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October 9, 2006 Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood, by Karen Maezen Miller 
A month or so ago, I got an email from someone named Karen which read, in part, "I know that even if you hate it, you'll read it." Who can refuse an offer like that? I mean, she's right. Fortunately for her, I didn't hate it. Momma Zen is a slim book that isn't quite a parenting manual, and isn't quite a momoir, but feels like something in between. Advice mostly consists of "you're doing better than you think" and "there's lots of ways to raise a kid," portrayed through her own experiences and Zen Buddhism (she is a priest). The book it most closely reminded me of is Writing Down the Bones, and I found myself wondering if it's a Zen thing--if there's something about the training or perspective that lends itself to developing this pared-down, spare, poetic style. The language was lovely. The chapters were brief and combined humour with insight. There was a refreshing lack of judgement. "What would happen if the nit-picking narration were absent? What happens when you watch a TV football game with the sound turned off? The players still scramble, they still fall, but they are saved from the injury of evaluation. The same would be true of your life. What is a mistake without the self-critical label? It is just what it is. It is always perfection in action--not perfect as in better than something else but perfect as in complete. Your actions need nothing--not analyzing, not punishment, not instant replay. It is impossible not to do your best, you just don't think it's your best." That sums up the spirit and style of 99% of the book. But there's the one per cent--the chapter titled "Tending Garden: seasons of marriage," in which she advises people to stay married for the sake of the kids. And it's hard to square this with the rest of the book, where she writes about how hard it is to take care of yourself too and the importance of cutting yourself some slack. It isn't even that I disagree with her individual reasons for staying married to her husband through the upheavals of having a first child (my child adores my husband, and he adores her, and so on) but that I don't think this is a standard to be applied to every marriage. In the worst-case scenarios, of course it is better to have one parent than two if one of the two is abusive or negligent, and this is a situation that some of my friends have dealt with, so I'm sensitive to it. While I was reading it, I found myself wondering who I would give it to, if I'd bought it as a gift. I think I would give it to a friend who is prone to self-doubt and self-criticism and who has a stable relationship. In fact, I can think of one such friend off the top of my head who might receive my review copy in the near future, though she hasn't any Buddhist tendencies that I know of. It was lovely. If I might borrow the author's phrasing, I would say it is perfect, not in the sense of "better than everything else" but in the sense of "complete." I'm not aware of any other book quite like it. Posted by Andrea at October 9, 2006 11:39 AM under Books EMAIL this entry (comments fields are below this section) Comments I never bought "stay together for the kids" (or for any reason, really, when you want out) because the kids know their parents are unhappy and adoring parents can make living apart work. I like the quote. I don't think one can sort of believe in karma, but if it's possible, that's me. I used to get really nervous for figure skaters when the commentators were relentlessly negative. So I turned down the sound and didn't think about them falling. I don't know that it helped them, but I sure felt better. I can't follow baseball very well that way, though. I have no idea what pitches are being thrown unless I'm told. And I like certain postseason stats. Posted by: ~Macarena~ at October 10, 2006 6:19 PM
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Change is God (Octavia Butler, Parable Series) "If the writer is a socially privileged person--particularly a White or a male or both--his imagination may have to make an intense and conscious effort to realize that people who don't share his privileged status may read his work and will not share with him many attitudes and opinions that he has been allowed to believe or pretend are shared by 'everybody.' Since the belief in a privileged view of reality is no longer tenable outside privileged circles, and often not even within them, fiction written from such an assumption will make sense only to a decreasing, and increasingly reactionary, audience. Many women writing today, however, still choose the male viewpoint, finding it easier to do so than to write from the knowledge that feminine experience of reality is flatly denied by many potential readers, including the majority of critics and professors of literature, and may rouse defensive hostility and contempt. The choice, then, would seem to be between collusion and subversion; but there's no use pretending that you can get away without making a choice. Not to choose, these days, is a choice made. All fiction has ethical, political and social weight, and sometimes the works that weigh the heaviest are those apparently fluffy or escapist fictions whose authors declare themselves 'above politics,' 'just entertainers,' and so on." Ursula le Guin Email Frances! frances AT athenadreaming DOT org You can email her mother too (that's me):
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