Here's next month's entry for the Sun's Readers Write.
I was eight or nine, with a friend in her room, playing Monopoly, a Belinda Carlise tape playing in the background, when I discovered I sang terribly. It was the 80s and before I could distinguish great music from popular music and I loved Belinda Carlisle, and even more I loved her song “Heaven is a Place on Earth.” When that track came on, I belted out the lyrics and imitated Belinda Carlisle from her ultra-dramatic video performance.
My friend got antsy all of sudden, shifting and looking up at me several times in irritated glances. After a minute or so, she looked straight at me, her round, clear blue eyes boring into me, and said, “Mandie, could you stop singing? I’m trying to enjoy the song and you have a terrible voice.”
It felt like she’d hurled a brick into my chest and my eyes prickled with tears. Ever the pleaser, I swallowed hard, and apologized. And I never forgot that I couldn’t sing.
Yet, when it came time to pick electives for junior high, I saw “choir” and checked the box. I remember thinking, I’ll sing really low so no one discovers my terrible voice and if the song is really hard, I’ll just mouth the words. I stayed in school choirs for the next four years. I loved the music, the way each part had a role to play, how the altos had to set the harmony, the sopranos kept the melody going, while the tenors and basses added depth and richness. I was thrilled when we’d come together and sound like one voice. Singing, just being around singers, soothed me, made me feel at home in my body and comfortable with my peers, such a precious thing in adolescence.
In high school, my choir teacher realized I was faking it, and talked with me about it. I was so embarrassed I’d been found out, that I didn’t sign up for choir the next semester, even though every time I passed by the choir room, my heart swelled with longing.
But some things have a way of choosing you and you can't ever escape.
A few weeks ago, I held a live mic in my hand, opened my mouth, sang, and it was good. For a few minutes, music lifted me from nervous self-absorption into its ancient arms, and poured through me like a sieve. There was this moment, just after I’d closed the song and just before anxiety about my performance fell back into it’s familiar groove, that the enormity of what I’d just accomplished was suspended on my voice teacher’s face and I knew, without any trace of ego to take it away, that I’d sounded, actually, quite beautiful. To the wounded nine-year old who wrapped herself around my vocal cords the day she demanded I stop my offensive singing, I say, “Oh honey, what a load of shit that was. Stop letting her hold you back from sharing that fabulous voice of yours.”
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Musings on a full life
So much of my life slips away without ever being imprinted on my memory. What I want to remember is waking up at least ten times to watch my two nieces sleeping next to me last night, or the way three and half year old Avi flung her arm across me, and snuggled her little body into my chest, or the way seven year old Kaia reached across her sister to hold my arm as she was going to sleep.
The expectant expression on Norval’s face the first time he presented a bouquet of flowers to me might not last forever in this fickle sieve of my brain. I might lose the feeling of my heart as it skipped a beat and then sped up the first time an editor of a magazine expressed interest in publishing an essay of mine (just this week!). I’m afraid the night that I helped Bianca paint the bedroom in her apartment a few months ago, and the respective life dilemmas we unraveled that night, will be sloughed off in favor of retaining some remarkable historical event. Will I remember the email my mom sent me this week that prickled my eyes with tears and dissolved any resentment I had about an issue we’ve been working through?
And so we feel love, devotion, excitement, validation, happiness, kinship and forgiveness. And when we come across them again, in the future, something tugs at the edges, a forgotten moment begging to be retrieved. Sometimes, the whole scene will rush back, and sometimes it remains the impression of a feeling, and not the event itself. The thing I may appreciate most about life, though, is that those lost moments will, most likely, repeat themselves in different iterations.
Someday, I will sleep with my own child and this first sleep over with my nieces will come rushing back. If I am lucky, I will see that same look on Norval’s face many times over as we grow together. The first time I get a job in the writing world, I suspect I will see that first email in my head and smile. I trust, despite the ups and downs friendships go through, that Bianca and I will share in some other connecting synergy and one of us will say, “Remember that night we painted in here and we joked about what a good lesbian couple we’d be?” And each time my mother and I find that we understand each other better than we already do, I suspect I’ll get a little teary.
The longer I live, the more I see that the common denominators of life – joy, love, companionship – will bestow their grace in perpetuity, so perhaps there is no need to hold on to any one of them as though they are in limited supply.
The expectant expression on Norval’s face the first time he presented a bouquet of flowers to me might not last forever in this fickle sieve of my brain. I might lose the feeling of my heart as it skipped a beat and then sped up the first time an editor of a magazine expressed interest in publishing an essay of mine (just this week!). I’m afraid the night that I helped Bianca paint the bedroom in her apartment a few months ago, and the respective life dilemmas we unraveled that night, will be sloughed off in favor of retaining some remarkable historical event. Will I remember the email my mom sent me this week that prickled my eyes with tears and dissolved any resentment I had about an issue we’ve been working through?
And so we feel love, devotion, excitement, validation, happiness, kinship and forgiveness. And when we come across them again, in the future, something tugs at the edges, a forgotten moment begging to be retrieved. Sometimes, the whole scene will rush back, and sometimes it remains the impression of a feeling, and not the event itself. The thing I may appreciate most about life, though, is that those lost moments will, most likely, repeat themselves in different iterations.
Someday, I will sleep with my own child and this first sleep over with my nieces will come rushing back. If I am lucky, I will see that same look on Norval’s face many times over as we grow together. The first time I get a job in the writing world, I suspect I will see that first email in my head and smile. I trust, despite the ups and downs friendships go through, that Bianca and I will share in some other connecting synergy and one of us will say, “Remember that night we painted in here and we joked about what a good lesbian couple we’d be?” And each time my mother and I find that we understand each other better than we already do, I suspect I’ll get a little teary.
The longer I live, the more I see that the common denominators of life – joy, love, companionship – will bestow their grace in perpetuity, so perhaps there is no need to hold on to any one of them as though they are in limited supply.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Making It Last
Here's my third installment in my writing project: writing one piece a month to send out for the Sun Magazine's Reader's Write section. Let me know what you think!
I’m trying to make the bowl of warm quinoa topped with veggies and a spicy, aromatic marinara sauce in front of me last. I’m trying to hear my body say, “That’s enough, you’ve eaten all you need.” I’m trying to ignore the voice saying, “Eat it quick! It’s getting cold! It tastes so good, you know you want it. It will calm you down. Eat it!” I’m trying to make this brand new, fragile hope last: that I can actually lose the eighteen pounds I’ve regained of the seventy I lost three years ago.
When I had lost forty pounds, I realized that I might actually be successful at reaching my natural weight, and this freaked me out. I remember having nightmares that I’d woken up, walked into the bathroom, and seen my old fatter self reflected in the mirror. I was afraid of gaining back all the weight I’d lost. Not because I hated being fat, but because I feared being a failure.
I was so frustrated one night that I got out of bed and put all of my too-big clothes in boxes and drove them to the Goodwill drop-off at three in the morning in the middle of a downpour. I tucked them as best I could under an awning, and thought: Without these clothes, I can’t gain back the weight. I won’t. A year and a half after I’d kept the seventy pounds off, I got a long, wide arching tattoo on my torso in honor of the woman I was before I lost weight, because she’d taught me a lot about strength and beauty and because she wasn’t ever going to exist in flesh again.
But, I have not kept it all off. Six months ago, I let food catch me as I spiraled after a romantic disappointment and the ensuing single-girl anxiety. Consistently comforting, consistently satisfying, consistently sweet, consistently consistent, my relationship with food has always been the one to last.
But after months of frustration and confusion at my choice to regularly eat when I am not hungry, I’ve asked the question, “Do I really want this new body, and the life that came with it, to last?” Do I want to feel lithe and airy when I am running? Do I want to radiate with the confidence that comes from doing what I’d believed for so long was impossible? Do I want to be free from obsessing about my next meal?
Yes. A small, hopeful yes that’s lit a fire under the possibility that I can find my way back to my real body, that I can find my way back to myself. That I can make it last.
I’m trying to make the bowl of warm quinoa topped with veggies and a spicy, aromatic marinara sauce in front of me last. I’m trying to hear my body say, “That’s enough, you’ve eaten all you need.” I’m trying to ignore the voice saying, “Eat it quick! It’s getting cold! It tastes so good, you know you want it. It will calm you down. Eat it!” I’m trying to make this brand new, fragile hope last: that I can actually lose the eighteen pounds I’ve regained of the seventy I lost three years ago.
When I had lost forty pounds, I realized that I might actually be successful at reaching my natural weight, and this freaked me out. I remember having nightmares that I’d woken up, walked into the bathroom, and seen my old fatter self reflected in the mirror. I was afraid of gaining back all the weight I’d lost. Not because I hated being fat, but because I feared being a failure.
I was so frustrated one night that I got out of bed and put all of my too-big clothes in boxes and drove them to the Goodwill drop-off at three in the morning in the middle of a downpour. I tucked them as best I could under an awning, and thought: Without these clothes, I can’t gain back the weight. I won’t. A year and a half after I’d kept the seventy pounds off, I got a long, wide arching tattoo on my torso in honor of the woman I was before I lost weight, because she’d taught me a lot about strength and beauty and because she wasn’t ever going to exist in flesh again.
But, I have not kept it all off. Six months ago, I let food catch me as I spiraled after a romantic disappointment and the ensuing single-girl anxiety. Consistently comforting, consistently satisfying, consistently sweet, consistently consistent, my relationship with food has always been the one to last.
But after months of frustration and confusion at my choice to regularly eat when I am not hungry, I’ve asked the question, “Do I really want this new body, and the life that came with it, to last?” Do I want to feel lithe and airy when I am running? Do I want to radiate with the confidence that comes from doing what I’d believed for so long was impossible? Do I want to be free from obsessing about my next meal?
Yes. A small, hopeful yes that’s lit a fire under the possibility that I can find my way back to my real body, that I can find my way back to myself. That I can make it last.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Love’s easy this time around, almost
He's got this big wide-open grin he greets me with, and the warmth in his eyes grows as his smile spreads across his face. It’s the grown up version of how my nieces react when they see me – as though seeing me is the best thing that’s happened in their lives in a while. I blush and have to resist looking down at my feet as one toe kicks into the other in shyness that such joy is directed at me. He and I can talk for hours about what's happening in the news or how one of his research participants or one of my students raised a whole bunch of questions about gender or class or race or accessibility. That's as sexy to me as the way he folds me into a hug and then offers up his warm, ready lips for a kiss, as though he knows that's just where I want them, lingering on mine. He listens better than any other man I've met, better than I listen, and he catches not just what I'm saying, but what needs I'm talking about, and goes about quietly meeting them. He makes me want to be a better me.
There is so much ease and comfort between us that it feels like we've known each other for years, and the chemistry we share feels deeply connecting -- there's the passion I always seem to crave, but it's not crazy-making like it has been with other men. We've hung out for one short month admittedly, yet no red flags have been raised. Most of the time with him, I feel like what we're doing is all a formality, that we could decide we were a couple now, could move in together in a few months, be married in a year, and it wouldn't change how much fun we're having or the calm knowing we feel when one of us slips up and makes a reference some version of our possible shared future.
I know I've said this before, too many times, that it's so cliched, so unsupported by my own life’s history, and so silly to say after a month, but I think he and I may be onto to something real and lasting here. And if not, there's something rich and meaningful here for us. (Delete this paragraph?)
So what's the catch? For me, there isn't one. But two people I love most in the world, for different reasons, have taken issue with me dating him because he's black.
One, who has championed fairness and equality for all for as long as I’ve known her, has shared with me that she thinks a long-term relationship with a black man, would be a choice of a harder life for me, and any children I may have with him. I don’t disagree that having an interracial relationship or family in a society steeped in racism will bring with it challenges, but I do disagree that this should be the sole reason to end a relationship with someone.
After all, race is not a genetic disorder. Growing up biracial is not a disease I'd pass onto my kids. Barak Obama turned out just fine, despite so many obstacles, including race, any one of which could have led him to a very different life. What matters in a kid's success is that she is loved no matter what, that her family believes in her, and that her family never gives up on her. With that, any social meaning attributed to her identity memberships can be weathered.
For me, this argument, that I'd be making my life harder by choosing a black man as my partner is like saying I shouldn't have children at all because if one of them is a girl, or is born gay, their life will be harder. It's a choice to have kids or not -- so better to not so that their life and my life, isn't hard. It's just silly, so not a compelling argument to me, and it's heartbreaking to hear it from someone I love and respect so much -- someone who would, theoretically, be expected to one day love my (possibly) biracial, female, or gay children. Would she always harbor the wish that they were different?
Last week, while visiting her, I was scanning an article online, and she asked, “What are you reading?” I told her that Norval had been interviewed by a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle about some union organizing he’s been doing. She barely responded with an “Oh.” I wondered to myself, if he wasn’t black, would she have asked more questions about him? Would she have wanted to read the article herself? Would she brag to her friends at work about knowing someone who’s dating a guy who was interviewed for the Chronicle?
I have more trouble with my other dear one’s concerns. Given 200 plus years of racism in our country, there are fewer educated, successful black men in the dating pool, and more educated, successful black women in the dating pool. Is it fair for me, as a white woman to date one of these men, to get serious with him, and to effectively take him off the market for women of color who, sadly, get pursued much less by all men, including black men? For a fascinating breakdown of race preferences on one dating website – okcupid.com – visit http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/10/05/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/.
I don't have a response for this reality that feels great to me.
R&B singer Jill Scott stirred up the interracial love debate last March when she described in an editorial piece in Essence magazine “the wince” she feels when she learns that a seemingly together black man is with a white woman (http://www.essence.com/relationships/commentary_3/commentary_jill_scott_talks_interracial.php?page=4). As someone who's spent a great deal of her life trying to learn enough about my privileges to avoid, as much as possible, making anyone wince from my ignorance, I'm not fond of the idea of being a trigger for any woman of color to wince when she sees me with Norval. I'm not interested in so suddenly bringing into another woman's consciousness the complicated nature of dating within her racial community, or even, as in Scott's instance, the whole history of the black struggle in America. But whether I want this role or not, I do understand that if "this" works out, for some women, I will be this kind of trigger. I know this, and I'm not excited about it. But should this be a reason to stop dating Norval? I’m not so sure.
Scott said in a follow up interview on CNN that she's not against interracial love, but that she shared her experience and opinions to open up debate, to talk about the lasting impacts of racism, and for that, I appreciate her honesty in bringing it up. I know I can never know what it's like to be a black woman, but I do remember my overweight years, before I lost sixty pounds.
I spent most of my adult life watching thinner women being hit on as I went unnoticed or was quickly dismissed. I'd wince every time the guy I thought I'd connected with in some way drifted off and ended up with a thinner, and therefore more desirable, woman. I don't have enough fingers to count the number of men I hoped would ask for my phone number and would end up asking for my friend's number instead. It was tough to feel rejected for who I was. But I would never expect my friends to not go out with or flirt with men I was interested in. If a man didn't find me attractive, I didn't want his number. But it still stung when it happened. So I get that, as much as I can anyway, as a white girl. If I can't know in my bones what Jill Scott's wince is about, I can empathize with it, and it does trouble me.
One reader responded to Scott's Essence commentary: "Jill's comments mirror what a lot of black women feel; sorry if it makes some of you uncomfortable." It does make me uncomfortable, but not because I deny that it's true (I think it is). I don't think being uncomfortable in conversations about race is a bad thing. It makes me think, deeply, about the impact of my choices. (Leave out? Find a more compelling response that captures the white women shouldn’t date black men position.)
Another says:
As an Afro-Latino married to a White Woman, color had no place in my selection. I have dated many women outside my race yet my selection for marriage had nothing to do with that... Although I never intended to marry someone white, we fell in love and it has turned out to be the best loving relationship I have ever been in. Our commonality is our education, beliefs, and the genuine love of each other irrespective of race.
I'd argue that race is never irrelevant in any relationship, and that education, beliefs, and love are all shaped by our racial (and other) identities. But in this man's case, they were compatible with his white partner. This is an important point for me. I did not set out to find a black man. I am under no illusion that his being black somehow makes him more or less desirable than any other man who can talk my socks off around social justice issues. In our first exchanges, he referred to equality and fairness being guiding principles for him, and mentioned other values I hold dear, and I couldn't stop talking with him because of our different ethnic backgrounds.
I do believe that his being black has shaped him in ways that make us compatible -- his experiences with racism pushed him to study and understand the way identity gets played out in the world, and he's spoken with sensitivity about his privileges as a straight man. And my being a woman has shaped me in ways that make us compatible, too, because it was through my experiences as a woman that I became interested in other identity groups that experience oppression, which led me to being interested in finding a way to be in the world that expands the privileges I do have to everyone. But it isn't because he's black, or I'm white, that we have been drawn to one another. And that very real fact is obscured when taking a social justice high road here, and I just can’t take it. Maybe that's shortsighted of me, maybe it is on overreach of my white privilege.
But love has somehow put out a green shoot of clear-eyed hope, and I stand there admiring it with Norval, wonder suspended in the air between us, and we can’t resist but water it with the nearly identical dreams we’ve carried separately, until now. With the almost primal drive to protect such new possibility, it's not cut and dry, it's not so simple.
I don't have a solution to this issue that will please my loved ones; at least for now, ending things with this man is not going to happen. I want them to be excited for me, to ask me about how things are going, to share in my joy. I also know that they may not be able to hold that space for me right now, or maybe ever. I will love them regardless of their support (or lack thereof) of this new relationship, and I know they will love me too, as best they can. I am grateful for that.
Rumi wrote, centuries ago, "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there."
My best hope now is that my loved ones will walk with me the length of this field.
There is so much ease and comfort between us that it feels like we've known each other for years, and the chemistry we share feels deeply connecting -- there's the passion I always seem to crave, but it's not crazy-making like it has been with other men. We've hung out for one short month admittedly, yet no red flags have been raised. Most of the time with him, I feel like what we're doing is all a formality, that we could decide we were a couple now, could move in together in a few months, be married in a year, and it wouldn't change how much fun we're having or the calm knowing we feel when one of us slips up and makes a reference some version of our possible shared future.
I know I've said this before, too many times, that it's so cliched, so unsupported by my own life’s history, and so silly to say after a month, but I think he and I may be onto to something real and lasting here. And if not, there's something rich and meaningful here for us. (Delete this paragraph?)
So what's the catch? For me, there isn't one. But two people I love most in the world, for different reasons, have taken issue with me dating him because he's black.
One, who has championed fairness and equality for all for as long as I’ve known her, has shared with me that she thinks a long-term relationship with a black man, would be a choice of a harder life for me, and any children I may have with him. I don’t disagree that having an interracial relationship or family in a society steeped in racism will bring with it challenges, but I do disagree that this should be the sole reason to end a relationship with someone.
After all, race is not a genetic disorder. Growing up biracial is not a disease I'd pass onto my kids. Barak Obama turned out just fine, despite so many obstacles, including race, any one of which could have led him to a very different life. What matters in a kid's success is that she is loved no matter what, that her family believes in her, and that her family never gives up on her. With that, any social meaning attributed to her identity memberships can be weathered.
For me, this argument, that I'd be making my life harder by choosing a black man as my partner is like saying I shouldn't have children at all because if one of them is a girl, or is born gay, their life will be harder. It's a choice to have kids or not -- so better to not so that their life and my life, isn't hard. It's just silly, so not a compelling argument to me, and it's heartbreaking to hear it from someone I love and respect so much -- someone who would, theoretically, be expected to one day love my (possibly) biracial, female, or gay children. Would she always harbor the wish that they were different?
Last week, while visiting her, I was scanning an article online, and she asked, “What are you reading?” I told her that Norval had been interviewed by a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle about some union organizing he’s been doing. She barely responded with an “Oh.” I wondered to myself, if he wasn’t black, would she have asked more questions about him? Would she have wanted to read the article herself? Would she brag to her friends at work about knowing someone who’s dating a guy who was interviewed for the Chronicle?
I have more trouble with my other dear one’s concerns. Given 200 plus years of racism in our country, there are fewer educated, successful black men in the dating pool, and more educated, successful black women in the dating pool. Is it fair for me, as a white woman to date one of these men, to get serious with him, and to effectively take him off the market for women of color who, sadly, get pursued much less by all men, including black men? For a fascinating breakdown of race preferences on one dating website – okcupid.com – visit http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/10/05/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/.
I don't have a response for this reality that feels great to me.
R&B singer Jill Scott stirred up the interracial love debate last March when she described in an editorial piece in Essence magazine “the wince” she feels when she learns that a seemingly together black man is with a white woman (http://www.essence.com/relationships/commentary_3/commentary_jill_scott_talks_interracial.php?page=4). As someone who's spent a great deal of her life trying to learn enough about my privileges to avoid, as much as possible, making anyone wince from my ignorance, I'm not fond of the idea of being a trigger for any woman of color to wince when she sees me with Norval. I'm not interested in so suddenly bringing into another woman's consciousness the complicated nature of dating within her racial community, or even, as in Scott's instance, the whole history of the black struggle in America. But whether I want this role or not, I do understand that if "this" works out, for some women, I will be this kind of trigger. I know this, and I'm not excited about it. But should this be a reason to stop dating Norval? I’m not so sure.
Scott said in a follow up interview on CNN that she's not against interracial love, but that she shared her experience and opinions to open up debate, to talk about the lasting impacts of racism, and for that, I appreciate her honesty in bringing it up. I know I can never know what it's like to be a black woman, but I do remember my overweight years, before I lost sixty pounds.
I spent most of my adult life watching thinner women being hit on as I went unnoticed or was quickly dismissed. I'd wince every time the guy I thought I'd connected with in some way drifted off and ended up with a thinner, and therefore more desirable, woman. I don't have enough fingers to count the number of men I hoped would ask for my phone number and would end up asking for my friend's number instead. It was tough to feel rejected for who I was. But I would never expect my friends to not go out with or flirt with men I was interested in. If a man didn't find me attractive, I didn't want his number. But it still stung when it happened. So I get that, as much as I can anyway, as a white girl. If I can't know in my bones what Jill Scott's wince is about, I can empathize with it, and it does trouble me.
One reader responded to Scott's Essence commentary: "Jill's comments mirror what a lot of black women feel; sorry if it makes some of you uncomfortable." It does make me uncomfortable, but not because I deny that it's true (I think it is). I don't think being uncomfortable in conversations about race is a bad thing. It makes me think, deeply, about the impact of my choices. (Leave out? Find a more compelling response that captures the white women shouldn’t date black men position.)
Another says:
As an Afro-Latino married to a White Woman, color had no place in my selection. I have dated many women outside my race yet my selection for marriage had nothing to do with that... Although I never intended to marry someone white, we fell in love and it has turned out to be the best loving relationship I have ever been in. Our commonality is our education, beliefs, and the genuine love of each other irrespective of race.
I'd argue that race is never irrelevant in any relationship, and that education, beliefs, and love are all shaped by our racial (and other) identities. But in this man's case, they were compatible with his white partner. This is an important point for me. I did not set out to find a black man. I am under no illusion that his being black somehow makes him more or less desirable than any other man who can talk my socks off around social justice issues. In our first exchanges, he referred to equality and fairness being guiding principles for him, and mentioned other values I hold dear, and I couldn't stop talking with him because of our different ethnic backgrounds.
I do believe that his being black has shaped him in ways that make us compatible -- his experiences with racism pushed him to study and understand the way identity gets played out in the world, and he's spoken with sensitivity about his privileges as a straight man. And my being a woman has shaped me in ways that make us compatible, too, because it was through my experiences as a woman that I became interested in other identity groups that experience oppression, which led me to being interested in finding a way to be in the world that expands the privileges I do have to everyone. But it isn't because he's black, or I'm white, that we have been drawn to one another. And that very real fact is obscured when taking a social justice high road here, and I just can’t take it. Maybe that's shortsighted of me, maybe it is on overreach of my white privilege.
But love has somehow put out a green shoot of clear-eyed hope, and I stand there admiring it with Norval, wonder suspended in the air between us, and we can’t resist but water it with the nearly identical dreams we’ve carried separately, until now. With the almost primal drive to protect such new possibility, it's not cut and dry, it's not so simple.
I don't have a solution to this issue that will please my loved ones; at least for now, ending things with this man is not going to happen. I want them to be excited for me, to ask me about how things are going, to share in my joy. I also know that they may not be able to hold that space for me right now, or maybe ever. I will love them regardless of their support (or lack thereof) of this new relationship, and I know they will love me too, as best they can. I am grateful for that.
Rumi wrote, centuries ago, "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there."
My best hope now is that my loved ones will walk with me the length of this field.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Medicine
Here's my July offering for The Sun's Reader's Write section. (Mom, please send me factual edits -- I'm not sure of exact times, lengths, etc...)
I was awakened at 3:02 in the morning by my mother’s voice as it filtered through my sleep in the room we shared when I was a teenager. I wasn’t sure at first it was hers, it was gravely and hoarse and I could barely make out her words. She was on the phone, trying in vain to remain sitting up, pushing into her bed with her severely compromised right arm, falling onto her side with each attempt. She was insisting to someone that she was having a stroke. I was fifteen years old.
Half an hour later, my brother and I were sitting in the hospital emergency waiting room, not saying a word to one another. Mark, who was seventeen, was tapping his fingers on his knee and staring blankly at the TV. I was curled up on a chair, wishing I was back in bed at home, with my mom in the bed next to mine, sleeping soundly.
I couldn’t get out of my head the completely unremarkable bedtime ritual she and I had shared just five hours ago. She snuggled in her bed, me in mine, as we chatted about the upcoming weekend for a few minutes. She turned off the light and said, “Good night, honey, I love you.” I replied, “Love you, too, mom.” And we fell asleep. It was so like any other night, I couldn’t make sense of how we’d ended up here.
A doctor came in to the waiting room eventually to tell us that our mother had had a stroke, that it appeared to have ended and she was being stabilized. He urged us to go home, get some sleep, and come back in the morning. I asked if we could see my mom before leaving.
I found one of her hands through a maze of tubes and my brother found the other. Her face was puffy and her left eye fluttered open, her right eyelid sagged against her effort. She muttered a hello and smiled with half her lips. She told us that everything would be ok, but she was hardly convincing.
But ultimately, she was right. Her cognitive functioning and personality were largely unaltered, so she was able to approach her physical recovery with tenacity and determination. She was home in six weeks, walking with the aid of a walker and soon, a cane. As a single mom with three kids to support, the prescribed two-year recovery timeline wasn’t an option and she was at work again in nine months.
But, in many respects, she is just ok. Even now, eighteen years later, she experiences daily pain, the result of damaged brain cells misfiring. When I still lived at home, and it got bad, usually at night, I would massage her face where it hurt, her head in my lap. It was the best medicine I could offer her, but like any other treatment she got, it didn’t take away the pain. We’re all grateful for her resolve and will to recover, but the drugs she takes to this day serve to keep her blood thin, to prevent another stroke from happening, and to dull the pain enough so she can function. They have not healed her.
When I was twenty-one years old, six years after my mom’s stroke, one night I was squandering precious studying time during finals week flipping through channels on TV. I caught a few words of a news anchor recounting a story about a sixty-something year old man who had come to an emergency room in the midst of a debilitating stroke. I sat up straight and leaned forward. He was unable to walk or talk when he was admitted. This story was exactly the same as my mom’s. The doctors treated him with a new drug, called tPA, a clot dissolving drug, and within hours, he had recovered most of his body function. Within a week he was, more or less, fully recovered. I slumped back into the couch when the story was over and couldn’t stop the tears from coming.
If only she had had her stroke at fifty-six instead of fifty, I thought, she wouldn’t have pain all the time. She wouldn’t have lost a year of her life and income, she wouldn’t worry about having another stroke, I wouldn’t still sometimes wake at 3:02 in the morning in a panic and resist the urge to call her to make sure she’s still alive.
In medicine, as with so many things in life, I realized timing really is everything.
I was awakened at 3:02 in the morning by my mother’s voice as it filtered through my sleep in the room we shared when I was a teenager. I wasn’t sure at first it was hers, it was gravely and hoarse and I could barely make out her words. She was on the phone, trying in vain to remain sitting up, pushing into her bed with her severely compromised right arm, falling onto her side with each attempt. She was insisting to someone that she was having a stroke. I was fifteen years old.
Half an hour later, my brother and I were sitting in the hospital emergency waiting room, not saying a word to one another. Mark, who was seventeen, was tapping his fingers on his knee and staring blankly at the TV. I was curled up on a chair, wishing I was back in bed at home, with my mom in the bed next to mine, sleeping soundly.
I couldn’t get out of my head the completely unremarkable bedtime ritual she and I had shared just five hours ago. She snuggled in her bed, me in mine, as we chatted about the upcoming weekend for a few minutes. She turned off the light and said, “Good night, honey, I love you.” I replied, “Love you, too, mom.” And we fell asleep. It was so like any other night, I couldn’t make sense of how we’d ended up here.
A doctor came in to the waiting room eventually to tell us that our mother had had a stroke, that it appeared to have ended and she was being stabilized. He urged us to go home, get some sleep, and come back in the morning. I asked if we could see my mom before leaving.
I found one of her hands through a maze of tubes and my brother found the other. Her face was puffy and her left eye fluttered open, her right eyelid sagged against her effort. She muttered a hello and smiled with half her lips. She told us that everything would be ok, but she was hardly convincing.
But ultimately, she was right. Her cognitive functioning and personality were largely unaltered, so she was able to approach her physical recovery with tenacity and determination. She was home in six weeks, walking with the aid of a walker and soon, a cane. As a single mom with three kids to support, the prescribed two-year recovery timeline wasn’t an option and she was at work again in nine months.
But, in many respects, she is just ok. Even now, eighteen years later, she experiences daily pain, the result of damaged brain cells misfiring. When I still lived at home, and it got bad, usually at night, I would massage her face where it hurt, her head in my lap. It was the best medicine I could offer her, but like any other treatment she got, it didn’t take away the pain. We’re all grateful for her resolve and will to recover, but the drugs she takes to this day serve to keep her blood thin, to prevent another stroke from happening, and to dull the pain enough so she can function. They have not healed her.
When I was twenty-one years old, six years after my mom’s stroke, one night I was squandering precious studying time during finals week flipping through channels on TV. I caught a few words of a news anchor recounting a story about a sixty-something year old man who had come to an emergency room in the midst of a debilitating stroke. I sat up straight and leaned forward. He was unable to walk or talk when he was admitted. This story was exactly the same as my mom’s. The doctors treated him with a new drug, called tPA, a clot dissolving drug, and within hours, he had recovered most of his body function. Within a week he was, more or less, fully recovered. I slumped back into the couch when the story was over and couldn’t stop the tears from coming.
If only she had had her stroke at fifty-six instead of fifty, I thought, she wouldn’t have pain all the time. She wouldn’t have lost a year of her life and income, she wouldn’t worry about having another stroke, I wouldn’t still sometimes wake at 3:02 in the morning in a panic and resist the urge to call her to make sure she’s still alive.
In medicine, as with so many things in life, I realized timing really is everything.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
The Office
I have decided to write one response per month to the the Reader's Write section of the Sun Magazine as a writing practice. The topic for the June 1 deadline (publication in December) is "The Office." As I will be sending this for possible publication, any feedback (typos/weird sentences/unclear passages, etc.) you might have is 100% welcome! Thank you!
The first time I walked into the office I now work in I was 18 years old, nervous, and intensely conscious of my whiteness. I was interviewing for my first work-study job and the assistant who greeted me, a pretty, sweet-faced Latina, regarded me cautiously. I noticed her nameplate, which read Mari Ortiz, and blushed, having written down “Maudy” when my potential supervisor had told me on the phone who to check in with when I arrived. Two other women and a man were in the office when I arrived, all people of color, and though they all acknowledged me, there were no introductions or warm greetings, as I’d experienced at my other interviews, with, predictably, white people. In my head, I refused to draw the conclusions that my racism pointed me to, but their presence in my mind set me on edge, wondering if these people could read the bias in my anxious demeanor.
My University was organized in residential colleges, and I was a student at the predominately white college next to the predominately non-white college where I was seeking a job that could help me pay for my education. When Afia came to lead me back to her office for my interview, I became even more aware of being white. She had sun-lightened, torso-length dreds that were the color of coffee with a touch of cream and her “black” skin was any beautiful word for brown but black. I pleaded my brain to give me the right words to land this gig. I suddenly wanted this job so badly my chest squeezed up in anticipation.
To my surprise, Afia offered me the job on the spot and within an hour I was put to work making posters for some upcoming events in the “production room,” a large open area between the front office and my supervisor’s office. In the coming weeks and months, as I became immersed in the life and culture of that very inclusive, very activist college community, everything I thought I’d be when I came to college fell away. Whatever ill-formed ideas I had about possible career paths -- medicine? psychology? anthropology? -- became laser focused on studying privilege, power, and oppression. I became conscious of my development as a white person and what that meant in the real world. I strove to build bridges across difference, sometimes awkwardly, but with love and connection as inner directives, it seemed to work decently.
To the many people of color (and white allies) who befriended me during these formative years, who shared their lives and experiences with me in that job, I owe millions. People who have been discriminated against by people who look like me took the risky leap of faith that I, as a white person, could be a part of the forward march of equality and justice rather than another blind participant in the system of white supremacy our nation is founded on. I am humbled by such undeserved trust, such faith that compassion will ultimately unite us, and I wouldn’t be who I am today without their willingness to challenge and support me.
In the fifteen years since I first walked into that office, I have attended Mari’s wedding, celebrated the births of her two children, graduated, taught middle school where I somehow helped lots of kids get to grade level in reading and math, lived in Mexico, fostered my friendship with Mari, and grown into a professional dedicated to changing the world, or at least my part of it.
More than anything else, I’ve come to understand that the most important thing to know about work is not about the job at all; it’s about how we interact with others to get good work done, how we include others and make them feel that their lives matter.
The production room has since been divided into three cubical offices, and I work in the middle one. Mari, who is now my supervisor, walks past my office multiple times a day, throwing out a “Good morning” or “Hi, babe” as she passes. I look out the very same window I looked out that first day, making posters, on the very same plum trees, which flower at this time of year. Going to work is like coming home to myself everyday.
The first time I walked into the office I now work in I was 18 years old, nervous, and intensely conscious of my whiteness. I was interviewing for my first work-study job and the assistant who greeted me, a pretty, sweet-faced Latina, regarded me cautiously. I noticed her nameplate, which read Mari Ortiz, and blushed, having written down “Maudy” when my potential supervisor had told me on the phone who to check in with when I arrived. Two other women and a man were in the office when I arrived, all people of color, and though they all acknowledged me, there were no introductions or warm greetings, as I’d experienced at my other interviews, with, predictably, white people. In my head, I refused to draw the conclusions that my racism pointed me to, but their presence in my mind set me on edge, wondering if these people could read the bias in my anxious demeanor.
My University was organized in residential colleges, and I was a student at the predominately white college next to the predominately non-white college where I was seeking a job that could help me pay for my education. When Afia came to lead me back to her office for my interview, I became even more aware of being white. She had sun-lightened, torso-length dreds that were the color of coffee with a touch of cream and her “black” skin was any beautiful word for brown but black. I pleaded my brain to give me the right words to land this gig. I suddenly wanted this job so badly my chest squeezed up in anticipation.
To my surprise, Afia offered me the job on the spot and within an hour I was put to work making posters for some upcoming events in the “production room,” a large open area between the front office and my supervisor’s office. In the coming weeks and months, as I became immersed in the life and culture of that very inclusive, very activist college community, everything I thought I’d be when I came to college fell away. Whatever ill-formed ideas I had about possible career paths -- medicine? psychology? anthropology? -- became laser focused on studying privilege, power, and oppression. I became conscious of my development as a white person and what that meant in the real world. I strove to build bridges across difference, sometimes awkwardly, but with love and connection as inner directives, it seemed to work decently.
To the many people of color (and white allies) who befriended me during these formative years, who shared their lives and experiences with me in that job, I owe millions. People who have been discriminated against by people who look like me took the risky leap of faith that I, as a white person, could be a part of the forward march of equality and justice rather than another blind participant in the system of white supremacy our nation is founded on. I am humbled by such undeserved trust, such faith that compassion will ultimately unite us, and I wouldn’t be who I am today without their willingness to challenge and support me.
In the fifteen years since I first walked into that office, I have attended Mari’s wedding, celebrated the births of her two children, graduated, taught middle school where I somehow helped lots of kids get to grade level in reading and math, lived in Mexico, fostered my friendship with Mari, and grown into a professional dedicated to changing the world, or at least my part of it.
More than anything else, I’ve come to understand that the most important thing to know about work is not about the job at all; it’s about how we interact with others to get good work done, how we include others and make them feel that their lives matter.
The production room has since been divided into three cubical offices, and I work in the middle one. Mari, who is now my supervisor, walks past my office multiple times a day, throwing out a “Good morning” or “Hi, babe” as she passes. I look out the very same window I looked out that first day, making posters, on the very same plum trees, which flower at this time of year. Going to work is like coming home to myself everyday.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Who I've taken myself to be, and who I really am
My life has been so, so full these last four weeks. My body feels on the edge of revolting at the lack of sleep and unrelenting pace of events to be at, events to manage, events to perform at. No matter how much I try to remind myself that I am a human being and not a human doing, I have run myself into exhaustion from doing too much.
And yet, last Saturday afternoon, as soon as I walked into the social hall at Inner Light to begin prep for the night's annual concert, my choir people began stopping when they saw me and telling me how beautiful I looked, how radiant, and full of life. I had bought a fierce new dress for the concert and blown out my hair, but I didn't have make-up on yet and dark circles lay beneath my eyes, betraying my lack of sleep, so I was a little confused. But the compliments didn't stop coming. After I came out of the ladies room with make-up on, one fellow choir member whispered as she hugged me, "I have never seen you look more beautiful than right now." Inwardly I chuckled sarcastically and thought, "I wonder if she'd still say that if she really knew what kind of person I am."
Apparently, I'm the kind of person who accidentally gets drunk two nights before her annual church choir concert and has to miss the Friday night concert part of the musical celebration weekend because her head hurts too much to be around loud noise. I'm the kind of person whose throat was still raw from the overuse of alcohol Thursday night. It seems I'm the kind of person who lacks the most basic integrity and sense not too drink so close to such an important weekend. Clearly, I'm the kind of person who felt like crap about herself when all these choir members were telling her how pretty she looked.
Later, I climbed on the risers with my choir, feeling pissed at myself, a bit nervous that I hadn't studied the songs long enough, or embodied their messages deeply enough, or drank enough throat coat tea to smooth out the notes just right.
And then, I went on to sing my heart out.
From the first notes of the first song (No Other Choice), my raging mind went silent, and like I'd been born with the lyrics running through my veins instead of blood, I nailed every note. I relaxed, remembered that I wasn't only performing, but ministering, music. Despite the previous two days, I was here now and all I could do was surrender to the music and let it have it's way with me.
A few times I got pulled back into my self-consciousness, and I'd glance out at my lovely supporters: my mom, Christina, Juan, I'd look for Megan, my college roommate, and her mom, Robin, though I never found them in the crowd, I felt buoyed by their presence "out there." I wondered how my non-church people were doing with all this God-celebrating music. But for the most part, my only anchor to the moment was my intense focus on Valerie Joi's passionate and inspired directing. She was like Aladdin coaxing the genie out of the lamp, bringing forth through the choir that which was already there with some simple hand movements and an expressive face. It was too big to describe. Prayerful, playful, transformative, fun. All just approximations.
After the concert, when my fingers and toes still tingled from all the musical energy that had exited from them, my friend LeTa embraced me and rocked me and told me that I looked absolutely gorgeous, to keep doing whatever I was doing because it was working. And just like that, my mind started up again, and I wanted to scream: "NO! I'm an imposter! I fucked up and I'm not a pretty person inside and stop telling me that!" But I smiled as genuinely as I could, told myself to accept her compliment graciously, and thanked her.
And she was just the first. Too many people to count told me some variation of "You're so beautiful tonight." Each time, another opportunity to hate on myself seized by some inner traitor bent on my destruction.
Later, over drinks with some of my favorite people, I focused on talking about how much fun I'd had singing, I didn't mention how transformed I felt up there, how entirely un-me it feels when I sing, I didn't dare talk about being filled up by some unnameable presence that does all the work for me. I minimized all those things that had made the concert so perfect for me, nor did I even know then that it had been a little life raft holding me safe above the tigers of my mind. I assumed they wouldn't understand all that, that they'd think I was just some silly New Age chick. So, I shifted the conversation to other, safer topics, and my mind quieted enough for me to really enjoy being with these four wonderful women. I recognized that they were all honoring me, and for a time, I let myself feel like that was an ok thing to do. Thank God for the love of women. That, and singing.
Tonight, the choir gathered in a circle and spent the evening sharing our insights from our concert experience. I listened as one after another choir member remarked on some aspect of a life transformed, or told about friends or family members who'd come and been deeply moved by our ministry. There were tears of gratitude, love, and joy. There was laughter and celebration. As they spoke, my heart sank. Except for singing on pulpit, I'd been pre-occupied and self-absorbed all night and had, apparently, missed out on something they all had access to. My friends and family who came didn't talk about how much love they felt from us or how moved they were. They all basically said it was a great show and fun to see me in it, but nothing life-changing like I was hearing from others. I felt so disappointed in myself.
And then it hit me. Something higher in me stepped on the brakes of my mind-fucking and I heard a voice ask, "Who do you take yourself to be, Mandie? Just who do really think you are?" Then, I saw my experience of the concert in stark, lovely clarity. People were telling me how beautiful I was before the concert, not only after. Each person, an emissary recruited by that something Bigger to jolt me out of hating myself so I could start enjoying the perfection of the weekend. Yes, it had begun without me, but I was still an important and valued part of that weekend, and had a rightful place in it, no matter what my choices had been a couple nights ago. All those people had obeyed some inner directive to reflect to me the nature of who I am. A beautiful human being. No less than that. Saturday, I had denied each one of those angels to myself. But when I sang, I did truly feel radiant, unfettered by all the lies I have taken myself to be.
On Saturday night, I sang out more than my heart. I sang out my self-loathing, I sang out my tiredness, I sang out my anxiety, I sang out my worry, I sang out all the shit that gets in the way of seeing myself as I really am. And even though I just as quickly reclaimed the lies of who I have taken myself to be after I stopped singing that night, THIS night, I got it.
The theme of our concert was "The Choice is Now." I am so grateful that every moment is another "now." And now, this NOW, I choose not to take myself to be the irresponsible, out of alignment, stupid girl I thought I was. If who I really am is what it feels like when I sing, why not dedicate myself to figuring out how to inhabit that gorgeous, stunning, radiant being more regularly?
And yet, last Saturday afternoon, as soon as I walked into the social hall at Inner Light to begin prep for the night's annual concert, my choir people began stopping when they saw me and telling me how beautiful I looked, how radiant, and full of life. I had bought a fierce new dress for the concert and blown out my hair, but I didn't have make-up on yet and dark circles lay beneath my eyes, betraying my lack of sleep, so I was a little confused. But the compliments didn't stop coming. After I came out of the ladies room with make-up on, one fellow choir member whispered as she hugged me, "I have never seen you look more beautiful than right now." Inwardly I chuckled sarcastically and thought, "I wonder if she'd still say that if she really knew what kind of person I am."
Apparently, I'm the kind of person who accidentally gets drunk two nights before her annual church choir concert and has to miss the Friday night concert part of the musical celebration weekend because her head hurts too much to be around loud noise. I'm the kind of person whose throat was still raw from the overuse of alcohol Thursday night. It seems I'm the kind of person who lacks the most basic integrity and sense not too drink so close to such an important weekend. Clearly, I'm the kind of person who felt like crap about herself when all these choir members were telling her how pretty she looked.
Later, I climbed on the risers with my choir, feeling pissed at myself, a bit nervous that I hadn't studied the songs long enough, or embodied their messages deeply enough, or drank enough throat coat tea to smooth out the notes just right.
And then, I went on to sing my heart out.
From the first notes of the first song (No Other Choice), my raging mind went silent, and like I'd been born with the lyrics running through my veins instead of blood, I nailed every note. I relaxed, remembered that I wasn't only performing, but ministering, music. Despite the previous two days, I was here now and all I could do was surrender to the music and let it have it's way with me.
A few times I got pulled back into my self-consciousness, and I'd glance out at my lovely supporters: my mom, Christina, Juan, I'd look for Megan, my college roommate, and her mom, Robin, though I never found them in the crowd, I felt buoyed by their presence "out there." I wondered how my non-church people were doing with all this God-celebrating music. But for the most part, my only anchor to the moment was my intense focus on Valerie Joi's passionate and inspired directing. She was like Aladdin coaxing the genie out of the lamp, bringing forth through the choir that which was already there with some simple hand movements and an expressive face. It was too big to describe. Prayerful, playful, transformative, fun. All just approximations.
After the concert, when my fingers and toes still tingled from all the musical energy that had exited from them, my friend LeTa embraced me and rocked me and told me that I looked absolutely gorgeous, to keep doing whatever I was doing because it was working. And just like that, my mind started up again, and I wanted to scream: "NO! I'm an imposter! I fucked up and I'm not a pretty person inside and stop telling me that!" But I smiled as genuinely as I could, told myself to accept her compliment graciously, and thanked her.
And she was just the first. Too many people to count told me some variation of "You're so beautiful tonight." Each time, another opportunity to hate on myself seized by some inner traitor bent on my destruction.
Later, over drinks with some of my favorite people, I focused on talking about how much fun I'd had singing, I didn't mention how transformed I felt up there, how entirely un-me it feels when I sing, I didn't dare talk about being filled up by some unnameable presence that does all the work for me. I minimized all those things that had made the concert so perfect for me, nor did I even know then that it had been a little life raft holding me safe above the tigers of my mind. I assumed they wouldn't understand all that, that they'd think I was just some silly New Age chick. So, I shifted the conversation to other, safer topics, and my mind quieted enough for me to really enjoy being with these four wonderful women. I recognized that they were all honoring me, and for a time, I let myself feel like that was an ok thing to do. Thank God for the love of women. That, and singing.
Tonight, the choir gathered in a circle and spent the evening sharing our insights from our concert experience. I listened as one after another choir member remarked on some aspect of a life transformed, or told about friends or family members who'd come and been deeply moved by our ministry. There were tears of gratitude, love, and joy. There was laughter and celebration. As they spoke, my heart sank. Except for singing on pulpit, I'd been pre-occupied and self-absorbed all night and had, apparently, missed out on something they all had access to. My friends and family who came didn't talk about how much love they felt from us or how moved they were. They all basically said it was a great show and fun to see me in it, but nothing life-changing like I was hearing from others. I felt so disappointed in myself.
And then it hit me. Something higher in me stepped on the brakes of my mind-fucking and I heard a voice ask, "Who do you take yourself to be, Mandie? Just who do really think you are?" Then, I saw my experience of the concert in stark, lovely clarity. People were telling me how beautiful I was before the concert, not only after. Each person, an emissary recruited by that something Bigger to jolt me out of hating myself so I could start enjoying the perfection of the weekend. Yes, it had begun without me, but I was still an important and valued part of that weekend, and had a rightful place in it, no matter what my choices had been a couple nights ago. All those people had obeyed some inner directive to reflect to me the nature of who I am. A beautiful human being. No less than that. Saturday, I had denied each one of those angels to myself. But when I sang, I did truly feel radiant, unfettered by all the lies I have taken myself to be.
On Saturday night, I sang out more than my heart. I sang out my self-loathing, I sang out my tiredness, I sang out my anxiety, I sang out my worry, I sang out all the shit that gets in the way of seeing myself as I really am. And even though I just as quickly reclaimed the lies of who I have taken myself to be after I stopped singing that night, THIS night, I got it.
The theme of our concert was "The Choice is Now." I am so grateful that every moment is another "now." And now, this NOW, I choose not to take myself to be the irresponsible, out of alignment, stupid girl I thought I was. If who I really am is what it feels like when I sing, why not dedicate myself to figuring out how to inhabit that gorgeous, stunning, radiant being more regularly?
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