To give attention
by Anton Zuiker on March 7, 2019
On Micro.blog today, Joyce Garcia references a tweet from Pico Iyer quoting the French philosopher Simone Weil: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” (Maria Popova had a Brain Pickings post about Weil in 2015).
That’s a beautiful way of expressing my curiosity advice to Anna the other day, and it’s a a good way to think about the listening that Bobette Buster advocates in her book Do Story. Iyer used the quote to make a point about distraction and incivility. To pay attention to someone means spending time focused on the person. That seems a good recipe for civility in our times.
Another Micro.blog user, Ron Chester, surprised me with an email message yesterday. He wrote to tell he’s been reading my chronicles, and that he was glad I’d made it through my blogging and social media sabbatical. Ron complimented my writing, but what really made me feel good is the sense that he had spent his time getting to know me through my posts and pictures. He had paid attention to me, and then he had given even more time to write me a long, thoughtful letter.
“I’m inspired by the way you approach life, full of love, especially for your family and your family roots, and no bullshit,” Ron wrote. He also asked about the family photo on my about page; it’s a snapshot of us in Big Bend National Forest, one of the trips we’ve taken to far-off corners of the globe. Visiting the remote Rio Grande and the rim of Mount Yasur and the white sands of St. Croix has given me many moments of awe and gratitude. I’ve been lucky to have my family at my side.
Ron’s letter reminded me of the letters I used to receive when I went away for youth retreats. They were letters from my parents and grandparents, reminding me that they loved me and were proud of me for what I’d accomplished, and even for what I’d tried and failed. When my daughters have gone on their school trips, we similarly send letters ahead, or slip notes into their suitcases.
What a gift it is to send someone a well-written message to compliment someone’s writing, or a kindly note to commend someone for being kind, or a lovingly penned card to remind someone they are loved. To take the time to know another person, to reflect on that person’s value, and to take the time to tell that person why they are important. That’s an amazing feeling, whether you are on the giving side or the receiving side.
Thank you Ron. Thank you mom and dad. Thank you Erin and Anna and Malia and Oliver. Thank you to all the other friends and family and strangers who have been a part of this generous equation during my 47 years.
Tomorrow’s another day. It will be perfect for giving attention and sending notes.
Promoting diversity in music
by Anton Zuiker on March 6, 2019
Today I received an email message from Rob Deemer, a good friend in high school. Now Rob is associate professor and head of composition in the School of Music at the State University of New York at Fredonia, and he was writing to all of his family and fiends to give an update about the project he’s been working on for the last couple of years. It started as a spreadsheet project listing a few hundred women composers for his students at Fredonia, and grew into the newly-formed Institute for Composer Diversity. Rob and his team have an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for the institute.
Rob and I collaborated on a fun project in high school. I was editor of the New Pennis literary journal, and I asked him to contribute something musical. He offered an arrangement of the folk tune Scarborough Fair, and we included that as a page spread. Our issue won a national award. (I blogged about this in this 2004 post.) I’m proud of our innovation, but even more happy to hear that Rob is helping lead the way in advocating for composers from historically underrepresented groups. That’s cool.
What distance allows
by Anton Zuiker on March 5, 2019
Margaret Samuels, chair of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education, resigned today. She (along with two of the other board members) was facing a possible recall election because of her support for the Mandarin Dual Language Program—at first approving the district administration’s proposal to expand Glenwood Elementary School into a magnet school, and then, upon vigorous pushback from parents and teachers, tempering the plan to grow the program, which is based at Glenwood.
Oliver, my son, has been in the Mandarin program for the last four years. I’m proud of him and his ability to learn in two languages, happy about our decision to expose him to this style of instruction, and thankful to the school district for offering this opportunity. (The district has a long-running Spanish dual language program, too.) I hope for Samuels to find peace, our community to come to common ground, and Oliver to gain fluency.
Five years ago today, I stepped away from a position of community service and leadership during a time of pain and confusion and contentiousness. (A few days before, I’d ended the conference sobbing in the empty auditorium, a friend sitting next to me with his hand on my shoulder in consolation.) Publicly admitting my faults and failures was hard, but I was burned out, and I needed the space and time to focus on my health, my family, and my job.
It’s been a good five years. As I’m trying to convey in these daily blog posts, I’m feeling renewed, and grateful for my wife and our children and for my work and its opportunities. These years have taught me to listen more intently and attentively. When Oliver sings in Mandarin or writes with Chinese characters, I don’t understand the meanings of the language, but I do hear a world of possibility.
When I came out of my blogging and social media sabbatical, I explained how I’d been reminded to be kind to others, and “to stand up, stand tall, and stand for something good.” As I step outside each morning, I look up to the towering oak trees and I begin my day, ready.
Curiosity as cure
by Anton Zuiker on March 4, 2019
This weekend, Anna accompanied me on a short drive to the hardware store to buy a shovel, an axe, a sledgehammer, and a San Angelo digging bar. Along the way, we talked more about her university options and about what kind of roommate she prefers. I reminded her that, when she meets her fellow college students, she should strive to be interested in them and to be curious about them.
“That’s how people will find you interesting and want to know about you, and that’s how they’ll want to be your friend.”
It also leads to other connections.
A colleague at Duke recommended I meet with Neil Prose, a pediatric dermatologist who teaches medical students about patient communication, humility, and empathy. He spoke about that at TEDxDuke last year. I met Dr. Prose today, and we talked about Voices of Duke Health and his Keepers of the House poject. He suggested I read this essay on curiosity by Faith Fitzgerald.
“I believe that it is curiosity that converts strangers…into people we can empathize with,” she writes. That’s why nearly every day at work, I ask visitors if I can help them find their way through the hospital. As I walk them to a clinic or the elevators or toward the food court, I ask where they’re from, about their work, and how their family members are doing. I try to be curious, and I listen.
Dr. Fitzgerald finishes her essay with a delightful anecdote about a seemingly boring elderly patient who reveals a remarkable connection to an historic event. It’s worth reading for just those 25 lines.
Another worthy read is today’s blog post from Josh Bernoff, In praise of ignorance and being wrong. He argues that you need to embrace the discomfort of feeling stupid if you want to learn anything new.
“There is no shame in ignorance, only in failing to act to cure it,” Bernoff writes.
Bob Gadbois
by Anton Zuiker on March 3, 2019
Claire Gadbois wrote to share this video tribute to her late husband, Bob Gadbois, that was shown at the Our World Underwater convention evening film festival last month. (Bob was my father’s cousin.)
I last saw Bob and Claire at the 2017 Zuiker Family reunion in Tennessee. As with previous family gatherings, they came prepared to show photos of their world travels. That summer, they especially wanted to share their excitement for the solar eclipse that was coming up. We gathered in one of the cabins, and they explained what would be happening when the moon moved between the sun and Earth. I snapped a photo and posted it that day to my microblog.
The next day, Bob and Claire were part of the family’s excursion down the Little Pigeon River. I slid into my tube and kicked down the river and was sipping bourbon from my flask as I glanced back to see Bob, sick with cancer but suited up anyway and camera around his neck, sit onto his tube. Oliver was already speeding down the river ahead, so I went after him, inspired by Bob’s love of the water.
In the crosswalk
by Anton Zuiker on March 3, 2019
I took my regular Sunday walk into town to get a cup of coffee at Gray Squirrel. The two-mile stroll, down the hill and back up into Carrboro, gives me time to think and plan and dream. I walk without music or headphones, and try to notice what I’m noticing along the way. Today the blue jays were most vocal.
On my way home, I waited for the signal at the Smith Level Road crosswalk near the elementary school. The light turned red, the walk sign went white, a Honda hybrid slowed to a stop, its engine went quiet. I began to cross the street, but then heard the rapid revolutions of tires getting louder. I paused in front of the Honda, looked up to see an approaching pickup truck, and waited for the drier to see my bright orange jacket and jolt to a stop before I continued to the other side.
I’m back in the house now, where it is still and calm and safe.
Listening for the future
by Anton Zuiker on March 2, 2019
Malia and Anna with Grandma in the Loop.
So far in 2019, I have taken three trips.
The first was a weekend trip to Chicago with my daughters, Anna and Malia, to celebrate Malia’s birthday. We stayed at a hotel in the Loop, bundled up, and hustled through the snowy streets to the Art Institute of Chicago to look at great art, the Willis (Sears to me) Tower to view the city from the Skydeck, the CIBC Theatre to see Hamilton again, and back to the mesmerizing Cloud Gate sculpture. My mother, who I hadn’t seen since she headed north to DeKalb last summer, took the train in one day, and we walked with her to the Berghoff Restaurant for lunch and then to the Marshal Field and Company Building (now a Macy’s) to shop like the old days.
On the plane to Chicago, I read Do Listen, a heartwarming reminder from Bobette Buster to take time to practice listening to yourself, to your loved ones, to strangers, to the sounds of the world and the silences of art. I loved this book, and it fit so well into my travels and training and time with my daughters.
The next trip was to Ann Arbor, Michigan to attend a workshop on “creating a vision of greatness for work or life” at ZingTrain, the training facility of Zingerman’s Deli. More snow! But I was inspired by the session — visioning is describing a narrative about where we’re going, with enough specificity to know when you arrive — and I began to draft a vision for where I will be 2025, where I see Voices of Duke Health and The Long Table and my decade of listening and my work in science communication and community building come together in a specific way at Duke. Before I left Ann Arbor, I went to Zingerman’s Deli for a delicious sandwich and to Literati Bookstore’s upstairs cafe for a cappuccino.
On the plane home from Detroit, I read Do Story, also by Bobette Buster, this one drawing on her expertise in screenwriting and her attentiveness to who’s told clear and uplifting narratives (Steve Jobs, JFK, DJ Forza, Winston Churchill). “Dare to be personal. Dare to be vulnerable. And dare to listen to others sharing their stories.” I circled that message, closed my eyes there on the plane, and thought about the Voices episode we’d just published — The Gauntlet is a conversation with Dr. Anthony Galanos about his unfathomable grief about the death of his son, Nick.
My third trip was with Anna up to Baltimore to visit Loyola University Maryland, one of the colleges that has accepted Anna. We like Loyola, a Jesuit school like John Carroll University, where Erin and I met and which also has accepted Anna. After the session at Loyola, Anna and I went for tea at Artifact Coffee, realized we had another hour before we needed to head to the airport, and so went to the Baltimore Museum of Art.
On the way home from Baltimore, I read Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. It, too, is marked up in pencil.
Travel. Family. Books. Ideas. Looking to the future.