The Body Electric
(Latest 20 entries) (Calendar) (Friends) (User info)
Navigate: (Previous 20 entries)
Sunday, May 17, 2009
5/5/09
A while ago, in this class, I said that grad school interrupted my thoughts like a swooping hawk. I feel the need to elaborate. I'm the mouse running through the open field, guessing at hiding places, when the shadow crosses over me. It's a hunting, swooping hawk.
Sometimes I'm not the mouse, but mostly when someone else is. The hawk, though, is constantly hungry.
I read cynical articles about grad school and academia. Really, it's not that what goes on here is special or different from other jobs. It's just that some of us expect it to be. Better. Scientific. Somehow, we think it should leave us with good, sturdy answers to interesting questions. But the questions become repetitive, like hamsters in wheels. The illusion of running through an endless field with all the water and food you'd ever want, but in reality staying in the same space, the same cage, owned by the same 12-year-olds who aren't quite sure how they should feel about you.
Still, the hawk is a threat. On the good days, I pretend I am an expert, just to move things along. The next day, I'm looking through the same glass walls of the cage.
What is the hawk, really? It's been many different things. That's part of the fear. You never know what is going to swoop in and grab you in its claws. It really could be the family cat, but when something is big and wants to digest you, does its name matter? There are still claws and teeth and beaks and digestive juices. Waiting. For you! Because you're so smart and special and yummy!
So I run through the field, unsure of whether I should be running. Or in the field at all. Where should I look? To the sky to predict predators? To the ground to reward myself with the feeling of progress? To possible hiding places?
The worst think about these metaphors is that once you've learned how to be, here, it's terrifically difficult to get out or see through it. The hawk has not eaten me yet. Occasionally, I think I've lost an arm, and ear, or a heart to its claws. Afterwards, I can't tell if its grown back, or if the loss was an illusion.
what makes it worse is that I haven't seen a carnivore in a while. Are they gone? Are they finally sated? What is that shadow over there anyway? This year, eve, reality has seemed more reliable. Gentle. Supportive.
Are they also mice, these new people I work with? They may be. I admit there's a part of me that waits for them to take off their mouse costumes and unleash their horrible, sharp selves onto the world. I try not to humor that side. I am practicing accepting gifts at face value. I am also practicing vision, but I'm not sure that is something that can be practiced. But if it can be, and I practice enough, maybe I will see through the terrifyingly open spaces and all of their monsters.
4/28/09
Coffee. The smell of coffee. Jess and I walked to the cafe through her neighborhood and the next one over. We stopped to watch cats, peeked into the windows of empty apartments, and walked around to the back yards of abandoned, condemned houses. We imagined the multiple ways of living that we could find, if we sought them out.
The sun was bright, but there was enough wind to cool the heat. We wore the burdens of our respective choices in our back packs. As we ignored what we carried, we talked about how lucky we were to have been rewarded with an extra day together.
When we walk in New Orleans, I am astounded by the flowers. It's easy to forget we're in a tropical climate, but the flowers leap into your face to remind you. Whole blocks of homes, used and not, smell of the same flowers. Who decided what they'd smell like? Or was it not a human decision, but the flowers deciding to take back what was theirs.
We'd come to a grinding halt in front of a new color, a different sort of flowering plant, bananas growing in the wild. The flowers in New orleans make it so clear they are just out to get some, with their bright colors and loud smells. But really, maybe they're just looking for love. I think that's what I like most about them: the peak of their beauty is all about flower-sex. I empathize for the search, but I don't get sad for them. Here, in the tropics, they're likely to find it.
I think about how they are clearly so happy to grow here. If I were to take a plant, pot it, and bring it back to Wisconsin, I think that'd be one of the saddest things. All of that yearning taking place on my window sill and no relief!
It occurs to me that Jess is like these flowers, and that might be why I like them so much. It is so clear that she is thriving there, when her choices let her, that I hate the thought of bringing her back to sit in my apartment, devouring sunshine, in bloom, but lacking her chance to go further. To figure out what happens next?
So I visit her, and we walk together to the coffee shop to work, seated next to each other on my last, extra evening in town. We cuddle as we work and drink our coffee in the shade. We listen to the spontaneous music of humans blooming. We wonder if we are blooming, too. Will we, like the flowers, get many, many chances to scream out our exuberance? Will it move with us, if we figure out how to avoid containers? How much blooming-yearning is good for you? It seems to me that the gap between want and fulfillment is the most interesting gap I know of.
4/21/09
The deaths happen in spring, as though they can't stand the thought of another summer. Me, I'd probably bite it in fall, in an attempt to avoid winter. Spring funerals. Doesn't it seem wrong? There's probably a way to do it right - take it out of the church to somewhere beautiful. Somewhere you'd actually want to visit again.
It was my idea to drop my father's ashes into the Delaware River. I was 12 and loved going with him to the river to skip rocks. Or to attempt to skip rocks. Mine didn't skip. Maybe I went to the river to sink rocks. It didn't much matter. I was there, with him.
I visit the river and think of what is left of his physical presence, wedging itself under rocks, drifting with the river's flow out to sea. A part of the broader earth.
My grandmother has since joined him. At least a part of my grandfather will do the same. There are no monuments, except for the trees and the water. The river they settled near, walked to, and canoed on. I lost a pair of glasses to that river. I've left little pieces of my childish, physical existence to the water and the currents.
I'd like the same done with my ashes. It seems odd, though. A part of me is unsure that there should the that kind of coherence to things when there seemed to be so little in life.
Maybe that's part of the point: once people stop moving, others can tell a whole story. Not the whole story, but one of them. All of the dangling bits and unresolved strands tied together, suddenly connected somehow. Probably through the sheer force of our imperfect memories.
Always agnostic, though, I wonder if I'll fall in love with another body of water. I could see myself distracted by the Pacific Ocean, as my maternal grandma loved the Atlantic. Jess is secretive about her affair with the Mississippi, but I know and accept her shared love. I think both of us believe we'll convince the other that our water is the best.
And maybe we'll negotiate and choose a whole other lake to settle our family near. Something we long for together.
If there is one thing I know about water, it is that it loves cycles. All rivers move to the oceans. All oceans are connected. Maybe the coherence comes from water instead of death.
It's a pleasant thought, to thnk of my body expanding and traveling in all directions after I die. The parts of it that settle, resting on the floor of a river bed. The wandering feet and brain making its way to the ocean, into the air and clouds, and falling like rain to the earth.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
I think the big question is: what would your seven year old self think of you now?
*********
I know what I wanted magic to be when I left the Catholic church. Tired of conforming to others old standards, I wanted magic to adapt my standards as guidance. I explored for a bit, learning a little about stones/crystals, rituals, and beliefs. It still seemed inauthentic - belief in someone else's words, meanings and interpretations without my rooted gut being included.
I suppose my definition of faith shines through here, but I don't consider myself to have much of it. I prefer not having faith in the words of people I don't know, but I pretend often enough. I suppose faith would be a reliance on something greater, a common truth, or an underlying rhythm. I don't know that I see any of those all that often.
When I was younger, a child, living in many realities through books, I loved faeries and changelings. Even mean ones. I still didn't trust wizards. Even good ones. I read my way into places with new rules, different habits, and magical, special, chosen main characters. Human-ish, but surrounded by less special, rarely-chosen, faceless others.
Eventually, as a nerdling in school, I started to realize I wasn't one of the chosen. Not in THAT way. The story is really about the pretty, charming, blond girl in the front of the classroom.
Magic, now, is ordinary.
In my daily life, it appears in trying to see through immediate things. Keeping afloat and mildly positive on my plywood and 2x4 raft as I float through the swamp. I'm dirty from wading in, pulling my boat together, and capsizing, but for now it is dry dirt.
The balance between whatever is happening now and what could happen later. Sometimes, magic feels like waiting. I get impatient, tap my food, and try not to scowl. I have to remind myself that there are always important events about to happen. That listening is a virtue even better than patience. The magic is being distracted from the passage of time by love.
I'm on a raft that leaks, I get bored, and I'm drifting with no real say in direction. Maybe I'm scowling, cranky at the mud. Magic is when you first hear a frog, notice a beam of sunlight, or see someone else on a raft who is also looking out.
Friday, February 20, 2009
I.
Must I remember?
Every year, he's earned two days.
lose, loose, lost, lapsed
Only I recall with my honesty.
Nine days until his birthday, and I have no idea how old.
Convinced I, we had a hand.
How long did it take me to realize?
Opening the door to a parking ramp stairwell,
looking down, between staircases, the
yell doesn't come out.
II.
Always rushed, even though
I know, I'm not.
Running past
people equally angst-ridden,
only wanting to be home.
Roaming, because home roams.
Telling others
something convincing of adjustment.
III.
Solid, I am.
Tell me what to build and I will
reliably run myself ragged,
unbearable,
closed,
to resurrect your lab, keep it going.
Unfettered by
reality,
education.
Maybe they aren't
opposed, but my mouth tastes
very bitter today.
Eating words inappropriate and true.
Maybe I could dance this week,
ever so slowly across the floor.
Never as satisfying as both intwined.
Too many dimensions to find balance.
IV.
Opportunity?
The question lingers,
how I bat it away,
every hour, sometimes.
Roads that I'm not on;
would they feel different?
I'm not despondent, nor is my
self misplaced, but what
else could be?
When? I tell myself patience.
Hearing it, pausing.
At least
this:
Everything doesn't happen at once, nothing
lasts.
Saving yourself for another place only
eludes joy.
V.
Speak well, all the time.
Criticize kindly because you know resentment from the opposite.
If you fail, apologize.
Pit yourself against
the fates again and push.
Should others be watching?
Adding to details, but
neglecting overall.
Does this mean I've adapted?
Turning into the professor who
runs everyone but himself away.
Absent minded, poorly read,
invited speaker, spinning stories,
nodding enthusiastically.
Insisting you've "bloomed" because
now you've done everything to his standard.
Gone are dreams of fields and bugs.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
He expects failure, which means success is confusing and causes him to feel lost. It's an odd trait to have, and an off place to have it. With each large successful endeavor, it leaves him a little more unsure of what comes next.
Sometimes, feeling lost is just the same as feeling wide open, when all things are possible. He has those days. He'll be gardening, and it'll strike him that he can stand up, leave his yard, and walk until he finds something else.
He's done it before, out of desperation. When teaching became so difficult that he started feeling the restriction of limitations. When he no longer felt he could even pretend he was teaching well, because there was no time to gather children, to see how they felt, to teach them exactly what they needed to know.
That being said, he had been comfortable with being mediocre for quite a while. It's predictable. The students arrived every day, and he taught them. He taught them as he was trained and expected to teach them. Fractions: real world application hook, logical explanation of how and why, model, guided practice, independent practice. He'd gotten good reviews and they had wanted him to stay.
Then, things got bad with the school itself: its leaders and the sheer lack of resources got in the way of even this mundane fraction routine. Interruptions, sudden changes, acquiring another 15 students to add to his 34. Nothing felt good anymore.
He was unsure of it it had ever felt good, really. At least it hadn't felt so much like failure.
But the failure was always tilting things in teaching. Weren't students supposed to learn how to thing? What about learning how to treat others? The lesson plans were only 1/3 of what was important, it that. Does that mean it was 2/3rds failure the rest of the time? Until that 1/3 stopped working, too.
Maybe that was just it. His tolerance, his comfortable existence happened at 2/3 failure, 1/3 success. Give or take.
Full success and only 1/3 failure were equally uncomfortable. What is a guy supposed to do when he's not playing catch-up the whole time? What fills the space?
Fractions? Maybe he'd never learned that. His teachers had failed him, just as he failed his students: 2/3 of the time.
So success brings a lack of gardening, less time to meander through chores, and less time to recognize the ability to leave. No time to make note of the choice to stay.
And here he was, exhausted, barely eating well at all. Not even a moment of rest for the hope of escape to break through. Success is dreary.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
I have an uncle who looks identical to how my father looked, but blond. I look similar to his children, but brown-haired. He is having a different, slower, more functional type of alcoholism than my father did. My father's was more of the emotive, romantical, bingeing crash and burn sort.
There are times when I feel like have tamped down my flames too much. I have my self too much under control and will power. But I know what happens when it is let lose, so I try to prevent that and wish for the best.
Occasionally, I wish I had more of a wild, free-wheeling teens and early 20s. Would I be more tolerant of others now? Would I be an addict?
While I am a rebel, all of the risks I took were calculated. I admit to being jealous of those who didn't know any better. Not knowing the risks and possible consequences of every small step and misstep. I felt like I knew too much about how things really worked when I was very young.
I try to deny it now, clinging to academia to try and avoid my more cynical self that comes out when watching people do stupid things. I realize that there are plenty of people doing stupid things in academia, they are just better at lying and hiding what they do.
And those lies and false perfections? They make everyone else fumbling through life (like me) feel clumsy and childlike.
Because deep down, I like to make mistakes. It has always been a part of my rebellion. Calculated mistakes, but still. Even calculated mistakes don't always work out. Even I have scars and old injuries from not-as-good plans and ideas.
But it's how I learn. I'd know nothing and would live in blissful ignorance if it weren't for the mistakes of my parents and my self.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Dear gods. Has it really been over two years since I posted here? The resurgance of use, the sacred space for writing ... it appeals to me in a way that I had lost for a while, a way that makes me want to write and be present in this space again.
Nearly seven years ago, a woman who was pivotal in my development as a queer woman told that my body will tell me what I need to know. I just need to listen to it. A year and a half ago, another woman important in my life told me the same thing ... and a week ago, called me out on it. "Slow down. Breathe. You're not breathing. Breathe." And I stopped in a way that I hadn't for a few months, and felt that electric crackle in my chest, the one that tells me when something's wrong, that serves as a focus point when the world weighs down.
My body doesn't light on fire these days; it goes through the motions. I don't push limits. That stopped over a year ago. I curl in, closer, closer, this is what I think I most need, this quite moment, this ... but, no, it's not what I need. Not what I want. I just say it, because it makes me feel better most days.
But, I'm starting to find out that it's a lie.
Nerve endings. Blood rushing to minute places of my body. The body ... no, my body, feeling electric, feeling the pulse of blood pounding through these veins. Don't forget your alive. Pieces may have died, but overall, you're still alive, there is still room to move, to kick, to scream, and to cry.
To cry.
Some days, this body forgets the vast spectrum of functions that it's allowed. Rather, it's the smiling, bouncing, caffeinated "How can I help you and what can I do for you?" me. When we both left, there were certain things I just packed up, pieces that I put into storage and haven't gotten back out. Like my bike. Like my desire to hike. Like my desire to move this body, to feel the ways these arms can snake out like will o' the wisps, and the way that my hair catches at the nape of my neck when I get sweaty. My cells have tried to forget what words were slung at them. My body tries to tell me what I need to do, but I just can't pick myself up like that, cart myself around, and believe that I'm doing it for myself, and only myself.
When does it become for myself? Making the decision to say yes to this, to say "No," quietly, forcefully, and fully, to all that I believed, all that I thought was real, to watch it just float away?
But, it doesn't float away. It doesn't go up in smoke, dreams ... it gets reflected in mirrors, in this place, over and over, until I am able to grasp the truth that those words, believed, thought, felt, and fed into this body, that they were not real.
That this body, electric and pulsing, is real. Is here. Is now.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
What I am trying to say Is that I miss my grandma. She is the part of my family that I remind myself of the most.
I try to talk to her, because she always was such a good listener and so much bad has happened since she left.
This place reminds me of her, but I think it's just the sound of the space. The breeze coming through open windows, women older than I talking, the radio playing in the background to keep us all company.
Her house was probably the first place after the divorce and my father's death where I found a way to be relaxed and calm. Like any good Catholic child, I didn't have words to describe what I was feeling. All I knew was that if you let go, if you let any small part go at home, all hell would break loose. So the three of us, my mom, my brother, and I, held on to things so very tightly. White-knuckle death-grips on normality and routine. Pretending that what had happened hadn't affected us, because if we did... If we did, it was all over. If we admitted to our emotions that we actually felt them, lives might have paused to acknowledge that something important had happened, and other things wouldn't be taken care of: food, shelter, kids...
In some of the most frantic, manic times of my life, I would stop moving and thinking too hard when I went to visit her. I remember sitting still and listening to trees, but I'm sure that never happened. I probably just dropped into normal kid activity patterns of small joys, exploring the woods, and games of pretend.
The woods behind her house, which seemed like it went on forever, now is small. You can see houses and roads through the trees. It's not the isolated woods that fairies would want to live in like it once was.
It was as though things were just simpler. There wasn't the pervasive aura of worry and stress, like there was at home. I didn't have to take responsibility for anything too big for me. (In college, we once read a short story about middle class aspiration. A young family lived in a house, but the kids could hear the walls talking about debt and need and greed. The walls would argue as the parents probably argued, so the kids walked around as starving and needy as their parents were. I should get that story back.)
Instead of listening to need of security and absence of those-who-should-have-been-better. I could sit and listen to her and sit and listen to myself. She'd listen to my kid stories and would offer stated support and the knowledge that I could do anything that I wanted. So rare.
I wonder what she was like as a mama. I wish she were still around so that I could ask her what she thought about with three small babies and a teaching job.
Monday, August 4, 2008
I know that I left you in the lurch, but forgive me.
I had not learned how to see your way. And your way is probably correct, or at least more gentle to one's self. I thought it was the benefit of being raised as though you were smart and your interests were valid. Probably, that's why I didn't have it.
I've since tried to raise myself as though I was smart and my interests are valid. I'm better at it: I believe it part of the time. When it is here, that belief can be gentle and cool, but still I mistake it for ego and conceit. I fight my own attempts to undo what I learned. Sometimes, it is too uncomfortable to be in a place of confidence and calm.
When I was with you, I was not optimistic enough to rely on my resume and the name of my alma mater to earn me a livelihood. Because I was realistic. Because I did not have the fairy tale connections, legacy relationships, or constant, quiet self-confidence that would allow leaps over caverns of starting out in the world. At that point, I did not have the characteristics that stand out in a set of applicants, other than my interviews and my recommendations. When I leave here, I will have a wee bit more, but I still don't know how to talk about it without undermining it. I suppose that comes from choosing places that allow me to beat up myself to get the job done. We head towards comfort after all.
It's all chance and hard work after all. There's nothing fancy, magical, or genius to grad school.
I think I've learned that I will never have the cool, collected confidence of you. I still envy it, but I'm putting together my own mantras to whisper to myself when I am in over my head. It's not as thematic or cohesive as what you have, but it has been grown in adversity and pruned in less-damaging times. My confidences are lean and a bit prickly. Surely, those close to me know when they've run into them.
They feel a bit like costuming. I try on shiny pieces until something works today.
I nab little gleaming pieces of self-belief from movement. Yoga brings me: be not afraid. Biblical, but I can use it, as I am often afraid of distant and irrelevant things. I think/hope that this is what my grandmother was trying to tell me before she died. It flows into cliches about following your heart, and I try, but my heart often remembers hurt that has since ended. I don't want to follow it back there.
Then, dance brings me into contact with the joy of others. It may just counteract the non-sharing and built-in-sense-of-suffering from my family. It feeds into: pursue joy. Chase it, dance with it, and let it go when it's time (but not ever sooner or later than when it's time). Stay aware of the joy racing around you. It's fun to help others chase their joy. (Secretly, that's where the motivation for teaching rests: helping others find joy.)
From trapeze, I am only skilled enough for two lessons: I am strong and Head up. Chin to chest will get you nothing and will make you miss what is going on around you. Strength isn't what you learned it was 20 years ago. Instead of being about others, strength is about what is inside of you. Literally, your muscles and how they work together. Metaphorically, though, it's how you stand and move in the world. How you move with others.
What I'm looking for, though, is when those lessons expand outwards. I know that now isn't really the time, but if I do my work well, I know what comes later.
Monday, January 7, 2008
On the bad days, it feels like my inside is rotting out. I'm becoming a hollow log, where some other creature will make her nest.
It's a bit dramatic.
But you know, for me, the sensation is not enough. Really, I have to spend hours following the meandering trails of possible whys and explanations. Even though I've done it plenty, I'm not really sure the details are worth it. It could be anything, as there's a lot going on. I could use it all to drive myself crazy or I could turn it off and become some sort of quiet, still person. I suppose it's all possible.
The good part is that my innards seem to grow back. There are always certain things that bring it back, little by little. And I've had a small chance this winter break. I'm terrified of driving through the next semester, like I did the last one. So scared. It's paralyzing, actually. Just try and offer me a choice! I'll let it go by default!
It's a very different sensation from adolescence, where my body/being felt wrong. My core was there, we were all just in the wrong place. This feels like my work-heart is missing. I have most of my other bits, but the work-heart is related to the whole.
And I know I've talked with my friends about heart-work and that most of what I offered them is completely and totally relevant here. Everyone wants to care about what they do and feel as though they're making a difference in "the world" somehow. Until you find your place(s), it feels all fumbly and awkward. I know I feel like I could drop everything in a bad moment and I wouldn't be able to make it right again.
In good moments, I feel like I'm on the right path, it's just a series of hoops, it'll be worth it in the end, blah blah blah. The good moments happen once a year, for about a day. It has been so hard, though, that while I know there are other paths to get to my heart-work, I don't really believe they'd be any easier than this. Or that I'd succeed any more than I am right now. But that's the gut-rot talking.
In the end, I don't really want another creature living in my gut. Instead, I'd like some joy and a lot of self-knowledge. I'd like to be able to get all that is created inside of me to pass out of me and into the world every so often. Love has always been there, but it's hard for it to grow like it should with all that rot around. I suppose I'd like to get rid of the rot, too.
Part of me wants a formerly rotted or recovering from rot guru of some sort, but you know me. I'll be damned if I listen to enough to figure out who it is/will be.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
At the moment, I feel like an oozing ball of negativity. Folks try and talk with me to see what I'm up to and all they get are oozing partial stories of mistreatment, things I don't have any more that I want back, and decisions I didn't get the chance to make.
I feel trapped, here. In any other phase of my life, I would have left by now. I'd have gotten in my car and landed somewhere new and interesting. I'd have given it my best try and walked away when I started feeling this small and low.
If there is anything that I have learned as an adult, it's how to put up with people who don't care about you in order to get what you need/want/are aiming for. That sounds jaded and harsh, no?
So I'm putting up with it all. So I am slowly and clearly giving up that part of myself that would not stand for such treatment. That would not have been so self-serving. I can feel its absence daily now.
Today, it feels like I've lost my super-powers. On some level, it's a relief to be worried about the same things as everyone else: career, money. At what cost? At the cost of having a clear, broader picture of how everything fits together and integrates! At the cost of being able to peek into the lives of others and say kind, supportive, helpful things! At the cost of my social, giggling, happy, dancing, creative self!
I call it "grad school eating my soul," but it's not only grad school. That's the problem with the limitation of scope: problems get simple and the solutions you develop in response just don't work. Because they are also too simple for the true complexity of things. It's more like adulthood eating my empathy and idealism.
I struggled to keep my empathy through teaching and Phoenix. I think I kept most of it. There are parts of it that I left behind, thinking that like a starfish, I could grow my empathy back. It hasn't really grown back, but I haven't really given it a chance. I think that the proper environment for growing back star fish empathy involves service, meditation, meeting many new and different people, and dance. I haven't found/made the time for such an activity yet. I keep promising it to myself, and then the next crisis looms large.
The prevalent feeling of being in grad school is that no one gives a fuck what you're doing. After three and some odd years of sitting and explaining and planning and trying to make it workable/livable, that is what really comes through. No one cares. Unless you threaten to leave, because that could decrease their prestige somehow. So you sit and wait and wait and wait for people to come through while the university fucks up your money and your time. I'm still here because I still think someone is going to come through. I think I've waited too long, though. How do you leave grad school after four years with no degree?
And I'm not sure the degree is worth it at all. The more time I spend, the more time I realize that I don't want to be like the professors above me. The more I realize that, the more I realize that I am becoming them. I am becoming as assholey and protected and privileged as they are. It's not a process I can see as it happens. It just happens, because everyone above a certain point is the same way. It's the social norm, so we all become more similar to it so that we don't feel so badly at the end of the day.
I mean, we HAVE TO believe our work is very, very important. Otherwise, why would we waste 4 years of our young lives and all of our good will on this endeavor? It has to be important! Other people must see that it's so important!!!
And that is when you lose all of your interesting, easily-relatable stories. That's when, no matter how socially engaged you were before, you lose the ability to share your own voice, because it has been eaten by your VERY IMPORTANT WORK.
In my case, it's VERY IMPORTANT WORK that I have no say in, no benefit from, and that in no way goes beyond the walls of this ivory tower I've found myself trapped in.
Which was not my intention at all. I was more of a reformer than anything. Why waste such quantities of government money if it does nothing other than bring you OR your advisor prestige?
It may be that I have yet again given too much of myself to this endeavor for too long. I am meaner and pricklier. All I want is out. I keep planning out the next two years of my life in the hopes that with a clear plan and someone coming through, that I'll make it.
That's as far as I can see: making it to the damn degree.
I think adulthood and I are going to break up. I have a list of things I want back:
my creative time, whatever form it wants to take.
my social time.
the will to help others.
the ability to see the big picture.
any semblance of spirituality.
Here's what adulthood can have back:
my boobs.
the appearance of free will. I'd like actual free will back, thanks.
stupid settling down bullshit from maternal sources.
I'll even let it have all the furniture and plants, if it just leaves me alone.
From the next phase of anti-adulthood, I would like to grow some new skills and abilities in a positive way:
self-esteem.
self-publication, self-presentation.
NOT to fear being wrong.
faith in self and ability.
More Love.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
There is just something about rain.
Three years after living in a desert and watching how dusty, barren, and survival became the metaphors for how most things were at the time, rain is still a relief.
It's always a relief, because I can still find that desert. I know the trails to take to get there. I can instantly drop into survival with little reason or urging. It's like depression, the more times you've been depressed in your life, the more likely you are to become depressed at some point in the future.
However, the barren, rugged terrain is where poetry grows. It's a cruel joke. When I find myself stumbling through whatever my desert is this year, I trip and fall next to a flower. Hopefully, I didn't crush it on the way down. The flower is ugly and brown around the edges, but it's still a flower. It's leaves are brittle like burnt paper and it has thorns. And it's the first flower I've seen in months.
I spend a few minutes considering ripping it from the ground, but I've learned a bit of a lesson. Most times I let the idea of that flower get tossed around in my head until a story comes. If I were wiser, I'd write all the stories I've collected down. But they are transient, and most times the desert kills them anyway.
Stories need to much water and care to survive the desert.
The flowers were only meant as seeds, not hope. Maybe someday I will bring my flowers out of the desert. I will carry them to water and let 'em grow into the stories that I need to tell.
In this generous climate, the rain comes to you.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
I have many vague fears stemming from this all-absorbing, crappy time that I've had this semester.
For every fear, there's something complimentary that I've learned.
I fear repercussions from an unfair advisor, but I've learned that I'm not afraid of leaving.
I fear losing the opportunity to get credentials that (may/will) assist me with future endeavors. Not getting the PhD, however doesn't mean that I am not going to pursue my goals, meet my potential, or anything really.
I fear that if/when I switch labs, the advising/mentoring won't be good enough to keep me and that I'll waste another year making no money and getting my self-confidence beaten down further. Although, if this happens in any obvious way I know that I'd walk out right away.
On a larger scale, I worry about these things:
What if there is no place that I can work? What I know about this fear is that it is founded on my last two work experiences. If I leave here, I will have two jobs under my belt that felt less that satisfactory. There are bits and pieces tied into this fear with black threads:
What if I just expect too much from my supervisors/the places where I work?
Does my idealism get too strong and block working in mediocre situations (and goddess knows they're all mediocre).
Will I have to run something of my own in order to work well?
Is this my fault instead of me just landing in two crappy places?
I beat at it with the knowledge that I do good work. That I have integrity, honesty, and diligence to speak for me. I have chosen difficult tasks and manage to keep going. Stupid people are no commentary on my intelligence. And what the hell is wrong with running your own whatever? Nothing.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
I'm agnostic typically, but I hope there is a deity or two during the days like today. If I could believe in one, I'd scream this near a river somewhere meaningful. Quite possibly, I'd mix it with ancestor worship, as that goes. I'd call on my father, my grandmothers and my grandfather and ask them for any help they could give.
****
I call down the goddess today for the sake of my fire.
I call down the goddess of cold, clear anger so that I can emulate her to focus my own anger while I am in need. I want the ability to take the bitterness and practice on targets without being cruel, mean or unfair. I want to take this anger and turn it good and useful. It needs to be clear, because I must see through it. It must be cold, so that I can plan instead of lash out.
I call down the goddess of heart, so that I don't lose my own in this disappointing endeavor. Today, I will fess up: I admit to wanting the PhD badly. For myself. I admit to choosing to come here. I admit to being smart. I admit to being capable of graduate level work and beyond, even in academia. It is not everything, but it is a big something. If I have to mourn it, I will. I just want the anger and frustration to end.
I scream for the goddess of truth, so that the lies of "this is normal" and "just put up with it" explode under the weight of their falseness. I pray to her that I am vindicated for every goddamn moment of sitting there and taking it. Of playing the stereotyped feminine and keeping everything even keel and calm. I also pray to the goddess of truth for her to remind me that science is supposed to be ever-closer approximations of truth. Whisper it into my heart when it is drooping and ready to walk away.
I wish that the goddess of prescience would grace me with her sunlight. I want to know when to walk away before the suffering is greater than the growth. Help me see past the immediate to possible futures and all of the options available to me. I grit my teeth through the night as I dream my way through more graduate school. My headaches are more common in the evenings and I cannot cry it out as I should.
I'd ask for strength, but I fear getting the wrong kind. All I know is that I am tired of being treated as though I am weak, un-informed, and naive. So tired.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Here's the deal, yo.
I was raised without a dad present. I know he loved me, but he didn't deal with his depression and alcoholism. He also committed suicide when I was 12.
Yes, this can all be very sad for me, but only when I think about other people with fathers. It was a great loss a while back, but it has been 15 years. I have made do with the people, family, and skills that I have and have found.
All of the times in which fatherless-girls are supposed to be high risk have passed. I did not drink or do drugs before my peers (in fact, it was much later). I did not have sex with boys early, in spite of whatever annoying attention I received. I did not get pregnant as a teenager nor did I drop out of school. Yes, I have very little self-confidence, but I'm not convinced that can't be tied to other things equally as strongly.
In spite of whatever challenges I have come across, I have not sought any type of pseudo-father-figure. I like being strong and standing up on my own. I like being able to address my own needs and concerns. I also like knowing who I can trust.
I have never had a time in my life when oddly needy and seemingly paternalistic males have failed to find me. Initially, I trusted them. When I was a teenager, these were the adult bosses and workers who'd try and take advantage of my naivete about sexual power and dynamics. In the back room of the store while I was trying to stock shelves. In their car after I agreed to go for a walk.
It was never rape, but I never felt in control or informed. They left me confused and wondering if I actually had a say. Eventually, I learned to identify and avoid them. I learned to find the other kinds of men who can treat me like a peer, regardless of my education or lack of experience.
As we've all grown up and have started to find our boundaries and balances, they've recently shifted shape. Their strategies for insinuation are different.
Suddenly, they are bosses who belittle you for being female. Who assign you less responsibility, give you fewer promotions, and are shocked when you come up with a good idea. They are the ones who don't notice when you've stopped talking because they were ignoring you the whole time. They're still happy to steal work you've done independently and call it their own, because of the guidance they've allowed you to have.
These paternal men have learned to approach you as a peer and attempt to flip the power structure when given the chance. They know they can help you. They know just what you need to do. They approach you and your decisions and your life judgmentally and let you know exactly what you need to do.
It's a lie. They don't know anything but their own lives. I know, because I'm a fixer-type. I want to give help when needed, but I know I don't have the full story. I give advice and brainstorm solutions, but I know I don't have all of the values and context that the person going through it does. I always feel that I have to state this before saying anything about anyone else's life.
I'm tired of being treated as though I "need help" or "need guidance" or "need a father figure/dominant male in my life." It may a my heroic flaw, but my heroic flaw and I will accept it for now.
Clearly, earlier I was too permissive. I know right now that I drop them like a burning plate when I get a hold of what they're doing. I'm not sure I've really come up with the best way to address it, but balance takes me a while.
I know I prefer peer relationships with men. As I think of myself as more of an adult, I'm learning that I have a right to demand just that. It may not mean exclusion all of the time, but I'm not ruling that out as a strategy. It may mean calling them on it before I let them go, even if they don't really understand.
Friday, January 19, 2007
You can disbelieve. You can believe that I am too dramatic or that I always look for something wrong. You can say that I always pay attention to the problems. It's the problems that always knock you over. We know so little about each others' lives. We are not all the same here.
When you had parents trying to make sure you reached your full human potential, my mom was working to feed and clothe me.
Anything else was extra and unavailable for a long, long time.
Unlike you, I was not a gifted child. I was a grieving child. At 7, I grieved my parents' divorce. I grieved that I was asked who I wanted to live with and that I gave an answer. I grieved that it was right.
At 11, I grieved because my mother would not allow me to see my father anymore. There was one drunken night too many for her taste. All illegal, but she made the decision anyhow. In her mind, courts that believed Mom could raise 2 children in central NJ on $100 a month wouldn't have protected us anyway. It took years for me to see my father's family again.
I remember his voice on the answering machine pleading for us to pick up the phone. The saddest thing in the world is being a child and hearing the message, the beep, and knowing you were trapped but still evil for not answering. If I ever want to cry, it's all I need to think of.
At 12, I started grieving for my dad's life. I grieved that I had not talked to him before his death, because I was scared of what the echoes would be through out my family. I grieved that he wouldn't be there for any more of it.
I still grieve the forgetting. I've forgotten so much about him. Everyone tells me to remember the good parts... tell me what they were! Tell me what they were! No one can tell me what they were.
Can you tell me what they were?
I can't tell you. They were far more quiet than the shrieking bad. Drunken anger will always be louder than quiet explanations and reading together. Answering machine messages will always overshadow words of support. Fighting parents will block out any of the times you went on trips with your parents together.
I was not a gifted child. I was guilty, sad, and withdrawn. People could worry abstractly in non-work moments about who I'd grow up to be, but they did not have energy left after working to feed me to tell me stories about whom I could become. I've made this all up. Others have helped, but I've made this all up.
I still fear being knocked down and having to grieve more. I am still insecure. I still worry disproportionately about feeding and clothing myself. Maybe it's different now, in this "adult" world. Show me. Show me it's different?
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
I want to stop dreaming about this. I want to stop feeling herded or trapped. I want to be writing, dancing, moving again because I can pretend I have privacy.
Now, I know the feds know where I go, what I do, and what I spend my money on. Shoot, they can read my email, regular mail, and listen in on my phone calls. It's enough to make me want to live off of the grid. Maybe one day, I will.
There's an analogy to my waking life somewhere in there, but without the clear power structure and all-seeing-ness of the federal government.
But for now I will talk about my dreams. Last night I dreamt that I was taking deliveries at my home and after I signed, I was shot at. I dove for cover (behind a tank, of all things), but bullets were fired underneath the tank, so I still got shot. I froze and couldn't think of what to do next, even though the door of my house was accessible.
I stayed there, getting shot (in the hands, feet, and butt) and dodging bullets for a while before I thought to go into my house. Turns out that my house was built for this sort of thing: barricaded doors, crawl spaces, bomb shelters in the basement. I had children in my house and hid them as best I could.
I went to my bedroom in this house, behind blacked out and bricked over windows, and there was a video camera there, aimed at my bed, that I couldn't remove. It was on and recording and it was always there. Every time I looked at it, I thought about what it had already seen.
I called the police about the bullets. Somehow, even after getting shot, I wasn't hurt. Sirens showed up outside and the shooting stopped, but I was too scared to come out.
Tell me this has nothing to do with my waking life for the past 5 months. Just try and convince me.
I have not written. I have not meditated. I have not danced alone. I have nothing interesting to say to anyone, because I have no time alone to ponder the events of the world. I have not been able to analyze my own patterns because of having no private space. No space that is all my own. I have been less able to happily socialize without complaining, because I can't tell if I'm making the choice to leave or if I have been forced out by surveillance anymore.
I feel trapped and unhappy. There is no where to go to be alone. Movement is the closest thing I have, because no one can see how moving makes me feel. I care not to share.
Monday, November 20, 2006
There was a time in my life that "Golden Queer" was the most honest piece I could write. Suffice it to say, it is not just a poem. It may not be a masterpiece or great art, but it would be wrong to edit or change it post-Juniata.
I can tell you why it is the way it is. Just like I can try to explain why I am the way I am.
The poem itself shows how strong and forceful I thought I had to be. I came to Juniata out. There was no dithering about for me, as I'd done that already for 3 years in high school. Most of the students weren't ready to hear from me when I first showed up. The students at Juniata did things to people they didn't like, ranging from general exclusion/lack of comfort to tearing down every single gay flyer they could find to slashing tires/beating. Don't worry, though, they never got punished. I was a visible marker that they hadn't won.
I slogged my way through Juniata, in spite of getting in to my very-expensive dream school. Rather than dropping out and surviving in San Francisco. I stayed in a place that wasn't right for me. I became an educator about all things not-straight (apparently including birth control/protection). When you are so directly an educator from your own life, before you've experienced most of it, you lose yourself. You become more of a parody than real.
Why, in my senior year, would I write a slightly less-than-image-y poem with a (uh-oh) direct message? Because nothing I did ever lost the context of being The Gay One. And I'm damn good at direct messages.
I was just happy that most of my self survived. Really, spring semester of my senior year I had plenty of friends, a lover present, could entertain at my home, felt like I had a place for the first time in 3.5 years (but you can really add high school to that too, so 7.5 years). For the first time, the joy in my queer, little life was louder than the din of the bullshit going on around it.
I still can't do that. To this day, I have not found enough freedom and joy to scream and sing over the crap of straight-people-with-excuses, the grad school psyche, and people with no similar experience.
It was the only time in my life I've ever written poetry. Maybe 10 poems still exist from that time, and only 2-3 were ever submitted to Kvasir.
I never promised to be a genius or master-poetician.
There are some poems that scream from your gut to be written when you can best hear them.
And some times, you just can't hear them because they're muffled by elections, anger, general confusion, and lack-of-enlightenment.
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
My first (totally irrational) reaction is to curse all of my friends in hetero relationships who get to make a decision for themselves that I can't. It's a very stupid response, but I suppose we get angry at what is most accessible whether it makes sense or not.
My second (somewhat irrational) reaction is to drop out and leave. Also, very dramatic, but I never feel so clearly like a second class citizen as when it is encoded in law. Perhaps not as irrational, because I can take my economic input and whatnot elsewhere and harm the state somehow.
My third reaction is to cry with a tight chest and feel helpless. What does one do when so resoundingly voted against by a mass of people so much larger than oneself?
I have been so mislead. I think my heart is breaking because I like it so much here, but I can't really be here like this.
Navigate: (Previous 20 entries)
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
thebodyelectric's journal