Taming the Tamer

Still from the tiny film Taming the Tamer (link below)

Here is a tiny silent paper-cut animation film I made a couple of years ago.
It is about taming the inner critic, though it often attempts to tame the good, while wild, parts of us.
I am in the process of setting up a more thorough YouTube channel, so I can share videos of my own, audio for students, and obviously suggest great talks and other resources on YouTube. I'll keep you posted! In the meantime, enjoy this little film.

Innocent Misunderstandings

Marriage, plus two thought-provoking blog posts thoroughly unrelated to each other, have me thinking about what it means to mis/understand, especially: When is it innocent?

A couple of nights ago, I started what seemed to me to be an innocent and quick discussion.

"We need to get this Air Conditioning thing figured out," I said. What did I mean by that? At first I truly thought I meant "we," but later, Dylan pointed out that I actually meant "you." So the innocent misunderstanding (or not so innocent?) started within myself, as some kind of crossed wires or self-deception.


Of course, I don't have to tell anyone who's been in a long-term relationship what happens next. All kinds of underlying goop, crap that's been free-floating, and our relationship is (luckily) free of a lot of this kind of stuff. 

Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

Christmas equals ambivalence for me, as I am sure it does for others.

And yet, this morning, I woke with the song "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" in my head. In fact, it won't leave. And I have to say I don't mind it, strangely, though I am feeling somber today and a bit tuckered out from too many (even if good) social interactions over the weekend.

There is something about how this time brings people together. Like overloading with food, especially rich food, I am overloaded with guests and invitations and visitations. I am grateful that I am on break, so that the energy normally reserved for classes is spread out into my broader social life.

And yet, I also have to say that I am tired. Very tired. Tired of rich conversations, productive boundary setting, even silly jibber jabber about this and that. I want to sink back into Jane Eyre, which I began reading last week (as Natalie assigned Wide Sargasso Sea, a prequel of sorts, and I thought it was time for me to read the classic, too). I want to get lost in my own writing, my own past relationships and made up townships, and I keep popping up, numerous times a day, into reality.

I trust, I hope, that others of you out there can understand this - that it is not a lack of appreciation, but appreciation of all the wonderful people in my life mixed in with a writer's natural inclinations - those which require lots of time alone, lots of time reading and writing. In fact, I'd say that both are writer's inclinations - the need and desire to really listen to people and be with them intimately, which contrasts - though doesn't always conflict, except maybe at this time of year - with the need to be alone and processing it all through writing.

What a conflict! I guess in a way I am grateful that this should be my conflict. Of all the things I could be worrying about, struggling with or fretting over, this is it. I don't mean it is little - it doesn't feel that way at all - but it is special and a privileged conflict, in a sense. That I have so many I love in my life and who love me. That I have plenty of rich conversations - and food - to feel overfull on. That the one thing here I am not experiencing, at the turn of the darkest time of the year, is lack of any sort. I am grieving, of course, always am from before Thanksgiving until after New Years, but even that feels like a strange celebration - I had people to lose, which means having to begin with.

That produces its own wonder in me.
Definitely a wonder-full time of the year, even if not always easy.