From the Branches of the Lemon Tree
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Angie Koponen
Lemon tree
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Running head: Lemon tree
From the branches of the lemon tree: An autoethnography of a perfect event Angie Koponen
Originally completed 2 April 2009 Edited 17 May 2012
© 2012 Angela Koponen, Ph.D.
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Introduction I wanted to write about a perfect event so that I could learn how it happened and duplicate it often enough to realize all my dreams. Just this last year I have thirsted daily for “lemonade.” I tired at first to quench my thirst with other seemingly suitable liquids, but none sufficed. It had to be lemonade, sweet-tart, cool, cleansing. This perfect nectar springs from an unlikely beginning. Healthy and refreshing, lemonade can surprise even the most seasoned lemonade lover. The first sip of the first summer batch taken after a long cold winter finally recedes into its annual hibernation can sometimes pucker the mouth. After its tartness finally makes peace with a reluctant tongue, its sweetness rewards the drinker with renewed sense of freshness and joy. Recipe for Fresh Lemonade 6 fresh lemons 2 c. sugar Water to fill 1 gal. jug Juice 6 fresh lemons. Put the juice into a 1 gallon jug. Add 2 cups of sugar. Add enough water to fill 1 gallon jug and stir well. Pour over ice and sip slowly until your mouth no longer puckers from the initial tartness.
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From a tiny seed is born a tree When I was born, my mother, out of ignorance, desperation, or perhaps disappointment, planted a “lemon” tree. I say ignorance because I cannot see how she could not know that lemon trees cannot grow in the area of Illinois where I was born and grew up. However, it could have been desperation, because she did not expect to give birth to a partially deformed child. Why she chose to plant a lemon tree and not a hardier, more suitable variety of fruit tree, was a mystery until recently. I didn’t understand until I once again tasted “lemonade.” The tree sprouted from a seed my mother must have saved while making lemonade the summer before I was born. At 16, she found herself married and expecting a child. The stories of how that happened vary depending on who tells. Having been 16 and with raging hormones, I know which version I can accept. Having been that age and desperate for acceptance, I can accept too that the truth no longer matters. My mother was given lemons and so she made lemonade. Pregnant, my mother married my father and I was born. A perfect event Seldom does anyone say that the more work they are given, the more they want. Graduate school was like that for me, the more work I was given, the more I wanted. I thrived. I found myself surrounded by extraordinary perfection – unconditional acceptance, firm encouragement, and unbelievable productiveness. It was as if the planets of academic experience had aligned themselves perfectly for the first time. At no other time have I ever been more overextended and productive, and overjoyed as a result. “I am not an expert in that area, but think it’s great that you want to explore it.”
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“That’s a great question.” “Don’t be disappointed if you are not accepted. Few are their first time. Just do it anyway; you have nothing to lose.” “Congratulations. You’ve done it!” Their words challenged and inspired. I never feared rejection because I knew I was already accepted by my heroes and mentors. I drank my lemonade with some of the best in the discipline. The cool, refreshing elixir was concocted like stone soup. Everyone brought something to the mix. The water was provided by the university in the form of structure, tradition, and opportunity. The sugar was provided by the faculty. They embraced me, encouraged me, and shared my joy unselfishly. I provided the lemons from my own tree. All my past “lemons” -- disappointments, challenges, near failures, and tragedies were just bitter enough to help me appreciate the water and the sugar as they were presented and to be open to the possibilities to envision the end result. Together we mixed the world’s most perfect lemonade. The lemon tree that shouldn’t have I wanted to explore my perfect event without regret and without revealing the one person who sowed the seeds of my personal lemon tree, the one who gave me lemons time and again. At first it was easy to exclude her because I did not recognize the tree, nor did I remember the tart juice from its fruit. I spent years trying to forget. The pain could be overwhelming at times and I feared that if I remembered, I would be stuck in bitterness. I feared that I would not be able to move past the tartness and taste sweetness.
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My lemon tree should not have survived. It should have withered from the cold winters, and the long periods of neglect. But my tree was watered and fed, often just in time to help it survive a while longer until it could produce yet another lemon. At first the fruit was small and nearly unrecognizable. It paled next to more hearty store-bought fruit. Of course, I would not at the time recognize the difference. The juice from both exhibited the same tartness. “No.” “Shut up!” “See what you made me do.” The egg began to burn and I was blamed. I asked questions and created tension. I failed at 6 or 7 to tell her that the burner was too high. I forgot to mention that eggs cook at a fairly low temperature and that the hard brown edges cannot be digested. I was a curious child and I tried her patience. Cooking the perfect egg requires a little patience. She had very little. She was nonetheless most generous. She gave me a ripe, beautiful lemon. “I’ll teach you to never squirm in church again!” she screamed as she began to beat me. My father intervened and took her away long enough for me to escape. Church still suffocates me. I haven’t gone in years and the threats that I’d be “struck by lightning” if I misbehaved never materialized. My life has not been more tragic than any other average life. The irony is that I believe I am happier and more successful than many of the others with whom I attended Catholic school and most of those that remained true to the faith. I unconsciously stored that lemon away with the first until I could figure out what to do with it. I didn’t realize at that young age what I was given.
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A basket of lemons, please! I do not remember two-sided conversations. I remember asking questions and I remember that the answers were rarely forthcoming. I day-dreamed in class, and felt the painful reminder of the long wooden pointer as it hit my back forcing me back to “reality.” I preferred my reality. It was pleasant and peaceful. I could ask as many questions as I liked and no one hit me or yelled. It was like a few grains of sugar in the palm of my hand. I also remember being talked at. They told me what to do, what to think, and how to be. The waters in those early years were often cloudy and luke-warm. They spilled easily so that I never had quite enough. I literally suffered for a couple of years from one infection after another caused by dehydration. My soul dehydrated, too, as my spirit was beaten and berated out of me. “Come out here and show everyone your diaper” Did I protest? I think so, but I cannot recall my voice. I still only hear her voice humiliating me in front of her guests. I didn’t know at nearly three or four years old that it wasn’t my fault, that my bladder was small, and the infections caused incontinence. I must have been bad because I was the one who wet my panties. The tartness of that lemon remained for a very long time. By ten my basket of lemons overflowed. At times the water cleared and occasionally I was given a hint of sugar. I began to recognize the making of lemonade. Our Lady of the Lake She was like no other. Her beauty spread over a great lawn and smiled at her lake. Crawling into her gentle arms may have been my first perfect event. I saw her and I saw beauty.
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I had a taste of how things might be if only my basket of lemons were not so full. I rested in her caressing arms and learned to embrace lasting thankfulness. That year I went for one blessed week to church summer camp. I had my first memorable taste of pure, fresh lemonade. I think I must have had lemonade before, but the memory was lost, covered over in the bottom of my lemon basket. I left my lemon basket at home that week. I was always somewhat forgetful. I liked being happy and forgetting easily left no room for agony. I was too naïve to know that having so many lemons was a rare gift. It wasn’t that my peers had fewer lemons so much, as it was that they had so many other fruits. They had more new clothes. They were allowed to go to the skating rink. They had birthday parties every year, not just at ten. They had heard the music and knew the words to the songs of “The Sound of Music.” Their lemons more often spilled out and never puckered their mouths. Their lemons seemed smaller and less tart. My week consisted of three glorious meals a day, a warm bed in a cabin surrounded by trees, and my first taste of doing something so well that someone else felt threatened. My camp counselors were geniuses. In a week they not only each cared for about ten girls’ daily needs, they also found time to speak with us instead of talking at us, lead us to the table of abundance, and coordinate a production of the music of the movie, The Sound of Music. I had not heard of The Sound of Music before my week at summer camp. I sang much before that, but I do not recall what I sang other than the ABC Song. I know I loved singing, but I can only see myself singing in a pantomime. My voice is muted and no one can hear me. That week the counselors taught me the choruses to Sound of Music songs. They tried to teach me to sings the solo pieces, but I couldn’t learn both the music and the lyrics in such a short time. Another girl already knew the lyrics to all the songs and was given the lead role in the
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production. I remember that she was kind of mousy and while her voice was not extraordinary she sang clearly and pleasantly enough. When she heard me singing the chorus, she became ill. They took her to the nurse who gave her medicine for a headache and put her to bed. I remember her saying that she was afraid they would give her part to me because my voice was so much better. She didn’t even realize that I didn’t want the lead. I was terrified of doing something so bold and I was equally frustrated that I could not learn the words to the songs. No, she could keep her lead. I was glad to be the chorus and overjoyed with the prospect of another fantastic lunch. I was content. The water was clearer than ever before, my lemon basket was at home, or maybe just hiding in my trunk, and I was given a lovely crystal jar to collect little bits of sugar. The best part was that only I could see my sugar jar, so nobody could take it away from me. It was mine, all mine! In the end, that girl sang her part brilliantly, I sang in the chorus, and I was given all the ingredients for making my own lemonade. Even though I did not know what I had gained until I was much older, when life became difficult, I could visit that lovely lady in my imagination and because only I could see my journey, it could not be taken away from me. Please, may I have a bigger basket? Life became more dangerous and difficult for a while after I left the nurturing arms of My Lady. As I was growing, my lemon tree grew as well. It grew fine strong branches. The fruit became larger and juicier. The weight of the fruit pulled the branches down until the tips nearly touched the ground. For a while it seemed like lemons were thrown at me from all directions. “Oo! I don’t want to play with you. You have leprosy. Look how your fingers already fell off. Come on girls, let’s not play with Angie.”
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“Look at your knee socks! Laugh, laugh! Don’t you know that all the cool girls are wearing tights?” “Don’t you know anything? Everyone [who’s anyone] knows what happened on the Monkeys yesterday!” Yeah, don’t you know anything,” the chorus sounded off. “Come on, let’s play ball.” You can’t play. Girls are a brutal group when they gang up under the leadership of a bully. They beat you down at every opportunity. That year my lemon tree took on gargantuan proportions. Never before had the fruit been so huge and brightly colored. It was a capital year for lemon tree fertilizer sales and many of my “friends” and others took full advantage of very appealing promotions. One such promotion began in religion class. There, we learned about the leper colonies and how the disease ate away at its victims’ flesh. We also learned details about Purgatory and how if you told a little white lie, you would not be allowed into heaven until your lips burned in Purgatory for a thousand or more years. They would burn and burn and nothing could stop the pain. I’m sure the girls in my class did not believe the stories of Purgatory. Led by one of the girls who had all the latest fashions, music, and other essentials, about ten of my classmates ganged together to torment me. That year I was forced to ask for a bigger basket for my lemons. My lemons multiplied faster than I could put them all in my basket. My basket began to overflow and I had to humiliate myself to ask for a bigger basket. I had to admit that I could not turn the other cheek and let the lemons my classmates threw at me roll off and away from me. Instead those lemons splattered against my tender face and bruised the delicate skin so severely that I nearly died from misery. I was so humiliated at my inability to cope that I in turn hurt someone else. Fortunately, as I cried and beat him on the chest while he restrained my outburst, I was not able to inflict much damage. He was older and bigger and he understood. I
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think he saw that the weight of my basket bent my back and cramped my legs. What little sugar I had collected didn’t yet allow for decent lemonade and the waters that normally would flow gently downstream came in a torrent that eroded my strength even further. They came so violently that as they filled my pitcher, they spilled back out. So, I was left with more lemons than I could handle. I was given a bigger basket and for a while a few other helped me to carry it until I could grow large enough to carry it on my own. Row, row, row your boat As the waters rose I was given a boat and told to row. The very person, who filled my basket from the day I was born, handed me the oars and told me to row. She was an unforgiving yet gentle coach She vacillated between total insensitivity and cradling me in her arms while I shed years of tears. I didn’t see it then, but I now believe that she had a basket just like mine. In spite of the added burden of rowing that sorry excuse of a boat while carrying that damned basket, I began to develop large muscular arms. I also learned, finally, how to deflect all the lemons my basket couldn’t hold. I wasn’t allowed to just dump the contents out. That would be littering. Instead, by some unfathomable miracle I grew into a strength that would take me past the next few years. On the moon my basket was lighter While the previous fruitings hint at the climate of my early years in a general way, some events specifically impacted my education. In those early years I do not recall consequences for either doing an exceptional job or failure. As long as I appeared to be doing really well and didn’t embarrass my family, I was fine. Appearances were primary. I heard over and over again, “What will people think?” If I said the wrong things or sneezed the wrong way, the response
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particularly from, my mother, was always the same. It seemed that we had some kind of superior reputation to uphold, although I don’t know where that would have come from. I remember my immediate family, first cousins and others, as having dysfunctional families and living somewhat like white trash. Most of the men worked at my grandfather’s machine shop and the cousins had brushes with the law. The boys were lost and the girls were just victims. During this time my lemon tree began to produce less fruit, although what fruit it did produce was larger and potentially more lethal if it made a direct hit. Only once during the years between childhood and the age of 22 did a lemon, the largest ever, come close to making a direct hit and ending my life. For a while my soul was nearly sucked out of me, but all that needs to be said now is that I survived and my basket sufficed. It was then that I took a trip to the moon. I have been blessed to love two extraordinary men in my life. One is my soul mate, my best friend, and my biggest fan ever. It was he who picked me up and rescued me between the ages of 20 and 22. At 20, he slipped into my life. At 22, I married him. He was the first to see potential and to encourage me to seek a true education. He pushed and cajoled me into my bachelor and master degrees. His influence was constant and unfailing. It is he to whom I cling every night and from whom I still after 30 years receive smiles from every morning. Where many who influenced my earlier years nearly loved me to death, he loved me to life. Without him, I would never have experienced my perfect event. The second man was a key part of my perfect event. He is still my intellectual angel whose belief in what I can do continues to gently nudge me. I only need to think of sitting in his classes and raising my hand to ask a question and to then be thanked for my asking to tear with joy. Where in my early years asking questions was discouraged, sometimes though physical and mental abuse, in his classes it was welcomed and celebrated.
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“Doctor!” “Doctor,” he would respond to my greeting. He often called me doctor, especially when I was coming to discuss my research. He knew years before I even thought of seeking my PhD that I would someday do it. To understand my perfect event, I need to look at two events during my first couple of years of college. I began my college career at 21 and quickly dropped it for valid and important reasons related to survival. At 39 I picked up where I left off. The challenges were great and a couple took me completely by surprise. These were no longer lemons being thrown at me, but full sized extremely ripe watermelons. My first semester of back to college was fairly uneventful. I worked full time in the adjoining town and took two evening classes. That, along with raising three children and continuing to share life with my soul mate, left little time for imagination. It was not bad. I just began my second semester after quitting my day job because the classes I needed for my plan were not available at night. I was happy to be back in school full time. I began to thrive. Then a maniac tried to kill me. That fateful night, we started home from the Comedy Club in Denver where friends took us to celebrate my 40th birthday. We did it right. We stopped first for coffee to be sure that we’d be alert, especially for the drive. We drove an acceptable speed limit. But that demon was drunk and he drove like a “bat out of hell” the wrong direction down the exit ramp. Our driver did all that he could to avoid the oncoming truck to no avail. Just before the truck hit us our driver turned the steering wheel sharply so that the truck would hit at an angle instead of head-on. He may have saved our lives, but I still ended up in 5 hours of surgery with a plastic surgeon who put 500 stitches in my head. The drunk driver took something
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more precious to me than gold. He took my ability to read. I loved reading and I needed to be able to read to stay in school. It terrified me to imagine never being able to open a book again and understand the words. Don’t tread on me: an anatomy of a perfect event All my life I was denied educational opportunities. I was denied through social conditioning to believe that I would ever accomplish more than being a wife and mother. I was denied by lack of support for my abilities and interests. I was denied by lack of reward if I did well or consequences if I failed. After the accident I silently screamed that it wasn’t fair to finally have a chance and then to have that chance pulled from under me. When I recovered by some miracle well enough to continue with school, I was driven mad at times by an insatiable desire to do something special, to be somebody who mattered, and to leave something behind that people might remember me by. It was the result of that horrible incident and two fantastic events that would make my perfect event possible. The most significant happened nearly two years later. I received a phone call at home one day while I was studying. “Hello, may I please speak with Angela?” “This is she” I’m [name forgotten] from the Ronald E. McNair program at UNC. The McNair Program has received your name as a possible match for our scholars program. We’d like you to apply” She then briefly explained what the program entails. “Oh, why me?”
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“You’re a good student, you’re a minority because you are a woman, and you are a first generation college student. Are you interested? “Sure.” “Great, I’ll mail you the application.” Months later when I completed the program, collected my stipend, and bonded with my advisor, the foundation was set for my perfect event. The second fantastic event emerged when I applied and was accepted to my masters program. Even with the McNair Program, which prepared me for and gave me the skills I needed to successfully apply for and complete graduate school, I still felt uncertain. My previous experience made me expect that the opportunity would be cruelly pulled away and I would be left with nothing but sadness and regret. Being accepted meant that, even if I didn’t attend, I was worthy. Me, only me. Me as myself. I gladly accepted, eager for the challenge and honored by the opportunity. Graduate school was perfect. Every lemon that came my way acted as a super motivator that drove me harder. I maintained a 4.0. I researched and presented my research at conferences across the country. I received recognition for my work. I received praise from my instructors. Even when the department chair ignored me, I knew I was a star. Her lemons could not fill my basket. My basket even began to shrink. I look back now and realize that the accomplishments and successes will always be with me as a source of great pride. What elements came together to make the experience so triumphant? I was nurtured by my faculty.
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I was encouraged to take chances. I was inspired by a great body of knowledge and the lives and work of wonderful theorists. My faculty never doubted my ability. My faculty allowed and encouraged me to think, question, and do works in areas that they did not fully understand. All the lemons disappeared from my basket and could no longer sour my self-esteem, or my belief in myself. Most important, my husband cheered me on.
I learned to make lemonade at last. It was the world’s greatest lemonade ever made and I did it. I know that, had my mom not planted that lemon tree when I was born, I would not have developed the character, strength, and determination to overcome all the adversity that came my way. I know that if a few kind and nurturing mentors had not stopped when they saw me struggling to offer their aid, I would not have had the sugar to make the lemonade. They made it all so sweet. I know that, if I had not been allowed to take the water from the spring instead of the muddied rivers, the lemonade would not have tasted so sweet. I do not regret or grieve now for all that might have been or for all that was taken from me. I do not wish that the pain I suffered had been lessened. I am truly a better person than I would have been. This I know in my heart and in my soul. The waters still run clear and fresh, the lemons are a blessing that are sweeter than any other lemons that ever grew before, and the sugar flows freely from the hands of those wonderful angels that follow my footsteps in case I fall or lead the way though darkened passageways. I have made the world’s best lemonade. Epilogue - 2012
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I just graduated with my Ph.D in Educational Technology with a minor in Research and Applied Statistics. The experience was enlightening, challenging, and at times, frustrating, but I did it. My soul mate cheered, badgered me actually, me on. My former advisor cheered me on. Once again my lemonade making expertise served me well. I have once again made the world’s best lemonade.
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Methodology
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When I chose to complete an autoethnography in order to fulfill the requirements of a Narrative Inquiry class, I had only minimal understanding of the implications. As the course progressed and I read more about this qualitative research method, I began to have my doubts. I procrastinated and when I did put forth effort early on, my stomach often became queasy. I am not a revealing person. Richardson (1994) tells us that: Autoethnography can be a very difficult undertaking because this form of scholarship
highlights more than ever issues of representation, “objectivity,” data quality, legitimacy, and ethics. Although working through these challenges can lead to the production of an excellent text, the intimate and personal nature of autoethnography can, in fact, make it one of the most challenging qualitative approaches to attempt (p. 521). For me, the challenge would be particularly difficult. I would need to recall events that I’ve spent decades trying to forget. After recalling these events I would need to relate them without conveying bitterness or anger. I have every right to be angry, but I believe that by focusing on my goal to understand something positive in my life, I could ultimately write about bad experiences in a positive light.
Autoethnography requires the researcher to gaze, first through an ethnographic wideangle lens, focusing outward on social and cultural aspects of their personal experience; then, they look inward, exposing a vulnerable self that is moved by and may move through, refract, and resist cultural interpretations ( (Ellis & Bochner, 2000). In this, Ellis offers this more simple personal explanation: I started with my personal life. I payed attention to my physical feelings, thoughts, and emotions. I usede what I call systematic sociological introspection and emotional recall to try to understand an experience that I lived through. Then I wrote my experience as a story.
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Additionally, Ellis recognizes feminism’s role in the development of autoethnography, saying that in reflexive ethnography, a feminist tool, researchers incorporate their personal experiences and standpoints in their research by starting with a story about themselves, explaining their personal connection to the project, or by using personal knowledge to help them in the research process (Ellis in Ellis & Bochner, 2000). In the Dictionary of Qualitative Inquiry (2001) it states that it is commonly claimed that the striking stories that frequently comprise autoethnography are intended to illustrate and evoke rather than to state or make a claim, and that the author of such a text aims to invite readers into the text to relive the experience rather than to interpret or analyze what the author is saying (Schwandt, 2001). Dyson adds to this by expalining how autoethnographers use metaphor to order thought, experiences, and to construct a reality about lived experiences rather than use particular procedures, to generate format and empirical truths (Dyson, 2007). These three key descriptions, only a small part of the literature, tell me the basics I need to know in order to begin the assignment. Additional readings expand, corraborate and confirm the methodological path I must take. Many of the other writers about autoethnography quote the work of Denzin and Lincoln: Dyson; and Ellis and Bochner Klinker, Spry, and Porter whom I looked to for additional clarification asnd inspiration (Klinker & Todd, 2007; Porter, 2004; Spry, 2001). Klinker offered that the researcher as the intrument of data collection [works] through personal reflection, conversation, introspection, emotional recall, and sharing (Klinker & Todd, p. 167). Spry synthesizes Denzin and Lincoln, Ellis and Bochner, among myriad others: autonethnography is a radical reaction to realist agendas in ethnography and sociology which privilege the researcher over the subject, method over subject matter, and maintain commitments to outmoded conceptions of validity, truth, and generalizability.
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Autoethnography writing resists Grand Theorizing and the façade of objective research that decontectualizes subjects and searches for singular truth (Spry, 2001).
Finally in Wall (2008) we are treated to an excellent description of autoethnographic emphases drawn from several bodies of research: Autoethnographers vary in their emphasis on auto- (self), -ethno- (the sociocultural connection), and -graphy (the application of the research process) (Reed-Danahay, 1997). Although some consider a personal narrative to be the same thing as an autoethnography (Ellis & Bochner, 2000), others use autoethnography as a means of explicitly linking concepts from the literature to the narrated personal experience (Holt, 2001; Sparkes, 1996) and support an approach as rigorous and justifiable as any other form of inquiry (Duncan, 2004).
Guided by these researchers I asked myself if I could indeed reveal myself, become a part of my research, expose my short-comings, and tell a story that would evoke. I realized with some refelction that I had already unknowingly done that in several previous research works. Now for the first time I had justification and solid support for my methods. However, unlike many authethnographies I read, I wanted to focus, not on a negative event, but on something wonderful in order to try to understand the event better and to replicate the same kinds of feelings, motivations, and energy that lead to great success. Autoethnography offers the structure needed to accomplish that goal. Richardson wrote that narratives of the self are a form of eveocative writing that draws upon techniques of fiction to produce highly personalized and revealing texts in which authors tell stories about their own lived experiences and invite the reader to emotioanlly “relive” the event with the author (Richardson in Sparks, 1994). Perhaps for me that is what attracts me to writing an autoethnography, the opportunity to draw upon techniques of fiction. I’m still not sure about inviting you in to “relive” these events emotionally with me. For
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the most part, I am beyond the deep emotions. I look through a self-detached lense to make sense of something good, so that I might create more such good events in my life.
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Works Cited
Duncan, M. (2004). Autoethnography: Critical appreciation of an emerging art. In Wall (2008). International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 3(4), Article 3. Retrieved June 28, 2005 from http://www.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/backissues/3_4/html/duncan.html. Dyson, M. (2007). My story in a profession of stories: Autoethnography - an empowering methodology for educators. Australian journal of Teacher Education , 36 (1), 36-48. Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity. In N. Denzin, & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd ed., pp. 733-768). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Holt, N. L. (2001). Beyond technical reflection: Demonstrating the modification of teaching behaviors using three levels of reflection. In Wall (2008). Avante, 7(2), 66-76. Klinker, J., & Todd, R. (2007). Two autoethnographies: A search for understanding of gender and age. The Qualitative Report , 12 (2), 168-183. Porter, N. (2004). CMA methodology: Autoethnography. Retrieved March 25, 2009, from Computer-Mediated Antropology: http://anthropology.usf.edu/cma/CMAmethodology-ae.htm. Reed-Danahay, D. E. (1997). Auto/ethnography: Rewriting the self and the social. In Wall (2008). Oxford, UK: Berg. Richardson, L. (1994). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 516-529). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Schwandt, T. (2001). Disctionary of Qualitative Inquiry (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Sparks, A. The Fatal Flaw: A Narrative of the Fragile Body-Self. Qualitative Inquiry 1996; 2; 463 Spry, T. (2001). Performing autoethnography: An embodied methodological praxis. Qualitative Inquiry , 7 (6), 706-732.
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Running head: Lemon tree
From the branches of the lemon tree: An autoethnography of a perfect event Angie Koponen
Originally completed 2 April 2009 Edited 17 May 2012
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Introduction I wanted to write about a perfect event so that I could learn how it happened and duplicate it often enough to realize all my dreams. Just this last year I have thirsted daily for “lemonade.” I tired at first to quench my thirst with other seemingly suitable liquids, but none sufficed. It had to be lemonade, sweet-tart, cool, cleansing. This perfect nectar springs from an unlikely beginning. Healthy and refreshing, lemonade can surprise even the most seasoned lemonade lover. The first sip of the first summer batch taken after a long cold winter finally recedes into its annual hibernation can sometimes pucker the mouth. After its tartness finally makes peace with a reluctant tongue, its sweetness rewards the drinker with renewed sense of freshness and joy. Recipe for Fresh Lemonade 6 fresh lemons 2 c. sugar Water to fill 1 gal. jug Juice 6 fresh lemons. Put the juice into a 1 gallon jug. Add 2 cups of sugar. Add enough water to fill 1 gallon jug and stir well. Pour over ice and sip slowly until your mouth no longer puckers from the initial tartness.
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From a tiny seed is born a tree When I was born, my mother, out of ignorance, desperation, or perhaps disappointment, planted a “lemon” tree. I say ignorance because I cannot see how she could not know that lemon trees cannot grow in the area of Illinois where I was born and grew up. However, it could have been desperation, because she did not expect to give birth to a partially deformed child. Why she chose to plant a lemon tree and not a hardier, more suitable variety of fruit tree, was a mystery until recently. I didn’t understand until I once again tasted “lemonade.” The tree sprouted from a seed my mother must have saved while making lemonade the summer before I was born. At 16, she found herself married and expecting a child. The stories of how that happened vary depending on who tells. Having been 16 and with raging hormones, I know which version I can accept. Having been that age and desperate for acceptance, I can accept too that the truth no longer matters. My mother was given lemons and so she made lemonade. Pregnant, my mother married my father and I was born. A perfect event Seldom does anyone say that the more work they are given, the more they want. Graduate school was like that for me, the more work I was given, the more I wanted. I thrived. I found myself surrounded by extraordinary perfection – unconditional acceptance, firm encouragement, and unbelievable productiveness. It was as if the planets of academic experience had aligned themselves perfectly for the first time. At no other time have I ever been more overextended and productive, and overjoyed as a result. “I am not an expert in that area, but think it’s great that you want to explore it.”
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“That’s a great question.” “Don’t be disappointed if you are not accepted. Few are their first time. Just do it anyway; you have nothing to lose.” “Congratulations. You’ve done it!” Their words challenged and inspired. I never feared rejection because I knew I was already accepted by my heroes and mentors. I drank my lemonade with some of the best in the discipline. The cool, refreshing elixir was concocted like stone soup. Everyone brought something to the mix. The water was provided by the university in the form of structure, tradition, and opportunity. The sugar was provided by the faculty. They embraced me, encouraged me, and shared my joy unselfishly. I provided the lemons from my own tree. All my past “lemons” -- disappointments, challenges, near failures, and tragedies were just bitter enough to help me appreciate the water and the sugar as they were presented and to be open to the possibilities to envision the end result. Together we mixed the world’s most perfect lemonade. The lemon tree that shouldn’t have I wanted to explore my perfect event without regret and without revealing the one person who sowed the seeds of my personal lemon tree, the one who gave me lemons time and again. At first it was easy to exclude her because I did not recognize the tree, nor did I remember the tart juice from its fruit. I spent years trying to forget. The pain could be overwhelming at times and I feared that if I remembered, I would be stuck in bitterness. I feared that I would not be able to move past the tartness and taste sweetness.
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My lemon tree should not have survived. It should have withered from the cold winters, and the long periods of neglect. But my tree was watered and fed, often just in time to help it survive a while longer until it could produce yet another lemon. At first the fruit was small and nearly unrecognizable. It paled next to more hearty store-bought fruit. Of course, I would not at the time recognize the difference. The juice from both exhibited the same tartness. “No.” “Shut up!” “See what you made me do.” The egg began to burn and I was blamed. I asked questions and created tension. I failed at 6 or 7 to tell her that the burner was too high. I forgot to mention that eggs cook at a fairly low temperature and that the hard brown edges cannot be digested. I was a curious child and I tried her patience. Cooking the perfect egg requires a little patience. She had very little. She was nonetheless most generous. She gave me a ripe, beautiful lemon. “I’ll teach you to never squirm in church again!” she screamed as she began to beat me. My father intervened and took her away long enough for me to escape. Church still suffocates me. I haven’t gone in years and the threats that I’d be “struck by lightning” if I misbehaved never materialized. My life has not been more tragic than any other average life. The irony is that I believe I am happier and more successful than many of the others with whom I attended Catholic school and most of those that remained true to the faith. I unconsciously stored that lemon away with the first until I could figure out what to do with it. I didn’t realize at that young age what I was given.
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A basket of lemons, please! I do not remember two-sided conversations. I remember asking questions and I remember that the answers were rarely forthcoming. I day-dreamed in class, and felt the painful reminder of the long wooden pointer as it hit my back forcing me back to “reality.” I preferred my reality. It was pleasant and peaceful. I could ask as many questions as I liked and no one hit me or yelled. It was like a few grains of sugar in the palm of my hand. I also remember being talked at. They told me what to do, what to think, and how to be. The waters in those early years were often cloudy and luke-warm. They spilled easily so that I never had quite enough. I literally suffered for a couple of years from one infection after another caused by dehydration. My soul dehydrated, too, as my spirit was beaten and berated out of me. “Come out here and show everyone your diaper” Did I protest? I think so, but I cannot recall my voice. I still only hear her voice humiliating me in front of her guests. I didn’t know at nearly three or four years old that it wasn’t my fault, that my bladder was small, and the infections caused incontinence. I must have been bad because I was the one who wet my panties. The tartness of that lemon remained for a very long time. By ten my basket of lemons overflowed. At times the water cleared and occasionally I was given a hint of sugar. I began to recognize the making of lemonade. Our Lady of the Lake She was like no other. Her beauty spread over a great lawn and smiled at her lake. Crawling into her gentle arms may have been my first perfect event. I saw her and I saw beauty.
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I had a taste of how things might be if only my basket of lemons were not so full. I rested in her caressing arms and learned to embrace lasting thankfulness. That year I went for one blessed week to church summer camp. I had my first memorable taste of pure, fresh lemonade. I think I must have had lemonade before, but the memory was lost, covered over in the bottom of my lemon basket. I left my lemon basket at home that week. I was always somewhat forgetful. I liked being happy and forgetting easily left no room for agony. I was too naïve to know that having so many lemons was a rare gift. It wasn’t that my peers had fewer lemons so much, as it was that they had so many other fruits. They had more new clothes. They were allowed to go to the skating rink. They had birthday parties every year, not just at ten. They had heard the music and knew the words to the songs of “The Sound of Music.” Their lemons more often spilled out and never puckered their mouths. Their lemons seemed smaller and less tart. My week consisted of three glorious meals a day, a warm bed in a cabin surrounded by trees, and my first taste of doing something so well that someone else felt threatened. My camp counselors were geniuses. In a week they not only each cared for about ten girls’ daily needs, they also found time to speak with us instead of talking at us, lead us to the table of abundance, and coordinate a production of the music of the movie, The Sound of Music. I had not heard of The Sound of Music before my week at summer camp. I sang much before that, but I do not recall what I sang other than the ABC Song. I know I loved singing, but I can only see myself singing in a pantomime. My voice is muted and no one can hear me. That week the counselors taught me the choruses to Sound of Music songs. They tried to teach me to sings the solo pieces, but I couldn’t learn both the music and the lyrics in such a short time. Another girl already knew the lyrics to all the songs and was given the lead role in the
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production. I remember that she was kind of mousy and while her voice was not extraordinary she sang clearly and pleasantly enough. When she heard me singing the chorus, she became ill. They took her to the nurse who gave her medicine for a headache and put her to bed. I remember her saying that she was afraid they would give her part to me because my voice was so much better. She didn’t even realize that I didn’t want the lead. I was terrified of doing something so bold and I was equally frustrated that I could not learn the words to the songs. No, she could keep her lead. I was glad to be the chorus and overjoyed with the prospect of another fantastic lunch. I was content. The water was clearer than ever before, my lemon basket was at home, or maybe just hiding in my trunk, and I was given a lovely crystal jar to collect little bits of sugar. The best part was that only I could see my sugar jar, so nobody could take it away from me. It was mine, all mine! In the end, that girl sang her part brilliantly, I sang in the chorus, and I was given all the ingredients for making my own lemonade. Even though I did not know what I had gained until I was much older, when life became difficult, I could visit that lovely lady in my imagination and because only I could see my journey, it could not be taken away from me. Please, may I have a bigger basket? Life became more dangerous and difficult for a while after I left the nurturing arms of My Lady. As I was growing, my lemon tree grew as well. It grew fine strong branches. The fruit became larger and juicier. The weight of the fruit pulled the branches down until the tips nearly touched the ground. For a while it seemed like lemons were thrown at me from all directions. “Oo! I don’t want to play with you. You have leprosy. Look how your fingers already fell off. Come on girls, let’s not play with Angie.”
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“Look at your knee socks! Laugh, laugh! Don’t you know that all the cool girls are wearing tights?” “Don’t you know anything? Everyone [who’s anyone] knows what happened on the Monkeys yesterday!” Yeah, don’t you know anything,” the chorus sounded off. “Come on, let’s play ball.” You can’t play. Girls are a brutal group when they gang up under the leadership of a bully. They beat you down at every opportunity. That year my lemon tree took on gargantuan proportions. Never before had the fruit been so huge and brightly colored. It was a capital year for lemon tree fertilizer sales and many of my “friends” and others took full advantage of very appealing promotions. One such promotion began in religion class. There, we learned about the leper colonies and how the disease ate away at its victims’ flesh. We also learned details about Purgatory and how if you told a little white lie, you would not be allowed into heaven until your lips burned in Purgatory for a thousand or more years. They would burn and burn and nothing could stop the pain. I’m sure the girls in my class did not believe the stories of Purgatory. Led by one of the girls who had all the latest fashions, music, and other essentials, about ten of my classmates ganged together to torment me. That year I was forced to ask for a bigger basket for my lemons. My lemons multiplied faster than I could put them all in my basket. My basket began to overflow and I had to humiliate myself to ask for a bigger basket. I had to admit that I could not turn the other cheek and let the lemons my classmates threw at me roll off and away from me. Instead those lemons splattered against my tender face and bruised the delicate skin so severely that I nearly died from misery. I was so humiliated at my inability to cope that I in turn hurt someone else. Fortunately, as I cried and beat him on the chest while he restrained my outburst, I was not able to inflict much damage. He was older and bigger and he understood. I
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think he saw that the weight of my basket bent my back and cramped my legs. What little sugar I had collected didn’t yet allow for decent lemonade and the waters that normally would flow gently downstream came in a torrent that eroded my strength even further. They came so violently that as they filled my pitcher, they spilled back out. So, I was left with more lemons than I could handle. I was given a bigger basket and for a while a few other helped me to carry it until I could grow large enough to carry it on my own. Row, row, row your boat As the waters rose I was given a boat and told to row. The very person, who filled my basket from the day I was born, handed me the oars and told me to row. She was an unforgiving yet gentle coach She vacillated between total insensitivity and cradling me in her arms while I shed years of tears. I didn’t see it then, but I now believe that she had a basket just like mine. In spite of the added burden of rowing that sorry excuse of a boat while carrying that damned basket, I began to develop large muscular arms. I also learned, finally, how to deflect all the lemons my basket couldn’t hold. I wasn’t allowed to just dump the contents out. That would be littering. Instead, by some unfathomable miracle I grew into a strength that would take me past the next few years. On the moon my basket was lighter While the previous fruitings hint at the climate of my early years in a general way, some events specifically impacted my education. In those early years I do not recall consequences for either doing an exceptional job or failure. As long as I appeared to be doing really well and didn’t embarrass my family, I was fine. Appearances were primary. I heard over and over again, “What will people think?” If I said the wrong things or sneezed the wrong way, the response
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particularly from, my mother, was always the same. It seemed that we had some kind of superior reputation to uphold, although I don’t know where that would have come from. I remember my immediate family, first cousins and others, as having dysfunctional families and living somewhat like white trash. Most of the men worked at my grandfather’s machine shop and the cousins had brushes with the law. The boys were lost and the girls were just victims. During this time my lemon tree began to produce less fruit, although what fruit it did produce was larger and potentially more lethal if it made a direct hit. Only once during the years between childhood and the age of 22 did a lemon, the largest ever, come close to making a direct hit and ending my life. For a while my soul was nearly sucked out of me, but all that needs to be said now is that I survived and my basket sufficed. It was then that I took a trip to the moon. I have been blessed to love two extraordinary men in my life. One is my soul mate, my best friend, and my biggest fan ever. It was he who picked me up and rescued me between the ages of 20 and 22. At 20, he slipped into my life. At 22, I married him. He was the first to see potential and to encourage me to seek a true education. He pushed and cajoled me into my bachelor and master degrees. His influence was constant and unfailing. It is he to whom I cling every night and from whom I still after 30 years receive smiles from every morning. Where many who influenced my earlier years nearly loved me to death, he loved me to life. Without him, I would never have experienced my perfect event. The second man was a key part of my perfect event. He is still my intellectual angel whose belief in what I can do continues to gently nudge me. I only need to think of sitting in his classes and raising my hand to ask a question and to then be thanked for my asking to tear with joy. Where in my early years asking questions was discouraged, sometimes though physical and mental abuse, in his classes it was welcomed and celebrated.
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“Doctor!” “Doctor,” he would respond to my greeting. He often called me doctor, especially when I was coming to discuss my research. He knew years before I even thought of seeking my PhD that I would someday do it. To understand my perfect event, I need to look at two events during my first couple of years of college. I began my college career at 21 and quickly dropped it for valid and important reasons related to survival. At 39 I picked up where I left off. The challenges were great and a couple took me completely by surprise. These were no longer lemons being thrown at me, but full sized extremely ripe watermelons. My first semester of back to college was fairly uneventful. I worked full time in the adjoining town and took two evening classes. That, along with raising three children and continuing to share life with my soul mate, left little time for imagination. It was not bad. I just began my second semester after quitting my day job because the classes I needed for my plan were not available at night. I was happy to be back in school full time. I began to thrive. Then a maniac tried to kill me. That fateful night, we started home from the Comedy Club in Denver where friends took us to celebrate my 40th birthday. We did it right. We stopped first for coffee to be sure that we’d be alert, especially for the drive. We drove an acceptable speed limit. But that demon was drunk and he drove like a “bat out of hell” the wrong direction down the exit ramp. Our driver did all that he could to avoid the oncoming truck to no avail. Just before the truck hit us our driver turned the steering wheel sharply so that the truck would hit at an angle instead of head-on. He may have saved our lives, but I still ended up in 5 hours of surgery with a plastic surgeon who put 500 stitches in my head. The drunk driver took something
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more precious to me than gold. He took my ability to read. I loved reading and I needed to be able to read to stay in school. It terrified me to imagine never being able to open a book again and understand the words. Don’t tread on me: an anatomy of a perfect event All my life I was denied educational opportunities. I was denied through social conditioning to believe that I would ever accomplish more than being a wife and mother. I was denied by lack of support for my abilities and interests. I was denied by lack of reward if I did well or consequences if I failed. After the accident I silently screamed that it wasn’t fair to finally have a chance and then to have that chance pulled from under me. When I recovered by some miracle well enough to continue with school, I was driven mad at times by an insatiable desire to do something special, to be somebody who mattered, and to leave something behind that people might remember me by. It was the result of that horrible incident and two fantastic events that would make my perfect event possible. The most significant happened nearly two years later. I received a phone call at home one day while I was studying. “Hello, may I please speak with Angela?” “This is she” I’m [name forgotten] from the Ronald E. McNair program at UNC. The McNair Program has received your name as a possible match for our scholars program. We’d like you to apply” She then briefly explained what the program entails. “Oh, why me?”
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“You’re a good student, you’re a minority because you are a woman, and you are a first generation college student. Are you interested? “Sure.” “Great, I’ll mail you the application.” Months later when I completed the program, collected my stipend, and bonded with my advisor, the foundation was set for my perfect event. The second fantastic event emerged when I applied and was accepted to my masters program. Even with the McNair Program, which prepared me for and gave me the skills I needed to successfully apply for and complete graduate school, I still felt uncertain. My previous experience made me expect that the opportunity would be cruelly pulled away and I would be left with nothing but sadness and regret. Being accepted meant that, even if I didn’t attend, I was worthy. Me, only me. Me as myself. I gladly accepted, eager for the challenge and honored by the opportunity. Graduate school was perfect. Every lemon that came my way acted as a super motivator that drove me harder. I maintained a 4.0. I researched and presented my research at conferences across the country. I received recognition for my work. I received praise from my instructors. Even when the department chair ignored me, I knew I was a star. Her lemons could not fill my basket. My basket even began to shrink. I look back now and realize that the accomplishments and successes will always be with me as a source of great pride. What elements came together to make the experience so triumphant? I was nurtured by my faculty.
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I was encouraged to take chances. I was inspired by a great body of knowledge and the lives and work of wonderful theorists. My faculty never doubted my ability. My faculty allowed and encouraged me to think, question, and do works in areas that they did not fully understand. All the lemons disappeared from my basket and could no longer sour my self-esteem, or my belief in myself. Most important, my husband cheered me on.
I learned to make lemonade at last. It was the world’s greatest lemonade ever made and I did it. I know that, had my mom not planted that lemon tree when I was born, I would not have developed the character, strength, and determination to overcome all the adversity that came my way. I know that if a few kind and nurturing mentors had not stopped when they saw me struggling to offer their aid, I would not have had the sugar to make the lemonade. They made it all so sweet. I know that, if I had not been allowed to take the water from the spring instead of the muddied rivers, the lemonade would not have tasted so sweet. I do not regret or grieve now for all that might have been or for all that was taken from me. I do not wish that the pain I suffered had been lessened. I am truly a better person than I would have been. This I know in my heart and in my soul. The waters still run clear and fresh, the lemons are a blessing that are sweeter than any other lemons that ever grew before, and the sugar flows freely from the hands of those wonderful angels that follow my footsteps in case I fall or lead the way though darkened passageways. I have made the world’s best lemonade. Epilogue - 2012
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I just graduated with my Ph.D in Educational Technology with a minor in Research and Applied Statistics. The experience was enlightening, challenging, and at times, frustrating, but I did it. My soul mate cheered, badgered me actually, me on. My former advisor cheered me on. Once again my lemonade making expertise served me well. I have once again made the world’s best lemonade.
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Methodology
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When I chose to complete an autoethnography in order to fulfill the requirements of a Narrative Inquiry class, I had only minimal understanding of the implications. As the course progressed and I read more about this qualitative research method, I began to have my doubts. I procrastinated and when I did put forth effort early on, my stomach often became queasy. I am not a revealing person. Richardson (1994) tells us that: Autoethnography can be a very difficult undertaking because this form of scholarship
highlights more than ever issues of representation, “objectivity,” data quality, legitimacy, and ethics. Although working through these challenges can lead to the production of an excellent text, the intimate and personal nature of autoethnography can, in fact, make it one of the most challenging qualitative approaches to attempt (p. 521). For me, the challenge would be particularly difficult. I would need to recall events that I’ve spent decades trying to forget. After recalling these events I would need to relate them without conveying bitterness or anger. I have every right to be angry, but I believe that by focusing on my goal to understand something positive in my life, I could ultimately write about bad experiences in a positive light.
Autoethnography requires the researcher to gaze, first through an ethnographic wideangle lens, focusing outward on social and cultural aspects of their personal experience; then, they look inward, exposing a vulnerable self that is moved by and may move through, refract, and resist cultural interpretations ( (Ellis & Bochner, 2000). In this, Ellis offers this more simple personal explanation: I started with my personal life. I payed attention to my physical feelings, thoughts, and emotions. I usede what I call systematic sociological introspection and emotional recall to try to understand an experience that I lived through. Then I wrote my experience as a story.
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.
Additionally, Ellis recognizes feminism’s role in the development of autoethnography, saying that in reflexive ethnography, a feminist tool, researchers incorporate their personal experiences and standpoints in their research by starting with a story about themselves, explaining their personal connection to the project, or by using personal knowledge to help them in the research process (Ellis in Ellis & Bochner, 2000). In the Dictionary of Qualitative Inquiry (2001) it states that it is commonly claimed that the striking stories that frequently comprise autoethnography are intended to illustrate and evoke rather than to state or make a claim, and that the author of such a text aims to invite readers into the text to relive the experience rather than to interpret or analyze what the author is saying (Schwandt, 2001). Dyson adds to this by expalining how autoethnographers use metaphor to order thought, experiences, and to construct a reality about lived experiences rather than use particular procedures, to generate format and empirical truths (Dyson, 2007). These three key descriptions, only a small part of the literature, tell me the basics I need to know in order to begin the assignment. Additional readings expand, corraborate and confirm the methodological path I must take. Many of the other writers about autoethnography quote the work of Denzin and Lincoln: Dyson; and Ellis and Bochner Klinker, Spry, and Porter whom I looked to for additional clarification asnd inspiration (Klinker & Todd, 2007; Porter, 2004; Spry, 2001). Klinker offered that the researcher as the intrument of data collection [works] through personal reflection, conversation, introspection, emotional recall, and sharing (Klinker & Todd, p. 167). Spry synthesizes Denzin and Lincoln, Ellis and Bochner, among myriad others: autonethnography is a radical reaction to realist agendas in ethnography and sociology which privilege the researcher over the subject, method over subject matter, and maintain commitments to outmoded conceptions of validity, truth, and generalizability.
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Autoethnography writing resists Grand Theorizing and the façade of objective research that decontectualizes subjects and searches for singular truth (Spry, 2001).
Finally in Wall (2008) we are treated to an excellent description of autoethnographic emphases drawn from several bodies of research: Autoethnographers vary in their emphasis on auto- (self), -ethno- (the sociocultural connection), and -graphy (the application of the research process) (Reed-Danahay, 1997). Although some consider a personal narrative to be the same thing as an autoethnography (Ellis & Bochner, 2000), others use autoethnography as a means of explicitly linking concepts from the literature to the narrated personal experience (Holt, 2001; Sparkes, 1996) and support an approach as rigorous and justifiable as any other form of inquiry (Duncan, 2004).
Guided by these researchers I asked myself if I could indeed reveal myself, become a part of my research, expose my short-comings, and tell a story that would evoke. I realized with some refelction that I had already unknowingly done that in several previous research works. Now for the first time I had justification and solid support for my methods. However, unlike many authethnographies I read, I wanted to focus, not on a negative event, but on something wonderful in order to try to understand the event better and to replicate the same kinds of feelings, motivations, and energy that lead to great success. Autoethnography offers the structure needed to accomplish that goal. Richardson wrote that narratives of the self are a form of eveocative writing that draws upon techniques of fiction to produce highly personalized and revealing texts in which authors tell stories about their own lived experiences and invite the reader to emotioanlly “relive” the event with the author (Richardson in Sparks, 1994). Perhaps for me that is what attracts me to writing an autoethnography, the opportunity to draw upon techniques of fiction. I’m still not sure about inviting you in to “relive” these events emotionally with me. For
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the most part, I am beyond the deep emotions. I look through a self-detached lense to make sense of something good, so that I might create more such good events in my life.
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Works Cited
Duncan, M. (2004). Autoethnography: Critical appreciation of an emerging art. In Wall (2008). International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 3(4), Article 3. Retrieved June 28, 2005 from http://www.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/backissues/3_4/html/duncan.html. Dyson, M. (2007). My story in a profession of stories: Autoethnography - an empowering methodology for educators. Australian journal of Teacher Education , 36 (1), 36-48. Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity. In N. Denzin, & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd ed., pp. 733-768). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Holt, N. L. (2001). Beyond technical reflection: Demonstrating the modification of teaching behaviors using three levels of reflection. In Wall (2008). Avante, 7(2), 66-76. Klinker, J., & Todd, R. (2007). Two autoethnographies: A search for understanding of gender and age. The Qualitative Report , 12 (2), 168-183. Porter, N. (2004). CMA methodology: Autoethnography. Retrieved March 25, 2009, from Computer-Mediated Antropology: http://anthropology.usf.edu/cma/CMAmethodology-ae.htm. Reed-Danahay, D. E. (1997). Auto/ethnography: Rewriting the self and the social. In Wall (2008). Oxford, UK: Berg. Richardson, L. (1994). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 516-529). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Schwandt, T. (2001). Disctionary of Qualitative Inquiry (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Sparks, A. The Fatal Flaw: A Narrative of the Fragile Body-Self. Qualitative Inquiry 1996; 2; 463 Spry, T. (2001). Performing autoethnography: An embodied methodological praxis. Qualitative Inquiry , 7 (6), 706-732.
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