and to have the spirit and the joy of children again. Guess what? In order to have that, you actually have to be willing to do it. You can’t say that you want a simpler life and not be willing to find the joy in simpler things, things like sunshine, fresh air, dancing, and noticing the world around us. And you can’t be restrained by being worried about what other people are going to think.

Here is my advice. Take the handsome man or beautiful woman you are with or, if you are by yourself, take the handsome man/woman that you are and go for a walk. And while you are walking, just dance, arms in the air, unrestrained by what people think, heart and senses open to the world around you. You will feel fantastic. What is the worst that can happen? People might think you are crazy? Guess what, being crazy isn’t a crime. You might make someone smile? Yeah, that would be tragic. Of course, you might make it on YouTube like this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSy7h3TPB-M. If you do, I will be so jealous, I couldn’t even get one person to look at me.

Tonight, I am going to Drag Queen Bingo. I am going to wear a feather boa. The great part about that is I am riding the bus. Who wants to speculate about how many pictures make it to instagram tomorrow of the crazy old woman riding the bus in a feather boa? It is going to be a hoot.

Life is short, whereas, when divided by x is infinite as x approaches 0. Go ahead, divide by zero.

Title IX – Lessons learned from a book on knitting

Posted on February 13, 2014 by rangotti

My roommate bought me a book on knitting for Christmas. I finally got around to reading it last weekend as I was ensconced in a beautiful cabin next to a lake looking out at the snow falling on the cedar trees. The perfect place to not only read a book on knitting but to actually knit.

If you know me then you know I am the most unlikely knitter. I majored in math, I like sports, and although I come from a family of creative talented craftspeople, I have never gravitated toward making crafts. I can do a minimal amount of woodworking and in another life, I used to sew. I do love to cook but my time and energy has been devoted to what are typically seen as “men’s” pursuits… sports, outdoor activities, fixing things, etc. I have spent most of my lifetime in a world where men held power. Thus for me, activities traditionally thought of as “men’s” were seen as having more value. That is, until the knitting book…

The author of the book talks about her own resistance to knitting, which is seen as a very female gendered activity. She is a woman about my age, having grown up in the era where we watched our older sisters and mothers burn their bras in protest of unequal rights, where we have watched women struggle to get hired or compensated equally to men, and where we watched men get ostracized because they chose professions or clothing that typically belongs to “women”. So she, like me, resisted what we saw as “women’s” hobbies, or as my brothers would describe as “skirt work”. But what I realized is that to devalue certain tasks because they are typically thought of as a female activity is the very epitome of anti-feminism and smacks of the idea that only activities that traditionally belong to men have value. Hence, I started knitting.

Since I started thinking of this, I have had a couple of discussions with people that have really stuck in my psyche. Both discussions were regarding female athletes “not being as good as men” or women’s sports (for example snowboarding at the Olympics) being perceived as “boring”. It made me reflect on Title IX, which as first written, didn’t have anything to do with sports at all but that is what it became known for.

Some history (source Wikipedia): The first person to introduce Title IX in Congress was its author and chief Senate sponsor, Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana. Bayh was working on the Equal Rights Amendment and abolishing discriminatory treatment based on gender however was having difficulty getting the bill out of committee. Since the Higher Education Act was on the floor of the Senate already, Bayh introduced an amendment, Title IX which said:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance…

In his remarks on the Senate floor, Bayh said, “We are all familiar with the stereotype of women as pretty things who go to college to find a husband, go on to graduate school because they want a more interesting husband, and finally marry, have children, and never work again. The desire of many schools not to waste a ‘man’s place’ on a woman stems from such stereotyped notions. But the facts absolutely contradict these myths about the ‘weaker sex’ and it is time to change our operating assumptions….an equal chance to attend the schools of their choice, to develop the skills they want, and to apply those skills with the knowledge that they will have a fair chance to secure the jobs of their choice with equal pay for equal work”.

Title IX became law on June 23, 1972. At that time, less than 2% of women participated in athletics. There were several subsequent attempts to exempt revenue sports from the impact of Title IX (Tower Amendment) and it wasn’t until 1988 when the Civil Rights Restoration Act was passed that it was fully implemented. 1988… By then I was 25 years old and had two children. 1988…this isn’t ancient history, in fact, it is barely history at all.

People still don’t get it. It isn’t about sports. When I hear the conversation that women aren’t as “athletic” or that women’s sports don’t have the same excitement, it makes my blood boil. I have actually heard someone recently say that “women have their place” and that it isn’t in sports known as “men’s sports”. When the Seattle Seahawks won the Superbowl and the press reported that it was the first national championship Seattle had won since the Sonics won the national championship for basketball, they totally disregarded the two National Championships the Seattle Storm has won. And I repeat…this isn’t about sports… it is about respect. As much as I love my Seahawks, it makes me want to never give my money or time attending or watching another Hawks game without first giving equal time and respect to the Storm.

Regardless whether you are a man or a woman, whether you stay at home or work a job, if you like or hate sports, if you are conservative or liberal, that isn’t what Title IX is about. It is about choice. It is about having the choice and freedom to participate in the activity you want to participate in, go to the school you want to attend, have the same chance to get hired for a job you are qualified for, or to stay home and take care of your family regardless of your gender. Title IX is about equal rights for all people regardless of gender. It isn’t about wanting to stay home with your family, there is nothing wrong with that and equal rights doesn’t mean losing that. It is about having a choice.

When I was in high school, women made less than 50 cents for every dollar a man did. Now, that is at 72 cents. Progress right? Wrong. That means for a man who is making $20 a hour that is $800 a week, a little over $40,000 a year… for a woman in that same job, it would be $14.40 an hour or $576 a week which is less than $30,000. That is a big difference.

It would be really easy to get complacent and say “we have come a long way” or “I am happy with my life now”. I look at my granddaughters and I want better for them. I don’t want to stop fighting until they have the opportunity to make the same pay for the same job, until they can be a NASCAR driver if they want to without being seen as a “pretty token who actually can’t drive”, until they can get Red Bull to build them their own snowboarding park and sponsor them at the same level they sponsor a male snowboarder. I want them to know a world where people give credence to their accomplishments, not because they are beautiful or because they wear the right clothes, but because of who they ARE.

So today, if you have a choice in your life to marry the person you want to marry, to go to the school you want to attend if you are qualified, or to participate fully in a sport, then take a moment to thank those of us who are in our 50-70’s who fought for you to have that freedom. Thank those of us that played sports in skirts because we weren’t allowed to wear shorts but we did it anyway. Ask us about what it was like, our generation won’t be around much longer to fight the battle for you. Take time to thank the men and women who believe the world would be better if we didn’t belittle half of our population. And by the way…you are welcome.

And then do us a favor…don’t stop fighting. Whether you are a man, woman, a career person or a stay-at-home caregiver… don’t stop fighting until we all have the right to live our best life, unrestricted by gender constraints, unbound, free and equal. That goes for the man who wants to stay home with his kids while his wife works as well as the woman who doesn’t want kids but wants to be an engineer, or a NASCAR driver, or a snowboarder… and for equity’s sake, stop disparaging women in sports or objectifying them. Treat them as equal human beings. Please. And go to a women’s sporting event, even if you are bored, just to show your support. Do it to support all those of us who came before… who have sacrificed and fought so that women can earn $0.72 for every dollar a man does. And don’t stop fighting even after we are gone.

An elimination diet for your soul…

Posted on January 22, 2014 by rangotti

Have you ever done an elimination diet? It is an extreme diet that people do when they are having digestion problems or allergies and want to isolate what particular foods are causing their distress. The dieter takes their nutrition down to the basics for a few weeks and then add in foods one at a time to see what particular foods are contributing to their physical difficulties. It is really hard, but it make so much sense. How else will they figure out what makes them feel good or bad so they can make adjustments? It is virtually impossible when you are eating all your regular foods to isolate the combinations that are problematic. Before people go to that extreme, they start with a food journal, writing down what they ate and how they feel, but when that doesn’t work, it is time for an elimination diet.

Right now with everything I have done in the past year, I feel like I have been on an elimination diet for my soul and I am finally at the place where I get to add stuff back in, slowly and deliberately with one thing being added in at a time. That way, I get to try it, see how it feels, and decide if it makes me feel good enough to keep in my life. When I got back, I started off too fast, trying to go right back to the life I had. But as Matt reminded me recently, I am not that person anymore. So after Jan 1, I have been being a lot more deliberate in my actions and in the relationships I am cultivating.

So what have I added back?

Skiing: I have been doing a lot of skiing by myself and with just a few very close friends. It has renewed my love for the sound of the snow under my skis, the smell of the mountain air, the breathtaking views, the solitude when I am alone, and just the whole body sensation of flying down a mountain. I love to ski. The last couple of years I allowed myself to get too wrapped up in the social aspect of skiing and needed to step away. It is really a joy to reconnect with the sport I love on its elemental level.

Yesterday, I got my bike ready to ride and I am going to ride either tomorrow or Saturday. The only thing I love as much as skiing is riding my bike. I don’t need to go fast, climb better than anyone else, dress in appropriate attire or any of that stuff that cyclists worry about. Getting caught up in all that made me hate riding my bike. I just love the feeling of being outdoors, braving the weather, feeling like I am one with the machine that is making me fly along, just pure joy coursing through my body as my heart, lungs and legs make me remember that I am alive. It makes me feel like I am a 10 year old. This time, I am going to take the advice of my friend, Cindy and make time for pie at the end of a ride.

Kerry Park view

I have been enjoying going to some of the great places that I love in Seattle, happy hours up on the Hill with Tony, going up to Kerry Park for meditation and reflection, riding the ferries, the beauty of rural Snohomish County, the jaw-dropping views of the Cascades and Olympics, cooking in a real kitchen again, sharing laughter and a meal with my roommate and her daughter, building a fire, chopping and stacking wood, and learning how to knit. These are all things I am keeping.

But it hasn’t been easy. I have struggled and even messed up a few times. The other day, I bought sheets and a blanket. Now I own household stuff again. I have to admit, it was a little traumatizing. It made me feel tied down. I made it worse when I then watched “Into the Wild” for the first time and it made me feel REALLY tied down. I have struggled with trying to work on a grant and a few publications. But mostly, I have struggled when the people who know me from my former life put pressure on me to be the way I was. I don’t want to be that person anymore. I don’t want to say yes to everyone and allow people to treat me badly just so that I won’t offend anyone or let anyone down. Because ultimately, when I act that way, all I am doing is letting myself down. That has meant culling some relationships that aren’t healthy for me which has hurt people because they don’t understand why I am not just like I used to be. It is hard not having any answers for them of when I will want to do things again, because the honest answer is that I may never want to do some things again.

Olympics and a Washington State ferry in the Puget Sound

Right now, all I know right now is this, I feel better than I ever remember feeling. I am making decisions based on strength and on what I really want to do. My past doesn’t control me, fear doesn’t control me, and my choices are my own. So I guess, the elimination diet for the soul is working so far.

Resolutions…

Posted on December 31, 2013 by rangotti

I have never been a big fan of New Year’s celebrations. I love the idea of spending the night with people you love, but I don’t have to get dressed up, blow noisemakers, and be out with thousands of other people to do that. I prefer intimate gatherings of friends, soft comfy warm clothes, good music, a fireplace, and some nice hot beverages.

New Year’s is just a day, like all the other days in the year. Our calendar date for the new year is arbitrary and there are other cultures that have a different date for the new year. I do, however, like the symbolism of new years as a time of transition. It is out with the old, in with the new. It is a time of renewal.

This idea of transition from one year to the next is why people make resolutions. I am not a big fan of resolutions either although in the past, I have always made them. This year, I am going to try something different. Thanks for the suggestion Deloa!

One problem I see with resolutions, at least for me, is that the resolution adds something I want to do onto my life, but my life is already full. Instead of out with the old, in with the new, my resolutions are add-ons and I have left out the part that I have to take something out. That is, I want to: lose weight, get in shape, spend more time with family, strengthen my relationships, etc. but in order to add something in, what I don’t consider is that I have to first let something go to make space for that new thing. I made resolutions and then six weeks later when I don’t have time for them or they are stressing me out, I drop them. Yet I still keep walking around with the baggage I was carrying in the past year.

So this year, instead of making resolutions, I made two lists. I made a list of things that aren’t working for me anymore and titled it Releasing. Then I made another list of Intentions for the new year of changes I wanted to make in my life. The releasing list has some relationships that aren’t working for me as well as organizations I belonged to that weren’t adding any value to my life, activities that I no longer do but still have gear for, etc. The intention list has the new relationships I want to cultivate, behaviors that I want to adopt, and activities I want to explore. Beside each item on each list I am finding a symbol or a photo that represents each thing. At midnight I am going to take my Releasing list and throw it into the fire, symbolically releasing the things that aren’t working for me, then I am going to throw my Intentions list into the fire and offer it up to the universe.

This might sound a little “out there” but really, is it any worse than making a resolution that I give up six weeks later? In the past, I have found that by putting my intentions, dreams, hopes and desires out to the universe that it opens up the space for it to happen. It doesn’t always happen in the way I had envisioned, but nonetheless, I can create the life I want.

Here is the key…whatever you do, whether it is make a resolution or throw intentions into a fire, you have to believe, really believe, that you are worthy. The energy you give off will come back to you. If you believe that you are worthy of happiness, love, success, abundance, joy…then that is what you will create. But if deep down, you believe something else, then that is the energy that you are giving off and that is the energy that is going to gravitate back to you. So whatever your intentions are, put them out to the universe with your whole heart. In a few weeks, if you aren’t keeping your goals or working toward them, ask yourself if you truly believe you are worthy. And if not, what is it that is holding you back?

“We can either watch life from the sidelines, or actively participate… Either we let self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy prevent us from realizing our potential, or embrace the fact that when we turn our attention away from ourselves, our potential is limitless.” ~Christopher Reeve

Happy New Year!

Life Divided by Zero

The Journey of Becoming Undefined

Tag Archives: identity