How to relax after a hard day’s work? Karagöz chortles and snorts

Posted on December 7, 2012 by lizcameron

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The Slowly-by-Slowly dog is the best one in the house when it comes to relaxing. He likes swaddling, best. M’lady could take a lesson or two from him – minus the swaddling, I suppose.

This month, Slowly-by-Slowly is taking on the topic of work – with and without the Turkish Karagoz puppet troupe that inhabits my brain on this road trip through one Turkish-American marriage.

The topic of work has been chosen for two reasons – one on the surface, and one deep in the subconscious, well, ok, maybe not that deep, less deep each day.

The little chorus of dancing lady puppets splits into spirals of two, holding up signs to explain each reason – but not before they do some on-air synchronized swimming-style dancing in their Ottoman garb.  (Let me tell you, it’s a strange place up here in this brain of mine).

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The little chorus of dancing ladies came to consensus, after a pitched battle, about what type of swimsuit to wear for their on-land synchronized dancing, veils optional.

Surface reason for focusing on the topic of work for the month:  Safiye Rakkase, the vainglorious dancing girl puppet steps forward to explain this one – saying “M’lady had the idea to join all the other ladies at BlogHer, and their NaBloPoMo writing prompt for the day is as follows: What is the best way to relax after a hard day’s work? That’s the only reason that M’lady is making us think about work this month,” she quipped, hurumphing off to find her missing sequins, “I wanted the skeleton swimsuits, anyway, I’m still pissed!”

Subconscious reason for focusing on the topic of work for the month:  Esma the hippie puppet steps up to explain this one, with a calm tone and a clear heart: “M’lady is having a mid-life crisis – and has finally recognized that she needs to re-negociate her relationship with work -and the function that workaholism has in her life.”

Safiye Rakkase was the sole vote for use of the skeleton swimsuits for the synchronized swimming dance performed by the little chorus of dancing ladies - she's always on the edge of the latest fashionista trend, along with Lady GaGa herself...

Safiye Rakkase was the sole vote for use of the skeleton swimsuits for the synchronized swimming dance performed by the little chorus of dancing ladies – she’s always on the edge of the latest fashionista trend, along with Lady GaGa herself…

As soon as Karagoz the trickster read all that, he just about fell off my shoulder guffawing at the ridiculousness of it.”Hah!” he screeched, “m’lady? RELAX? That’s an oxymoron – you moron! She’ll never do it!”

Hacivad Bey, the learned Sufi elder ignored this bad behavior on the part of Karagoz, and basked in the glowing glory of just knowing, deep down, that m’lady (that’s me, your narrator) has finally reached a point in her life where she can answer that question by saying something other than “by reading a statistics textbook, analyzing some data or falling asleep.”

Esma the hippie puppet, who has been encouraging m’lady to engage in mediation and nature walks for years sighs in happiness. She is sitting, lotus-style, on top of my head, happy that her rose-petal glow can descend upon me in this new leaf era.  Kenne, the Queen of Manners and Maven of the Maintenance of Ladylike Behavior, while stiff and proper, even admits that even a *proper* lady needs to relax sometimes.

I relaxed by enjoying some delicious bibimbap tonight…it felt good to relax. The puppets weren’t sure about the dish – they are used to Ottoman fare.  But they opened their minds a bit and enjoyed the mix of tastes in the end.  Good for them, those cultural responsivity-brave puppets!

Truth be told, I did relax tonight, after a hard day of emotional work. I took a nap, and then went out to a delicious Korean dinner with M. and new friends, and despite the knots in my stomach of stones yet left unturned, I felt a modicum of happy and good and silly and serious, and not a whit guilty about not working.  It’s a new world – and it feels really weird, but I don’t want to be anywhere else.

Although Haciyatmaz is keeping the Write-a-Matrix at bay in some far corner, the little chorus of dancing ladies, together now after holding up their two different cards, now have their own intervention going on.  Using their collective power formed by guiding hands, they have floated a coffee table book about the beauty of the Ottoman court my way. They are showing me the ladies of the Harem lounging in a relaxed manner on silken carpets with woven-tulip-shape filled tapestries hanging here and there. The sunlight is shining through the tall windows, with the breeze from the Bosphorus Strait wafting by now and again – a little bit salty. Of course tea is being served, and every need for each lady is being met by one of the Eunuchs.  “This, M’lady,” they exclaim in unison, “is how WE relax.  You need to join us next time.”

And maybe, just maybe, I will.

Posted in Visits from the Karagöz puppets | 4 Comments

Hard work: On the retreat of the Write-a-matrix and the victory of her nemesis, Hacıyatmaz

Posted on December 6, 2012 by lizcameron

une réunion pas stable

A dark army of roly poly Haciyatmaz warriors – laying in wait in case the Write-a-Matrix comes back with her own army of whipcrackers (Photo credit: bu.)

Now that I have challenged myself to carefully consider the topic of “work” as part of December’s NaBloPoMo, two of the primary metaphorical puppets that have inhabited my mind for some years now are popping up once again in earnest.  I think they are bubbling up with a geyser-like fury because the BlogHer writing prompt of the day is “how hard do you think you work?”

Regular readers will recall that on occasion, two or more of my mental puppets get into what I have dubbed “a puppet battle” (you can click here to read all posts categorized as such) and there is no more fierce a battle than the one in which the Write-a-matrix and Hacıyatmaz (Hah-juh-yacht-maz) are engaged in.  It may be an eternal battle, but I hope it will just subside into the occasional debate/skirmish that dissolves with subtle mediation.

Now, one of my Moms, who is likely reading this post, has told me that she worries about these Karagöz puppets in my head, with all of their battles.  She wants me to feel whole, not so fragmented. Of course, I can understand and appreciate this loving concern.  My take on it is that this puppet exploration is a natural and healthy part of the process of figuring things out that must be named and recognized before moving on. She’ll likely sigh, maybe shake her head, and chalk it up to personality differences, but the puppets and I are asking her to please not worry, I am on the right path, and it is a healthy one. Let me encourage her to listen to the other puppets in the Karagöz puppet troupe, who have different stakes in my brain, heart and soul.

Those puppets are reminding me that Hacıyatmaz and the Write-a-matrix are located in only one side of my self – they are not in my whole self.  Hacivad Bey reminds me that Hacıyatmaz (named for a Turkish children’s toy that has a roly poly bottom and never stops rocking, albeit gently) was sent by the rest of the puppets to tango with the whip-cracker herself, that Write-a-matrix.  You know, fighting fire with fire, and all that.  To bring you up to speed, the Write-a-matrix was the dominatrix-type who had me by the throat, publishing scads of articles for tenure…too many articles compared to what secured what I now know to be the bittersweet brass ring for my colleagues.

Ignoring all that noise from the Write-a-matrix, Hacıyatmaz stayed true to his mission, to shock me back into some better balance.  As a result, he decided to affix me with the creative writing bug with as much energy as I had devoted to my academic research. Not a perfect approach in the larger scheme of things as for a stretch I was throwing myself into both, but that approach did engage the part of me that was caught up in the frenzy that is the Write-a-matrix – and made it take notice.  As it turns out, it took about a year, my Dad’s passing – and a rotator cuff injury on my writing side to wake me up from the madness. I need time for my own writing work – and my academic work.

So, as I leave my Write-a-matrix in the corner and head upstairs into a more healthy, but uncharted territory, I agree that it is time for more balance (can you hear the cheers and huzzahs of the puppet troupe?). Hacıyatmaz is smiling now, but the rhythm of his roly-poly-ness is steady. You see, has been patiently waiting for me since the 6th grade, when I turned down the special art/writing curriculum as the cool kids made too much fun of me already – why be a bullied artsy geek, I reasoned without a second glance.  I could just lift that young girl up and shake her senseless, I am so disappointed in her for that. Hacıyatmaz has a lot of compassion for her, it seems, and just stuck around, almost imperceptibly, rolling back and forth in the corner. He doesn’t speak, he just rolls, functioning as some sort of Buddhist metronome from which I should take my cue.

Seeing me write all this, the Write-a-matrix screeches in a banshee-like wail and claws at the walls. It is beyond painful to watch, hear and write about.  That poor Write-a-matrix, she cannot bear this utter *failure* on the loss of additions to “what’s in the publishing pipeline” writing front.  She tells me I have yet to publish in the journals with the highest “impact factor” using more advanced statistical analyses. She tells me I am an academic nobody who has wasted my training, my potential.  For her, existence itself equals an unhealthy all-or-nothing approach to one tiny sliver of what life can be vis-à-vis making a contribution to the world. She is upset beyond red, puffy-faced bitter rage, as she is realizing that I now know I only need her in moderation, such as on a deadline, not all the time. She is also horrified to hear that I am no longer trying to make my parents proud by amassing an academic publishing record akin to their own, regardless of impact factors and fancy statistics. But more than anything, the Write-a-matrix is also afraid of what is lurking behind all of that whip-cracking workaholism that needs tending to, but that is another story altogether.

So as the Write-a-matrix retreats in despair and Hacıyatmaz rolls steadily along, I am reminded of a playground fixture I saw in my childhood – it was something in between a carnival tilt-a-whirl and a see-saw, and it required all the kids playing on it to balance just so in order to keep the spinning up at a fun – and reasonable rate. That’s how I will approach the work of writing from now on.

It’s a new world out here.

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Posted in A Karagöz puppet battle, Academic hell, Family Challenges, On writing about my life with the Karagöz puppets, Visits from the Karagöz puppets | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

When I found my teaching spark: A Sufi-like exchange with Hacivad Bey on the work of teaching

Posted on December 5, 2012 by lizcameron

Sparks

Sparks (Photo credit: Gnal)

 

Today’s writing prompt from Blogher’s December’s NaBloPoMo is: Do you enjoy teaching others? Talk about a time you taught someone how to do something.

 

Well, as soon as I read that, Hacivad Bey appeared on my shoulder, ready for a chat.  He is, as you may recall, the learned Sufi elder within the Karagöz puppet troupe that inhabits my head as I navigate my life in and around my sometimes-confusing Turkish-American marriage.

 

Eyeing me quizzically from atop my left shoulder, Hacivad Bey cleared his throat before speaking. “So, m’lady, today, you are addressing the question of ‘whether you enjoy teaching others – and a time you taught someone something’ – that should be easy as your work is teaching,” he said, the obvious paradox hanging in the mist of his slow, deliberate voice.

 

Before I could blurt out the instance I usually call upon to answer questions about how I knew I was able to be a teacher, namely the night I explained the mechanics of how statistical confidence intervals for means work to my friend John, who told me “wow, you are a natural-born teacher,” I paused, caught in a time warp. I didn’t even have time to remember the warm flush of joy that pulsed through my body as I realized that for one of the first times in my life, I felt truly confident and competent when it came to explaining this difficult concept to another doctoral student colleague – even before he paid me that compliment.

 

“Forget means, medians and modes, m’lady, forget confidence intervals that are mathematical and visual, and just start to tell me the story,” Hacivad Bey whispered, “not of what you are good at teaching, but rather of how you came to be a teacher.  This will help you in your new leaf journey.  It is, after all, in the telling and re-telling of stories, that Sufis find hidden gems – look at all of the wisdom that emerged from the talking friendship between Shams and the Mevlana Rumi himself.” Winking, Hacivad Bey said “Perhaps you should convert, m’lady?”

 

Ignoring his unusual effort at proselytizing, I just began to narrate – as if caught in a peach-colored isolation chamber in which my voice could and would not turn off…

 

“I never imagined, in a million star-scapes of light years, that I would end up *speaking* in front of a classroom full of people who were watching me, and waiting for me to get something going for all of them in the form of a lecture-discussion.  It is Zenne, the nervous Nellie like a bowl of jelly puppet, who reminds me that I used to sit slunk down in my wooden desk by the emergency exit, face covered to nose with my stretched-out elastic turtleneck, living in horror at the thought of being called on in class.  Even today, eight years into teaching, it is that young lady I have to assuage on what still feels to her like the death march to my classroom. “It’s ok, sweetheart,” I tell her, “I know how to do this now, even if I am a bit anxious.”  Zenne usually steps in to hug that little girl whose legs quiver in fear in these moments, as she is equally nervous.  You see, the only books on Zenne’s bookshelf have titles such as Travel to the most dangerous places on Earth (so she can avoid them), How to get out of a locked car that has plunged into a river and Ms. Manner’s Proper Guide to Etiquette in Every Worst Case Scenario, among scads of others.

 

And as I began to embrace Hacivad Bey’s challenge, nobody was more shocked than Zenne and my little girl self at the tale I began to tell.  I began to reflect back on the specific night in my adult life when I realized I was good at explaining – and teaching.  And that teaching can wield a great power when it comes to human connections and the promise of something positive, however small.  Let me tell you a bit more.

 

It is 3 a.m., and I am sitting in the courthouse in the South Bronx, near Yankee stadium – but the game was long finished.  The air is stale, the atmosphere is grey even though the smoking is out in the hallway.  Family, friends and gang posses alternately sleep and posture as they wait for their loved one to have their arraignment hearing.  Working the graveyard shift in arraignments court, where all new case originate in “the system,” I spent my “on call” night sitting and watching the circus-like goings on, just taking it all in.

 

Once in a while, one of the attorneys on my team (all public defenders), would call me back to the arraignments cell, covered in the vomit of people in withdrawal from this or that addiction, in order to assist in interviewing the next person up for their first appearance before the judge.  They usually only called me in when it was a “tough cookie,” as the most seasoned among the attorneys called them – she was an Italian-American lady with nerves of steel and humor to beat the band.  Her name was Amy, and she pranced about in her Christian Louboutin high heels and charmed the wits out of everyone – judges, prosecutors, criminal defendants, court guards – me – everyone.  I loved working with her, and I especially loved watching her build relationships with her clients, the people that were about to be charged with criminal offenses. She was magical in her work.

 

Usually, Amy did her own work – but I was called in by other more “green” lawyers to deal with people that were either too “dope sick” to talk much, too mentally ill to get much of what the attorneys were saying in legalese or too confused and sad and embarrassed to look eye to eye with a sharp-looking attorney in a flashy suit.  I worked with some majorly dandy dressers – male and female – and I often felt this helped the battle of winning over the judges and prosecutors – but lost the war of engaging our clients.  But that is another story for another time.

 

The young woman I had in front of me that night, no more than 16 years old, and being charged as an adult, had a great keloid-scarred welt along her cheek.  It did not surprise me to learn that “Jasmine” (as I will call her) was “in” for cutting another girl – the girl – she told me with no remorse – who had cut her own face.

 

“Girls,” my partner attorney whispered in sotto voce, as if that would help with engaging our client, “are the worst clients ever. Jasmine, let me tell you again – I get that you are proud that you got justice for yourself by cutting this girl back – but in this arraignments matter, you need to plead not guilty – you will do yourself a disservice if you admit your guilt – especially with pride.”

 

Of course, I understood that the exhausted and vastly inexperienced attorney was nonetheless guiding her the right way, to set up her criminal case in the best way possible-but between his legalese (which I have translated here into English) and his disaffected and burned out manner, it wasn’t working a whit. He had no idea how to get her to play ball.

 

Juiced up on fear and hours sitting in the stink of the human pen that is the arraignments holding cell (50 people in about a 10 by 20 room with one open toilet, Jasmine let rip a string of curse words not even the most hardened criminal could muster under duress – this was one angry – and hurt lady.  I kicked the lawyer out of the room and decided to level with her.  “Look,” I said, “I’m a White girl from the suburbs, I can’t relate to you at all with what you are going through from my own experience – but I can tell you this, I can tell you how this system works.  And you have some choices to make today that can impact tomorrow.  You can hate that dandy lawyer all you like – and you can hate me all you like as well – but please just let me explain to you how the process works here.  If you listen to me, and show me to the best of your ability that you understand, I will respect whichever decision you would like to make, no problem. And besides that, it’s my job, ok?”

 

Despite her side-eyed sneer over folded arms with sharp elbows ready to fight her way out of the room with me, she sat and listened as I walked through the process of arraignment – and beyond.  And a good thing started happening, she started asking clarification questions (although she spat out words like bullets, with hate and pain).  I learned that if you can ignore those bullets, that hate and that pain, and you can just get through by “starting where the client is” as so many social workers like to say, you can get somewhere.

 

And before long, she stood up, and asked me to stand with her up in the courtroom.  “I ain’t standin’ next to no stoopit attorney for my not-guilty plea,” she said, “but I be standing next to you, I get you. You gonna explain that to my family? They out there, I think.”  Of course, I just said, “sure, ok, let’s roll – and be sure to let me know who your family is, so I can talk to them after you have your appearance, ok?”

 

And that was all the thanks I needed.  She had “gotten it.”  And it was also the moment I realized that I had taught someone something – how the system works and doesn’t work, where you have some choice, and where you don’t.  What can help you, and what can hurt you.  After the hearing, and after sitting with her family, explaining it all again, I watched the dawn come up through the tiny windows at the top of the room’s tall walls, and I realized “I have the capacity to teach. It’s probably the most important thing I can do in this work.”  And that, Hacivad Bey, that is how I learned that I could teach – by teaching someone  that someone vastly different than herself could stay present, listen and do her best to explain what was next on the path, and that it could work if I listened, and if I used the right words.

 

And I have never forgotten Jasmine, and it is Jasmine that I call upon whenever I work with a really upset, challenged or challenging student in a policy analysis or research methods course.  And it works every time.  And I love it, I love teaching.

 

Zenne, the nervous Nellie puppet who shakes at nothing much at all as if she were a glass of jelly, well, she’s just in shock, suspended in time at this story. It’s too much for her.  Her loss.

 

Posted in On writing about my life with the Karagöz puppets, Visits from the Karagöz puppets | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments