Of Dinosaurs and Mothers

I really wanted a picture of a maiasaura but unfortunately I don't have one. Maiasaura means "good mother lizard" and was named because of how frequently these dinosaurs are found in nesting areas.

Dinosaurs have a very specific constellation of traits that makes some animals dinosaurs and some not. Two traits an animal absolutely has to have to be considered a dinosaur is (1)being a diapsid (two holes in the skull not counting eye orbits) and (2) an upright posture (no crocodile-like bent legs for them). So when people ask if dimetrodons  are dinosaurs the answer is a resounding "No." They are synapsids (only one hole) with a sprawling posture...... but when someone asks me what a dimetrodon is, it is entirely too easy, because it gets the general idea across, to say "a dinosaur with a sail." Inaccurate yes, but we honestly don't have another word in the english language/vernacular that is more accurate.

Mother's Day is an odd day, because like dinosaur, mother is a vague term. It is a very precise term that means one thing. A woman who has had a child. And yet it also means someone who loves, who cares, who nurtures, who laughs, who guides, who sacrifices for her children, for her family, for her friends, for strangers.

This disconnect between the precise definition of mother and the vague all encompassing feeling of mother causes a great deal of hurt, confusion, guilt, and longing on this day that I'm sure is meant to be celebratory.

It's just really easy as someone who doesn't fit into the whole "woman who has a child" definition to feel that Mother's Day isn't about me.

It's also easy, I imagine, as someone who fits the precise definition of having children but feels lacking in that more vague feeling of motherhood to feel inadequate.

So that just leaves us in a nightmare tangle of unhelpfulness... so I would suggest that we dwell less on the precise definition of mother and more on the vague feeling. However, this often feels unsatisfactory because this feeling is a terrible definition. Unfortunately, I don't think motherhood can be defined in more precise terms without destroying that feeling, and yet this very vagueness means that when one person doesn't embody every word we associate with mother that's ok. They don't need to.

My mother, my sister, my two sister-in-laws, my friends, my aunts, my grandmothers, my friend's mothers, are all wonderful mothers. Some of them are good listeners. Some have a talent for giving good advice. Some make everyone feel comfortable. Some know how to get things done. Some are good at focusing on the individual. Some are determined.

What I'm trying to say is unlike the precise constellation of traits you have to have to be a dinosaur there isn't just one way to be a mother. And that includes who you're a mother to.

So I refuse to define what a mother is to me (that would defeat the whole point, besides I'm not sure it's possible) but I know that I love my nieces and nephews, and I enjoy watching them, getting to know them, playing with them, reading to them, and just holding them. I also know that there are people in my life that I care about enough to disagree with them, tell them to go to bed, and would (and have) drop(ped) everything for.

Happy Mother's Day and I'll forgive you if you call dimetrodons dinosaurs. For a more doctrinal focused take on this topic try Sister Eubank's talk.

Seeing Differences

A couple of weeks ago I spent two weeks in Korea. I haven't done much international travel (I'm not sure Canada before I was 12 really counts). I was struck by--you'll be shocked--differences, as well as similarities.

When we first got off the plane and my brother-in-law was driving us through the city I was struck by how absolutely normal it felt. Only when I focused did I notice that most of the cars were muted colors and small (not really any pickup trucks or suburbans).

Walking around at the park there were violets, dandelions, plantains and magpies... pretty ordinary. Although the magpies did seem to be a slightly different variety.

The people, well they looked Asian. After I'd been there a week instead of noticing that everyone looked Asian I noticed when people were white.

Seoul was a city with big buildings, crowded streets and busy people. And yet, they did a remarkable job with making green space within the crowded streets.

Rocks were typically metamorphic with some igneous thrown in where in the western US sedimentary with a bit of igneous is more common (well where I am).

We went to some museums filled with projectile points, swords, cannons, and groundstone. All things I've seen in museums before but the projectile points were ground instead of flaked. The swords didn't have cross hilts. The cannons were a lot earlier and included rocket fired arrows. The groundstone was different... I just don't know enough about it to explain it. 

And touring Seoul with midget kin including a baby, it was obvious how much Koreans as a whole love children, particularly babies. They all clucked at, and smiled with my baby niece... and yet as a whole there wasn't many children around.
I'd sum it all up, but the problem is some of it wasn't sums... they were differences.
I was fascinated by how much the same a completely foreign culture and country was, and yet because it was the same it was easier to notice the differences.
Is that what always makes differences more apparent?

Transitions

My sister wither her six kids is always talking about how rough transitions are on them. Transitions can be a wide range of things from simple things like dinnertime or time to go home from the library or bigger things like a new school year or moving. Her kids all react differently to transition but some of the "symptoms" can be more violence, more sass, munching, clinginess, or tantrums. Watching my sister's kids and other kids, I have come to agree with my sister. Transitions are hard.
This week I returned from a 2+ week vacation (visiting said sister) and have realized that I need to confront my future for real now. I was super grumpy and I was grumpy because I wasn't being productive (only consuming) and I realized transitions aren't just hard on kids...

 Is it any wonder the transition between land and sea can be so rough?

Growing into Similarity

When I was little I would always tease my mother because she was always cold and I wasn't. Now I'm always cold too and so now I often wear overshirts just like she and my dad do.
I went on a road trip the past couple of days and I really enjoyed looking at the scenery. The rolling hills of winter wheat and the winding mountain pass alongside a spring flood high river surrounded by pine trees were beautiful. I remember road trips where my mom was always telling us kids to stop reading and enjoy the scenery and I always thought, "why bother."
I think I'm a lot like both of my parents and some of the things that seemed different between us when I was a child now seem like they were an age thing not a personality thing.

Momentum

In a book I read recently one of the main characters was a career soldier (Dalinar in Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson). He is constantly thinking about how momentum affects a fight or battle. Once you have the momentum if you can keep it up it means that you will most likely win the fight.
Sometimes I just really don't want to write or work on whatever but often once I start I can get into it and it ends up being a good experience.
However, on occasion it just feels like I'm slugging through the whole thing and it's more or less torture.
In physics if you have a frictionless environment (these are only common in physics text books, not real life) once an object has momentum it continues moving indefinitely. When there is friction or other forces on the object it naturally slows down much faster, but depending on how much velocity and mass it has it can overcome friction (depending on the friction) for sometime.
So to return to momentum in life maybe when just starting doesn't seem enough it is because the task is not frictionless and the velocity of starting isn't enough to keep going.

Starting Over

This is my high school attempt at an impressionistic painting. I really struggled with the style but after getting in some of the colors my teacher finally said that in one tree I was finally getting it and I should use it as an example and redo all of my other trees. I did so and when I finished I showed it to her. The first tree looked oddly out of place. "Redo that tree" my teacher said, "but that is the one you told me was good, the one you told me to base my others on." I protested. "Yeah" she said, "but note you really have it, and that one looks bad." So I started over on that tree, and I'm glad I did. It was a lot better. 


This week I started working on a new database. I thought about adapting the tables that were already there but quickly decided it would be far easier just to start over, which I did. I now have a new database but without any data... I'm working on that.
Awhile ago I was working on a digital drawing and I asked my roommate for her opinion. She said that the cloak, which I had thought I'd finished, was off. So I avoided working on the whole project for a week or two and then finally went back to it, and started over on the cloak. It's much better.
Starting over is obnoxious, and something that is easy to put off or avoid but I've had great success when I do start over because sometimes it just needs to be done, even though it might seem like more work, but it is probably less work then patching up the old. Maybe the secret is knowing when you need to restart.

Allergies

"I'm allergic to boring."
The words, half-bragging, half-joke, made me think. They were probably written flippantly, just trying to portray that the speaker liked adventure, fun, entertainment. But as usual, I think too much. What sort of things are boring? Laundry. Washing dishes. Babysitting (unless it's stressful or a disaster). Data entry. Work. Digging. Reading assignments. School. Church. All of these things can be boring (not always but sometimes). Much of living a successful life is living through boredom (or perhaps finding the joy in little things so that life doesn't become boring. Even when you can find the joy in little things I still think that much of life can be kind of boring so it's important to learn to live with it. So if you are allergic to boredom, well maybe you should build up your immunity or something, because you aren't going to get far if you can't handle any.