Tuesday, September 29, 2009

On being a woman

I love being a woman. I have never once thought I'd like to be a man. Well, I guess I must have at least once, given one of our most famous Stout family stories: me, at three or four, my urine-soaked pants down around my ankles, shuffling into the kitchen where my mom was cooking, tears streaming down my face, crying out, "I tried to go pee-pee just like the boys, but it didn't work at all!" But other than that, I have spent my life grateful to be a girl.

And yet.

Being a woman is, after all, being a part of an oppressed identity group. These days, it's not necessarily something I think about on a daily basis, but in little ways, slights accumulate. A "bitch" here and a cat call there, a glance at my breasts or the dismissal or appropriation of my good idea by a man accumulates and then one thing happens and the reality hits home: I am a member of an oppressed identity group. I alluded to a "trespass" by a man in my last post. I knew that all the taste of blood and bitter it left in me had something to do with this, but it wasn't until he left a message for me this evening, his voice full of tears, letting me know that he doesn't want our friendship to end, that what his "mistake" meant for me. This was my response:

For me, this has highlighted what being a woman in America often means. I love it, and have never wanted to be any other gender, but we always have to be ready, at any moment to be misunderstood, misread, judged to be seeking sexual attention when we're just being flirty or kind, and then when we see our mistake and try to back pedal, men get defensive and accusatory and we end up questioning ourselves, and often, we end up trying to comfort or assuage a man who's ego or masculinity we've somehow damaged when they did the misjudging in the first place.

You don't know that we go through this in our lives time and time again because you don't need to know about it in order to survive in this society, but you need to understand it. You need to get that you didn't just make one little mistake in your life here. You participated in the ongoing oppression of women and, at least up to this point, you have individualized it into a singular mistake that shouldn't have wider impact than this one event in your life. I've done a good job in my life so far of only letting the kind of men who don't behave this way into my inner circle. I trusted you weren't one of these men, and I do trust that this incident doesn't reflect who you really are, and how you want to show up in the world, but you behaved in this way because you are not conscious of all the ways in which male privilege influences you and nothing in the way you've reacted to me or my dear friend in the aftermath of what you did gives me confidence that you wouldn't behave in a similarly oppressive way again in the future.

You see, your regret isn't enough here. Your sadness that we might not be friends isn't enough. Doing some research on gender oppression, reading the book The Gender Knot, really examining what it might mean for you to claim and learn about male privilege, seeking to transform your privilege into creating a more equitable world, those are things that could help me eventually learn to trust you again. You may not think it's worth it, just to (maybe) save our friendship, and if that would be your only motivation anyway, don't do it. But if you did delve into learning about male privilege, you would see the benefits in all your relationships with women, even if it doesn't salvage our friendship.

I do hold you in compassion and love, but for now, and I don't know for how long, I need to do it from a distance.

So, dear blog readers, three men are readers of my blog, that I know of, and I am quite sure they are of the equality-minded sort, so if any of this resonates with you and you know some men who may benefit form reading it, please feel free to forward the link to my blog to them, or to anyone who might get something form it. Also, I know it's from a pretty hetero-viewpoint, but this has been a very hetero experience, so here I am...

Many blessings, and prayers for a more just society,
Mandie

Sunday, September 27, 2009

"Hi Mandie," Atlacatl called out. He was standing in the middle of the Oakes bridge just outside my front door. I was startled because it was nearly four in the morning, and didn't expect anyone else to be up.

"I was on my way back to my apartment," he explained softly, "But I saw this thing in the sky," he raised his arm reverently and pointed at a bright dot on the eastern horizon, "It's flashing blue and red and green and I've never seen anything like it. I've been watching it for like ten minutes thinking I must be crazy."

I love that he was compelled to call out to me, to bring this shimmering night sky phenomenon to my attention, his voice hopeful that I too would verify that he was witnessing something unexpected and beautiful. Atlacatl is one of student staff members I supervise. He is kind and deliberate, and tends not to say more than he needs to. He didn't ask me why I was up so late, but just stood there waiting for me to join in his wonder. I followed his finger and squinted into the dark. At first it looked just like a bright star, but then, I saw it. A flash of red, a burst of blue, fading to white, then blue again. And in an instant I was on the same plane of awe. Pinwheel-like, the colors cycled through over and over, sometimes seeming to flame brighter or wider, and it would steal away my breath. We speculated (plane? planet? star?), doubted that it was stationary, then we convinced one another it was. I'd never seen this thing either, and I was rather smitten by it all. I looked up higher in the sky and identified Orion splayed on on his left side, his belt almost pointing an arrow down upon this star. I told him I'd get online and find out what it was, and email him.

It's Sirius, the "dog star," known now by Harry Potter fans as Harry's fugitive Godfather, who could shape shift into a big, black dog. The Ancient Greeks thought that Sirius' emanations could affect dogs adversely, making them behave abnormally in the heat of summer. How apt that is, I thought as I read, for I'd been preoccupied all day thinking through a trespass by a man who had behaved abnormally and left a wake of trauma behind. And what hot days we've been having. But blaming a star for the choices of men who behave like dogs is as futile as convincing said men of the error of their ways. I went back outside, and watched Sirius do some more fanciful color play. I decided stolen early morning moments with a night sky companion like Sirius could redeem me from my anger. There's always beauty, there's always wonder, there's always someone ready to reveal a love of the inky heavens above to the next person who walks by. There are always more reasons to be loving than to not.

That still doesn't mean I have to like him, though.

I'd used the excuse of walking a dear friend halfway out to her car to finally take out some boxes from my month-ago move to the recycle bin, and it was on the way back that Sirius grabbed my attention. I wouldn't have had this starry encounter at all if I had been more on top of my recycling. But something led me to keep forgetting. God, my clandestine miracle worker, She also goes by this name, "Something," as Rev D said today, and will bring us only what we need for our own spiritual development, and often when we least expect it.

My friend and I had just spent hours and hours together on my lovely soft couches, drinking wine, eating ice cream, and doing what sometimes feels like a most important Thing To Do, connecting with another soul. She and I were compatriots in this trespass I referred to, and it was important that we loved each other through to the essence of what this situation means: for me, another opportunity to heal from the experience of oppression as a woman; for her, it revealed remarkable strength and integrity as core qualities, and probably more. I am blessed to have such a woman in my life, and though she is ten years younger than I, I see in her my greatest hope for women taking root: that we find our voice with grace and ease and certainty, that we act less from the desire to be loved or adored, and more from the certainty that love is already ours.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

As stiff as...

Stiff. On Thursday afternoon, I climbed up a fence at Empire Grade, with the aim of crossing the road and then another jump over another fence and a long run into Wilder, past the cow pastures, down into the cool woods, a still-nervous totter after all these years across the single tree trunk "bridge" over the  precocious little stream that babbles even through droughts, up past the old lime kilns round the Boar Trail, cresting at Engelman's loop for a quick pondering of the immense and unending beauty of the rolling hills and bay before turning back home. All these images as real and strong and exciting in front of my eyes as the gate I was scaling, or perhaps more so, because something went wrong in my balance and I slowly, too slowly, began falling backward. There was enough time to tell myself not to try to break my fall with my hands and wrists, to hunch my shoulders forward a bit to create a broad space across my back to fall on and to tuck my chin in to (hopefully) prevent banging the back of my on the ground and knocking myself out. My last thought, just before I hit the ground was, "Fuck, this is taking way too long." My left elbow and forearm hit first, then my shoulder blades and neck. It hurt. I lay there in the dirt, well aware that I was letting the pebbles and germs hang out in the scuffed up skin on my arm, but the wind had been knocked out of me and my neck muscles throbbed so I just stayed put for an assessment. A dull ache spread from my neck to my forehead and in a final painful flash disappeared, escaping from some unknown gate. I eased up to standing, squeezed some water on my cuts and thought, "Well, let's try that again." I got over without trouble and in no time I was tamping my rhythm again. I was fine, really. The run was great. But there's always a price to pay for ignoring hints to turn around. My neck's been sore and stiff ever since. As stiff as...


Well, shit. That paragraph is a fine piece of writing and could be taken somewhere sweet or poignant, wrapping it all up like a sitcom, as I tend to attempt in my writing, but all I really want to tie it to is my favorite quote from Julie and Julia (perhaps my favorite quote in a film all year). Julia Child pulled a couple cannelloni from boiling water with her bare hands and exclaimed to her husband, "These damn things are as hot as a stiff cock!"

That is priceless.

On to more serious stuff. This past week, I fell in love with three people, all over again. Jimmy Carter for calling racism racism when no one else would, and Ketih Oberman and Rachel Maddow for methodically explaining what so many pundits and strategists and even President Obama tried to dismiss: that no matter how much we deny that racism is at the root of the conservative so-called back-lash to all things Obama, it doesn't make it so. I get that Obama can't be the one to lead this conversation, since it would be political suicide, but it still needs to happen. Rev D said it best today: you can't claim Oneness and deny that things like racism, sexism, and so on don't exist. The only way to one day be equal is to heal the collective wounds we've all  been festering in for so long. We can't claim we're all in this together and expect those of us who've experienced oppression not to question what this "togetherness" will require us to discount in our own experiences. We can't claim we're all going to move forward united without seeing that those privileged among us have a lot less to lose if this "unity" falls apart or can't be sustained. I got to feeling pretty discouraged and the day Nancy Pelosi choked up about the violence in the late 70s in San Francisco, I recall thinking, "I'm not sure that even race-based violence would get us, as a nation, to finally talk."

So I turned off the news, and turned on my choir practice list and began to sing my prayers. Rev D urges us to watch the news not to see the worst in the world confirmed but to watch for all the prayer requests from the world. We gotta heal, we gotta talk about this stuff, and I pray for that.

I know all we need to heal is the sense of separation -- from ourselves, from each other, from creativity, from love, from God, from whatever it is that gives us peace. So I type, type, type, hoping that someone out there may be soothed as I am by words, that someone may just think about something differently, or that I may, or just feel grateful for a moment to breathe and read.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

In the wee hours

Every once in a while, perhaps once a year if I'm lucky, a book works magic on me, casting a spell and pulling me through exhaustion and dragging me past reason and all of logic's persuasive arguments, and delivers a gift so timeless, so unique, so perfect, that I can't resent the pit sleeplessness inevitably forms in my stomach. On some level, it's like making love with a person you adore for the first time. Nothing else matters, the late hour, the fact that my choir is ministering in six short hours and it's our first ministry date of the new season, that I am singing with the soprano section for the first time ever, that I owe it to my section and to my six friends coming to be present, full of energy and spirit. None of it matters in the moment. The lovemaking must not stop! The reading has to go on!

But all is not lost! Just like love, the perfectly executed story can sustain. The beauty of love and the beauty of words are never enervating. Both love making and reading fill me up for sleepless nights of kisses scattered on skin and lips, or pages turned one after another until there are no more glorious valleys and peaks of joy and expression to explore, but there is energy still, so I write, or admire the man before me as he slumbers, until sleep over takes my will.

And this book, a book that could be written by a spiritual revolutionary operating as an author, who gave the job of narration to a very perceptive and wise old dog, Enzo, is one of these rare gems. Enzo, had he been the human he so longed to be, would probably be a tenor in the Inner Light Ministries Gospel Choir, singing along with me tomorrow morning. He says once, of race car driving: "The car goes where the eyes go," and also, "That which you manifest is before you."And then he goes and practices these principles in scenes that made me sigh or cry or cheer or call up some willing friend to read a passage to. Oh, Enzo, you were just perfect!

This day was perfect, as well, or yesterday, I guess, now. In the morning, after sleeping in until 8:30 (unheard of for me!), I made my way slowly to the farmer's market. My farmer's market crush, the older, delightfully cheerful Dutch farmer Ron from Windmill Farms, rained extra strawberries down upon me, more strawberries than I paid for, and kind teasing and mirth in equal measure to his generosity. I will make him kale chips from his beautiful kale for as long as I live here, I love him that much.

I prayed and meditated into a rare sweet spot space before auditioning to be a soloist for the choir someday. Despite having forgot the CD I had practiced with for weeks on end at home, Valerie Joi having to play the rhythm of the song on her keyboard and have me sing along without the choir there to lead or follow, without the anchor notes I'd found and felt comforted by, and having to swallow the resultant wave of anxiety that threatened to make my heart race out of my chest and my throat begin to close up in fear, it went splendidly. After a few false starts, I sang the way I can when I believe what I am singing, when all my egoistic preoocupations get swept away by a gracious hand and I just know that there can be no higher joy than to sing and to minister words of love and healing.

When she stopped me, she turned to me with those big brown, illuminated eyes of hers and said, "Did you hear that? Did you hear how good that was?"

I did. I did. And so did she. To hear the praise in her voice, the praise of my availability to something higher in those moments, was manna from heaven. I let Spirit sing through me, finally (finally!), and Spirit responded with great love, but it sounded deceptively like Valerie Joi. Sneaky, God, She is! And relentless! But I don't mind the way She gently pursues me anymore. Being in Her company is so much less work than before, when I had to try so hard to ignore Her.

And then there was Kath's birthday potluck, where my Spicy Green Cilantro Soup was a hit with all, and wonderfully tasty potluck items, as well as yummy vegan carrot cake form Black China Bakery and coconut bliss ice cream, followed by an invite from Thomas and Indigo to Chocolat. There my plans for a glass of wine morphed to include copius sampling of the Chocolate Orgy sampler plate, and then a giggle-filled trip to Herb Room for Chinese curing pills for the inevitable sugar hangover we'd all suffer (well, I am still suffering, apparently, having just a touch of the tireds but lots of energy still).

I was so struck tonight by my love for those two guys. Indigo, three days past his tenth birthday, and Thomas, 43 today. They look more and more alike as Indigo grows. Indigo is so handsome and sweet and kind and I am so excited about seeing how he will be as a pre-teen and later a young man. My heart swelled at moments tonight just feeling so proud to know this kid. And his father, who knows me as well as my closest family and friends do, and sometimes, creepily, knows me better than I do. I marvel at how quickly we recovered from our breakup. I knew he'd be fine, but I had my doubts about myself. I certainly didn't think we'd ever manage to be this close ever again. In so many ways it's as though we never even had our relationship at all. There are times I recall the relationship and think, "Wait, did that really happen?" It was brief and wonderful and not forgettable, but we have so seamlessly settled back into our bestfriendship that I wonder if I dreamed being his lover for a time, and that this was how we've always been.

And just when I decided around 1:00am this morning that the day couldn't get any better and I might as well turn in, I picked up The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein for a little pre-sleep reading, and my waking hours went from fantastic to perfect as I finished reading the last half of this sweetly profound novel. To end this night, finally, with one other favorite thing in my life I haven't yet mentioned, writing, pretty well seals the deal on one of the best weekends of my life. And there's still tomorrow! Singing! Friends! Endless Joy!

God, I'm not missing a minute of this, and I love you for it all!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

What's in a teacup?

In December of 2003, I got two Christmas presents that became symbols of that era of my life.

Dave, my partner at the time, after months of me dropping little hints that I wanted an iBook (ok, so stopping at the Mac store window with him, my eyes would lock on the laptop, my hand flying to my heart and a dramatic sigh of infatuation whistling through my teeth wasn't exactly a "little" hint, but I wanted to be really clear about what I wanted), turned to me one evening a few weeks before Christmas and said, exasperated, "Mandie, what do you want more, an iBook, or an engagement ring?" I paused to think, but that was really just for effect. "Ummmm," I stalled, "an iBook?" It was not truly a question. He shook his head, but smiled cryptically. I got the laptop, but he said, "You can only accept this gift as a stand in for an engagement ring." I did think at the time that I would one day marry Dave, but I wasn't ready to say "yes" to a marriage proposal either. And I really wanted the iBook. Not wanting to get bogged down in the details, I simply said, "Ok!" and thanked him profusely, not letting him actually ask the question.


Yeah, so, cat's out of the bag, I wasn't always a woman of integrity.

The other gift I got that year was a glass tea mug. Dave best friend, a drop out from Humboldt (yes becuase of the reason you suspect) had picked up glass etching and made a handsome living by etching hundreds and thousands of mugs with emblems representing such bands as the Grateful Dead, Iron Maiden, and Phish. He also designed his own mugs and sold those, too. He made mugs for both Dave and I that year, "his and her" mugs. Dave's had some ancient looking symbol of masculinity. Mine has a human figure, arms raised above a circle of a head, broad chest narrowing to the waist, which then flare out to substantial hips and nipping in again to a point where toes could be. running from the toe tip is a squiggly line that rises to the midsection and swirls into itself, a spiraled womb nestled in the focal point of the figure. I loved it instantly, almost as much as the iBook. I loved seeing both our mugs together on my kitchen shelf, a symbol of my hope for our future.

These two things were all that survived the relationship, not including me, of course, and that salvation was really only possible by moving to Mexico for six months, a close call if there ever was one. They became tokens of survival. Every time I turned on my laptop or used the mug, I thought, with much satisfaction, "I survived the greatest heartbreak of my life. Nothing can break me."

In September 2007, I bought a new computer and a few months later gave my iBook to Thomas, who could use it for school. There was a bit of releasing I needed to do, some measure of melancholy at letting it go, but I blessed it for the work it had done for me and would now do for Thomas, and hardly thought about it again.

Tonight, after boiling water for tea, I began pouring it into my mug, thinking, "Yup, I'm a momma." Ok not literally, as in I am pregnant right now, but seeing that woman etched into the glass has recently morphed from the survivor mantra it's been for years to confirmation of who I am in the world, a nurturing, caring woman, full and flowing over with love and creativity. Not two seconds into the pour, I heard a clean, sharp crack, and looked down to see water pooling around the bottom of the mug and a crack shimmering from the rim to the mid-bottom of the mug. No, no, no! I though frantically, Not this mug! And swiftly, my wise self replied, "Well, I guess I don't need a mug to remind me who I am anymore, I just know it, through and through."

So, what's in a mug? Just what you need to be in it until you don't anymore, and then it's just glass to be recycled, repurposed, resurrected into some other container for someone else's nourishment. 

Sunday, September 6, 2009

I want a beer

There are at least eight beers in my fridge, and I'd been planning all day to drink a beer while updating my blog, but about 15 minutes ago, I forgot all about my buzz plan and brewed myself a cup of tea. The buzz sensation I've been counting on all day is still alluring, but I am occasionally able to stop fighting my better instincts. So my dear beer, my sweet, crisp, raspberry wheat delight, I will drink you tomorrow night after my next long day.

I mean, ahem, full day. A full, rich, and productive day. Oh, it was all that, but fuck it, I didn't enjoy much of my day.

What I really mean is that I had a very long day, touched by serenity for only an hour and half during a great yoga class. God bless the yoga teachers of the world, I could have kissed mine today, she was just what I needed. I actually teared up during savasana.

I've been doing tasky things all day -- skipped church to get it "all" done, something I've done only twice this year while actually in Santa Cruz. I spent the day planning some sessions for student life staff training that starts tomorrow (which leads to move-in, which then brings with it the first six weeks of school crazieness -- namely, a lot of policy violations for me to adjudicate, and my trip to China in mid-October). Also, I did a lot of uncooking (raw food creations and treats) to trade for my voice lesson tomorrow night. I met and gave keys to about half of the Neighborhood Assistants (like RAs) and Community Assistants (they plan programs all year long), which involved a cell phone that rang every few minutes for three hours and the discovery of missing keys and trips to the office. I made breakfast, lunch and dinner, ran three errands, did all my dishes, and picked up the house a little, too.

And at almost every step, I've willed a fog of resentment at bay. I really wanted this to be a calm weekend, my last before the year starts, and I wanted to drink a fucking beer at the end of the day, damnit.

Perhaps I should have gone to church today, or at least prayed. Or at least had that beer.

It doesn't escape me now that feeling resentful that things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to this weekend is privileged state, or more plainly, it's downright bratty. I have a job, one I love, and a wonderful apartment with everything I need to make the food I love. I have a caring boss, talented co-workers, a car and the money to buy groceries and books and pay for yoga classes. I have eyes that see well (ok, with the help of glasses) and I got to watch the Bay on my drive into town this afternoon, that expanse of sapphire all rippled by wind, little white-tipped waves stacked in patterns too regular to seem possible and I took in the way the sunlight seemed filtered by an orange film around seven this evening, the world looking soft and warm and peaceful. I have a body that moves well and is strong and fit. I am, in almost every way, enormously privileged, and I don't take any of my day for granted. And, even when I am not flooded with gratitude for the whole of my life, I know it is a rare and good thing I have going on here. God, please, may I ALWAYS know this.

What I really, truly mean, deep down, is that it's ok to be grateful and disappointed at the same time, these aren't mutually exclusive emotions, and there's no spiritual scorekeeper out there weighing one against the other and calling it a draw. 

I love my life, so, so much, AND I really would have rather spent my day at the beach drinking cold beers and reading a good book.