Gendered Language

Found here

I am currently teaching a class this quarter entitled, "Medicine and Family Therapy." It is a primer on medical procedures and nomenclature for non-medical mental health providers. We talk about collaborative care practices, but the most fun in the class is talking about the actual medical procedures: colonoscopies, bronchoscopies, MRIs, PET scans, biopsies, and the like. Each week we hear two students make presentations about an assigned diagnostic test. They are to explain why a person would need the test, what preparation is required for the individual undergoing the test, what the test actually consists of (complete with online videos--you can find anything on there!) and diagrams, common findings, after care, and treatment based on findings.

Last Wednesday we heard 60-something Tom* give a presentation on Pap smears. It was a most engaging experience. Tom wondered aloud why, in a class of four men and three women, he should be selected for this presentation. Then he cleared his throat, started his Powerpoint slides, and began to describe the procedure in a halting and sometimes fading voice:

"Well, this is a procedure only performed on women. Uh...yeah, because they're the only ones who have a vagina. Um...but we all know that." He scanned the room to be sure everyone was following his comments. "Now, a woman has to be undressed for this because there just isn't a way to examine a woman with her clothes on." There were chuckles across the room and Tom turned a shade of pink.
"Now, uh...this thing here, (he pointed at a diagram of a speculum), this gadget is spring loaded and once it is inserted into the vagina, it pops open so the doctor can get a sample." The men raised their eyebrows in approval. The speculum sounded as if it had an element of danger, which they respected. The women's eyebrows shot up also, but in an expression of bewilderment as they probably wondered if they had ever felt the spring loaded device during their last pelvic exam.
"The doctor will take a wooden stick and scrape the cells off the wall of the vagina and put them on a glass slide. Sometimes she'll use a brush to get the cells." Students winced visibly as he continued. "I'm not sure how they get a brush or a stick up there, but that's what all the literature says, straight up." Everyone's forehead was now furrowed in confusion.
"Uh...this procedure takes between 10 - 30 minutes and there is no preparatory medication given for this. Uh...women don't need to take time off work after this and they can return to their regularly scheduled activities."
He bravely continued, "Now, uh...if the doctor sees some wonky cells, she'll get a black light and look up there so she can see them better. It's the same kind of thing that you use to grow African Violets."
"What?!" one woman whispered. We women looked at one another to check for the light of recognition in anyone else's eyes. What was this guy talking about? A black light? Wonky cells?
"Now, if you think about this, it's a really straightforward test. The doctor can be in and out in a short time." One man guffawed. Tom's rejoinder was an attempt to correct this poorly chosen figure of speech: "I mean, it's just an open and close situation." One of the women giggled, "It certainly is!"
"Well, I'm digging a hole for myself here, so let's look at a video of this procedure."
We then viewed a 3 minute teaching video on pelvic exams made for nursing students. We saw the "stick" and the "brush" and even some "Wonky cells" on the glass slide. As the video stopped, Tom turned toward us triumphant in his videotaped vindication. "Now that takes someone who knows what they're doin'!"
He looked around at us all. "Any questions?"
Dead silence.
"Again, I hope I got this right. If any of you women want to comment on your experience having this done, we men will be all ears." The women visibly drew back, incredulous. Trying to help his cause he plunged on, "I'm sure some of you who are older have had hundreds of these. You're supposed to have one every year if you're sexually active, so I know that some of you have..." he stopped, realizing that he was on thin ice again. "Um... maybe I'll just sit down now."
The class burst into gales of laughter, as poor Tom muttered under his breath, "Makes having to bend over and cough for the doctor a lot more tolerable after seeing this!"

What really tickled my funnybone, aside from his obvious nervousness and awkwardness, was how odd it sounded for a man--a non-medical man--to describe something that a woman would explain in such different terms.

I remember taking one of my Stepdaughters to the doctor for a routine visit involving another part of her body. I explained what a pelvic exam was like, and told her that sometimes the doctor wants to do the exam just to get a baseline. Trying to be the good mother, I asked if she wanted me to be with her in the exam room when she saw the doctor. No, she'd rather have privacy.
So it was funny to me to suddenly receive a call on my cell phone from her just a little while later. "Barbara, she's going to do that exam!" She sounded frantic. "Pray for me!" and she hung up the phone.
That afternoon I took her out for lunch and bought her a box of chocolates to celebrate this rite of passage. She had entered a new phase of life.
This is something that men typically can't understand, what with their rather mechanistic view of procedures and the way they are languaged. Hearing Tom's rather funny discussion about Pap smears made me realize that there are probably a good number of events that happen in the lives of men that I can't come close to understanding or languaging in a way that corroborates their experience. How different we are.
And that's the straight up.

Bobble Eyes

One of my now departed friends, Uncle Lem, used to sing a song called, "My girl has some big bobble eyes" in his Hawaiian accent. It was quite humorous, and I used to wonder what was so enticing about a girl with bulging "bobble" eyes.
Well, this morning I awoke with one. Yes--only one.
Here is what happened last night. After my Lasik eye surgery I developed a bad case of dry eye related problems. After two office procedures and one additional surgery, my left eye was rendered an official dry eye. I have to put gel drops in my eyes twice during the night so they don't dry out and diminish my vision. the downside of this, in addition to waking up to put in the second set of drops, is that the gel makes my eyes stick shut. I have to get up and splash water in my eyes to dissolve the gel goo in order to put the next drops in.
Last night I awoke from a dead sleep with the desire to head to the bathroom. Jumping up in the pitch blackness, my eyes were glued shut as I made haste toward the door going into the dressing area. For some reason, I missed the edge of Sam's dresser as a landmark, and I walked straight into the door frame. With my left eyebrow--BANG! I was so tired that I barely realized what had happened, did my business and went straight back to bed.

This morning I woke up with "an egg" over my left eyebrow. Fortunately you can't see it unless you get a profile view. I'm just so grateful that it's not black and blue.

So now I too, have bobble eyes. At least, one of them is.
;)

Looking for Love

Today is the day, some 30 years ago that Trisha, one of my dear friends got married. None of us knew that the marriage would end quite sadly, but it did. One divorce, and several years of healing later, she is finally interested in meeting someone. At this point, it would be great just to have someone to see a movie with or to have dinner with. She'd love to have someone come by and help her work in the yard--a good companion type of person. So this week Trisha joined an online matchmaker service. "If you can do it, Barbara, then so can I."
But Trisha panicked after she launched her profile with her picture. "There are so many wierdos out there. What if one of them is a pedophile or serial killer?" Of course, she is thinking of the most horrible outcomes possible.

I got several anxious phone calls from Trisha the day after she uploaded her material to the matchmaking site. "Would you please go into my profile and look at it to be sure I haven't said anything really stupid? Then, look and see who might be a good match for me. I can't tell."

It is always fun to look through these kinds of ads--if you're married. If not, it is most uncomfortable! I remember only too well, looking at the profiles of guys with another therapist friend who tends to be a bit suspicious, and who said of one guy, "Why would they even let someone like this on the website?" and "This guy looks like an ex-con." There were never any encouraging words from her. So thinking about this, I decided to try to be as upbeat as possible for Trisha. It might be harder than I thought, possibly due to the area where Trisha lives, and maybe because there are a lot of desperate dorks out there. Here are some of the remarks to introduce themselves or state their preferences that men wrote on their profiles:

Please - no heavy smokers, drinkers or heroin addicts, nut cases, recent parolees, broken hearts on the mend (this rides above all others - too much drama likely), women with a voice deeper then Johnny Cash's, cyber pretenders who fudge facts in their profiles, women with ugly tempers, bad table manners, intoxicated by divisive politics or crazed with emotionally based addictions!

Mike writes, I am a gentlemen cowboy. I dont play games and dont want any played on me. I am sincere and honest. I know how to treat a lady. I am trying this again to see if it it will work. Ask me anything and I will tell you. I have nothing to hide or prove. i am the real deal.
Easy for him to claim this, but how can we know this for sure by seeing him sitting on the couch of an obvious bachelor pad, wearing a bright orange shirt, and sticking his tongue out at the camera?

Here's another one: Handsome, secure doctor seeks a happy, intelligent beauty. I am looking for a woman who wakes up smiling. Good luck.

One guy whose moniker is, SailinOut confesses in his profile, My experience on the open seas has been limited to driving over the 14th Street bridge. So much for truth in advertising!

Another man whose online name is LakeHoundDog announces, Lone wolf would like to join pack! He then adds, Someone who can sing.. Out of key its ok. someone who can laugh .. even on a rainy day someone who will make love in the hay.. or keep the wolves at bay. This is a discription of you, this is a discription of me. A poet, he ain't, but I suppose that someone would find these comments appealing.

Then there is "Mr. Breeze looking for the wind." This motorcycle enthusiast is shown sitting on his ginormous bike with a Dick-Deadeye expression. He writes, I have no need for drama or a deep understanding of anyone's past, especially my own. If I could see past the numerous red flags that obscure the rest of his comments, I'd tell Trisha to cut a wide swath around this one.

So This has all been quite an interesting romp through singlehood once again. I remarked to Sam last night that I am more pleased than I can ever say that I am no longer single. Seeing that Sam said nothing back to me, I asked, "Aren't you?"
"What do you think..." he smiled at me warmly. "Just like I tell everyone, you are the same as when I first met you. I adore you, Honey!"

I wish the same for Trisha, who for now must swim through the seas of uncertainty. There is land after the many the long swim. Bless her heart!

Mourning Dove

Some months ago I wrote about starting to put out birdseed so Otis would have something to occupy himself with--lurching and swearing at the birds. We have attracted a huge number of finches, sparrows of various types, and now finally, a pair of mourning doves.

They faithfully show up every morning around 7:00, sit quietly on the fence while the smaller birds fight over the sunflower seeds in the birdfeeder, and the sprinklers scare everyone away. But our doves flutter down onto the back patio and seem to find something of interest, because they peck at various bits of things all across the cement.

These birds are quite large compared to the finches that we see here. And they walk with such a funny head-bobbing gait. The male usually shows up first and coos until his wife joins him on the fence. The whistling of their wings tells me that they're fluttering up and down from the fence, then across the back yard, and maybe then up into a tree nearby. They never squabble with other birds, unlike the crows or jays that frequent the yard. Our finches and sparrows have daily fighting matches over the sunflower seeds. No, our doves just go about their business, doing what they need to do according to the Great Black Bird Book in the sky.

Although these birds are sweet looking and shy, they aren't terribly graceful or bright. My father used to refer to them as "disaster birds" since they take off from the ground at wierd angles and a frantic speed, looking for all the world as though they may careen into a building or tree. Our little pair seems to be stricken with panic without warning, as they pick their way across the patio. But they are soon back, their sweet little brown faces looking at me through the wind

Turtledoves are the other name for these birds. Their loveliness has been written about for centuries in poems and music. Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote a lovely choir melody entitled The Turtle Dove:

Fare you well, my dear, I must be gone,

And leave you for a while;

If I roam away I'll come back again,

Though I roam ten thousand miles, my dear,

Though I roam ten thousand miles.

So fair thou art, my bonny lass,

So deep in love am I;

But I never will prove false to the bonny lass I love,

Till the stars fall from the sky, my dear,

Till the stars fall from the sky.

The sea will never run dry, my dear,

Nor the rocks melt with the sun,

But I never will prove false to the bonny lass I love,

Till all these things be done, my dear,

Till all these things be done.

O yonder doth sit that little turtle dove,

He doth sit on yonder high tree,

A-making a moan for the loss of his love,

As I will do for thee, my dear,

As I will do for thee.

It's interesting that in Bible times, a pair of doves could be used for a sacrifice in place of a lamb. There is something innocent and sweet about these peaceful birds that must be like some characteristic of Jesus. So in the mornings when I am reading the Bible and praying, their fluttering wings remind me of the One who was as peaceful and innocent as a dove.

Marking Time

It happened again this week. A 30-something former student came to see me on Wednesday to see if I knew of any job leads for him. Jerry is a slender young man who looked at me so hopefully. I gave him two contacts and he thanked me profusely. As he got ready to leave, I asked if I could pray for him.
After my prayer, Jerry thanked me profusely. Then as he was leaving he said, "The good Lord knew what I needed. Thank you. You are like a mother to me."
You might be thinking, How lovely! What a sweet exchange! But all I could think was, Am I that old?

I well remember the first time I realized that I wasn't as young as I felt. I was running a counseling center at a university when I was 36 or 37 years old and it seemed that I was finally getting to do what I'd gone to school to do. It was a real pleasure to decorate my first office: a couple chairs that I salvaged and reupholstered, a couch from the warehouse, pictures that I bought and framed, and a huge quilt hanging on the wall at the end of the room. This was both to make it more cozy in theire but also to mute our voices and enhance confidentiality.
One day I stepped into the waiting area to call the next client in. She was a youngish looking 18-year old and her intake form said that she was homesick--a typical complaint of the young girls that I saw. Rebecca walked into my office and looked up at the quilt. Turning to me with quiverling lips, she cried out in a trembling voice, "Ohhh! You remind me of my mom! Can I hug you?" and she burst into tears as she reached for me.
I could have collapsed. I had no sense of being old enough to be her mother, but I suppose it could have been possible if I'd had her at age 18. I don't remember much about that therapy session, but the idea stuck with me that I had aged to the point of being old enough to be someone's mother. A teenager's mother. Whew...

It is part of my experience as a childless woman. Having children seems to mark the time in a way that few other things do. Women often mark off time according to the age of their children at a certain time. I have no such internal timing system. There have been no "diaper years" or "terrible two" years, or schoolage years. Paul Rosenblatt, one of my professors at the University of Minnesota, used to mark time by the age of his last daughter. She was a love child of sorts--a second marriage for him, and his other children were much older. He was the primary caretaker for his daughter, Emily. He used to take her to work with him and his graduate assistant would watch her while he taught his classes. Then he'd return to the little cottage where his office was, and Emily would toddle around the place while he worked. It was like that every day for many years, I'm told. So when I asked Paul a question about what year something or another happened, he stood still and stroked his chin, looking into the distance. "Hmmmm. Let's see...Emily would have been about three at the time...and we would have just started swim lessons." I had never heard a man talk like that. There is a reason he was called a feminist, and I liked hearing a man being so unashamedly mindful of his fatherhood in this way.

Mothers can look at young adults and say to themselves, "He's young enough to be my son--the upstart!" I look at the same person and am more likely to see a peer. I can be easily intimidated by much younger people simply because I've never had the experience of having to take a child in hand--be they 7, 12, or 18--and set them straight. I am therefore, easily intimidated by "bad" behavior in younger people, even though by virtue of my education and clinical experience, I have knowledge of why they do what they do, how they are probably thinking, how they got that way, or what their behavior is attempting to accomplish.

I suppose I do have an internal time marking system of sorts. I reckon time according to the places I've lived, and as a single woman, there have been numerous apartments, rental homes, and condos. My home defined me, I think. So did my job.
One of my always single friends lamented after her hysterectomy that she no longer could mark time by her menstrual cycles. (What a loss...)


I mark time by the pets I have had: Barclay during my early 20s, that miserable little Luigi pit bull-terrier mix puppy (whom I was told was a Great Dane!) for one awful week when I turned 29, Tiersa during my Master's program, Zita from 30 - 46, Otis in my late 40s.

My walk with God has also changed according to decade: my teen years were spent yearning and longing after God, reading every religoius book I could get my hands on. 25- 35 were the most painful and tumultuous years for me. During that time my reaching out for God was more for survival than a wish for spiritual growth. My 40s brought a time of learning spiritual discipline and maturity--going back to many of the ideas and practices I embraced as a young person.

Now I am 51 years old. My knees ache sometimes, and I get out of breath when I try to climb hills. My health might be the new marker of time. My 20s saw me climing all the major peaks in Southern California. My 30s saw me through two stints in graduate school. My 40s were when I married and started a new career. And now...I'm not sure what my 50s hold. But I'm walking with God daily, believing that what I'm doing now was worth all the upheaval and questioning of my younger years.
It will be interesting to see how I define my 50s from the vantage point of being an 80-year old.

What is your path?

I teach a practicum class for all doctoral marital and family therapy students in which we explore appropriate, ethical ways to address religio-spiritual issues in therapy. It's usually a really wonderful experience, what with all the religious diversity we have in our program. There is a richness that can only emerge when there are differences to compare your own beliefs against.

Our clinic was in the process of moving to a new location last week, so our practicum class site was in an uproar. we had no DVD player and there were boxes stacked up around the room. Students are required to share at least three videotapes of themselves doing therapy with clients, in which they explore or somehow address spiritual practices or beliefs of their clients. Well, it just wasn't going to happen in that mess of a place we had last week. So thinking quickly and creatively, I asked students if they would be willing to share their own spiritual journey up to that point. There were only six of us present, and it seems that everyone was in the mood for opening up.

One after another stammered through stories that included incredible pain and loss, confusion, family trauma and breakups, and uncertainty about organized religion. There were lots of tears. A student would confess, "I've never said this to anyone before--I've been so mixed up and ashamed..." only to have another student tag onto their comment with a similar story of their own. We all shed tears at one point or another. I found it incredibly moving. Students divulged beliefs that to me are heretical, but that have real meaning for them. Yet somehow, it was clear that they are all reaching forward toward God in one way or another. And everyone present was respectful and eager to hear their stories.

As we were ending class two students pointed out that I had not shared my spiritual journey. Would I be willing to talk about this to the class next week? How could I say no?

Surprisingly (to me), I cried all the way home. As I reflected on my spiritual journey, I could see that the times of the greatest spiritual learning were the times when I was suffering the most. I wonder if that is how it is with most people. There is something about feeling helpless and overwhelmed with pain that makes a person lean on God. Maybe, it makes us cling to God because there is no one else. The review of the losses and disappointments was quite painful.

Tonight on the way home from work, I talked aloud, preparing to tell the students my story tomorrow night. Pain is awful. Yet it is also the vehicle for God to become real to many people. I am grateful, even as I lick my wounds.

We Launch Away

Found here

I have rarely been so taken by song lyrics as I have by these:

There is a land of pure delight,Where saints immortal reign,

Infinite day excludes the night,And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides,And never withering flowers:

Death, like a narrow sea, dividesThis heav’nly land from ours.
Sweet fields beyond the swelling floodStand dressed in living green:

So to the Jews old Canaan stood,While Jordan rolled between.
But timorous mortals start and shrinkTo cross this narrow sea;

And linger, shivering on the brink,And fear to launch away.

O could we make our doubts remove,Those gloomy thoughts that rise,

And see the Canaan that we loveWith unbeclouded eyes!
Could we but climb where Moses stood,And view the landscape o’er,

Not Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood,Should fright us from the shore.

Written by Isaac Watt in 1707, this song captures the reliance on the forward-looking attitude of the settlers in America. Life expectancy was much shorter than it is today: 35 - 40 at the most. I would be dead by now, were I a Puritan.

Going back through the old cemeteries of New England, the focus of people on the heavenly realm was readily evident. Death was a daily experience. So many women died in childbirth. A simple cold could progress to pneumonia and death, without antibiotics. A puncture wound from a nail would turn into lockjaw and subsequent death. It was not infrequent to sit at the bedside of people who were dying, without the technology that we have today. It was a process of fever, delirium, coma, and death. People could just drift off to "eternal rest." Therefore, these individuals realized that it was important to focus on what came after death in order to survive emotionally.

This is the context of Isaac Watt's lyrics.

It is also quite possibly why I feel closer to God at a funeral than almost at any other time. The current chapter of the story is over. The little soul is resting until the Resurrection, when they shall stand in the sight of God. Or, as our Pilgrim parents believed, "launched away."

I've been driving around singing this along with the recording of Early American hymns that has this on it. Every day, my heart swells and I too, become future-oriented. What we experience here isn't the end of the story. While our Puritan parents were living in the most austere circumstances and dying quickly from now-treatable medical problems, they learned to look forward. We too, gain much for looking for that Great Day. May we not be timorous souls, but hearty lives, straining ahead for that perfect Land.

Say that again?

While I was in Puerto Rico, I ended up having to grade papers for a couple days so I could get my grades turned in on time. As I was reading a paper for my child abuse and family violence course, I came across this gem that cracked me up:

"Doing the web search for news items about elderly persons who abuse children was difficult. I found an article that told about a man who was convicted for fondling his gentiles in front of a minor."

Imagine that!

Relaxation

The view from our 18th floor hotel room at the Caribe Hilton, San Juan

We have been in Puerto Rico these last 10 days or so. I have never needed a vacation like as badly as I did when we came. Can't remember when I've slept so much or so hard, and have been able to do anything or nothing. As I sit here on the balcony of the Rincon Beach Resort and Hotel, I am looking out onto a turquoise ocean, white sand, and beautiful palm trees lazily moving with the ocean breeze. There is an infinity pool, several cabanas, and acres of abandoned beaches stretching in either direction.

We spent six days with Sam's family over on the East side of the island, then three days at the Caribe Hilton in San Juan. I have never enjoyed a place like that hotel and Old San Juan. If you would like to see pictures of our trip, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/HernandezHouse08/PuertoRico2010# and double click on the first picture. You can look through and see where we've been and some of the sights so far. I am just far too lazy just now to try to upload these pictures here.

El Morro sentry tower at the gate of Puerto Rico, Old San Juan

I think that I'm even getting a hint of color in my cheeks and arms. It is rare to find someone more white than I am, so this is gratifying. When I left work at the last day before vacation, the Chair of my department intoned, "You need to be outside more, Barbara." Then Sam's auntie told me the same thing. Of course, the girls have always thought that I'm hilariously pasty-faced, so being outside in the sun may give me an advantage in more ways than I ever considered!
I think we're going kayaking in the ocean today, around the bends and over the backs of fish. The ocean is so clean here that one can look down about 4 feet and see fish swimming around, stones, shells, etc. It is truly beautiful.

One of the things that Sam told me when we bought our house is that he'd love to have it decorated like a Puerto Rican house. I had no idea of what that meant until I got here. But once here, and into several homes and lots of buildings, I am thinking of what would work with our space and belongings...the painting and redesign will really be fun for me. The observation tower in the Rain Forest Preserve

We will be leaving Rincon on Sunday morning, heading back to Levitown to have one last family bash before flying out on Monday morning from San Juan. We are getting weary of life away from the predictability of our own home environment, but it is doing us a world of good to be here. I will truly feel sad as I leave this magical place. We have helped the economy here considerably, and I feel as though I am leaving a pint of blood here--in the stomachs of mosquitoes and no-seeums that have fallen down my shirt and tortured my extremities since I've been here. There is just no lady-like way to rake at a patch of six bites over my "angel bone" on my back!

Porta Coeli, ca. 1609. Oldest church in the Western Hemisphere

The next few months will not be as vexing and stressful as the last few have been, so I hope to be more visible here after next week. Thanks for standing by.

A Sabbath day photo shoot

Here are some pictures that I took last week while I was out meandering about with Mother. I hope you enjoy the sights.

This is our city hall, framed by these lovely orange daisies, with Mount St. Bernardino in the background.

This calla lily is in my front garden, just outside the front door walkway.

These ranunculus were delicate and gorgeous, as are the following--all in one huge flowerbed outside our university athletic center.

Here is Mother looking up as she felt the first drops of rain that almost drowned us a few moments later.

Iceland poppies

These palms are famous in the Inland Valley region where I live. They were planted originally (probably a good 90 years ago) on the outside edges of orange groves, just to identify the end of one person's acerage and the beginning of another's. There are many of these rows of silent gians in our area--always aresting to look at, especially against the stormy sky.

Outside Mission Asistencia--one of the old California Missions.

The old mission.

It was a wonderful meander. I hope to go again soon.