When I was little I was fearless.
Now I know my fears.
They are smart, sensible fears that are surely only looking out for me.
But I often want to treat them like an unfortunate acquaintance.
I want to turn my back and pretend we've never met.
I don't know if I was always afraid of heights or if fear of heights just snuck up on me one day in the process of getting older. I'm not even sure what fuels it precisely. Maybe an acute realization that if I were to fall at such a height I would surely die. Maybe a lack of trust in my own capacity not to fall.
Today I hiked up a steep mountain. The view was so expansive it made my knees weak. I do not mean this figuratively. I mean that having the sight of cascading mountains and tiny trees blending into endless forest at my back made my legs feel like they might give out. I was not sure I wouldn't fall. The way grew steeper as I neared the top. There was a part of it that was bare of rocks and plants, mostly dirt with a few trees. It was maybe a 40 degree incline. Maybe more, I have no sense for inclines.
I became nervous that I might be not able to continue.
I thought maybe I could.
I knew that once I reached the top, there would be a gentler trail to lead me back down. As scared as I felt to keep climbing, I felt scarder of the hike back down this way, with the Cascades at my front and my feet speeding up. There was nothing for it but to keep hiking.
I'm not certain I'd ever before had the experience of doing something and thinking, don't look down, just don't look down. I tried not to look back at the progress I was making.
As the trees thinned out, the path became entirely rocky and I climbed up. The butte is at an elevation of 2,065'. Now all of that was all around me. I turned my eyes to my footing and where I was putting my hands. I felt like a bunny rabbit but I tried to think of mountain goats.
I came to the top. A few other people were there, standing sturdily at the very edge, flying kites. The sky was a strong, sure blue and all around me rested Oregon.
I tried to free my heart from my throat and let it be opened by everything I was seeing. My fear of heights does not diminish my appreciation of the beauty they possess. If anything that feeling of being close upon the precipice and the wide open everything makes me feel full and free. If only I am calm enough to notice those other feelings.
As though a gift, a friendly stranger struck up a conversation with me and we began a loose and comfortable conversation that chased away my anxiousness. We talked until the sun began to feel hotter and then hiked down the mountain together, taking the easier path, sharing stories.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
your mind conceives, as your body does too, they are not so different after all.
two pieces of writing. one is a piece for college on my experiences working with Planned Parenthood analyzed through the lenses of reproductive justice that we have been crafting. the other is a poem written just for me and now shared with you.
I.
The Teen Awareness Group had been active for a year, the sister to an identical organization in a town 50 miles away from ours that had been around for nearly a decade. As a peer-led comprehensive sex education group, TAG facilitated workshops in public schools all over our community and surrounding areas. TAG was coordinated by one person, usually, a job which seemed to have a shelf-life of a year. I think a lot of the positivity and progressiveness that I encountered during my involvement was a direct result of the coordinators. Had the folks running it not had a radical resolve and a compassionate analysis, they very easily could have perpetuated the problematic history associated with reproductive politics. As it was, though that history was apparent at points, TAG managed to be an organization dedicated to giving youth all the information needed to make empowered decisions. However, we often felt the limitations of the social structure we were working in that kept us from progressing with this goal and restricting us to doing the best that we could.
Societal constraints were often felt in the divide between what we wanted to accomplish and what we could. Our desire was to see a world in which everyone was safe and free and able to have the relationships they needed. We strove to understand the differences between peoples' desires and needs without valued judgment or our own moral compasses. We were dedicated to respecting people and encouraging people to respect each other. Above all else, our belief was that people provided with comprehensive information will make the decisions that are best for them. We were operating in schools largely without comprehensive sex education curriculum and often in schools that had instituted abstinence only policies. Yet still, we had to work in this environment. We had to craft workshops that fit with the regulations of the schools and with our beliefs. We had to try and create the capacity for empowered choice in situations that wanted to grant teens only one right, the right to say no.
Reflecting now, I can see the complexities of the politics of choice that we were working with. Pro-choice as defined by the mainstream was not really the framework we worked under. In fact, despite being affiliated with Planned Parenthood, we rarely discussed abortion at all. Afraid that a conversation around abortion would make schools less inclined to allow us into the classroom, we held back. At the time, I remember feeling conflicted, like abortion was being treated like a taboo subject even in the midst of the movement that fought to provide it. Today, I recognize this an act of compromise in an effort to survive and a sacrifice of abortion for the myriad of other issues of sexuality.
TAG's progressive values around choice were internally limited as well. Part of our goal was to prevent unplanned teen pregnancy. However underlying this was a framework of the ideal pregnancy. The vision of ideal pregnancy that a lot of the administration held and which was somewhat reflected in policy was an economically stable person, years past their teens, in a committed relationship. Anything which deviated from this was regarded with a slight sadness and the assumption that this was proof that the system was failing girls. When it came to teen pregnancy, the goal was prevention and if prevention failed, abortion. We were imbued with an understanding of every woman's right to choose, but not an understanding of every woman's right to mother.
II.
When I walk, my earrings shiver
with noises just as grand as my ears require
chiming like three ice cubes in one glass
tinking, like the feather beat of fairy wings
When it's quiet all around, with just one lonesome heart, my own
I have a steady tick tick tick
that marches from my pocket to ear drums
with half second clicks
the paces of my heart
The moments that live in between the other moments
like pathways between close houses
where you forget that silence is a concept, not a fact
and your thoughts bounce loudly around in your head.
Now I share those moments with tiny noises
that no one else can hear unless they know to listen.
And my quiet breath is held
shared by something other than myself.
The days have gotten warm warm warm and I've been preparing during these first days of summer for the rest of my life. I feel like I'm nearly always in a constant state of planning. What's the deal, I ask myself frequently.
I.
The Teen Awareness Group had been active for a year, the sister to an identical organization in a town 50 miles away from ours that had been around for nearly a decade. As a peer-led comprehensive sex education group, TAG facilitated workshops in public schools all over our community and surrounding areas. TAG was coordinated by one person, usually, a job which seemed to have a shelf-life of a year. I think a lot of the positivity and progressiveness that I encountered during my involvement was a direct result of the coordinators. Had the folks running it not had a radical resolve and a compassionate analysis, they very easily could have perpetuated the problematic history associated with reproductive politics. As it was, though that history was apparent at points, TAG managed to be an organization dedicated to giving youth all the information needed to make empowered decisions. However, we often felt the limitations of the social structure we were working in that kept us from progressing with this goal and restricting us to doing the best that we could.
Societal constraints were often felt in the divide between what we wanted to accomplish and what we could. Our desire was to see a world in which everyone was safe and free and able to have the relationships they needed. We strove to understand the differences between peoples' desires and needs without valued judgment or our own moral compasses. We were dedicated to respecting people and encouraging people to respect each other. Above all else, our belief was that people provided with comprehensive information will make the decisions that are best for them. We were operating in schools largely without comprehensive sex education curriculum and often in schools that had instituted abstinence only policies. Yet still, we had to work in this environment. We had to craft workshops that fit with the regulations of the schools and with our beliefs. We had to try and create the capacity for empowered choice in situations that wanted to grant teens only one right, the right to say no.
Reflecting now, I can see the complexities of the politics of choice that we were working with. Pro-choice as defined by the mainstream was not really the framework we worked under. In fact, despite being affiliated with Planned Parenthood, we rarely discussed abortion at all. Afraid that a conversation around abortion would make schools less inclined to allow us into the classroom, we held back. At the time, I remember feeling conflicted, like abortion was being treated like a taboo subject even in the midst of the movement that fought to provide it. Today, I recognize this an act of compromise in an effort to survive and a sacrifice of abortion for the myriad of other issues of sexuality.
TAG's progressive values around choice were internally limited as well. Part of our goal was to prevent unplanned teen pregnancy. However underlying this was a framework of the ideal pregnancy. The vision of ideal pregnancy that a lot of the administration held and which was somewhat reflected in policy was an economically stable person, years past their teens, in a committed relationship. Anything which deviated from this was regarded with a slight sadness and the assumption that this was proof that the system was failing girls. When it came to teen pregnancy, the goal was prevention and if prevention failed, abortion. We were imbued with an understanding of every woman's right to choose, but not an understanding of every woman's right to mother.
II.
When I walk, my earrings shiver
with noises just as grand as my ears require
chiming like three ice cubes in one glass
tinking, like the feather beat of fairy wings
When it's quiet all around, with just one lonesome heart, my own
I have a steady tick tick tick
that marches from my pocket to ear drums
with half second clicks
the paces of my heart
The moments that live in between the other moments
like pathways between close houses
where you forget that silence is a concept, not a fact
and your thoughts bounce loudly around in your head.
Now I share those moments with tiny noises
that no one else can hear unless they know to listen.
And my quiet breath is held
shared by something other than myself.
The days have gotten warm warm warm and I've been preparing during these first days of summer for the rest of my life. I feel like I'm nearly always in a constant state of planning. What's the deal, I ask myself frequently.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
homesickness
Homesickness rolls over you in waves. Past the point where you're starting to find real friends. Past the point where you're starting to share yourself in big, deep breaths and huge chunks. Past the point where you can lean comfortably against someone without being conscious of their newness. Past those points, your desire for home is renewed, recreated. It's not debilitating, just aching. It's something you walk around with, carried in your arms, while your heart grows thick with new loves. What I miss, what's missing from me. When things get hard, I will always find myself returning to nights in that kitchen, leaning against the counter while the smell of soy sauce and nutritional yeast, curry powder, filled the room. The feel of your arms around me, your lips on my cheek. And sharing everything: food, periods, dishes, worries. I will always keep remembering home, everywhere home has been.
In the midst of these strangers, their knees against my back, I glance across the room and I see you and I feel reassured and I feel like you could be family. And if not family, then at least you'll be who I go to when I feel scared. And you know I've never really done this from scratch before and you know this was what I was thinking of that day in the car with Kristy and Lindsey when we talked about strangers.
Because I never really thought that this home feeling lived anywhere else but near my mom and a few blocks away from 405 W. Green.
How do you get lucked with all these people?
How can you love so many people?
What if I explode?
There's power in love too. Talking with Charlie about why all the raves got shut down and we both know that there's danger in massive amounts of people getting together to love each other and feel good; dancing. The drugs are just the excuse given.
Our love for each other is dangerous, we can make too many beautiful things with it.
This is a love letter.
This is a love letter to Urbana, town filled with people filled with ideas filled with so much possibility.
I keep telling stories about home.
All my stories are love letters.
In the midst of these strangers, their knees against my back, I glance across the room and I see you and I feel reassured and I feel like you could be family. And if not family, then at least you'll be who I go to when I feel scared. And you know I've never really done this from scratch before and you know this was what I was thinking of that day in the car with Kristy and Lindsey when we talked about strangers.
Because I never really thought that this home feeling lived anywhere else but near my mom and a few blocks away from 405 W. Green.
How do you get lucked with all these people?
How can you love so many people?
What if I explode?
There's power in love too. Talking with Charlie about why all the raves got shut down and we both know that there's danger in massive amounts of people getting together to love each other and feel good; dancing. The drugs are just the excuse given.
Our love for each other is dangerous, we can make too many beautiful things with it.
This is a love letter.
This is a love letter to Urbana, town filled with people filled with ideas filled with so much possibility.
I keep telling stories about home.
All my stories are love letters.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Last night I dreamt we had a reading of a Dr. Bronner's bottle.
I'm not so certain why it works across state lines, how our plans are made and our ideas born with only our voices. How I lay those cards flat and guess at what you've been feeling. We sculpt glitter out of disembodiment.
It was probably reading Francesca Lia Block when I was younger that had a lot to do with it. I glanced at one of her books today, she uses phrases like awe-weaving and soul-unraveling. Her stories are like the kind of dreams we wish we had more. She gives tribute to beauty, poetry and whimsy and this influenced me a lot. Not so much in writing, although probably, but in lifestyle decisions.
I can't grasp the sync of our lives. It feels unlikely. There are these things which I feel semi-singular in (though of course I'm not singular in them, they are common common common, but they are mine). There's the mom part, the baby part, the glitter part, the nice part, the doing-good-and-making-magic-happen-for-other-people part, the plant part, some other parts. How come you get to have those parts too?
Even when I feel frustrated that all her stories take place in LA almost and are almost always heterosexual, I'd still just really like to hang out with her and occupy her world which sounds great.
I don't know which explanation I like more:
The one where we are soulmates
or The one where we are cookies who baked together, so we taste the same.
I just think that we are puzzle pieces from wholly different puzzles who happen to fit together perfectly. Right now you're moss, growing close and comfortable roots. In the future, you'll be the tree, stretching down down down and changing the pavement forever. Right now, I'm a moth, just for a little while, leaving dust everywhere. In the future, I'd like to be a wave.
In her books, all the girl characters are strong and sad at the same time, shook by love and their desire for freedom and beauty. They nearly all wear antique slips. Their friendships with each other are as intense as their romances.
I hope our dedication to make/believe our dreams stays strong.
From our hands, all things are possible.
you said: sometimes i think that telling you i love you isn't enough and doesn't fully express what i mean. i'm going to brainstorm new words.
Wouldn't that be strong, if we created new words just to describe it?
you said: can we do a ritual for our bodies - a reclaiming - while we're on the road?
yesyesyes.
the only thing I ask is that we reclaim our hearts too, which are, after all, a part of our bodies.
It was probably reading Francesca Lia Block when I was younger that had a lot to do with it. I glanced at one of her books today, she uses phrases like awe-weaving and soul-unraveling. Her stories are like the kind of dreams we wish we had more. She gives tribute to beauty, poetry and whimsy and this influenced me a lot. Not so much in writing, although probably, but in lifestyle decisions.
I can't grasp the sync of our lives. It feels unlikely. There are these things which I feel semi-singular in (though of course I'm not singular in them, they are common common common, but they are mine). There's the mom part, the baby part, the glitter part, the nice part, the doing-good-and-making-magic-happen-for-other-people part, the plant part, some other parts. How come you get to have those parts too?
Even when I feel frustrated that all her stories take place in LA almost and are almost always heterosexual, I'd still just really like to hang out with her and occupy her world which sounds great.
I don't know which explanation I like more:
The one where we are soulmates
or The one where we are cookies who baked together, so we taste the same.
I just think that we are puzzle pieces from wholly different puzzles who happen to fit together perfectly. Right now you're moss, growing close and comfortable roots. In the future, you'll be the tree, stretching down down down and changing the pavement forever. Right now, I'm a moth, just for a little while, leaving dust everywhere. In the future, I'd like to be a wave.
In her books, all the girl characters are strong and sad at the same time, shook by love and their desire for freedom and beauty. They nearly all wear antique slips. Their friendships with each other are as intense as their romances.
I hope our dedication to make/believe our dreams stays strong.
From our hands, all things are possible.
you said: sometimes i think that telling you i love you isn't enough and doesn't fully express what i mean. i'm going to brainstorm new words.
Wouldn't that be strong, if we created new words just to describe it?
you said: can we do a ritual for our bodies - a reclaiming - while we're on the road?
yesyesyes.
the only thing I ask is that we reclaim our hearts too, which are, after all, a part of our bodies.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
re: Brussels Sprouts! from my mother
okay, first of all, they are named after an imaginary place - cf. http://zapatopi.net/belgium/
second, there is nothing sproutlike about them. they are harvested from the stem of a monstrous alien-looking plant.
third, they taste like brimstone. my advice as a physician is to avoid brussels sprouts at all costs.
if you insist on using them for something or other, i'd refer you to my mother, who has in the past been obliged, for the sake of connubial harmony, to make them for my father; or to jacqueline, who has mentioned them on livejournal in the past.
good luck, citizen.
ps. what do you want for your birthday? i regret i am unable to make anything or go "shopping" at this time, due to unusually long work days this month. i was thinking of buying you various items from the internet and having them sent to your residence. what would you think of that? not clothes. you have enough clothes. clearly you need more books. tell me your thoughts on this. xxx
second, there is nothing sproutlike about them. they are harvested from the stem of a monstrous alien-looking plant.
third, they taste like brimstone. my advice as a physician is to avoid brussels sprouts at all costs.
if you insist on using them for something or other, i'd refer you to my mother, who has in the past been obliged, for the sake of connubial harmony, to make them for my father; or to jacqueline, who has mentioned them on livejournal in the past.
good luck, citizen.
ps. what do you want for your birthday? i regret i am unable to make anything or go "shopping" at this time, due to unusually long work days this month. i was thinking of buying you various items from the internet and having them sent to your residence. what would you think of that? not clothes. you have enough clothes. clearly you need more books. tell me your thoughts on this. xxx
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
How to Get Cheap Dates for Free
I just don't under modern youth and their attitude about dates.
Let's reflect.
Things which dates have to mean:
Doing something. Outings, activities, entertainment, eating.
One-on-One fun. Unless it's a double date, which I have other opinions about.
Things which a date does not have to mean:
Another date.
Seriousness.
Dating.
Dates can be just for fun. Fun like, getting dressed up, going out, feeling pretty, playing.
But alas, at some point going on a date became equivocal with "dating" which, as you know, is derived from the root "going steady." As in, to go on dates with the same person, over and over and over until you have related enough with them that you are now in a "relationship." Thus to today's youth the act of going on a date has taken on such heavy meanings that they are often deterred from the activity altogether.
But I say we must reclaim the date! We must liberate it from the tyranny of the relationship! We must set it loose from the bounds of implicit commitment into the freedom of unrestrained fun! And, as with most acts of liberation and reclamation, I say we start a collective.
The Date Collective
The Date Collective, as an idea, was born on the day that I purchased a pair of brown peep-toed heels from a costume sale for $1. What fabulous shoes to wear on a date, said I suggestively to my friends. If only I had someone to take me out in them, I continued. But unfortunately, much to my surprise, not a soul stepped forward.
Date Collective rules:
The Date Collective must always have an even number of participants.
The Date Collective is gender-neutral and queer-friendly.
Date Collective dates are expressly not romance-romantic, aka the No Kissing on Date Collective Dates rule. If you want to kiss, go on a separate date! Friend-Romantic is okay.
Dates will be distributed by random secret drawing.
After drawing, you have one week to ask and take out your date.
You are allowed to, politely, decline a date but you must then either throw a party or bake a cake for the person who asked you.
People got so stoked on drawing that everyone walked away with two potential dates, one they had to ask and one who would ask them.
I got three!
People got cre-a-tive with both their dates and how they asked people out. One date was a cooking lesson with the results shared with the rest of the collective. Notes were passed, songs were played at open mics, friends took friends out on dates.
The potential beauty inherent:
At the point that this was organized, most of the kids involved were just getting to know each other. People had already fallen in step with those they were most likely to. However, through random selection, even those unlikely to spend time with each other got to. Even for those that already knew and liked each other, it was both getting to know a friend in a new way and getting to be really silly. I attempted to act like a perfect gentleman on my dates and on one of them felt totally nervous and really first-datey about the whole thing, which was silly cause I was living with my date.
Oh well, such is the nature of it all, I suppose.
I feel as though the opportunities for a Date Collective are endless. In embracing dates and dates with your friends specifically, we reject any sort of framework that tells us there is one way and one way only in which romance is to be conducted. Love, fun, excitement, butterflies--these are not to be regulated. They are for everyone.
The Date Collective, Bringing People Together Just to Take Them Out. you know--on dates!
ideas for free dates:
a trip to your local animal shelter to play with kittens.
drawing with sidewalk chalk.
making a comic book together.
dumpstering groceries and enjoying a picnic.
writing letters to those you love.
going on a bike ride.
going swimming at your local lake/ocean/hotel pool.
writing uplifting anonymous notes and leaving them in public or secret places.
exploring the roofs of your city.
watching the sunset/rise/stars/city lights.
playing tag.
having a water fight.
having a slow motion dance party (seriously silly but super fun, you should try this just by yourself even).
in cold times, snow related activities.
guerilla gardening tomato/pepper plants (whatever seeds are easily collectible for free)
teaching each other new skills, like cool crafts or mathematic formulas or how to make chili.
reading excerpts from your favorite books
and about one trillion others that you should just think of yourself!
Let's reflect.
Things which dates have to mean:
Doing something. Outings, activities, entertainment, eating.
One-on-One fun. Unless it's a double date, which I have other opinions about.
Things which a date does not have to mean:
Another date.
Seriousness.
Dating.
Dates can be just for fun. Fun like, getting dressed up, going out, feeling pretty, playing.
But alas, at some point going on a date became equivocal with "dating" which, as you know, is derived from the root "going steady." As in, to go on dates with the same person, over and over and over until you have related enough with them that you are now in a "relationship." Thus to today's youth the act of going on a date has taken on such heavy meanings that they are often deterred from the activity altogether.
But I say we must reclaim the date! We must liberate it from the tyranny of the relationship! We must set it loose from the bounds of implicit commitment into the freedom of unrestrained fun! And, as with most acts of liberation and reclamation, I say we start a collective.
The Date Collective
The Date Collective, as an idea, was born on the day that I purchased a pair of brown peep-toed heels from a costume sale for $1. What fabulous shoes to wear on a date, said I suggestively to my friends. If only I had someone to take me out in them, I continued. But unfortunately, much to my surprise, not a soul stepped forward.
Date Collective rules:
The Date Collective must always have an even number of participants.
The Date Collective is gender-neutral and queer-friendly.
Date Collective dates are expressly not romance-romantic, aka the No Kissing on Date Collective Dates rule. If you want to kiss, go on a separate date! Friend-Romantic is okay.
Dates will be distributed by random secret drawing.
After drawing, you have one week to ask and take out your date.
You are allowed to, politely, decline a date but you must then either throw a party or bake a cake for the person who asked you.
People got so stoked on drawing that everyone walked away with two potential dates, one they had to ask and one who would ask them.
I got three!
People got cre-a-tive with both their dates and how they asked people out. One date was a cooking lesson with the results shared with the rest of the collective. Notes were passed, songs were played at open mics, friends took friends out on dates.
The potential beauty inherent:
At the point that this was organized, most of the kids involved were just getting to know each other. People had already fallen in step with those they were most likely to. However, through random selection, even those unlikely to spend time with each other got to. Even for those that already knew and liked each other, it was both getting to know a friend in a new way and getting to be really silly. I attempted to act like a perfect gentleman on my dates and on one of them felt totally nervous and really first-datey about the whole thing, which was silly cause I was living with my date.
Oh well, such is the nature of it all, I suppose.
I feel as though the opportunities for a Date Collective are endless. In embracing dates and dates with your friends specifically, we reject any sort of framework that tells us there is one way and one way only in which romance is to be conducted. Love, fun, excitement, butterflies--these are not to be regulated. They are for everyone.
The Date Collective, Bringing People Together Just to Take Them Out. you know--on dates!
ideas for free dates:
a trip to your local animal shelter to play with kittens.
drawing with sidewalk chalk.
making a comic book together.
dumpstering groceries and enjoying a picnic.
writing letters to those you love.
going on a bike ride.
going swimming at your local lake/ocean/hotel pool.
writing uplifting anonymous notes and leaving them in public or secret places.
exploring the roofs of your city.
watching the sunset/rise/stars/city lights.
playing tag.
having a water fight.
having a slow motion dance party (seriously silly but super fun, you should try this just by yourself even).
in cold times, snow related activities.
guerilla gardening tomato/pepper plants (whatever seeds are easily collectible for free)
teaching each other new skills, like cool crafts or mathematic formulas or how to make chili.
reading excerpts from your favorite books
and about one trillion others that you should just think of yourself!
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