The Female Brain

I sat in Joseph-Beth's on Sunday morning power reading The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, M.D.

Basically you can boil down the book to one thing: Hormones made me do it.

And while I pretty much agree that estrogen, testosterone, oxytocin and progesterone run our lives, it's always disappointing to read. For instance, as far as midlife goes, Brizendine lays it down. Women, who were wired to nurture, love, put their families ahead of themselves, who avoid conflict for the sake of familial harmony as young women (20's-early 40's), "flip" to a "me first" mentality around perimenopause partly due to the change in hormone levels!

... it is all down to Mother Nature unplugging the "mummy part" of the female brain which she does by reducing the supply of hormones which promote maternal, caring, peace-promoting instincts. ... this change comes about with the menopause - the last big hormonal change - after which the brain is no longer subjected to the surges and fluctuating hormones which came with the menstrual cycle and resulting in moodiness, depression and even the ability to see insults when they were not intended.

... throughout the child-bearing years, the female brain is marinated in oestrogen - a hormone which effects the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, the emotional processor and emotional assessment and judgement area of her brain. The effect of this heightens a woman's communication and emotional circuits, giving rise to those maternal instincts which tend, care and do the best they can to avoid conflict to give the family unit the best possible chance of survival.

The menopause ... puts an end to the fluctuating hormone levels and with it comes a much more stable brain and a less maternal woman. A woman who, says Brizendine, is "less worried about pleasing others and now wants to please herself" and that may mean taking on new challenges or a new job and leaving the old life, including her husband, behind.

She added that 65% of the divorces occurring in midlife (aged 40 or older) are initiated by the wives!

This sudden need to find ourselves, to get out of the kitchen and into the world, our impatience with dependency of children, the intolerance for our husband's narcissistic habits might be tied as much to hormones (maybe more) than just co-dependency and dysfunctional childhoods, forgetting to go to the gym and not running businesses or cultivating hobbies.

It also hit me that if hormones have that much power, is it important to not make big decisions while in the throes of hormonal flux and assault? Or does it matter? What do you think?

Chris Botti... sexy as hell

Girlfriend music. That's what it is. Last night in Kettering ("The middle of nowhere in Ohio," as Botti put it), Chris Botti's trumpet soared. He lubricated the crowd with compliments, telling us that while he had played Carnegie Hall two nights ago and Montreal the night before, The Fraze outside of Dayton is his favorite touring venue.

Despite threatening clouds, the weather held, including some refreshing breezes perfectly timed for those moments when women wanted to lean into their dates a little closer. Botti isn't just a great jazz trumpet player either. Turns out he's quite the story teller. He treated us to the history of Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue" album before playing one of the songs, he talked about Leonard Cohen before playing "Hallelujah," the theme song from Shrek 1. He thanked the pope for the royalties he's drawing off his current hit from new CD "Italia": Ave Maria (the opener).

Botti joked with the audience freely, seemed perfectly at ease and humble about his recent success. He stood aside for lengthy solos by his ridiculously competent band members. Botti told us that Google brought he and his drummer together. His sole goal at the time was to find a drummer "good enough to piss Sting off" since they were touring together. Apparently, he succeeded. This drummer isn't just skilled, he has a drummer's wit, leading the audience along with quiet, patient beats and then suddenly speeding up, throwing a stick, twirling them. A real showman.

Botti sported a shiny brown blazer and dark jeans. Lights were kind to him. He calls himself "the palest guy to ever play jazz trumpet." His blue eyes glow.

The whole evening felt like a short trip to Italy, in fact, from cabernet to his rendition of the theme to "Cinema Paradiso." His trumpet-playing has this purity in sound, both soft and powerful, clear and resonant, emotional. So beautiful! Who knew trumpets could be so sensual? Ahhhh.

Obama-week

Yesterday I demonstrated that I do not have "the gift of helps." I volunteered weeks ago to bring a meal to the Obama HQ once the volunteers got into the swing of phone-calling and list-making. One of those phone calls consulted a made list and my name was upon it, hence I was called upon to supply the meal I had promised.

Now being female and a church-goer most of my adult life (female a bit longer than that, actually), I know all about the "make a meal" gig. It's just what we females do.

Unfortunately, I'm not one of those females who can also figure out how to get that meal for 25 made without also obliterating the kitchen. I planned a simple pasta salad (which could also be easily adapted into a three person vegetarian version for the left wing vegetarian volunteers), brownies, watermelon, salad and baguettes. Seriously, no coc au vin, or anything equally sexy. Just straight forward food.

Yet you'd think I had offered to bring a six course Parisian feast. I spent half the afternoon slamming cupboards in search of one large-ish Tupperware that suddenly "went missing" and I was convinced my family had conspired against me in one last attempt to coerce me to remodel the kitchen so that lids and bottoms would finally have a logical resting place. (If we hide the Tupperware she needs, maybe she will finally agree that this system of "close the doors fast so nothing falls out" is Not. Working.)

In any event, the missing Tupperware turned out to be housing Wii controllers (a use I put it to months ago, I had to sheepishly admit).

I went through about ten various sized Tupperware containers, cursing under my breath loud enough to get Jon to offer to drive to the store to buy me new ones (!). That shamed me out of my ridiculousness. I wound up putting it all in a big roasting pan with aluminum foil to cover.

Drove the stuff 20 miles to the office and found a rare parking spot right in front of Obama's red, white and blue face. Walked through the glass doors to be greeted by Obama himself, in life-sized cardboard. I announced to no one in particular that I had food! For dinner! A red-headed, white kid leaped from his station in one bound to help me unload the van. Hungry much?

Tony, the older gentleman who handles all janitorial work for the office, assured me that he personally would see to it that my utensils were returned to me and no one else. "Don't trust them young'uns ma'am. I gotchu covered." We giggled as we surveyed the room of barely-out-of-pimples workers hunched over laptops and telephones.

Spencer, my primary canvassing leader, has become the head cheese at the HQ (though he can't be more than 23). He yelled to me cuz we're BFFs now. I chatted up a few of the team members, we talked about the rising poll numbers for Barack and the good efforts everyone's putting in. At the exit, I nearly kissed that cut-out (swear he's hawt, that Obama man) and the equally middle-aged woman at the front desk agreed that it was tempting. She'd thought about it herself! (Are we all hopelessly flirty in our forties?)

I got it done. Dinner. For 25. Despite the absence of adequate Tupperware. Team Obama (the aggressively seeking volunteers staff) wanted me to make a weekly commitment to dinner. Uh... no. I think I'll do it when the mood and Tupperware strike me. In the meantime, I'm seriously thinking of getting myself an Obama life-sized paper doll. You know. For the campaign!

So what do you believe now?

That question is one I don't get asked as often as you might think.

One of my best friends, for instance, has staunchly defended me when I've been targeted as theologically dangerous. Yet she's never actually probed to find out what I believe today.

I told her once, "Please feel free to ask me anything. I don't mind sharing."

She replied, "I like you. I trust you. I don't ask because I don't really want to know. If you share something that I find contradictory to my beliefs, I don't want that to change how I feel about you. I don't know if it would. So I figure it doesn't really matter if I know."

I appreciated that point of view, actually. Mature and kind. And the truth is, my changed beliefs do impact my friendships adversely sometimes.

Still on the occasions where I've been asked, I do a profoundly poor (stunningly bad, inadequate, impoverished) job of answering that question. I fumble, mumble, stumble over big words and ideas, and offer something really lame like, "Well, I'm Christian, but not a Christian any more." Whatever that means.

On Monday, my therapist tackled the big question. What do you believe now? Do you have a Higher Power, anything from which to draw strength or help you define your purpose? Timing made sense. I was crying over things I can't change, won't change and what those patterns have cost me... maybe for good.

She flipped through her notes.

"You were an ardent Christian at one point in time. But you say now that you aren't. How is that for you? What is your spiritual life like now?"

"Religion, feh!"

She laughed. "I didn't ask you about religion."

Oh for the love of Schleiermacher! Hello. I tap-danced, sandwich-boarded, and Four-lawed that script: Knowing God is about personal relationship, not religion. Faith is about spirituality not religious practice.

But I knew she was broadening the search. What about Buddhism?

Ack! Sorry. Can't get into it. Something about saffron yellow robes and vegetarianism. When I read Buddhist writings, it's that hard-working place of foreign language learning all over again. Nothing familiar, strange accent, translation required. No peace.

Yoga works for me because it's the body not the mind, not even the spirit (though my yoga instructor might say otherwise). I just yield to it and stop processing. The readings are grounded in the real, not the virtual. I can do that.

Weirdly, I do attend church. Started up a couple of months ago. Downtown, inner city black church. I don't blog about it because it's not a project, it's a place for me to be in community. I do love it.

But the bottom line is, I don't have beliefs, I don't have relationship (with God), I don't have spiritual practices. And I don't want them.

For years Jesus stood in the gap when pain mounted, when I couldn't get the love I craved the way I craved it. I worshiped, sang, prayed my heart out, wrote thousands of pages of prayers and love notes, studied the Bible like my life depended on it (and in some very real ways it did). But the bottom dropped out.

I'm not in a search for meaning, for guidance, for principles, for tangible support outside myself (and I mean that humbly... I'm not relying on myself either; I'm bobbing along like a cork on the vast sea of life, letting life itself, and all of my interconnections developed over a lifetime, support me).

My mother prays for me.

My church prays and I hold the hands of the ladies in hats who sit by me and pray with them.

I find myself praying at the oddest moments... in the shower, sometimes in the dark at night, often in the supermarket when I'm alone. I usually laugh while I pray because I don't believe in what I'm praying or saying. It's reflexive. And comforting. And habit.

And helps.

And is a waste of time.

God from below is like that. It's not a head thing. Not even really a heart thing for me. It's more like dirt. Soil, out of which I grow.

Therapy

One of the interesting things about moving to the mid-west is the reaction people have to the word "therapy." Suspicion (what's wrong with you?), accounts of how unhelpful therapy was for X situation, skepticism (does it really make any difference anyway?), concerns about the money it costs, fears of quackery, and so on. Meanwhile in California, even the therapists have therapists! So yeah, I grew up assuming therapy was for the regular person wanting help, not just those at the edge of despair.

However, I have been to that edge. And therapy definitely helped.

I paged through some old journals of mine last week. An interesting passage jumped out at me. At a particularly dark period in our early marriage (when the ghosts of poor parenting past were rearing their heads in my marriage with Jon), both Jon and I went to therapy every week, individually, to the same therapist. At that time, we were missionaries, returned from the field for intervention. We came crawling home to California with bruises and skinned knees sure that something had to change for me to go back.

I wrote after about nine months into this program of therapeutic support and nurture that I couldn't figure out how Christianity helped hurting people like me, like Jon. It seemed to me that prayer, accountability, reading the Bible, going to church, taking classes about marriage, trying hard to follow the Bible's principles (however I understood them at the time), didn't add up to much in the way of real change in our habits of behavior, nor did any of these address the core dysfunctions that painfully played themselves out between us. In fact, I concluded, therapy seemed far more effective than anything I had encountered in my faith to that point. I admitted on those pages: I don't see how an ideology or spiritual practices actually create change in people. I couldn't see that the Holy Spirit did much of anything and yet we were attending a charismatic church, fully believing in that transforming power.

Perhaps due to my shock at having written such faithless words, I followed up those honest thoughts with, "But I'm sure that it is God behind the therapy that must be healing me."

Still, it felt eerie to read those words last week, over 20 years later.

I'm in therapy again. I call it a "mid-life tune up." It's not exactly that there are such huge obstacles to overcome. Nothing nearly as dire as my twenties when I felt like my world was caving in and taking me with it. Rather, I'm just stunned by the ship-wrecking marriages around me. I'm not stunned as in, "I don't understand." On the contrary, I totally get it! Marriages of 20+ years develop habits and patterns that become wearying burdens, deeply debilitating in ways unanticipated in the 20's and 30's. A feeling of futility sets in, a wondering at the future (how much longer can I do this? why would I keep doing this? I only get one life... is this how I want it to be? can I really forgive him or her for unfaithfulness? and so on).

The prospect of children moving out, leaving husband and wife home alone... well that leads many to the brink too. There's also the sudden awareness of self - like who am I? What did I want? Did I get it? What do I want now?

After my trip to California, it became clear to me that mid-life needs more than energy drinks, trips to the gym and hobbies. I want to be conscientious about the next 20 years... to imagine what it is to thrive, to watch the kids grow up and leave, to pay attention to my choices now so that I'm not unhappy about them later, to keep the relationship between Jon and me healthy and on track.

I've been going for a couple of months now. And I just have to say: I love it. Well, I love it the way you love teeth filling or weeding the yard or throwing up when you're sick. I love the effect more than the process... but I find that the process helps too.

I've begun journaling again (which is why you see less blogging). I've been paying more attention to what I think about and why. I'm 46. Mid-life is real. Mid-life crisis - I want to avert it if at all possible.

Obama Gathering: West Chester

FYI: Jon and I are hosting an Obama Gathering in West Chester this Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. If you'd like to come, email me: juliecinci AT gmail DOT com. I'll send you details, location etc.

Our goal for the event is to create some momentum in Cincinnati (especially our outlying burbs) for the senator. Hope you can make it!

Firefox 3.0: Hate the lack of colors and white space

Ugh!

Yes, the Awesome Bar is "awesome," I guess. I'm non-committal. If awesome is ever just "okay" and "somewhat awesome" then that name works... I suppose, maybe.

But I hate that the tabs are grey with black type: can't see the titles without lasik eye surgery! I hate that the cute little refresh, history and stop buttons are black/grey without the cool colorful look of the previous Firefox. The whole thing reminds me of Netscape Navigator from eons ago... or the current Safari, which is one Apple program I'd like to take out back for a visit with the belt in my hand.

I do think the "Clipmarks" thingy is made of awesome. :) So glad someone thought of that. My one praise for the new version.

Sigh. I want color! I want white space!

I want, I want! When I get something free off the Internet that is supposed to improve my life, I expect it to be all that, all about me and perfect. Is that too much to ask?

What a week!

I'm going to run down through the events that kept me off the blog this week, in the order they occur to me.


1. Tiger wins the US Open with two fractures and a torn ACL eliciting the highest TV ratings for daytime TV on a Monday both for cable and network TV. All those conspiracy theorists were silenced; Tiger really doesn't fake pain for sympathy or strategy. Why am I not surprised? Jason Sobel ranks Tiger's wins putting this Open number 2 behind the 1997 Master's. But when Tiger was asked if the Open was his greatest win, he said, "Yes."

I will sorely miss him for the rest of the season. I have Carson Palmer palpitations too - that nervousness for his knee's future.

2. Lakers get blown away in Game Six. But Kevin Garnett's teary-eyed delirious interview with Michelle Tafoya erased any loyalty I had to the Lakers. To see Kevin's pride in the Celtics' achievement was worth the west coast's humiliation. (And may I just add that I have a girl crush on Michelle? Is she not the best court-side, side-line, clubhouse interviewer in sports? And such a great voice!)

3. Jon's best friend in L.A. called to say his wife left him three weeks ago. Ugh.

4. Noah turned 21! He and his gf Amanda spent the evening celebrating with us. We bought the nearly sold-out Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition Box Set for him. Check out this hilarious article from Wired to get a feel for how the reactions to this newest version are hitting fans. (All message board addicts will recognize the archetypes!)

5. Johannah taught us how to eat vegan (or at least, how to eat her vegan brownies... which tasted really good!).

6. Jacob went on his first date (took his girl to a park for a picnic that he prepared all by himself... romantic that he is).

7. Caitrin spent the week at SOS (Summer of Service) at the local Vineyard. They assemble 800 sweaty kids from around the states to attack Cincinnati with love by handing out water bottles, washing cars for free, building house frames for Habitat for Humanity, and buying lunches spontaneously at places like Arby's for customers because God told them to. Yeah it's a nice way for kids to spend a week. I could do without all the hyper spirituality that seems to go along with it. Apparently this set of kids is convinced they are THE generation, the "generation of revelation," the one that the Lord will really use this time with signs and wonders, Hallelujah! Strange thing is: I thought MY generation was that one... Guess apostasy thwarted the big plan.

8. Liam is baby-sitting the cutest ferret to ever cross our threshold (well, and yes, the only one). Up, down, in, out, poking his long nose and slinky body into all the crevices of Liam's room. This furry girl is like a living Redwall character. Given Liam's obsession with that novel series, it's not surprising he's head-over-heels in love with this little doll. I have a hunch I know what he'll want for his 14th birthday in just over a month.

9. Jackie O meet Michelle O. Apparently Michelle's off-the-rack dress made quite a splash on The View. It sold out in stores and online within 24 hours.

And some people still think McCain has a chance to win....

Tiger Woods for President!

Oh wait... well, it's just I'm so caught up in emotionalism and the hype, the sense that Tiger is the greatest man today, based on his two eagles and that ridiculous birdie, and the crowds cheering... I just imagined that all that drama and emotion must mean that Tiger Woods should be president! At least, that's what I've been told. Excitement is emotionalism is validation of qualification which leads inexorably to voting.

In any event (in any golfing, football, primary campaign), just wow!!! Those last six holes of the third round, with Tiger grimacing in pain because of his slowly recovering knee, wincing away from the camera, walking up the fairways like an old man, while holing an 80 foot putt, a chip in birdie (as it obeyed the flag pole, dropping into the cup where all Tiger highlight shots are meant to go) and a final 18th hole eagle from 30 feet to take sole possession of the lead... well, if you love golf, and you love drama: today you got both! What a day!

So off to bed for me.

I won't be surprised at all to find out that by morning, Tiger is running for president, and Obama is playing his final round... They are both just stand out guys who do what they do extraordinarily well and never cease to surprise and inspire me.

Obama Campaign Calls on Volunteers

to assist in the flooded areas of the midwest. Using his donor list as well as the community blogs and his website, Team Obama is marshaling its people power to help out in the most vulnerable communities.

Read the letter emailed to the local donors here.

...the folks in Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska and Kansas are not only dealing with the floods but have been devastated by the worst tornado season we've had in 10 years.

If you live locally, please respond. The rest of us can go to the Obama website and donate to the Red Cross.

What a decent thing to do in the middle of fund-raising for your own campaign. I read at DKos that Obama will be sandbagging in Quincy IL along with the rest of the volunteer team. When I signed onto the Obama campaign, I hoped by putting Obama in office, we the people would matter in government, in helping each other across communities. I'm a bit shell-shocked that that possibility is already being realized and it's only June!