Mar 24, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes
Ramblings about Courage and Fear
©Vijaya Sundaram
March 24th 2013
My daughter is in the next room, playing “My Grandfather’s Clock,” which my husband is teaching her on the guitar, and it’s sweet to hear her trying to keep her composure while learning something new. She’s sounds good, very good, but she doubts herself at times, and that’s part of what she is learning to figure out.
This is because learning anything new is an unnerving thing for her in some ways, as it is for many of us, although we grown-ups have, through years of practice, managed to stifle that feeling.
Or, should I just speak for myself and my daughter?
Oddly enough, this is what makes her (and me) try new things, almost with a defiant upthrust chin, as if to say, “Well, so what if I’m afraid to fail at this? It doesn’t matter! I’m going to try it (although I might protest, weep and moan along the way)!”
So, she sails into new things now, with a much more cheerful, confident air than in the past, because the past informs the present, and the present gears itself up for the future. So, she is able to look back, when I remind her, and see how she’s changed and grown in all the things that used to cause her nervousness or outright dread. Children always want to triumph over their younger selves. That’s the only form of competition worth pursuing.
And I can try and give her a little bit of the wisdom I’ve gleaned from my own personal learning experiences.
Teaching myself guitar, finding a sitar teacher, applying to college in a city where I knew no one, except my family … all of these were things I felt proud of accomplishing, because I had conquered an unnamed, deeply buried fear (and I won’t bother analyzing why that might be — it might just be encoded in my DNA).
Flying solo to America only twenty days after having married my husband, who had had to return a day earlier on an already booked ticket (from having come to stay for a year in India) — that felt like an act of courage. Leaving behind my family and everything I had ever known, and flying far away to greet an unknown future in a new land where a whole new life awaited me was exciting, yes, and caused me a pang of pain, yes, but I felt quite valorous beyond all that.
Finding work in a place where I knew no one and nothing — that felt like a leap in the dark. Sure, I spoke English and knew rock n’ roll, jazz and folks songs, but that had nothing to do with the real America I met, so different from the America I read about. I remember I seemed and felt confident, but had nightmares those first couple of years. Here was a recurring dream: A faceless beast chased me up and down a nightmare house in my dreams, caused me the utmost terror for several nights, but one night, I had had enough. In my dream, I said, “Enough! Time to actually see this beast.” I turned around, and to my astonishment, the beast melted away. There was nothing to face. (How clichéd and symbolic was that?! That was quite a good nightmare, come to think of it!)
When I played music on the streets of Cambridge and in the subways of Cambridge and Boston in the 90s, and performed music with my husband in concerts, I felt brave.
Leaving my job after nearly ten years, and enrolling at a nearby well-known college for an M.Ed. in Middle School English was a leap in the dark. I had no idea whether the job market was good or not. Applying for a job immediately afterwards, learning to learn from, listen to, and teach, American teenagers, so different from any I had encountered in my own country — all of these acts were like falling out of a blue void, with a parachute, yes, but one that I wasn’t quite sure would work. It did work, of course, but I had to work harder than I’d ever done in my life.
Looking back, I remember feeling suffused with a blend of immortal strength and mortal terror. This new world, this new life was strangely scary and quite absorbing. I was fascinated and confident, nervous and diffident. I immersed myself completely in whatever I took on. And I felt strong and invincible through all the fears that seemed to dog my footsteps like that dreaded beast in my nightmares.
(Taking on new things does not extend to certain kinds of activities, however. I draw the line at skiing, snowboarding, skydiving, swimming and surfing. In fact, I will eschew many dangerous physical activities, because, for some unfathomable reason, strange as it might seem, I like being alive.)
Courage comes in many forms. We know that.
My daughter is brave. She learned swimming (which I can barely do), and went through it all, even though she absolutely hated it at first. She likes it now and swims quite well. She was nervous about learning to bike. She bikes well now. She was frightened of stilting. Now, she absolutely adores it.
She was nervous about learning to read, but she has loved to be read to since she was a baby. I read to her endlessly, patiently, lovingly. Suddenly, between five and a half and six years of age, she became an inveterate and passionate reader on her own. Now, she reads Asterix, Tintin, the first Harry Potter book (I’m not allowing her to read the others on her own yet, although she can), James Thurber’s short essays, A.A. Milne and Enid Blyton books, the Wizard of Oz, Heidi, and so on, apart from reading books about the elements, American history, astronomy, dinosaurs.
She was hesitant about learning Indian dance, but didn’t want to give up when she began. She is devoted to it now. She didn’t want to join the local Drama / Theater place (I don’t know anything about acting, Mom, Dad! she said. Try it. If you don’t like it, we’ll stop, was our response.) The result, of course, was predictable. She really enjoys her Drama Club. She didn’t want to learn guitar, although she has always been highly musical, and sings beautifully. She loves guitar now, and plays it well.
So you see, a pattern emerges. It sounds trite, I know, but seeing my daughter take on new things (with our encouragement) brings it home afresh to me: Face your fears. Don’t give up. Who cares what the world thinks? It’s what you think of yourself that matters most. Learning to love learning, and loving life matters most of all.
My daughter doesn’t like to quit, and neither do I. We hate to think of ourselves as quitters. We love to learn. We love life.
And she will go on to face more complicated fears than the ones I faced, because the world tilts always in that direction.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Daughter, #Learning, Face your fears, home-schooling, mother, parenting, struggling
Mar 1, 2013 Teaching and Learning
I wrote this poem in December, immediately following the Sandy Hook tragedy. It completely took me apart. I took refuge in writing a poem, because that’s all I could do, after those dreadful hours of grieving, to deal with the unthinkable. Please do read and let me know what you think.
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In Memoriam – Sandy Hook
©By Vijaya Sundaram
Written on December 16th, 2012
O hold on to your rainbows bright,
O Children of the shadowed Dream.
O hold on to your unicorns, for
Things are not quite what they seem.
On the edges lurks the dark
Wedged behind those pretty parks
Run, my child, before it leaps
That monster from the scary deeps.
Hold your breath and lift your wings
Catch the breeze under your swing
Jump up high into the air
Live your life, don’t turn a hair.
______________________________
Refrain:
Monsters come and monsters go,
It’s you for whom our sorrow flows.
But we’ll go strong into the night
And whisper hope to make things bright.
______________________________
This world is not for hate and hurt
This world is not for grief and rage
You should be playing in the dirt,
And love your happy, youthful stage.
We’ll whisper deep into the morn
We’ll sing a song of love for you
We’ll work for all who have been born
We’ll bring the dawn above to you.
Forgive us for the world we’ve made
Forgive us for the sins of trade
Forgive this hateful history
And show us love’s deep mystery.
___________________________
Refrain:
Monsters come and monsters go,
It’s you for whom our sorrow flows.
But we’ll go strong into the night
And whisper hope to make things bright.
_____________________________
Tags: #Childhood, #Original Poetry, grief, parenting, sandy hook, teachers