Tired of narrative gerontology yet? Hope not, because I continue to read...
My latest thought is about the relationship between our bodies and our stories. It is impossible to separate our experiences from our bodies. After all, without a body we would not "be." In that way, our body is the setting for our life story and the changes of our bodies, the changing setting, one of the storylines.
I can think of only a few times when the condition of my body was noticeable to me. One was during my first pregnancy. I was quite pregnant and had gone to lunch with a group of friends. We were shown to a booth in the restaurant and I realized that I could not comfortably fit my belly into the space. I suddenly became aware of my body in a way I had not considered before. I knew I was pregnant, I was gaining weight. I knew that I was wearing differernt clothes to accomodate the changing shape. But, I had not considered it on a day to day basis.
The other time was when I fell skiing and injured my knee. The moment of awareness was as I was falling and thinking, "My knee is not supposed to move in that direction." It was a short, but intense moment of realization. My body was doing something I did not want it to do. The feeling was different from the frustration of being unable to make my body do what I want, it was if I was suddenly aware of my body as separate from me.
With age it seems we become more aware of our body, its functioning or not. It becomes more a focus of our stories. The changes in our body force us to focus on our identity in a new way. Am I the same person in a different body, or do I change in some way as my body changes?
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
The rise of the introvert?
In an interesting parallel to the hoopla around the release of Cain's book, "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Won't Stop Talking," Eric Klinenberg has just released, "Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone." Klinenberg, a sociologist, garnered a great deal of attention a few years ago for his book, "Heat Wave," chronicling the effects of a massive heat wave on the citizens of Chicago. Many, if not all, of the fatalities in that disaster were people living alone. I don't know if that is what piqued his interest or not, but it seems to make sense.
I read a discussion their discussion of the book in the Chronicle of Higher Education. More interesting to me than the notion that people might enjoy living alone, was the apparently "erroneous" statistic about the social isolation of Americans based on the 2004 General Social Survey. I remember when this came out, the finding that over a quarter of Americans are socially isolated. Turns out that the number pulled from the survey, while correct, is extremely volatile and usually ranges around 10%. In addition, there are other, more reliable measures and questions, that put the social isolation mark lower than 25%, too. But, the number fed into our fears that technology was driving people apart, that the social fabric of our society was disintegrating (re: Putnam's Bowling Alone.)
I heard part of an interview with Klinenberg on the Diane Rehm show today. He points out how the proportion of people living alone has increased and how the satisfaction of those people has increased, too.
I find it interesting that both books should premiere nearly simultaneously--what is the link between introversion and living alone? Are we seeing an "introvert backlash"? Are the quiet people starting to speak up?
Not sure if this link will work...here is the Chronicle article
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Case-for-American/130480/
Here is an essay by Klinenberg:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/living-alone-means-being-social.html
Here is the interview with Diane Rehm:
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-02-06/eric-klinenberg-going-solo-extraordinary-rise-and-surprising-appeal-living-alone
I read a discussion their discussion of the book in the Chronicle of Higher Education. More interesting to me than the notion that people might enjoy living alone, was the apparently "erroneous" statistic about the social isolation of Americans based on the 2004 General Social Survey. I remember when this came out, the finding that over a quarter of Americans are socially isolated. Turns out that the number pulled from the survey, while correct, is extremely volatile and usually ranges around 10%. In addition, there are other, more reliable measures and questions, that put the social isolation mark lower than 25%, too. But, the number fed into our fears that technology was driving people apart, that the social fabric of our society was disintegrating (re: Putnam's Bowling Alone.)
I heard part of an interview with Klinenberg on the Diane Rehm show today. He points out how the proportion of people living alone has increased and how the satisfaction of those people has increased, too.
I find it interesting that both books should premiere nearly simultaneously--what is the link between introversion and living alone? Are we seeing an "introvert backlash"? Are the quiet people starting to speak up?
Not sure if this link will work...here is the Chronicle article
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Case-for-American/130480/
Here is an essay by Klinenberg:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/living-alone-means-being-social.html
Here is the interview with Diane Rehm:
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-02-06/eric-klinenberg-going-solo-extraordinary-rise-and-surprising-appeal-living-alone
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Reading and Living
The chapter I've just finished in Reading Our Lives was titled, "Reading Literature: The Interpretation of Text." The gist of the discussion was, how is the work we do creating and "reading" our own life story like reading a novel? Or is it? One idea I found interesting was viewing reading as a constructive act. In this view, the reader constructs meaning from the text, there is nothing actually "there" until we read it and interpret it for ourselves. Of course, this means that every reader will take a different view of the text, interpret it slightly differently. There seems to be a lot of discussion about what is owned by the author and what is created by the reader, but I didn't find that all that interesting.
More interesting, though, was the notion that when we go back to a text, we will read it differently. Obviously, on a re-reading we have some sense of the arc of the story, so details that we may have skipped over now seem more relevant. We see foreshadowing in the characters' actions that we might have missed before. But, more relevant, is that we are different, both from having read the book in the first place and from the experiences we have had after the reading. We come back to the book as a different person.
I have three books that I have read multiple times: Two I read first when I was about 14, One is One (Barbara Leonie Picard) and Knee Deep in Thunder (Sheila Moon). The other is a more recent discovery, Out Stealing Horses. The first two I read multiple times after discovering them in the middle school library. I hunted for them some years ago and was able to find copies of both, One is One is out of print. Since then I have read each 2-3 times again. Who knows why they resonated with me so strongly. Both dealt with themes of loss and grief, of "becoming oneself", of discovering inner strengths and peace. There are a million coming of age stories like them, but these were the two I read and the two I keep reading. There is a familiarity in the story, but I still cry when someone dies. There are passages in each that I have continued to hold as touchstones, words that continue to offer solace in times of sadness and hope in terms of trouble.
More interesting, though, was the notion that when we go back to a text, we will read it differently. Obviously, on a re-reading we have some sense of the arc of the story, so details that we may have skipped over now seem more relevant. We see foreshadowing in the characters' actions that we might have missed before. But, more relevant, is that we are different, both from having read the book in the first place and from the experiences we have had after the reading. We come back to the book as a different person.
I have three books that I have read multiple times: Two I read first when I was about 14, One is One (Barbara Leonie Picard) and Knee Deep in Thunder (Sheila Moon). The other is a more recent discovery, Out Stealing Horses. The first two I read multiple times after discovering them in the middle school library. I hunted for them some years ago and was able to find copies of both, One is One is out of print. Since then I have read each 2-3 times again. Who knows why they resonated with me so strongly. Both dealt with themes of loss and grief, of "becoming oneself", of discovering inner strengths and peace. There are a million coming of age stories like them, but these were the two I read and the two I keep reading. There is a familiarity in the story, but I still cry when someone dies. There are passages in each that I have continued to hold as touchstones, words that continue to offer solace in times of sadness and hope in terms of trouble.
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