The liability of a brown voice.

 It's 2am in the morning and I can't sleep.  I'm unable to let go of the ruminations rolling around in my brain, I'm thinking constantly about my job, the people and my place in it.  I've been in tears every night for the last 2 weeks.  It's because the company I once believed in, has changed in character and leadership, with the voices being heard, dominated by a few individuals.  This has changed the skin, flesh and bones of the company and my role has been marginalized. Part of that feeling of marginalization is that my discipline isn't considered as a driver of the science.  We are there to support or enable the scientists meaning that we need to make sure they're all happy.  And anytime they complain, which is frankly all the fucking time, I have to put out that fire.   It's created this functional caste system of importance and value.  can't remember the last time anyone said 'thank you' to me.  A thousand small cuts. 

Many months back, immediately after George Floyd, I raised my voice via slack and spoke about my experience as a brown woman and the importance of recognizing systemic racism.  In our leadership channel, I recommended several podcasts which I thought dealt with the issues exceedingly well (Shout out to TenPercentHappier!).  Crickets.  Not a one responded.  

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and a white male colleague wrote a slack message proclaiming that we should have a cultural audit on our biases in the workplace. Five people responded, congratulating him for pointing that out.   It was like I was physically watching all my colleagues pat him on the back - wait to take it over the finish line bro!  Wow isn't he so awesome that he's thinking about this.  HippieHusband calls it virtue signaling.  I call it bullshit.   And our company has DEI committee run by a well-intentioned white woman, who as a result of leading this committee, is getting kudos from the entire executive leadership team and the company. I am glad that she sees this as important and she is completely blind to her own privilege. Because I wasn't feeling super included and positive about the company's integrity around these issues, I left the committee and suggested that she ask AwesomeWhiteMan to take my place.  And guess what?  Oh ya, he did. Un-fucking-believable.  

The hardest part in all this is that I experience my voice in that space as a liability.  If I speak from that brown skinned place, expressing how as an organization we should reflect on the company biases, it creates a fight, flight or freeze response in the senior leadership.  The no response response indicates freeze.  These folks just don't know what and how to answer because they're afraid they'll make it worse or they really don't know what to say.  In the fight response any comments from an employee charging bias has to be taken seriously - and so it raises the HR flag of discrimination, anti-harassment and the potential of liability to the company.  Why's she raising this here?  She reports to the CEO what does that mean about their interactions?  Does she experience discrimination?  Do we have to worry about liability to the company?  And the flight response comes from some folks running in the opposite direction - and labeling me as trouble. 

I'm so angry because its like I'm taking a pillow and suffocating myself.  I've since censored myself to avoid creating any issues, or losing my job.  And the internal medieval tyrant who lives in my head, constantly reminds me it's not like I'm physically dying as a result of the racism.  

Everyone in this situation loses.

And now most recently, I have the added complexity of a personnel situation. This situation has added enormous stress because the nature of the unskillful communication arose from a feeling like they don't matter, that we are the janitors in the company, that we are at the beck and call of the company, and the CEO can't even get the name of my department right.  It's a mirror to the unspoken truth.  I feel it.  I know other members of the team feel it.  And in all this time, neither the CEO nor CSO have asked me how I really am.  All this is going on amidst a pandemic, a contested election, repeated George Floyd incidents, and my physical health continues to be a challenge.  

The context of my work situation and the subtlety of racism creates a feeling of isolation that cuts deep.  It unearths and triggers memories from my childhood of school yard bullies and the frontal assault of name-calling that created a sense of difference, disconnection, and a longing for belonging.

As I move through this painful time, I dig into my bag of buddhist tricks and hope that I find the compassion to hold my pain and suffering. And that of my colleagues, whose deep habits of mind create a grand delusion of workplace equity.

What, you say bumps? Ah so.

What are the current bumps in your road? Have you managed to get over a major hump recently? Are you facing an extremely bumpy road at the moment? Or do you just like to go bump! bump! on a seven hump Wump?

This month's Scientiae is about how I managed to get over major bumps or humps in the road. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about wumps because frankly, over the last year and a bit, there have been many.

1. My dad died.
2. Issues of his last estate led to a legal embattlement.
3. Hernia operation.
4. Brain tumor.
5. Brain surgery
6. HippieHusband fired from the lab by a power hungry silverback.
7. Complications from brain surgery result in a follow-up surgery.
8. HippieHusband resigns from his job.

Sigh. Yeah, bad shit happens.

But if we think only of the only bad things that happen, then how we live our life is simply reactionary. And when I look around at my colleagues, especially in academia, I see many of us driven by the circumstances of life. We live putting out fires, from one fire to the next, without permission for self-reflection or more importantly, quietude.

I once heard that listening for a theme in your life and steering by that theme is a much more active way to live. Instead of passively existing and thus letting things happen, it's better to look for the connections in the events of our life. These events are connected by a theme. Find the theme and then it's easier to find a voice. If I were to to think about my life to date - I think the theme is transition, movement, and change. Now knowing that, how do I live? I think like this,

Once upon a time, in a village in Japan was living a reputable Buddhist monk.

Next to him lived a family of wealthy merchants who had a beautiful daughter.

One day, what seemed like out of the blue, her parents discovered that she was pregnant. Her father was very angry and pressed her to tell who the father of the child was. At first, she wouldn't tell, but eventually she confessed that he was their neighbor, the Buddhist monk.

The merchant went at once to the Buddhist monk.
"Ah, so desu ka?" was all that the monk said to his angry neighbor.

When the child was born, the merchants gave him to the monk to take care of him, and they told everybody the story of their unfortunate daughter and of the two-faced monk.

The monk had nobody to leave the baby with, and so he carried him everywhere he went. All the villagers who previously had regarded the monk highly were now calling him an immoral man, but he didn't care; he was raising the child with utmost care.

Twelve years passed.

One day, the child mother's became terminally ill; but she did not want to die with a lie so she confessed to her parents that she had lied about the child's father: he was a young man working in the fish market, not the buddhist monk.

They all went at once to the monk to apologize and get the baby back, telling him the truth.

"Ah, so desu ka?" was all that the monk said, returning them the child.

Instead of working hard to resist change, be it negative or positive, I would like to be like the monk in the story and develop an attitude of "ah so." Living without judgement of myself and others.

As a general rule, I am extraordinarily impatient with life. In part, this impatient nature has arisen because I had a certain vision of how I hoped life would turn out, how I would turn out. But, I'm a work-in-progress. After all as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, "Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail."

All in all, it's a pretty good ride. And really, that's the crux of how I get through the difficulties. Attitude

Every night before I go to bed, I try to think of at least one thing that I am grateful for that day. I can't say that it has been easy to figure out why I should be grateful. Sometimes it's only for a moment that I feel generous, but a moment is still a moment.

So to counter the first list here is a second list, this time of things I'm truly grateful for.

1. I am no longer trapped by parental expectations.
2. I didn't die. I have, for the most part, my health.
3. HippieHusband and I have a stronger relationship because of the challenges.
4. I am loved.
5. I have had my eyes opened to the worst possible face of academia.
6. My identity has broadened. I realize that I don't need to find a tenure-track position as an assistant professor. Academia is only one of many options. And it may not be the best option.
7. I am more attune to the political dynamics of an academic workplace.
8. I learned what kind of supervisor I don't want to be and what kind of colleagues I don't want to have.

When I think of these I am full, calm, warm and spacious.

So I leave you with this quote that inspires me during the times when I can't think beyond the hardship,

"May we exist like a lotus,
At home in the muddy water,
Thus I bow to life as it is."

An incredible transformation.

Exactly one year ago today, I had brain surgery.

I was reminded of this fact when I woke up this morning with this achy feeling all over - it's like when a morphine drip runs out and you've just had surgery. I remember the morphine drip. The crazy thing is I still have morphine in my medicine cabinet. Now that I think of it, I have a cornucopia of pharmaceuticals that I was given after I left the hospital. But frankly, the morphine is no good because it was accidently doused in grapefruit juice and is now mostly stuck to a kleenex. Last year when I was still taking morphine, I woke up one morning - I had the grapefruit juice in one hand and the morphine container in the other. Before I knew it, there was morphine in the juice, juice in the morphine container, juice and morphine mixed up and on the bathroom counter. At the time, I thought kleenex was a good option.

It's weird to think of it because so much has changed in a year. I mean, it's unbelievable. I think for me this summer was really good for my career. At least that's what everyone tells me. Who knows, right? It's an up and down ride.

Right now, I feel pretty good about me and the possibility of an academic career. Dr.PureEnergy is really making an effort to mentor me into a t-t position. After we get some really cool next gen data, we'll write a grant together for NSF on which I'll be a coPI. Lately my scientific work is getting some recognition, and best of all I'm incredibly focused and have managed to get manuscripts out the door. Sweet damn.

For HippieHusband, things are definitely better, but he's still in a bit of a holding pattern. It's been about a month since we've arrived in YummyLargeCity and he's had 3 in-person interviews: 2 postdocs and 1 biotech company. His hippieness has been replaced by the millionaire playboy look (not Hefner style). And let me tell you he looks hot in a suit and tie - so I'm hoping for the biotech company. Hot damn.
I recognize that things are impermanent - so I don't plan on getting too comfortable.

But at the same time, I plan on enjoying a few things. Did I mention how incredibly hot HippieHusband looks in a suit and tie?

Why do I bother.

Wow. I just never thought it would happen again. I don't know why I bother to hope or try. I just seem to get repeatedly screwed. It's been a very bumpy academic road.

Superivisory meltdown

Time to move on.

The Year of Dying.

It's coming up to the 1-year anniversary of the shit storm year that began with my father's death. And lately, I've been thinking a lot about dying. I think, in part, because I came so close to it in October of last year when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The tumor had begun to envelope the carotid artery in my brain. Luckily, it was benign and the surgeons successfully removed most of the tumor.

The surgery was only 3 ½ months ago and if you were to meet me today, you would have no clue as that I had just had brain surgery. I work as hard, maintaining the same long hours as I did before the surgery.

Aye, there's the rub. Something did happen. In fact a lot of something happened.

I last saw my neurosurgeon (how many people can say that?) in January and he suggested that a. I could get back to running and doing yoga, two of my favourite activities and b. that I start on craniosacral therapy (CST).

Here's wikipedia's explanation of CST:

”A craniosacral therapy session involves the therapist placing their hands on the patient, which they say allows them to tune into what they call the craniosacral system. The practitioner gently works with the spine and the skull and its cranial sutures, diaphragms, and fascia. In this way, the restrictions of nerve passages are said to be eased, the movement of cerebrospinal fluid through the spinal cord is said to be optimized, and misaligned bones are said to be restored to their proper position.”

CST is a weird experience because, well, it feels like nothing. I go in, lie down, and the therapist puts her hands on my head, spine, and feet. But it’s not like massage therapy where you can actually feel it physically. Instead, what you sense is an internal rocking, as if the bones in your head are moving.

As a scientist, before trying CST, I wanted evidence that CST made a difference. Before the brain surgery, I read all about the trans-sphenoidal approach to removing pituitary tumors. I even watched videos on YouTube. I learned as much as I could about the success rates, side effects, recovery times, etc. But for CST, there isn't a whole lot. And what's even more odd is that this therapy is covered by insurance but acupuncture is not. It seems random what American health insurance companies will or will not cover as far as alternative therapies go.

Although, there isn’t much evidence that CST works, I don’t care. For whatever reason, something is happening in those sessions. And I don’t mean just the physical.

In my last session, as I lay there on the table, I could hear it rising in my body as she was working at my feet.

I made her stop, explaining that I was feeling suffocated and experiencing great anxiety and fear. What was the fear and anxiety about, she asked.

Dying, I said. Dying.

And then I began to sob.

Since then, I have been thinking a lot about My Year of Dying. A year where my father passed away and I got a big, fat, yummy, brain tumor. I imagine these have probably affected my feelings about death and dying.

There’s an obvious loss of family that comes with a parent dying. But because my mother is dead as well, with the death of my father, all ties to culture and family history have been severed. In normal families, aunts and uncles would serve as that connection. The generation that consists of my mom’s brother and my dad’s sister live in fear and from fear. It’s hard to know how to love if fear is your skin. They never call us. Not when my mom died. Not when my dad died. And certainly not when I had a brain tumor.

My relationship with death has not been peaceful. I have never, in my life, seen anyone die without some kind of clinging. Neither my mother nor my father died peacefully or at peace. When I was about 10 years old, my mom took me on one of her rounds at the terminally ill children’s ward. Since then, I’ve seen a lot of people die – friends, family members and it has always been painful and a struggle. Part of reducing our fear of death is to experience it without strife.

There is also a death that comes with a major life surgery. It is the loss of youth. Unlike the typical slow decay of aging, this is a front-end assault. And I guess, it’s just taken a bit of time to catch up to the experience of post-traumatic stress syndrome.

It’s been hard to start running and exercising again, even though, my neurosurgeon (gotta love that) said it would be okay. For some reason, I can’t. Unlike before the surgery, I can’t consistently practise yoga or run. There’s always an excuse. Or I’ll start a yoga session or a run and then I just stop. At first, I was literally afraid my head would explode (ridiculous, I know), but then I realized it was because I no longer understood my body. It was not a healthy, young, fit woman. It was this diseased tumor filled sac ‘o water.

Today, I am learning how to befriend my body again. I am learning gratitude. I am thankful that my body was able to recover from such an assault. And I am learning to give up hope of a better past.

I heard this recently, “In the pursuit of knowledge, something is gained. In the pursuit of freedom, something is let go.”

Welcome back, bitch.

I'm sitting here in my fancypants hotel room in Sprockets, Allemande and I found myself looking up an old academic nemesis (once a friend) hoping that she had found herself an utter failure or at the very least fallen into abysmal academic mediocrity.  And somehow through a vast array of links, I ended up at one of my old blogs (yes there are others).  Sadly, it's been so long that I can no longer get into any of them, but I somehow managed to find my way back here, to where I started.  How strange.  And so 5 years later, I'm alive and doing quite well for myself. And thankfully not a postdoc.  

Oh, and that nemesis, yeah she's fallen into academic mediocrity.
 
Welcome back, bitch.