Sandra Tayler

Grandma’s House

By / June 9, 2016 / 1 Comment

It is a house made out of spare parts. I can see this in everything from the doors which are painted black plywood with garden gate handles and hinges to the roof which was made from reclaimed airplane metal. Shale rocks are found in the construction and the walkways, topped by logs probably cut from trees on the property itself. It is a hodge podge place with odd nooks and strange arrangements. Yet the hands which made this house loved it and they had a sense of beauty. It shows everywhere. No wonder that my Grandma, a collector of beautiful things, fell in love with the house. The fact that it constantly needed repair and alteration made it a perfect place for my Grandpa as well, he tinkered with everything.

Quincy house
I’ve written about the house before. It has been two years since I wrote that post. Grandma passed away last October and the time has come to clean out her house and get it ready to sell. I am here this weekend to work and to say goodbye. I walked the house today remembering things as they were and seeing things as they are.

I love the quirks of this house, like the skylight which is constructed of sturdy plastic that is ruffled in the same way that those potato chips with ridges are.
Sky light
I remember the sound of rain hitting this plastic. I also remembered when it started to leak around the edges so layers of plastic sheeting were installed inside and on the roof in an attempt to preserve the light while keeping out the wet.

The rain is slowly winning. It turns out that airplane metal becomes brittle as it ages over sixty years or more. Then it cracks. Most rooms in the house have evidence of water damage. A mildew smell here, stained wallpaper there. Right next to the things I love, I see reminders why we have to let the house go. The house is beginning to fall apart, and it can only be rescued by someone who is willing to pour money into fixing it up. That person has to be willing to live in it and notice the leaks the moment they happen instead of months later when the damage has spread out from the initial spot. No one in our extended family can do this.

I ran my hands over the walls of the rock room. I wish the photograph could catch the shimmer of these rocks. I’ll try again tomorrow with different lighting. Each rock is beautiful, obviously selected carefully and placed by hand.
Rock WallsI remember how warm the wall became when there was a fire in the fireplace on the other side. I stood there as a child, after playing in the snow, holding my hands and face near the wall to get warm again. Grandma would hang our gloves from the wire to dry them out.

In the rock room I noticed this cabinet, which is almost certainly my Grandpa’s work.
Victrola doors
It was exactly like him to pull doors off an old Victrola and put them into use. The Victrola itself is nowhere to be found.

Every room has a mix of eras. Kitchen fixtures from the sixties hold dishes from the eighties and a wall clock that is pure digital modern. Sometimes I can tell which things my Grandparents added and what things are original. I think the front door is original.
Front Door
It looks hand crafted from multiple pieces of wood. It is solid, with a heft when it opens and closes. Next to it you can see a sample of the gorgeous cedar wood paneling that lines several rooms in the house. It is all cut and laid diagonally in the front room so the eye is drawn to the second floor balcony with it’s sky light.

The whole house is beautiful, strange, old, new, damaged, beloved.
And we have to sell it.
Probably to someone who wants the land, not the house. Even if we do find a buyer who will love the house and fix it up, the house will no longer be ours. The process of fixing it up would change it, remove evidence of my Grandparents. We’d have no right to say anything or see the place again. This weekend is my last chance to be with the house. I want to sit with it in silence, touch the walls, remember the things Grandma scolded me for, remember when Grandpa taught me how to use a lathe and how Grandma scolded him for that. I want to sit with the memory of rolling toys down the slanted space under the stairs and of the games I used to play. My parents are hoping that it doesn’t rain thus leaking on the folks who are sleeping at the house, I don’t want anyone to get wet, but I would love to hear the rain on the roof one more time.

Internet Justice

By / June 5, 2016 / 3 Comments

I read The Crucible in high school. I might even have read it the same year that I read Lord of the Flies. I remember the teacher leading us carefully through discussions of mob justice and leadership through popularity. We, earnest honors students that we were, all spoke solemnly about how terrible it was to have people convicted and punished based on the voice of the crowd. It was a different year when I read The Scarlet Letter and learned about the pillory, a place of public shaming for sinners. I remember thinking how glad I was to not live in a place where mob justice and public shaming were normal.

In history class I learned about civil rights and why people must speak out. I learned about oppressed people who refused to obey laws that they felt were wrong. By doing so, they required that the oppression become physical and public instead of social and quiet. This forced those in power to confront their own behavior. And by “those in power” I’m talking about all the people who didn’t have lesser status under “Separate But Equal” and Jim Crow laws.

These days I look at the news and see inequality. I see people getting lighter sentences than seems fair for the damage they caused. I see others ending up dead for small infractions or no infractions at all. I notice that there is a correlation between skin color and severity of punishment and a similar correlation tied to social class. Our justice system fails. Often. It is difficult to create a system that is truly equitable when all of the people in it are imperfect at best, and biased at worst. Yet there is something lovely in what the founders of my country attempted. Instead of judgement from on high, there is a small group of flawed people who try their hardest to be impartial as they examine evidence. And they are instructed “innocent until proven guilty.” That ideal is not always applied, but it is supposed to be there.

This is why I am sad, scared, and worried any time I see a hue and cry on the internet. I see faces and crimes published. I see people gathering in crowds to throw virtual stones because someone else cried “sinner!” I’ve read accounts where a person loses their income and has to physically relocate to escape harassment, all because of an ill-considered tweet. I saw when parents were tried in the court of public opinion because somehow their parenting decisions ended up on the news. I know that, historically, handling things quietly was how oppression lasted so long. But most of the time nothing is made better by a mob. There is a world of difference between calling out an elected official because of bad behavior, and a thousand people posting hateful messages on the Facebook wall of a private individual.

The thing that concerns me most about internet mobs (which can turn into physical mobs) is there is no pause. People are angry and they feel something must be done NOW. They know that the justice system is slow and sometimes inadequate, so they feel they must do something themselves. They, or rather we, I am not innocent of this. No one is who has ever been angry on the internet. We latch on to the first action we can think of which vents feelings and feels relevant. This is usually public shaming. So few people pause to think: “Is it my job to judge this individual case?” “What am I really angry at?” “What actions will really solve this injustice I am angry about?” Instead of anger applied to concerted effort for systemic change, the internet hoists up an example. A supposed perpetrator is displayed in public like the pillory, or heads on a pike, or the thief dying in the crow cage. The example sates the anger for a while, and most everyone goes back to what they were doing before. The system rolls on unchanged.

We need fewer mobs and more resolute anger. There are absolutely things that are deserving of anger. And sometimes an example is a useful lever for social change, but most often this is the case when the example is selected by due process or at least careful research and gathering of evidence. Resolute anger is smart and patient. It is loud and unruly when that is necessary in defense of the oppressd. But more often it acts firmly, quietly, carefully to change the very social structures that support injustice. It acts within the systems whenever possible, because the intent is to make the rules better, not to create lawlessness. And when the systems are completely hostile, civil disobedience comes before rioting. None of this bears much resemblance to clicking “share” to someone else’s angry post without looking into the issue yourself. If you’re going to be angry about something, be angry enough to do research. Be angry enough to donate to organizations that you feel are actually working to solve the problem. Be angry enough to start an organization if you can’t find one. Be angry enough to do more than write a sentence or a paragraph. And if you aren’t angry enough to put in this much effort, maybe you should turn your attention to things that matter to you more instead of just adding to the sound and fury which signifies nothing.

Observations at Salt Lake Gaming Con

By / June 3, 2016

This is an event that is obviously created out of love and enthusiasm. I can feel that when I walk in the hall. I can also feel that it is a new show, only two years old. It hasn’t yet settled into what it will become. My personal hope is that it will keep it’s emphasis on actually playing games rather than getting distracted bringing in celebrities. For this year the focus is right. There are areas for people to hit each other with foam swords or shoot each other with Nerf darts. There is an extensive board game library where attendees can try out games. Then there are the rows upon rows of computers set up for LAN gaming and console gaming. Everywhere I went I heard “Would you like to play?”

I did an informal count, and the attendee population was definitely skewed male, at least 3 to 1 maybe 5 to 1. Yet when my daughter sat down to play Super Smash Bros with eight guys, none of them reacted to her gender, just to how she played the game. This is the side of gaming that isn’t as apparent online. The vast majority of people who love playing games are kind and well adjusted. They have excellent social skills and a welcoming attitude. I would love to see this event grow and foster that community even more.

My attendance at the convention was low key. I was mostly serving as transportation for my kids. I brought work and sat at a table alternately working and observing. My kids had a really good time. The show floor had lots of energy, but was never overly crowded. There was plenty of parking. I imagine that it looks and feels much like the early days of GenCon before it became so beloved and crowded. There is one more day of the show. If you’re local and you like games, it is probably worth your time to stop by. saltlakegamingcon.com

Thoughts on Conflict

By / June 3, 2016 / 3 Comments

I recently found myself in conversation with a person with whom I could not agree. The conversation ended more with final statements than an accord. I’ve given much thought to it over several days because one of the aspects of my anxiety is that I will re-play, re-script, review any contentious conversation for several days after it happens. I am not able to be done with a conversation and walk away. It chases after me and interferes with my ability to think about anything else. A contentious conversation impedes my ability to work for as much as a week. Sometimes, years later, the memory of contention will suddenly drop into the middle of my mind along with a stab of adrenaline as my body is momentarily convinced that the unavoidable outcome of this contention is doom, or death, or failure.

The person to whom I was talking does not have any of these anxiety issues. Because he does not, and because of some innate rigidity of belief, he was incapable of understanding where I was coming from. He felt like he should be able to say whatever he wanted to say and if other people didn’t like it, they could just walk away unaffected. He can do this and assumes that all humans have that capability. I know, to my bones, that sometimes words chase people down and haunt them. Words are sharp implements that can cut people if they’re used carelessly. Both of our beliefs feel irrefutable because they come directly from our own experiences.

Sadly, I’ve come to realize that when the source of conflict is between the fundamental beliefs of one person and another, the conflict can’t really be resolved other than by agreeing to disagree. Sometimes it means the people simply can’t be around each other without hurting each other constantly. We all have issues on which we can’t bend without becoming something other than what we are. We all have places where we are rigid. The tricky part is that the core of a conflict is not always apparent. It is usually wrapped up in some tangential event. Sometimes a conflict is a problem of word choice muddling a fundamental agreement. Those can be sorted by definition of terms and ongoing conversation. Occasionally conflict results in an expansion of mind in both parties, but this requires both parties to be willing to be vulnerable instead of defensive.

In all cases I find that my most useful response to conflict is to take a step backward and consider “what is really the conflict here?” Because I’ve had fights over cheese which were actually about disrespect and loneliness. In each case I have to figure out why I am so upset, which helps me to see why the other person might be as well. Because I know that my brain lies to me, I have to consider that my reaction might have more to do with brain chemistry than the conversation. I had to walk away from a conversation with Howard last week because he was talking about furniture and my brain was interpreting his every word as evidence of my failure as a human being. So I stopped him and walked away, which was frustrating for him. I had to go off by myself and detach furniture choices from my sense of self worth. In that pause I was able to recognize the emotional hole which was affecting me that day. Then we started the conversation fresh and talked about the hole I’d found. There were apologies, plans for keeping holes filled, and we were able to discuss furniture without emotional baggage. Classic example of fundamental agreement being clouded by emotions and words.

Once I can see the core conflict, I have to evaluate whether it actually needs to be resolved at all. This week’s conversation was with a person I don’t have to interact with much. I can just interact less without impacting my life. There are some other ongoing conflicts I’m juggling with people where I greatly value the relationships. My son and I have some very different beliefs about how he can succeed at being an adult. We’ve developed a neutral ground and a vocabulary where I can continue to advocate for my view and he advocates for his. Sometimes we get angry, but both of us value our relationship more than we value being right. When things get too angry we back off and focus on the parts of our lives where we are in complete agreement.

People are complicated. We all carry around heads full of unexamined opinions. We’re formed by our genetics and our upbringing. We’re further shaped by the communities where we spend our time and by how those communities treat us. None of it is fair. Some people have to struggle more than others. Everyone struggles with something. And we’re all a bit myopic because, while experience can teach us how to see some other points of view, no one has enough experience to see all points of view. This means that we will disappoint each other and hurt each other. There will be times when we can’t comprehend another person’s decisions because they are working from entirely different premises for how life functions. It also means that the world is full of people from whom we can learn. We are constantly surrounded with the opportunity for empathy and expanded vision. It is wonderful, heartbreaking, exhausting. It is why curling up under the covers and never coming out again sounds so attractive for folks like me who have panic attacks when we think we’ve disappointed someone.

Conflict is inevitable. That made me sad and scared for a long time. I didn’t want conflict. Ever. Then I got older and realized that the times when I really expanded and became bigger, stronger, more than I was before, all came from conflict. Conflict with another human being is an opportunity for both of the people to grow. I try to remember that when I find myself in the middle of a conflict I did not want.

Summer Begins

By / May 30, 2016

It is the first day of our summer schedule. I haven’t felt the impact of it as strongly as I have some years in the past. Link and Kiki were already home all day, so we’re just adding Gleek and Patch. The kids aren’t noisy or messy in the ways that they used to be, so that isn’t an issue. But I am going to have to re calibrate my brain which thinks that all the kids at home means Saturday Mode.

This year’s variation on the summer rules has each of the kids assigned one house chore per day and one hour of either making or learning. After they’ve done these things (and after noon) I won’t police how much time they spend on screens. The good news is that they all have projects that they want to accomplish. I’m excited to see what they make and learn.

Now if only I can kick my brain into gear.

Creative Networks

By / May 29, 2016 / 2 Comments

I spent the day with an artist friend. She has mentored Kiki many times over the years and this trip she gave Kiki some advice which may put a significant dent in Kiki’s upcoming college tuition bill. She also added both Kiki and me to a Facebook group full of illustrators and graphic designers.

Recently I finished reading a book and, as is usual when I don’t quite want a book to end, I scanned my way through the acknowledgements. I was surprised to realize that I recognized almost half of the names in there. Many of them were people I’ve met in person. Which I guess shouldn’t have surprised me since I’ve spent time with the author on multiple occasions.

On Twitter I watch the conversations of other people. They laugh and share photos. Sometimes in the photos I see two or three friends standing together and smiling, but the thing is that I know them from very different areas of my life and I had no idea that they even knew each other.

This evening I finished reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and (again) read the acknowledgements. They were full of people whom I have not met in person (Nor have I met Ms. Gilbert) but I was surprised at how many of the names I recognized as writers whose works have had critical acclaim.

In my high school and college Humanities classes I learned that renaissance painters communicated with each other. Impressionist painters gathered together both to paint and to hang in galleries. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were friends.

There is this myth that creation is solitary, the lonely artist or the reclusive writer. Perhaps there are some people who create that way, but it is not what I see. I see tightly woven communities of mutual support. The communities may be somewhat detached from each other, a literary network is different than a genre fiction network, but within a network the connections weave tightly. Everyone who creates needs someone who will listen when the creation is going badly. They also need someone who will rejoice when things go well. They need someone who knocks them out of their comfort zone and helps them think new thoughts.

I remember a time when I did not yet have a creative network. In 2007 I attended a concert and had the first inkling of creative community. Now I have hundreds of connections. I spent a long time feeling outside and on the edges. I took a long time to learn how to grow an introduction into a professional contact and sometimes into a friendship. Back in 2007 Howard and I had barely begun attending conventions, social media was just beginning to alter the online landscape. I was soon to learn that the best connections I could possibly make weren’t with the established creators I could see in the distant center of the creative community. My best connections were made with the people next to me on the edges. Thread by thread I extended my network until I was not on the edge anymore.

I know creators whose networks of support are entirely online. I know others who connect in person because they avoid the internet. There are so many ways to support others and to gain support. This is how creators survive and succeed.

Graduation

By / May 27, 2016 / 4 Comments

I can tell from the photos on Facebook that high school graduation happened last night. My son’s peers, the kids he grew up with, smile at me from under square shaped hats while wearing shiny gowns. I’ve wondered how I would feel when this happened. I wondered if it would hurt. Dropping out was a success for my son. Passing the GED was a success. It was the way we needed to take control of his path, and reduce the pressure that was crushing all of us. The decision was right, but it was also a permanent marker of the differences of my son. When we kept him with his grouped peers, those differences were less visible. Or maybe I was more able to fool myself.

Looking at the graduation photos doesn’t hurt in the ways I thought it might. There is some hurt, but it is mixed in with a half dozen other emotions. I’m happy for my friends and their children, for my son’s friends. They are rejoicing and they should be. I wonder if they recognize that the diploma really is an achievement. I know that when I graduated from high school it felt like a participation certificate. Somehow I hadn’t internalized the fact that there are more ways to not get a diploma than there are to get one. I see this far more clearly after I helped my child choose not to get a high school diploma. I still feel guilt about that, a creeping fear that if I’d been better at parenting then my son could have stayed grouped with his friends. So that hurts when I look at the graduation photos.

All the emotions are stronger because earlier this week I was quite forcibly reminded that my son’s path to self-sufficient adulthood is going to be non-standard. While my friends are launching their children, or letting go while the kids fly free, I’m staring down at least three more years of long slow learning. Much of that learning will be in the shape of “Okay try it your way.” When everything in me screams that the way won’t work. Of course, having a high school diploma wouldn’t have changed how the next three years are going to go. All it would have done would be to add massive pressure and delay some of the necessary learning. It was the right choice. I just wish I could stop arguing with myself about it in my head.

Over time I win the arguments, achieve an internal peace on the matter. Until I see the graduation photos. I’m glad people post the photos. It is right that they celebrate their milestones. I’m glad that all the photos have flocks of comments “Wow, she’s so grown up!” “Congratulations!” “I can’t believe he’ll be headed for college.” The comments are evidence of the networks of people who collaborated over the years in helping this child become an adult. Facebook allows that network to participate. I am part of that network. I click Like and perhaps add a comment of my own. Then I move my mouse and click “hide this post.” No need for me to face my emotions over and over as new comments keep floating the image back to the top of my news feed.

In a few days or a week I’ll have found quiet in my head again. I’ll be able to feel (as well as know) that everyone has their own path and that all journeys are valid. We’ve had triumph already and more triumphs are coming, even if they don’t look much like triumph from the outside.

The Center Can Not Hold

By / May 26, 2016

Twice now, when I’m in the midst of a hard day, I’ve described the things I carry to someone else. In both cases the response was “Wow, you really are the one holding your family together.” I hear the words and I want to protest, because while it is true, it also isn’t.

I do a lot for my kids and for Howard. This is particularly true on “bad brain days” which is what we’ve taken to calling a day where everything hurts even though it didn’t yesterday. We could also call them depressed days, or anxious days, or crying days, or OCD days, or any number of epithets with the word “day” appended to them. On the bad days I’m there. I stand nearby, helping to redirect, running interference, helping get through the day in the hope that the next day will be better. It usually is.

The thing is, if I was not there, they would survive these people of mine. They are stronger than they believe they are. It would be harder, deeper, darker, but that would only make them stronger and more determined. Sometimes I wonder if I do them a disservice by being there. Perhaps I am preventing them from developing skills and strength that they need. Perhaps I am wearing myself out by being in the middle when the truth is that we would all be better off if I would step out of that space.

Stepping out is hard when I am scared. I’m scared a lot. And I can’t always tell if the fears have merit or if they are my own anxieties lying to me.

Sometimes I feel like if I step away, it will all fall into disaster. Then we hit a day when I am the one with the bad brain. Then my family comes to my rescue. They all have, both individually and as a group. I’ve watched them help each other in the same way. We all rescue each other. We hold together because all of us are holding tight against the winds and waves. It would definitely make a mess if I were pulled out, but they would sort that mess and continue onward. I’m glad of this. Dependence on me is not the end goal here. Not for any of them.

I am not the center. I am a nexus in a net. We all are.

Peonies

By / May 22, 2016

Peonies

My peonies are giant and beautiful this year. Just wanted to share.

The Seventy Maxims Book

By / May 22, 2016 / 1 Comment

There is a momentum in book projects. I always feel it in the run up to sending a book off to print. Things happen more quickly and with more energy. I can feel that momentum building on the Seventy Maxims book. Howard has it mostly drafted. What follows will be iterations. This book is particularly complicated because in addition to the maxims themselves, there will be scholarly commentary about each maxim. Each page will also have handwritten notes from various characters. There is a timeline of when each character has the book. There are stories in and around some of the comments. These stories can’t be told in full with this format, but they need to be sufficiently there to be interesting, not frustrating. In order to get everything right, we’ll have to do lots of iterations.

1. I throw all the text and commentary onto the pages so we can see if it will fit.
2. I print it out and write a bunch of critique notes.
3. Howard takes my notes and edits text to make everything tighter and funnier.
4. I put the new text onto pages so we can do another read through.
5. I pull all the commentary off the pages so we only have the maxims and the scholar’s text.
6. Howard and I edit and fine tune the layout and placement of this text.
7. Repeat 5-7 until we have a print ready book. Copy editing of text probably fits in this loop somewhere.
8. Print out the pages and have the person we’ve picked for Karl’s handwriting put all of the young Karl notes on the pages.
9. Fine tune placement and text for Young Karl’s notes.
10. Print out pages with young Karl’s notes in place. Write in Middle Karl’s notes with a different pen.
11. Fine tune them so they are placed correctly on the page and say what they need to say.
12. Print pages with both Young and Middle Karl’s notes. Write in Old Karl’s notes. Make the handwriting just a little bit wobbly, but still readable.
13. Print pages with all Karl notes. Write in Kaff notes responding to Karl notes. A different person will do this writing so that the hand is different. And the pen is different. Fine tune.
14. Print pages with all of Karl and Kaff notes in place. Have another person write in Murtagh notes. fine tune.
15. Print pages with Karl, Kaff, and Murtaugh notes. Have a different person write in the Schlock notes. Fine tune.

And those are just the iterations I can think of. We’ll likely need to repeat steps. It is a complicated process, but it is the only way we can think of to get the quality and effect that we want for the book. You can see that I’ve just completed step 2.
70 Max edits

By leaving the manuscript out on the kitchen table, Howard wandered by and his brain began to work on layout problems. One of those pages has a diagram for the new page layout on it’s back. Monday or Tuesday Howard will sit down with my notes and refine his text to be better. In the mean time, I’ve been testing pens.
Pens
Lots of pens. We’re testing for line weight, bleed, and solidity. Each handwriting will be written by a different pen and in a different color so that readers can easily tell who wrote what.

I’m excited to see the finished book, which means I need to get to work and make it happen.