Jen and I shared the small stretch of Chang’s beach, in Makena, Maui, with just one other person: a young, beautiful man. He was the kind of man I would have seduced had I been traveling solo, but I wasn’t. Instead I stole glances of his lean, tanned body and recalled, with some nostalgia, those simple days of careless love affairs.
But tonight, my last night in Hawaii, I was content to have the warm air and sweet light swirl a cocoon around Jen and I. We sat on sarongs as we ate a finale Hawaiiana dinner of taro green-swaddled pork “lau lau” and kalua pork. We decided it was decent farewell fare, if not uncharacteristic for health-conscious us. then, disregarding the twenty-minute wait rule after eating, and the clothed young man nearby, we stripped off all our clothes and walked into the cool ocean waters.
Waist-deep in, I felt grains of sand in the tidewaters brushing past the skin of my pelvic area and butt, and my pubic hair tussled by the current. These were novel sensations, subtle, but nothing like I'd ever felt before. My first nude ocean swim, I smiled inwardly. As we waded in deeper, and the ocean swallowed more of me, the barrier of skin that defines my body from other matter loosened. The communion of bare skin, water, and sand made me feel, blessedly, a bit less me and a bit more everything else.
I swam out a bit, turned to face Jen and smiling wildly, I’m sure, I told her I’d never been skinny dipping in the ocean before. “How could you live in Santa Cruz and never have gone skinny-dipping in the ocean?” she asked incredulously. "The water's really cold there?" And though that's true, I offered up this reply more as a feeble excuse than a good reason. She smiled, and I could tell she was pleased to be with me for this "first."
After a short while, a large wave broke right on us, and quite literally, through us. When we re-surfaced, we both decided that ass-kicking was enough. We walked back to our sarongs, dried off, and laid down to warm in the dying sun. For the next 20 minutes or so, we giggled as our sinuses drained of their own volition, catapulting us from prone sun bathers to sitting up to either spit out salty water that had flowed into our throats or blowing it out our noses.
The lovely man laying a shout away was now naked, lying propped on one elbow, facing away from us, toward the setting sun. I smiled. He must have taken off his shorts after noticing us walk naked into the water.
“Look, your friend is naked,” Jen indicated, as though I had failed to notice his curving hip bone, the smooth, rolling hill of his backside.
The sun was low in the sky now, but still warm on our skin. Clouds flanked its golden descent, and the sea scattered the sun into glittery chunks on its surface.
“Ok, we’re going to sing a song now," Jen said suddenly. "It’s a total Jewish summer camp song, but it’s sung whenever something happens for the first time. And we’ll sing it for your first nude ocean-swimming experience.”
Jen sings in a completely wonderful, lilting voice. She dotes on notes just long enough to make them shine, and I wondered if my day could get any better.
She patiently tried to teach me the words, but I was a poor student, and so I mostly sang the three bar “Amen” at the end, and there was nowhere else I wanted to be than on that beach, on this island, with this wonderful woman, singing.
As the sun began it’s final dip, Jen and I snapped photos of it and ourselves, laughing for some reason or none, then sat in silence for a few minutes as the vibrant orange orb disappeared on the horizon, pulling an arc of yellows, oranges, and reds down below the cloudline. It was a perfect ten sunset, and a sweet thing to watch in my last hours on Maui.
Finally, I found a reason to disturb the attractive man, who had, to my slight dismay, pulled his shorts on: a picture, please, of my friend and I. Of course, he said with this painfully wonderful smile, and a maddeningly clichéd sexy French accent. Guillome took some good photos of us, and then the three of us talked fellow traveler talk. Again, I felt that twinge of fondness for what could have been, if I were a solo traveler and still sleeping around. But I ended the conversation fairly quickly; these last moments were Jen and me time.
Now, here on this plane chasing dawn, the salt on my skin just a lick away and sand still falling from my hair, I think about redemption. The day had started out with disappointment. Plans to snorkel with sea turtles in West Maui were scrapped due to rain, which muddies the waters, so we spent a few early afternoon hours at a cookie-cutter resort spa. Relaxing? Wonderfully so. Fabulous? Not exactly. As we drove back into Kihei for Jen’s doctor appointment, I felt a twinge of sadness that this, and maybe a good dinner would round out my last hours here. Later, it was Jen’s idea to get food to go and drive on down to Makena. How easily even a not altogether bad day can be transformed into the spectacular by the simple confluence of details: a dazzling sunset, tasty food, a skinny dip, laughter, song, and love shared good and well. A whole entire day, redeemed just like that into perfection!
Imagine that.
I couldn’t have planned a better last day in Maui if I had tried. Goodbye, Island; goodbye, Jen, darling. So, so much love.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
How to live a good life
Be loving. That's it.
I think.
Benjamin Quaye smiles from a screen at the front of the room. Twenty or so snapshots selected from a brief lifetime. Some are of him as a baby, some in college, others as an adolescent, but in everyone he looks wildly happy, as though he'd just been told he won the lottery. Though I don't know him, I can see from the way his eyes and lips seem unable to hold anything but humor and goodwill that he couldn't help but live a passionate life.
As the photos in the slide show begin a new loop, I wonder how many times they will have to repeat before they lose their power to make me cry. I long for desensitization. I've never met this sweet-faced boy who called Oakes home, as I now do, but the grief in the room is a contagion I can't escape, and seeing his beautiful face quite literally hurts my heart and pushes a tennis ball into my throat.
I can't look at his mother, a large presence, though she is quiet and stoic as she sits in the row with bright yellow "reserved" signs hanging from the chair backs. The row set aside for those who loved a boy who has died. Her cropped, curly blond hair, the color of a happiness that seems impossible.
A professor of his talks of his commitment to social justice, and his dedication to his studies. His girlfriend speaks next, and at length. She is unprepared and silly and sweet and loses it at the end and so do I. I find myself without tissues, tears streaming down my face and snot beginning to gather in a drop at the tip of my nose. I motion to my co-worker for tissues, blow my nose and dab with futility at the flood threatening to breech the levees of my lids.
I'd disappointed a friend the morning of Ben's memorial and the conversation ended without resolution. I had been upset all day, sad that I let someone I adore down and hurt that my reasons didn't seem to matter. Sitting there, listening to this young man's friends pay him tribute and chuckling about his faults with affection and forgiveness, I got to thinking about how easy it can be to hurt the ones we love and how easy it is to forgive those who have hurt us, when we are sure of their love. The thought was a fleeting comfort.
I got to thinking about how he died. A fall. A head hit in the wrong place. Then death. It could happen to any of us. It could happen to me tonight, I thought, and my friend's last memory of me would have been of disappointment. I hated that thought not just for it's dramatic sweep, but the way it tore open every insecurity I have about loving and being loved.
I am so attached to loving and being loved that the idea or ideal of non-attachment holds little appeal for me. When I see or hear about people who can accept tragic, or even mildly disappointing, news with grace and ease I disbelieve it or find them cold and unfeeling, inauthentic. Recently, I read an account of a woman who's ten year old son had died ten days prior and she wrote that though she felt some sadness, mostly she felt ecstatic and happy, blessed to have had her son for as long as she had. Liar, I thought, You fucking liar. I cried then. I cried for him since his mother didn't seem to need to.
What bullshit.
I am the liar. The truth is that I didn't cry only for this boy, or his mother. That time, and at Ben's memorial yesterday, I cried also for myself, because crying at a memorial, crying for someone else's loss is acceptable and not self-indulgent. And, having stopped tears thousands of times for a hundred stupid reasons, like not wanting to appear weak or self-indulgent, I seem to need an excuse to feel pain.
Ben's friends and family knew him so well. They knew his faults and like any who love another, they allowed those faults to be redeemed by his true, shining self. There is that, I suppose, that in time or in death, if we are good, and we are loving, those who love us will forgive us for not being everything they hoped we'd be, and love us for who we are.
By the end of the service, I felt like I knew Ben, too, and I watched the slide show repeat the time line of his life once more, as unable to hold it together as when I walked in the room. So, so beautiful, this one. I cried for him, for the life he doesn't get to lead, and for all those he touched, for their lives will never, ever be the same. For them, it will always be before Ben and after, and for most, sadness will always salt the edges of their memories of him. And I cried for me, too.
I did get home before totally unraveling. In bed, I cried for over an hour, soaking through a half a roll of toilet paper. I wept for the life I didn't get to live that day by virtue of choice, for touching a loved one in a way that left her wanting, and for feeling misunderstood, for a life that sometimes feels like it will never be the way I want it to be, exactly, and for the doubt that my loving may not be enough. I thought about how torn I'd felt all morning, wanting to be in two places at once, and I'Asha, who ended our friendship about a year and a half ago, and John, whom I ended a relationship with last December. About how I missed three people that day, and longed for these things to be different. How many times must I release? How long will I cling to my idea about how things should be before accepting what is?
Thomas said I have experienced most of my personal growth and transformation as a result of traumatic events in my life, and though that is certainly fine and good, he wondered if I had ever been (or could allow myself to be) transformed by bliss or joy or love. It's a good question with an answer I don't like. Sure, I've had joyous, transcendent moments, and I don't think I could find anyone who knows me that would not use words like "happy" or "joyful" to describe me, but in the end, still (OH MY GOD, STILL!) I worry any possibility of transformative happiness to death.
I look at pictures of my friends who've recently married or had babies and swat away the thought of me someday being able to post pictures like these on my facebook profile. I knit the booties and make the first-days-at-home stew and I fight desiring a marriage of equals, and precious, soft-skinned infants. I smile and congratulate without entertaining too long my longing for such an elusive thing as my own family. I celebrate my freedom and feel genuine gratitude that I still get to go to late night concerts or get drunk once in a while or make last minute vacation plans. I have stopped standing in front of the mirror, pushing out my stomach and imagining how cute I'd look pregnant, or what it might feel like to have a baby nestling inside the home of my body. Because I haven't figured out how to walk the line of holding a robust vision for my life rather than of choking a vision to death with actionless longing.
I have all these tools. I know that singing makes me feel unconfused, alive, and tapped in. I know that I can call at least five different people who will pray with me, and at least five others who will listen to me and love me through and through. I know how to pray all by myself and make it feel good, too. I know that my life doesn't happen to me, but it does run it's course through my veins and I know that I can fight it or ride the wave with skill and enjoyment. I know that I am not me with spirituality layered on top, thrown on like a silly New Age costume for shits and giggles. I am a spiritual being having human experiences, and at the moment, these human experiences are having an out-of-control party in the temple of my spirit. But I'm willing to believe that this isn't the way it will remain. I know the key to all this is to be loving. To love it all -- the bad, the ugly, the wondrous, the mysterious, myself.
And, that's about it. I need some other folks to hold the rest of the vision for me until I can catch up.
I will catch up; I will be transformed by happiness, by love. I am leading a good life.
Rest in peace, young Ben. Your example of a life well-lived is deeply moving. Thank you for being born and using your time here so wisely and with so much love.
I think.
Benjamin Quaye smiles from a screen at the front of the room. Twenty or so snapshots selected from a brief lifetime. Some are of him as a baby, some in college, others as an adolescent, but in everyone he looks wildly happy, as though he'd just been told he won the lottery. Though I don't know him, I can see from the way his eyes and lips seem unable to hold anything but humor and goodwill that he couldn't help but live a passionate life.
As the photos in the slide show begin a new loop, I wonder how many times they will have to repeat before they lose their power to make me cry. I long for desensitization. I've never met this sweet-faced boy who called Oakes home, as I now do, but the grief in the room is a contagion I can't escape, and seeing his beautiful face quite literally hurts my heart and pushes a tennis ball into my throat.
I can't look at his mother, a large presence, though she is quiet and stoic as she sits in the row with bright yellow "reserved" signs hanging from the chair backs. The row set aside for those who loved a boy who has died. Her cropped, curly blond hair, the color of a happiness that seems impossible.
A professor of his talks of his commitment to social justice, and his dedication to his studies. His girlfriend speaks next, and at length. She is unprepared and silly and sweet and loses it at the end and so do I. I find myself without tissues, tears streaming down my face and snot beginning to gather in a drop at the tip of my nose. I motion to my co-worker for tissues, blow my nose and dab with futility at the flood threatening to breech the levees of my lids.
I'd disappointed a friend the morning of Ben's memorial and the conversation ended without resolution. I had been upset all day, sad that I let someone I adore down and hurt that my reasons didn't seem to matter. Sitting there, listening to this young man's friends pay him tribute and chuckling about his faults with affection and forgiveness, I got to thinking about how easy it can be to hurt the ones we love and how easy it is to forgive those who have hurt us, when we are sure of their love. The thought was a fleeting comfort.
I got to thinking about how he died. A fall. A head hit in the wrong place. Then death. It could happen to any of us. It could happen to me tonight, I thought, and my friend's last memory of me would have been of disappointment. I hated that thought not just for it's dramatic sweep, but the way it tore open every insecurity I have about loving and being loved.
I am so attached to loving and being loved that the idea or ideal of non-attachment holds little appeal for me. When I see or hear about people who can accept tragic, or even mildly disappointing, news with grace and ease I disbelieve it or find them cold and unfeeling, inauthentic. Recently, I read an account of a woman who's ten year old son had died ten days prior and she wrote that though she felt some sadness, mostly she felt ecstatic and happy, blessed to have had her son for as long as she had. Liar, I thought, You fucking liar. I cried then. I cried for him since his mother didn't seem to need to.
What bullshit.
I am the liar. The truth is that I didn't cry only for this boy, or his mother. That time, and at Ben's memorial yesterday, I cried also for myself, because crying at a memorial, crying for someone else's loss is acceptable and not self-indulgent. And, having stopped tears thousands of times for a hundred stupid reasons, like not wanting to appear weak or self-indulgent, I seem to need an excuse to feel pain.
Ben's friends and family knew him so well. They knew his faults and like any who love another, they allowed those faults to be redeemed by his true, shining self. There is that, I suppose, that in time or in death, if we are good, and we are loving, those who love us will forgive us for not being everything they hoped we'd be, and love us for who we are.
By the end of the service, I felt like I knew Ben, too, and I watched the slide show repeat the time line of his life once more, as unable to hold it together as when I walked in the room. So, so beautiful, this one. I cried for him, for the life he doesn't get to lead, and for all those he touched, for their lives will never, ever be the same. For them, it will always be before Ben and after, and for most, sadness will always salt the edges of their memories of him. And I cried for me, too.
I did get home before totally unraveling. In bed, I cried for over an hour, soaking through a half a roll of toilet paper. I wept for the life I didn't get to live that day by virtue of choice, for touching a loved one in a way that left her wanting, and for feeling misunderstood, for a life that sometimes feels like it will never be the way I want it to be, exactly, and for the doubt that my loving may not be enough. I thought about how torn I'd felt all morning, wanting to be in two places at once, and I'Asha, who ended our friendship about a year and a half ago, and John, whom I ended a relationship with last December. About how I missed three people that day, and longed for these things to be different. How many times must I release? How long will I cling to my idea about how things should be before accepting what is?
Thomas said I have experienced most of my personal growth and transformation as a result of traumatic events in my life, and though that is certainly fine and good, he wondered if I had ever been (or could allow myself to be) transformed by bliss or joy or love. It's a good question with an answer I don't like. Sure, I've had joyous, transcendent moments, and I don't think I could find anyone who knows me that would not use words like "happy" or "joyful" to describe me, but in the end, still (OH MY GOD, STILL!) I worry any possibility of transformative happiness to death.
I look at pictures of my friends who've recently married or had babies and swat away the thought of me someday being able to post pictures like these on my facebook profile. I knit the booties and make the first-days-at-home stew and I fight desiring a marriage of equals, and precious, soft-skinned infants. I smile and congratulate without entertaining too long my longing for such an elusive thing as my own family. I celebrate my freedom and feel genuine gratitude that I still get to go to late night concerts or get drunk once in a while or make last minute vacation plans. I have stopped standing in front of the mirror, pushing out my stomach and imagining how cute I'd look pregnant, or what it might feel like to have a baby nestling inside the home of my body. Because I haven't figured out how to walk the line of holding a robust vision for my life rather than of choking a vision to death with actionless longing.
I have all these tools. I know that singing makes me feel unconfused, alive, and tapped in. I know that I can call at least five different people who will pray with me, and at least five others who will listen to me and love me through and through. I know how to pray all by myself and make it feel good, too. I know that my life doesn't happen to me, but it does run it's course through my veins and I know that I can fight it or ride the wave with skill and enjoyment. I know that I am not me with spirituality layered on top, thrown on like a silly New Age costume for shits and giggles. I am a spiritual being having human experiences, and at the moment, these human experiences are having an out-of-control party in the temple of my spirit. But I'm willing to believe that this isn't the way it will remain. I know the key to all this is to be loving. To love it all -- the bad, the ugly, the wondrous, the mysterious, myself.
And, that's about it. I need some other folks to hold the rest of the vision for me until I can catch up.
I will catch up; I will be transformed by happiness, by love. I am leading a good life.
Rest in peace, young Ben. Your example of a life well-lived is deeply moving. Thank you for being born and using your time here so wisely and with so much love.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
"I want to know why they're NOT releasing the name of the girl that hung a noose inside the UCSD library. If she is that racist, she should not be in college. We don't need any 'educated' people like her running this country." This was the facebook status of one of my student staff after hearing of this third (or fourth, depending on how you count) incident of racism in the last few weeks at the San Diego campus.
I get the desire for punishment, I do. When I read an email about this latest incident, my heart dropped to my stomach, and fury and sadness roiled through me. How could she? I thought. How much hatred can the black students at UCSD be expected to endure? They have responded with nothing but genuine pain and genuine action, abiding both human decency and man-made laws. And, really, how can any of us endure this much hatred? This woman, who claimed to the police that she "didn't know it would be such a big deal" to hang a noose, clearly couldn't handle all the hatred she'd been taught. Because if she had an awareness about how racism is transmitted without our permission to us as kids and that there are ways to unlearn it, she would have known that noose hanging is so, so wrong.
I was relieved that she came forward and claimed responsibility, though I wonder what kind of justice will befall her. Will she, in the end be charged with a hate crime, as she should be, or will the fact that she is a college student, has no prior record of crime, and probably white, allow for leniency and for this stark injustice to be ruled an accident of ignorance? I think this may be behind my student's status and her desire to have the woman expelled from school. How can UCSD judicial officials and their police department be trusted to hold this woman accountable for the hate crime she perpetrated when they are a powerful part of a climate that produced two "Compton Cookout" theme parties and the airing of a student saying "Those ungrateful n******" on student-run television?
But what would the right consequence for this woman be? What would justice look like? Had this woman been a public figure, she would be expected to make a public apology. But how can someone who's done something so awful fix that? A public apology would just be a start. She can't, really, make it right, not with words, not with tears, nor with remorse and regret. One way for her to redeem herself is to dedicate a whole bunch of time to understanding privilege and oppression and her role in this racialized world we live in. I don't think the process of being held accountable she's in right now is particularly suited to shed light on paths of possible redemption.
And what would justice on a larger scale look like for UCSD students of color and their allies? Implementing the Black Student Union's list of demands (http://www.newuniversity.org/2010/02/opinion/black-student-union-statement-february-2010-ucsd-black-student-union-address-state-of-emergency/) would begin to restore justice.
Ultimately, the question becomes what does racial justice look like everywhere for everyone?
On Friday, I struggled all day to connect to a place of forgiveness and love for the woman who hung the noose, though I often wondered if this was a betrayal of those students targeted by her act. The seduction of dismissal and hatred was compelling. As I went to see my chiropractor after work, lying there on his table feeling the tension drain form my spine, I felt all wrong. Why should I have all this privilege? Here I am, I thought, with so much privilege that I can prioritize taking good care of my spine, while there are people of color who wonder if they are now safe enough to walk from their classroom to their car at night, or who are discovering that white and Asian classmates they thought were friends are now telling them to stop making such a big deal, that they shouldn't be so upset, whose very lived experiences are being questioned and invalidated by people they once trusted. I know I could have gone on walking down that path around pretty much every part of my advantaged life, but for what purpose? To feel hopeless? Guilty? Helpless? Ineffectual?
I didn't manage to escape disquietude all weekend, feeling humbled and grateful for all I have and feeling separated just enough from Love to not know how to move forward.
And like a salve, came church Sunday, and this affirmation:
I arise from confusion and conflict.
I trust love to provide the answer I cannot see from my side.
Love connects the fragmented and disparate parts.
Love melts the poles of polarization.
There is more fulfillment in being spiritually aligned than in being right.
It is more virtuous to be whole than to be on top.
It is more natural to be collaborative than combative.
Love is the incubator of peace; peace is the seat of true power.
As love points the way, I gladly follow in her footsteps.
I spoke with Rev D. after service about all this too, and when she spoke the words that pushed me past my stuck place, I wondered how I'd not known in right away. Pain pushes until vision pulls. She said all the anger and desire for retribution is pain pushing. Yes, it hurts to experience racism. It hurts all of us. And we desire to be free from it. We desire that others empathize, to understand what it feels like, and when that's not possible, we desire to inflict some kind of pain, any pain on those who knowingly or unknowingly have caused us harm. But fighting unjust hate with righteous hate only leads to more hate. Anytime we act to avoid more pain, we act from fear, and though it is self-preserving to do so, it doesn't help create a more just world. Rev said, "Focus on the vision of the world you want to live in, and move from that place. That's what Martin Luther King, Jr. and all the Civil Rights leaders did, and that's why they were successful."
I'm no MLK, but I can know the same things. I have a vision of a world that is socially just, spiritually empowered, and environmentally sustainable. I have a vision of a world where Love is the motivating energy in our lives, where everything and everyone can be redeemed.
All the lost trust and lost hours studying and heartbreak black students and their allies at UCSD have endured these past few weeks can be redeemed into a campus that is safe and welcoming. All the students from other UC schools that poured onto the UCSD campus last week to support them, and all of the protests on other campuses, is evidence of this redemption begun. They are not alone.
Even this woman who hung a noose in the library, and her classmates who planned the "Compton Cookout," and the student who called his black classmates "ungrateful n*******", and all the people who have uttered insensitive and thoughtless things as people of color have stood for injustice to be made right, they too, can be redeemed. They, too, are not alone in this world.
In the Bible, it is said that God shines light upon the just and unjust alike. I'm not always comfortable with "God," but how about "Love." Love shines light upon the just and unjust alike. I cannot do differently and claim to be a spiritually empowered being.
I know there are so many details I have missed here, so much more I could write about racism and oppression and how dire it is for so many. I could paint a picture as best as I know how, but I will end up at Love, once again. And so I end here, with this: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." --Martin Luther King, Jr.
I get the desire for punishment, I do. When I read an email about this latest incident, my heart dropped to my stomach, and fury and sadness roiled through me. How could she? I thought. How much hatred can the black students at UCSD be expected to endure? They have responded with nothing but genuine pain and genuine action, abiding both human decency and man-made laws. And, really, how can any of us endure this much hatred? This woman, who claimed to the police that she "didn't know it would be such a big deal" to hang a noose, clearly couldn't handle all the hatred she'd been taught. Because if she had an awareness about how racism is transmitted without our permission to us as kids and that there are ways to unlearn it, she would have known that noose hanging is so, so wrong.
I was relieved that she came forward and claimed responsibility, though I wonder what kind of justice will befall her. Will she, in the end be charged with a hate crime, as she should be, or will the fact that she is a college student, has no prior record of crime, and probably white, allow for leniency and for this stark injustice to be ruled an accident of ignorance? I think this may be behind my student's status and her desire to have the woman expelled from school. How can UCSD judicial officials and their police department be trusted to hold this woman accountable for the hate crime she perpetrated when they are a powerful part of a climate that produced two "Compton Cookout" theme parties and the airing of a student saying "Those ungrateful n******" on student-run television?
But what would the right consequence for this woman be? What would justice look like? Had this woman been a public figure, she would be expected to make a public apology. But how can someone who's done something so awful fix that? A public apology would just be a start. She can't, really, make it right, not with words, not with tears, nor with remorse and regret. One way for her to redeem herself is to dedicate a whole bunch of time to understanding privilege and oppression and her role in this racialized world we live in. I don't think the process of being held accountable she's in right now is particularly suited to shed light on paths of possible redemption.
And what would justice on a larger scale look like for UCSD students of color and their allies? Implementing the Black Student Union's list of demands (http://www.newuniversity.org/2010/02/opinion/black-student-union-statement-february-2010-ucsd-black-student-union-address-state-of-emergency/) would begin to restore justice.
Ultimately, the question becomes what does racial justice look like everywhere for everyone?
On Friday, I struggled all day to connect to a place of forgiveness and love for the woman who hung the noose, though I often wondered if this was a betrayal of those students targeted by her act. The seduction of dismissal and hatred was compelling. As I went to see my chiropractor after work, lying there on his table feeling the tension drain form my spine, I felt all wrong. Why should I have all this privilege? Here I am, I thought, with so much privilege that I can prioritize taking good care of my spine, while there are people of color who wonder if they are now safe enough to walk from their classroom to their car at night, or who are discovering that white and Asian classmates they thought were friends are now telling them to stop making such a big deal, that they shouldn't be so upset, whose very lived experiences are being questioned and invalidated by people they once trusted. I know I could have gone on walking down that path around pretty much every part of my advantaged life, but for what purpose? To feel hopeless? Guilty? Helpless? Ineffectual?
I didn't manage to escape disquietude all weekend, feeling humbled and grateful for all I have and feeling separated just enough from Love to not know how to move forward.
And like a salve, came church Sunday, and this affirmation:
I arise from confusion and conflict.
I trust love to provide the answer I cannot see from my side.
Love connects the fragmented and disparate parts.
Love melts the poles of polarization.
There is more fulfillment in being spiritually aligned than in being right.
It is more virtuous to be whole than to be on top.
It is more natural to be collaborative than combative.
Love is the incubator of peace; peace is the seat of true power.
As love points the way, I gladly follow in her footsteps.
I spoke with Rev D. after service about all this too, and when she spoke the words that pushed me past my stuck place, I wondered how I'd not known in right away. Pain pushes until vision pulls. She said all the anger and desire for retribution is pain pushing. Yes, it hurts to experience racism. It hurts all of us. And we desire to be free from it. We desire that others empathize, to understand what it feels like, and when that's not possible, we desire to inflict some kind of pain, any pain on those who knowingly or unknowingly have caused us harm. But fighting unjust hate with righteous hate only leads to more hate. Anytime we act to avoid more pain, we act from fear, and though it is self-preserving to do so, it doesn't help create a more just world. Rev said, "Focus on the vision of the world you want to live in, and move from that place. That's what Martin Luther King, Jr. and all the Civil Rights leaders did, and that's why they were successful."
I'm no MLK, but I can know the same things. I have a vision of a world that is socially just, spiritually empowered, and environmentally sustainable. I have a vision of a world where Love is the motivating energy in our lives, where everything and everyone can be redeemed.
All the lost trust and lost hours studying and heartbreak black students and their allies at UCSD have endured these past few weeks can be redeemed into a campus that is safe and welcoming. All the students from other UC schools that poured onto the UCSD campus last week to support them, and all of the protests on other campuses, is evidence of this redemption begun. They are not alone.
Even this woman who hung a noose in the library, and her classmates who planned the "Compton Cookout," and the student who called his black classmates "ungrateful n*******", and all the people who have uttered insensitive and thoughtless things as people of color have stood for injustice to be made right, they too, can be redeemed. They, too, are not alone in this world.
In the Bible, it is said that God shines light upon the just and unjust alike. I'm not always comfortable with "God," but how about "Love." Love shines light upon the just and unjust alike. I cannot do differently and claim to be a spiritually empowered being.
I know there are so many details I have missed here, so much more I could write about racism and oppression and how dire it is for so many. I could paint a picture as best as I know how, but I will end up at Love, once again. And so I end here, with this: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." --Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Friends with my exes
In the last 12 hours I have had five men I have slept with call and leave messages for me, seeking connection and company. And I complain about the lack of good men in this town. Four of them are actually truly good men, even if they were one way or another not well suited for a relationship with me. If I could get over myself, I think I could admit the fifth guy is a good man, too.
"Who has time for more friends?" I used to say either flippantly or defensively, but somehow here are four (ok, fine, five) men who, for one reason or another, have made the slide from lover to friend without fanfare or drama, and they've all called me, and the four who are currently in good standing with me, may just all end up at my birthday Happy Hour tomorrow evening.
That's just absurd.
Isn't it?
I've been tricked into being one of those loosey-goosey, anything-goes Santa Cruz women. It's such an incestuous, touchy-feely, love everyone, forgive-all kind of place, that even a bordering-on-cynical, sarcastic, skeptic such as myself was unable to resist the force of this culture.
For shit's sake, since moving here I've found God, joined a church choir, and slept with (at least) five men who I've flipped into friends. Despite resisting it, despite all my wrestling with the platitude-laden New Agey-ness of both Santa Cruz itself and my own church community, I have fallen so in love with the way beauty and vulnerability and divinity show up in my life, that it took five voicemails from five former lovers to tell me that I'm no longer who I thought I was going to be.
And that (fuck yeah!) all five of those men are still vibing off my amazing self.
"Who has time for more friends?" I used to say either flippantly or defensively, but somehow here are four (ok, fine, five) men who, for one reason or another, have made the slide from lover to friend without fanfare or drama, and they've all called me, and the four who are currently in good standing with me, may just all end up at my birthday Happy Hour tomorrow evening.
That's just absurd.
Isn't it?
I've been tricked into being one of those loosey-goosey, anything-goes Santa Cruz women. It's such an incestuous, touchy-feely, love everyone, forgive-all kind of place, that even a bordering-on-cynical, sarcastic, skeptic such as myself was unable to resist the force of this culture.
For shit's sake, since moving here I've found God, joined a church choir, and slept with (at least) five men who I've flipped into friends. Despite resisting it, despite all my wrestling with the platitude-laden New Agey-ness of both Santa Cruz itself and my own church community, I have fallen so in love with the way beauty and vulnerability and divinity show up in my life, that it took five voicemails from five former lovers to tell me that I'm no longer who I thought I was going to be.
And that (fuck yeah!) all five of those men are still vibing off my amazing self.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
A Treatise on God
I almost had Rico in earshot when he turned away and walked toward the group he'd just sang a few songs with. He sang, he rapped, he prayed, in English, in Spanish, in song. Watching him, you could tell he was devoted to his art and creativity, he was that lit from the inside. I waited for him to turn and walk toward me again, feeling that familiar nervousness I feel around anyone accomplished at their art.
I'd heard his name mentioned last week as a possible performer at an upcoming hip-hop showcase a student group I advise is planning, so I wanted to meet him and get his contact info. After we'd exchanged introductions and information, I asked him how the show had gone for him, and he said, "That Rev of yours is a trip, isn't she? I got so fired up before the show when she prayed with us. I was like, 'Damn, this spiritual connection stuff, that's what I've been missing'." The fact that he was moved by my Rev and felt just fine saying "damn" while standing on the pulpit endeared him to me.
It also reminded me of how I ended up in a spiritual community at all: I'd sensed I was connected to something that just wouldn't be ignored any longer. Around the same time, about four years ago, a friend dragged me to Inner Light. Which I hated in equal measure to a searing need to come back. Tonight, in the presence of Rico's relaxed shoulders and excited eyes, I wondered if perhaps I didn't have to struggle so much with God, or the idea of God.
A couple months ago, an old friend confided in me that she’d thought all my God-talk in the last few years meant I was a Christian. I recoiled at the thought that anyone, especially someone I love so much and who knows me so well, would assume I had converted to Christianity.
Now, if someone mistakenly assumed I adhered to “pure” Christianity, the kind that fights for social justice for all (yes, for all) and works for peace and wouldn’t make Jesus cry for the perversion of his teachings, that’s not SO bad, even if it’s not true for me. But buried in my recoiling is my own continuing ambivalence toward being associated with a religion that always felt sinister to me.
When I think of Christianity, I think conservative politics, homophobia, and male dominance. It means a scary, white, male God. It means that the only way to be saved is by accepting Jesus into your heart. It means closed-mindedness and self-righteousness. It means that when the crazy lady, Marguerite Perrin, from the reality show Trading Spouses, flipped out about being a God warrior and screamed at her terrified children that they didn’t pray for her and that gargoyles and psychics are “dark-sided,” she didn’t seem so crazy.
It means all the worst ways in which Christianity has slid into fanaticism. It’s a type of Christianity so un-holy that when I, a former atheist-leaning agnostic, use the word God, even dear friends worry that I may now be one of "them."
So to clarify, here’s what I mean when I use “God,” in no particular order:
First, the truth is that my God loves those Christians, too. It’s naïve of me to think that I am one of the believers that is somehow more evolved, for surely those Christians think the same of themselves. I do believe my God holds up for all of us a higher possibility for living as spiritual beings, and that fretting over those who are approaching this spirituality business in ways I don’t understand or agree with is a waste of spiritual energy. That doesn’t mean I don’t fight for things like gay marriage or refuse to engage with those “others.” It just means that I work for and towards a more inclusive world and not against those who have a different vision.
Second, God is a limiting word for me. Three letters that lend themselves to such wildly different interpretations can’t ever describe a thing that morphs the second you try to describe it. This is why creative people struggle to translate the feeling of love into color, or shape, or form, or song. They try to because it’s such a singular experience, and because it can never truly be represented. Real love has to be felt, perceived, to understand it. So it is with God. I use the word, though, because it is easy and recognizable. When I read or hear the word God these days, I just as often hear "Energy," "Universe," “Love” or “Peace” or even the sound of waves breaking or feel the sun on my face, and they all approximate how God rests in me.
Third, sometimes I find it hard to believe in God. I was an atheist longer than I’ve believed in God, almost as long as I’ve been alive, and my agnosticism took hold for only a brief year or two before God came along and refused to be ignored. I sometimes have to make an effort to call this event or that person God, and sometimes it’s more out of habit than faith. Sometimes, I look around my church, at the hippies, the SNAGs, the gays and lesbians and the folks of color who love God enough to put up with the rest of our majority white congregation, as we learn that "Oneness" won't let us off the hooks of racism and heterosexism, as we learn how to rock with the choir and praise like we mean it and I think, "What the hell am I doing here? My friends would think I've lost my mind."
But when I feel sure, without a doubt that God's real, it’s such a rush that I know it before I’m conscious of it and when my mind catches up to protest, I find I can’t deny what my bones know. That fortifies my faith enough to keep me going when I’m not so sure.
Fourth, I feel God a lot, and twice, have seen Her. This is true. Most recently, it happened a year and a half ago, when Thomas ended our relationship. The night after I wept sad, fat tears for hours, and that's when She has came to me. Luminescent dark skin and shining dark eyes, with long, nearly-black curls cascading over gossamer robes, barefoot and smelling faintly of lilac and jasmine. She reminded me of a less ornamented Virgen de Guadalupe. Too sad and weak to protest, my logical mind succumbed to my devastation, which looked up at Her and asked, "Well, what the hell took you so long, I've been like this for hours." She curled up next to me, warming my skin where she touched, her scent insanely comforting. The fanatical atheist in me scrambled for a logical explanation, but she felt so solid and real there next to me, holding the pain in her hands until it felt bearable again, that I surrendered to Her. Both times God has taken this form with me, it just stopped mattering if she was a figment of my imagination, or a hallucination, or as real as the eyes your reading this with.
Most of the time, though, what I call God is simply a sensation: an expansion in my chest or just beneath my skin, or words that get typed or written down by my hands but not from my mind, and I think, "Oh, hi God." I always feel God as a feminine presence.
Fifth, I never doubt God when I am singing. Singing clears out all my hemming and hawing and struggle and pulls me right into divinity.
Sixth, I believe that there is no separation between God and anything else. God is energy; just molecules holding together in different ways. It took me years to make sense of this for myself. After all, a pen is a pen and not God, right? Well, maybe. It’s rather pretentious of me to assume that a pen isn’t as sacred as I am or as God. Besides, the sacred vs. the profane question lacks interest for me. How am I, who consistently has sex too soon in new relationships, Divine? How is the man who cut me off on the freeway Divine? How is my brother, who annoys the joy out of my mother’s life, Divine? How is my father, who makes no attempt to know me, Divine? These are the juicy questions, the ones that challenge me to keep loving past all that doesn’t make sense. If God is energy, and everything is energy, then I'm God, and so are you, and so is anyone who's ever hurt me or anyone else, and well, that changes everything. It calls me up to heal so that I can be of good service to the world, and this calling up, this business of healing, feels like a really rich and rewarding place to live.
And maybe that’s it, that for me, believing in God is more interesting than not believing. It inspires me to be a better, more compassionate person. Choosing to believe in God, even when it doesn’t make sense, even when I'm not quite convincing myself, keeps me closer to the magic and mystery of life.
So my bottom-line take on "God"? I don’t think anyone needs to believe in God, any god, to experience the sacred. It’s just that I do.
I'd heard his name mentioned last week as a possible performer at an upcoming hip-hop showcase a student group I advise is planning, so I wanted to meet him and get his contact info. After we'd exchanged introductions and information, I asked him how the show had gone for him, and he said, "That Rev of yours is a trip, isn't she? I got so fired up before the show when she prayed with us. I was like, 'Damn, this spiritual connection stuff, that's what I've been missing'." The fact that he was moved by my Rev and felt just fine saying "damn" while standing on the pulpit endeared him to me.
It also reminded me of how I ended up in a spiritual community at all: I'd sensed I was connected to something that just wouldn't be ignored any longer. Around the same time, about four years ago, a friend dragged me to Inner Light. Which I hated in equal measure to a searing need to come back. Tonight, in the presence of Rico's relaxed shoulders and excited eyes, I wondered if perhaps I didn't have to struggle so much with God, or the idea of God.
A couple months ago, an old friend confided in me that she’d thought all my God-talk in the last few years meant I was a Christian. I recoiled at the thought that anyone, especially someone I love so much and who knows me so well, would assume I had converted to Christianity.
Now, if someone mistakenly assumed I adhered to “pure” Christianity, the kind that fights for social justice for all (yes, for all) and works for peace and wouldn’t make Jesus cry for the perversion of his teachings, that’s not SO bad, even if it’s not true for me. But buried in my recoiling is my own continuing ambivalence toward being associated with a religion that always felt sinister to me.
When I think of Christianity, I think conservative politics, homophobia, and male dominance. It means a scary, white, male God. It means that the only way to be saved is by accepting Jesus into your heart. It means closed-mindedness and self-righteousness. It means that when the crazy lady, Marguerite Perrin, from the reality show Trading Spouses, flipped out about being a God warrior and screamed at her terrified children that they didn’t pray for her and that gargoyles and psychics are “dark-sided,” she didn’t seem so crazy.
It means all the worst ways in which Christianity has slid into fanaticism. It’s a type of Christianity so un-holy that when I, a former atheist-leaning agnostic, use the word God, even dear friends worry that I may now be one of "them."
So to clarify, here’s what I mean when I use “God,” in no particular order:
First, the truth is that my God loves those Christians, too. It’s naïve of me to think that I am one of the believers that is somehow more evolved, for surely those Christians think the same of themselves. I do believe my God holds up for all of us a higher possibility for living as spiritual beings, and that fretting over those who are approaching this spirituality business in ways I don’t understand or agree with is a waste of spiritual energy. That doesn’t mean I don’t fight for things like gay marriage or refuse to engage with those “others.” It just means that I work for and towards a more inclusive world and not against those who have a different vision.
Second, God is a limiting word for me. Three letters that lend themselves to such wildly different interpretations can’t ever describe a thing that morphs the second you try to describe it. This is why creative people struggle to translate the feeling of love into color, or shape, or form, or song. They try to because it’s such a singular experience, and because it can never truly be represented. Real love has to be felt, perceived, to understand it. So it is with God. I use the word, though, because it is easy and recognizable. When I read or hear the word God these days, I just as often hear "Energy," "Universe," “Love” or “Peace” or even the sound of waves breaking or feel the sun on my face, and they all approximate how God rests in me.
Third, sometimes I find it hard to believe in God. I was an atheist longer than I’ve believed in God, almost as long as I’ve been alive, and my agnosticism took hold for only a brief year or two before God came along and refused to be ignored. I sometimes have to make an effort to call this event or that person God, and sometimes it’s more out of habit than faith. Sometimes, I look around my church, at the hippies, the SNAGs, the gays and lesbians and the folks of color who love God enough to put up with the rest of our majority white congregation, as we learn that "Oneness" won't let us off the hooks of racism and heterosexism, as we learn how to rock with the choir and praise like we mean it and I think, "What the hell am I doing here? My friends would think I've lost my mind."
But when I feel sure, without a doubt that God's real, it’s such a rush that I know it before I’m conscious of it and when my mind catches up to protest, I find I can’t deny what my bones know. That fortifies my faith enough to keep me going when I’m not so sure.
Fourth, I feel God a lot, and twice, have seen Her. This is true. Most recently, it happened a year and a half ago, when Thomas ended our relationship. The night after I wept sad, fat tears for hours, and that's when She has came to me. Luminescent dark skin and shining dark eyes, with long, nearly-black curls cascading over gossamer robes, barefoot and smelling faintly of lilac and jasmine. She reminded me of a less ornamented Virgen de Guadalupe. Too sad and weak to protest, my logical mind succumbed to my devastation, which looked up at Her and asked, "Well, what the hell took you so long, I've been like this for hours." She curled up next to me, warming my skin where she touched, her scent insanely comforting. The fanatical atheist in me scrambled for a logical explanation, but she felt so solid and real there next to me, holding the pain in her hands until it felt bearable again, that I surrendered to Her. Both times God has taken this form with me, it just stopped mattering if she was a figment of my imagination, or a hallucination, or as real as the eyes your reading this with.
Most of the time, though, what I call God is simply a sensation: an expansion in my chest or just beneath my skin, or words that get typed or written down by my hands but not from my mind, and I think, "Oh, hi God." I always feel God as a feminine presence.
Fifth, I never doubt God when I am singing. Singing clears out all my hemming and hawing and struggle and pulls me right into divinity.
Sixth, I believe that there is no separation between God and anything else. God is energy; just molecules holding together in different ways. It took me years to make sense of this for myself. After all, a pen is a pen and not God, right? Well, maybe. It’s rather pretentious of me to assume that a pen isn’t as sacred as I am or as God. Besides, the sacred vs. the profane question lacks interest for me. How am I, who consistently has sex too soon in new relationships, Divine? How is the man who cut me off on the freeway Divine? How is my brother, who annoys the joy out of my mother’s life, Divine? How is my father, who makes no attempt to know me, Divine? These are the juicy questions, the ones that challenge me to keep loving past all that doesn’t make sense. If God is energy, and everything is energy, then I'm God, and so are you, and so is anyone who's ever hurt me or anyone else, and well, that changes everything. It calls me up to heal so that I can be of good service to the world, and this calling up, this business of healing, feels like a really rich and rewarding place to live.
And maybe that’s it, that for me, believing in God is more interesting than not believing. It inspires me to be a better, more compassionate person. Choosing to believe in God, even when it doesn’t make sense, even when I'm not quite convincing myself, keeps me closer to the magic and mystery of life.
So my bottom-line take on "God"? I don’t think anyone needs to believe in God, any god, to experience the sacred. It’s just that I do.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
I ended the night on a good note: licking the remains of raw chocolate macaroons from my fingers. It was a pretty good recovery from a crying spell on my chiropractor's table earlier in the evening.
He'd explained that sometimes in this type of spinal work, emotions come up, and that it's normal and acceptable to emote in whatever ways feel right. But I, of course, decided I wasn't going to be a crier.
Rev D's joke comes to mind: Wanna make God laugh? Tell It your plans.
At the end of my treatment, as he always does, my chiropractor said, "Take a few moments and sit up." I took longer than normal, because I didn't want him to see me crying. But I couldn't stay there forever, so eventually I pushed myself up, and as I faced the wall to my left, I knew I wasn't done crying. When he noticed my eyes, I saw his face soften with compassion, and he asked, "Did something come up?" Yeah. Fear. Fear that no one will ever love me. The same stupid, ridiculous fear that even I am tired of thinking. I can only imagine, beloved readers, how bored of it you all are. Indulge me please, if you can, it's simply where I am at.
I didn't answer his question, but a few defiant tears spilled out before I could stop them. He reaffirmed that this is normal. I told him I didn't like crying in front of people. "Wow," he replied with such softness his words were velvety, "doesn't that take a lot of energy to hold it all in?" Oh my God, yes, it does. "Ian, that's not helping me here," I sort of laughed, and cried some more.
The thing is, most of the time I find my desire to appear fierce and happy, or fiercely happy, much more compelling than my need to let the pain escape as tears.
So, Jose has decided he's not feeling it anymore. This definitely bummed me out. He's a wonderful man and I have so enjoyed his company this past month. He's reminded me that there are sweet, kind men out there who are able to care for a woman in a way that is all about respect and adoration. I was seriously beginning to doubt that. I'm grateful he chose honesty now, before we made love, before I got any more enamored, before I engaged in too much imaginary "life with Jose" planning. I feel deeply honored by him and I see how he did this because he fully understands I deserve what I am looking for, and that he can't offer that. That is so much more respect than John or the man before John could muster for me; they waited three and six months respectively, and neither wouldn't have ended it at all had I not gotten tired of waiting and ended it myself. Jose did a hard, good thing in telling me his feelings had changed, even if it wasn't what I would have hoped for.
Today, my little emotional outburst waited patiently for almost all of the 24 hours or so since Jose delivered the news before consuming me. That's good progress for me. Typically I'm right in the thick of the same old, tired story: Since no man ever has found it possible to love me (romantically) for good, it can only mean: 1. I did, or, more worrying, I am, something wrong, 2. I will probably never get to experience the things I want most in the world: partnership with a loving person and parenthood.
This time, I weathered his leaving well, even with his irresistible long, dark hair swinging and a soft kiss lingering on my skin. I fell asleep fairly quickly and tearlessly, I woke without engaging it. I had breakfast with Thomas and we spent most of the time talking about Thomas' life. I went to yoga, had a date with my nieces, and later dinner with them and their parents. Even when my sister in law remarked that she supposes most people think the girls are mine because they look so much like me. A drop sensation flooded my insides as I thought, So many women my age are parents of 6 and 3 year olds. Just not me, and now I'm even farther from being a mom than I was just yesterday. Even then (even then!), I didn't hook into the self-pity. I really didn't lament this shift away from love with Jose much all day. I'd think of him, my body would give it emotional charge, I let it run through and quickly reminded myself I am grateful for his honesty. So, truly, I'm making progress.
But the fear was waiting for me on my chiropractor's table, despite my fine work processing most of the day. A tenant I can't evict.
As I wrote the preceding sentence, intuition planted a three words in my head: Rumi, sorrows, and welcome. I googled them and here's the answer:
Guest House
by Rumi
This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
So, fear, do come in. I am willing to receive your guidance, and permit you to clear me out for some new delight. Yet, I will entertain you only as long as it takes for me to learn from you, and then I'll kindly ask you to leave.
He'd explained that sometimes in this type of spinal work, emotions come up, and that it's normal and acceptable to emote in whatever ways feel right. But I, of course, decided I wasn't going to be a crier.
Rev D's joke comes to mind: Wanna make God laugh? Tell It your plans.
At the end of my treatment, as he always does, my chiropractor said, "Take a few moments and sit up." I took longer than normal, because I didn't want him to see me crying. But I couldn't stay there forever, so eventually I pushed myself up, and as I faced the wall to my left, I knew I wasn't done crying. When he noticed my eyes, I saw his face soften with compassion, and he asked, "Did something come up?" Yeah. Fear. Fear that no one will ever love me. The same stupid, ridiculous fear that even I am tired of thinking. I can only imagine, beloved readers, how bored of it you all are. Indulge me please, if you can, it's simply where I am at.
I didn't answer his question, but a few defiant tears spilled out before I could stop them. He reaffirmed that this is normal. I told him I didn't like crying in front of people. "Wow," he replied with such softness his words were velvety, "doesn't that take a lot of energy to hold it all in?" Oh my God, yes, it does. "Ian, that's not helping me here," I sort of laughed, and cried some more.
The thing is, most of the time I find my desire to appear fierce and happy, or fiercely happy, much more compelling than my need to let the pain escape as tears.
So, Jose has decided he's not feeling it anymore. This definitely bummed me out. He's a wonderful man and I have so enjoyed his company this past month. He's reminded me that there are sweet, kind men out there who are able to care for a woman in a way that is all about respect and adoration. I was seriously beginning to doubt that. I'm grateful he chose honesty now, before we made love, before I got any more enamored, before I engaged in too much imaginary "life with Jose" planning. I feel deeply honored by him and I see how he did this because he fully understands I deserve what I am looking for, and that he can't offer that. That is so much more respect than John or the man before John could muster for me; they waited three and six months respectively, and neither wouldn't have ended it at all had I not gotten tired of waiting and ended it myself. Jose did a hard, good thing in telling me his feelings had changed, even if it wasn't what I would have hoped for.
Today, my little emotional outburst waited patiently for almost all of the 24 hours or so since Jose delivered the news before consuming me. That's good progress for me. Typically I'm right in the thick of the same old, tired story: Since no man ever has found it possible to love me (romantically) for good, it can only mean: 1. I did, or, more worrying, I am, something wrong, 2. I will probably never get to experience the things I want most in the world: partnership with a loving person and parenthood.
This time, I weathered his leaving well, even with his irresistible long, dark hair swinging and a soft kiss lingering on my skin. I fell asleep fairly quickly and tearlessly, I woke without engaging it. I had breakfast with Thomas and we spent most of the time talking about Thomas' life. I went to yoga, had a date with my nieces, and later dinner with them and their parents. Even when my sister in law remarked that she supposes most people think the girls are mine because they look so much like me. A drop sensation flooded my insides as I thought, So many women my age are parents of 6 and 3 year olds. Just not me, and now I'm even farther from being a mom than I was just yesterday. Even then (even then!), I didn't hook into the self-pity. I really didn't lament this shift away from love with Jose much all day. I'd think of him, my body would give it emotional charge, I let it run through and quickly reminded myself I am grateful for his honesty. So, truly, I'm making progress.
But the fear was waiting for me on my chiropractor's table, despite my fine work processing most of the day. A tenant I can't evict.
As I wrote the preceding sentence, intuition planted a three words in my head: Rumi, sorrows, and welcome. I googled them and here's the answer:
Guest House
by Rumi
This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
So, fear, do come in. I am willing to receive your guidance, and permit you to clear me out for some new delight. Yet, I will entertain you only as long as it takes for me to learn from you, and then I'll kindly ask you to leave.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Augustine Roberto Salcedo, 33, was in the middle of his dissertation on educational leadership at UCLA. He also served on the El Monte elementary school board and worked as assistant principal at El Monte High School. His body, along with six others was found, dead, in Durango, Mexico on the last day of 2009. He'd been abducted the night before from a restaurant, where he was eating with family members. He was one of a few Americans that have been killed as a result of drug-related violence in Mexico, but let's face it, he's brown, so most of the nation will never learn of his murder, or of the staggering violence happening in Mexico as a result of America's demand for drugs, chiefly, cocaine. If Augustin had been a pretty, white American woman, maybe we'd all know about this tragic murder. But even then, even though her face would be plastered across every evening news broadcast for days, even though emotional relatives would plead for the madness to end, I doubt Americans could personalize this tragic situation and start conversing around the hard questions it raises.
Here are some stats I heard on NPR's morning edition this morning (for the full story, visit: http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=3; scroll to "Calif. School Board Member Slain in Mexico"):
* In 2007, Mexican President Philipe Calderon began his offensive against the nation's drug cartels and by year's end, 2,700 drug-related murders are logged (these include civilians and bystanders, police, military, and cartel members).
* In 2008, Mexico's War on Drugs intensifies, and drug related killings nearly double to 5,600. In Mexico, officials speak openly of the drug war peaking and confidence that this trend would not likely increase.
* Last year, 2009, nearly 8,000 people have been murdered in drug-related violence.
* In Ciudad Juarez, a border city infamous for cartel activity and violence, 320 lost their lives in 2007. Last year, the number hit 2,600.
"Staggering" barely registers the horror these numbers bring up for me. When I lived in Mexico a mere five years ago, the only talk of drug-related danger in I heard centered around a few areas in the capital and Ciudad Juarez. Now, there are hot spots all over the place. A low-level of fear has spread even into areas untouched by drug violence. I don't think a country can lose that many citizens and not impart a profound and unsettling sense of vulnerability to all who dwell there.
What happened? I'm no expert, but as far as I can tell, the government started a War on Drugs. And now around 16,300 Mexicans are no longer living. Can you imagine the outrage a number like that would provoke here? Or maybe it wouldn't. Maybe we'd still go about our days and lament privately the loss of life all these wars have on us collectively.
16,300 lives. Fathers, friends, lovers, mothers, teachers, service workers, children, even. Yes, some of the killed were knee-deep in getting drugs to users here in the US, but everyone of them was once an infant and child, full of potential and deserving of love and respect. Even the drug smugglers, every last one of the murdered didn't have to die, shouldn't have died.
16,300. We haven't lost that many Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan and as a nation, we are, on the whole, weary of these wars and want our troops home, out of harms way. How do Mexicans living along the smuggling routes cope? What can they do when the war is at their doors, in their restaurants and stores?
What can we do?
Over last decade, the Mexican drug cartels went from controlling about 50% of cocaine trade coming into the U.S. to now controlling about 90% of the cocaine headed for U.S. distribution. These smuggling routes are worth billions of dollars per year and as long as that is true, the Mexican government cannot win a war on the drug cartels. The war will only escalate the rate at which murders occur. The Mexican government is in a civil war with the drug cartels, essentially, and we are supplying the motivation, the market, for it to continue. Secretary Clinton got it right when she said that our part in solving the drug crisis in Mexico is addressing the demand for cocaine in the U.S. When will we do this? How?
I know that to a cocaine user these numbers, and this reality is so far from the lines in front of them, and I am under no illusion that my little blog post would inspire anyone to swear off cocaine, but this is my only tool.
This ability to consume without thought of consequence is endemic to our culture. Whether it be food, drugs, media, or any other product, we have been so well trained by capitalism, by imperialism, by privilege to not ask questions like: Where did this come from? Who made it? Under what conditions? What statement am I making by consuming this product? Was anyone hurt, made poorer, or killed in the production of this item?
It is a mark of enormous privilege that we do not need to ask these questions in order to survive. But I'm willing to bet our neighbors to the south are asking how it is possible we do not ask these questions, how we do not see what our national appetite for drugs is doing to them, and when will we stop? And if they aren't, its only because if we've dared ask the questions, we don't want to hear the answers, and if we are forced to, then we deny their validity, and they are too busy trying to make a decent life in what's quickly becoming a war-torn country.
Ask the questions. So what if you don't use cocaine: ask them about whatever it is you had for dinner. Ask them about the clothes you are wearing. I hardly ever ask these questions, and when I do, I feel overwhelmed by trying to figure out how to answer them. If my rice came from the bulk bin at Staff of Life, and the bin doesn't say where it was grown or how, then I can ignore the probable answer: it's probably grown in the central valley where annual crops like rice shouldn't be grown year round because the climate isn't good for rice cultivation and it destroys topsoil and makes deserts of fertile land. If the tag in my shirt tells me it was "Made in Cambodia" and I get online to google "garment industry working conditions Cambodia" will I make the time to read? Will I think about all the fossil fuels it took to get the garmet form there to here? I know what questions I should ask, but my life is going to have to change if I answer them honestly. And from this tall hill of privilege I sit on, it's an endeavor I fear undertaking.
But, still, I urge you (and me) to ask the questions. Ask them of yourself and of others, ask me. It starts with the asking, and if we care enough, eventually, I have to believe the care will transform into readiness and we will hear the truth in the answers. I have to believe that given enough time for reflection about what we want our lives to be about, we will act on what we know is best for us, our planet, and our fellow humans. So just ask the questions, please.
I send out a prayer to Mexico tonight, to all the tens of thousands of people snatched from this plane as a result of drug-related violence, to the family, friends, and school community of Augustin Roberto Salcedo, to all who struggle to be good in this world, to all who don't even try or know how to. May all of us rest in peace (whether in death or in living), reflect with genuine curiosity compassion, and act in love.
Here are some stats I heard on NPR's morning edition this morning (for the full story, visit: http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=3; scroll to "Calif. School Board Member Slain in Mexico"):
* In 2007, Mexican President Philipe Calderon began his offensive against the nation's drug cartels and by year's end, 2,700 drug-related murders are logged (these include civilians and bystanders, police, military, and cartel members).
* In 2008, Mexico's War on Drugs intensifies, and drug related killings nearly double to 5,600. In Mexico, officials speak openly of the drug war peaking and confidence that this trend would not likely increase.
* Last year, 2009, nearly 8,000 people have been murdered in drug-related violence.
* In Ciudad Juarez, a border city infamous for cartel activity and violence, 320 lost their lives in 2007. Last year, the number hit 2,600.
"Staggering" barely registers the horror these numbers bring up for me. When I lived in Mexico a mere five years ago, the only talk of drug-related danger in I heard centered around a few areas in the capital and Ciudad Juarez. Now, there are hot spots all over the place. A low-level of fear has spread even into areas untouched by drug violence. I don't think a country can lose that many citizens and not impart a profound and unsettling sense of vulnerability to all who dwell there.
What happened? I'm no expert, but as far as I can tell, the government started a War on Drugs. And now around 16,300 Mexicans are no longer living. Can you imagine the outrage a number like that would provoke here? Or maybe it wouldn't. Maybe we'd still go about our days and lament privately the loss of life all these wars have on us collectively.
16,300 lives. Fathers, friends, lovers, mothers, teachers, service workers, children, even. Yes, some of the killed were knee-deep in getting drugs to users here in the US, but everyone of them was once an infant and child, full of potential and deserving of love and respect. Even the drug smugglers, every last one of the murdered didn't have to die, shouldn't have died.
16,300. We haven't lost that many Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan and as a nation, we are, on the whole, weary of these wars and want our troops home, out of harms way. How do Mexicans living along the smuggling routes cope? What can they do when the war is at their doors, in their restaurants and stores?
What can we do?
Over last decade, the Mexican drug cartels went from controlling about 50% of cocaine trade coming into the U.S. to now controlling about 90% of the cocaine headed for U.S. distribution. These smuggling routes are worth billions of dollars per year and as long as that is true, the Mexican government cannot win a war on the drug cartels. The war will only escalate the rate at which murders occur. The Mexican government is in a civil war with the drug cartels, essentially, and we are supplying the motivation, the market, for it to continue. Secretary Clinton got it right when she said that our part in solving the drug crisis in Mexico is addressing the demand for cocaine in the U.S. When will we do this? How?
I know that to a cocaine user these numbers, and this reality is so far from the lines in front of them, and I am under no illusion that my little blog post would inspire anyone to swear off cocaine, but this is my only tool.
This ability to consume without thought of consequence is endemic to our culture. Whether it be food, drugs, media, or any other product, we have been so well trained by capitalism, by imperialism, by privilege to not ask questions like: Where did this come from? Who made it? Under what conditions? What statement am I making by consuming this product? Was anyone hurt, made poorer, or killed in the production of this item?
It is a mark of enormous privilege that we do not need to ask these questions in order to survive. But I'm willing to bet our neighbors to the south are asking how it is possible we do not ask these questions, how we do not see what our national appetite for drugs is doing to them, and when will we stop? And if they aren't, its only because if we've dared ask the questions, we don't want to hear the answers, and if we are forced to, then we deny their validity, and they are too busy trying to make a decent life in what's quickly becoming a war-torn country.
Ask the questions. So what if you don't use cocaine: ask them about whatever it is you had for dinner. Ask them about the clothes you are wearing. I hardly ever ask these questions, and when I do, I feel overwhelmed by trying to figure out how to answer them. If my rice came from the bulk bin at Staff of Life, and the bin doesn't say where it was grown or how, then I can ignore the probable answer: it's probably grown in the central valley where annual crops like rice shouldn't be grown year round because the climate isn't good for rice cultivation and it destroys topsoil and makes deserts of fertile land. If the tag in my shirt tells me it was "Made in Cambodia" and I get online to google "garment industry working conditions Cambodia" will I make the time to read? Will I think about all the fossil fuels it took to get the garmet form there to here? I know what questions I should ask, but my life is going to have to change if I answer them honestly. And from this tall hill of privilege I sit on, it's an endeavor I fear undertaking.
But, still, I urge you (and me) to ask the questions. Ask them of yourself and of others, ask me. It starts with the asking, and if we care enough, eventually, I have to believe the care will transform into readiness and we will hear the truth in the answers. I have to believe that given enough time for reflection about what we want our lives to be about, we will act on what we know is best for us, our planet, and our fellow humans. So just ask the questions, please.
I send out a prayer to Mexico tonight, to all the tens of thousands of people snatched from this plane as a result of drug-related violence, to the family, friends, and school community of Augustin Roberto Salcedo, to all who struggle to be good in this world, to all who don't even try or know how to. May all of us rest in peace (whether in death or in living), reflect with genuine curiosity compassion, and act in love.
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