Sympathy is under-rated

you know, at times like these the urge to shave my head again is almost overwhelming. Of late, the exterior of my life has been a continuous strain of change, transformation, and ordered chaos. Such intensity begs a change- a chosen change- to mirror the extremity of the internal demolition.

It's funny how suddenly the urge to chop off my hair comes. It seems to come almost out of nowhere- a voice clear but comforting- a calm suggestion that seems to emanate from a deeper soul. Release your hair. Let go. Feel the weight move on.

I have no idea if I will give in and remove my hair. Practically speaking, I love having hair. Having long hair enhances my feelings of beauty, of elegance, of distinction. I am proud of my hair.

But the release that letting go of hair brings sounds so attractive. I feel like I need something to latch on to after so much transition. Something tangible to refer people to when they ask how I am doing. Something for people in ongoing interactions with me to see, so they know that something has changed, that I am not the same as I was yesterday. They don't need to know everything, but I need them to know that things are different.

My writing is suffering as a result of sentimentality, emotionalism, intensity of feelings- and I don't have the energy to go back through what I've written and hyper-edit, as I usually do. Maybe I will tomorrow, but for tonight it seems essential to simply document the oddness of my breadth of feelings. Document and publicize.

This has been a grueling week. I know that I have experienced some pretty hallmark weeks in the past, but I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that this week has been the most trying week I've ever experienced. I think I will be reeling from it, reaping the rewards of its emotionally transformative potency, for quite some time.

I ask that during this time, if you are able, that you send me your love. Send me your hope. Your understanding. Your empathy. I am doing my best to make sense of a set of realities that seem to me beyond comprehension. I exist as I do now only because I have a little faith in the supreme direction of the universe. I do not understand how a person could survive such loss and desperation without any semblance of faith or trust in the ultimate good of existence.

Faithful readers. Unfaithful readers. I entreat you to share your pity with me. Share your love not just with me, but with yourself. Share it with the assholes with whom I am unable at this moment to share my love.

If I am learning anything, which I hope I am, I am perhaps learning more of the simple frailty of life. I know it is cliché to speak of the fragility of life, but I think it is idiomatic because it is true. In one minute I had so many little ducks lined up, all ready for a specific path. In the next minute there was no order, no agenda, and no hope for such. And now, in the aftermath, I find that it is not possible to simply return the little duckies to their plot and continue as planned.

I don't know what will happen, and it's ever more true that the more I experience, the less I know.

a creation of catharsis

I Realize that sometimes I forget,
But this is a reminder,
I Fucking Deserve Better.

I'm not asking for perfection or absolution.
I'm not expecting permanence,
But I Fucking Deserve Better.



I know it's hard.
Fear is potent.
The unknown abounds.
But I am here. Here is my hand.



don't mistake my empathy
for low self-esteem.



I know that I am a thing of beauty.
I feel it in my belly-
in the roundness, punctuated and imperfect,
I feel it in my hands-
raised fist and open palmed plea,
I feel it in my lungs when I sing,
in my teeth when I bite,
in my pride glazed cheeks after another day.


I feel my beauty in the depth of my soul
as the fears of this world yet again rip apart old beliefs to build new hopes,
as the thoughts I once revered come yet again under scrutiny,
as I watch myself transformed time and again
by the trials of this universe.


I am a thing of Beauty.
I see it, I feel it,
I hear it in the leaves as we mingle in the park.


I am proud of who I am
of my battle scars-
(not wounds)
I know my wounds will heal.
And even as I fear their lasting presence,
I know they are not a thing of forever.



I am Proud of my words. of my thoughts. of my loves.
I am a child of this universe.
No more than you.

No less.

I deserve to love. To love freely.
And I deserve love.



I deserve better than what I have fleetingly accepted.
I have (perhaps) misled you into thinking that I am just another
cynical,
self-deprecating,
misanthropic masochist.
And that is my fault.



but i am not.



and I fucking deserve better.



_

Suffism and Giving Up

I've been having a time of it.

Walking back from school this morning, after having been locked out of my first history exam by an obtuse 5 minutes (my own damn fault), I decided to give up.

I have been attempting to give up for at least a month now, and I sincerely hope that this is NOT just another attempt, but in fairness the genuineness of this give-up is not really my responsibility. I was walking down Broadway, stuck in my own head full of self-recrimination and anger, when I suddenly realized that I can't do this. Any of it. I am not able to deal with life as such- lonely, confusing, impossible, standard-driven, ridiculous. I can not cope; the best I can do is spiral downward into a self-shaming puddle of embarrassing goo.

I walked a little farther before realizing- with an almost maniacal laugh- that I don't have to do any of it. Why do I have to make everything such a struggle? What am I so worried about?? I can just GIVE UP!!! If the universe wants stuff done, then the universe will have to do it, because I'm sick of blaming myself for not doing the impossible.

(ahem, by 'give up' I am in no way intimating an immediate withdrawal from classes or a reticence to fulfill regular duties. I am giving up on worthless struggling)

Last night I was reading a book my boss/friend recommended, The Drama of the Gifted Child, when I started to cry. I was so surprised by this. After all, I've had a lot of experiences in my life, but I've been through therapy, and I've talked through my stuff til my eyes were dry. I think I thought that I could get it over with once and be done, but life has added new layers to old hurts. And new actions have greater meanings. I realized that my neurotic episodes of late have been symptomatic not just of the transition inherent in moving cross-country alone, but of a greater underlying problem. Or problems.

Recent experiences and growth and change are allowing for a greater understanding and examination of myself. And I can't do it alone. Goddess knows I spend all my time on public transit in self-'discovery' or other such nonsense, and it always devolves into the stern voice in my head upbraiding the weakness within. Those silly human bits, you know- the ones that continuously have feelings. When I realized that an old habit, a perverse habit from my dark ages, is still hanging out in fully fledged form, I felt truly frightened.

This is when I thought that maybe I ought to think about starting therapy again. It would be so helpful to get out of my head during these times. I need to. I immediately thought about how much therapy would cost in New York, and how impossible an option that was until-

Wait-

I have health insurance! How bizarre. I am arbitrarily allowed affordable help for my mind because my dad works for an insurance company. I'll take it. I need it.

When I got back home after missing my exam, only newly resolved to give up, I sat down to read a little Rumi. I certainly needed a little enlightenment. I flipped the book open to a random page, as I usually do when looking for a little help, and I'll be damned if the following wasn't exactly what I turned to:

Cry Out in Your Weakness

A dragon was pulling a bear into its terrible mouth.

A courageous man went and rescued the bear.
There are such helpers in the world, who rush to save
anyone who cries out. Like Mercy itself,
they run toward the screaming.

And they can't be bought off.
If you were to ask one of those, "Why did you come
so quickly?" he or she would say, "Because I heard
your helplessness."
Where lowland is,
that's where the water goes. All medicine wants
is pain to cure.
And don't just ask for one mercy.
Let them flood in. Let the sky open under your feet.
Take the cotton out of your ears, the cotton
of consolations, so you can hear the sphere-music.

Push the hair out of your eyes.
Blow the phlegm from your nose,
and from your brain.

Let the wind breeze through.
Leave no residue in yourself from that bilious fever.
Take the cure for impotence,
that your manhood may shoot forth,
and a hundred new beings come of your coming.

Tear the binding from around the foot
of your soul, and let it race around the track
in front of the crowd. Loosen the knot of greed
so tight on your neck. Accept your new good luck.

Give your weakness
to one who helps.

Crying out loud and weeping are great resources.
A nursing mother, all she does
is wait to hear her child.

Just a little beginning-whimper,
and she's there.

God created the child, that is, your wanting,
so that it might cry out, so that milk might come.

Cry out! Don't be stolid and silent
with your pain. Lament! And let the milk
of loving flow into you.

The hard rain and wind
are ways the cloud has
to take care of us.

Be patient.
Respond to every call
that excites your spirit.

Ignore those that make you fearful
and sad, that degrade you
back toward disease and death.

This made me laugh and cry almost at the same time. "Give your weakness to one who helps". As though my needing help is a gift and not a burden. What a message to, ahem, ruminate on.

I must at this time go to work. I'm not sure how this will all turn out, but it's kind of nice to give oneself a break after all of the intensity.


Currently Reading: (actually just finished) Ruby Fruit Jungle

The Brooklyn Museum of Art

I had an unexpectedly intense day.

I went with my friend, B, to the Brooklyn Museum of Art this afternoon as part of our New York Museum Tour. A friend of hers had tipped her off to the fantastic and provocative exhibition of Yinka Shonibare MBE's work (an amazing exhibit, that you should make a trip to see), and so we trudged all the way (phew!) to Brooklyn, a rare venture for Manhattanites.

Upon paying our preferred donation of $1 (BMA is a suggested donation venue, Goddess love them, as we are quite poor), we attempted to get our bearings by perusing the pictorial directory. At this point B became very excited by something in a picture- 'The Dinner Party' by Judy Chicago. I looked at B with my customary blend of curiosity and ignorance. B has an excellent background in Art History and Museum Studies, so I am quite accustomed to her vast knowledge surpassing my own, especially in the art world. However, there was shock on B's face when she realized that I did not know of Ms. Chicago.

'The Dinner Party' is the single biggest piece of feminist art ever acknowledged, B informed me with a look tinged with disbelief and, perhaps, a bit of horror. We then skipped over the Shonibare exhibit, heading directly to the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.

Let me coo for a moment- How AMAZING is it that an art museum has a permanent gallery dedicated to feminist art? I've never heard of this before, and in the wake of such an experience I'm a bit saddened by this. Ideally feminist art would have a role in art of all types and in many galleries and there would be no need for a specially designated 'feminist section', but this is not yet an ideal world. I wish I had had the opportunity to visit a Center for Feminist Art before I was 24 years old, but I am grateful for today, however hurtful it may have been.

I was utterly unprepared for this installation. How could I have expected it? The catalog itself reports it as consisting of:

39 dinner place settings of porcelain flatware (fork, knife and spoon), porcelain chalice, and decorated porcelain plate. Each setting is laid out on a separate embroidered textile runner. Thirteen place settings are on each side (48 feet long) of a triangular table draped with a white felt cloth, with a triangular millennium runner at each of three corners. Each of the settings represents one of thirty-nine historically significant women. The table sits on a floor of 2304 porcelain triangular tiles (in 129 units) inscribed with the names of 999 significant women.

Ok, so it's a big table set for dinner and there are lots of women's names. Cool. This will be interesting. Right. How can I tell you what it was like walking into that room? Rather, walking into the room was just what I expected. Each setting is quite particular, and placed in a mostly chronological order. First? 'Primordial Goddess'

Ok. That makes sense.

Next? 'Fertile Goddess'

Sure.

Of note, the plates at each setting are decorated in personalized floral/butterfly/vulva patterns. I add floral and butterfly to the description mostly because the plaque at the exhibit did so. My impression of the plates was overwhelmingly linked to feminine power, to clitoral and sexual potency, power, depth, mystery, and strength. There were cunts all over this table, each beautiful and different. Each cunt-plate brought its own sacred history to the table.

Next? 'Ishtar', 'Kali', 'Snake Goddess', 'Sophia', 'Amazon', 'Hatshepsut', 'Judith', 'Sappho', 'Boadaceia', 'Hypatia', 'Marcella', 'Saint Bridget'. . .

By this point, I had finished one third of the table, and I was starting to get worried. The women who earned a place at the table were assumedly at the top of the list, a list that involves more than a thousand names. Only 39 received special settings, and I guess I assumed that of those 39 I would know a vast majority. I was discovering how naïve that assumption had been.

'Theodora', 'Hrosvitha', 'Trotula', 'Eleanor of Aquitaine', 'Hildegarde of Bingen', 'Petronilla de Meath', 'Christine de Pisan', 'Isabella d'Este', 'Elizabeth R.', 'Artemisia Gentileschi'. . .

I recognized two of these names, and I could tell you about one of them. The names continued almost in defiance of my ignorance. A grief I had never experienced began to overwhelm me, and I felt tears begin to well up. I have never before cried because of a piece of art. Art has moved me toward thought, toward debate, toward laughter, toward anger, toward many things- but never tears. Of the more than thousand names celebrated in 'The Dinner Party", I would recognize a perhaps generous figure of 100.

Less than 10%.

'Anna van Schurman', 'Anne Hutchinson', 'Sacajawea', 'Caroline Herschel', 'Mary Wollstonecraft', 'Sojourner Truth', 'Susan B. Anthony', 'Elizabeth Blackwell', 'Emily Dickinson', 'Ethel Smyth'. . .

I realized even more so, that at least 50% of the names I recognized belonged to women about which I knew nothing. For example, I could not have told you yesterday (I am very sorry to admit) who Mary Wollstonecraft was or what contributions she had made. A horrifying thought occurred to me: should a similar celebration of man's historical contributions be constructed in such a manner, I would easily recognize at least 50% of the names. I would probably also be able to explain in depth the contributions of at least 15% of them. Of course, that's just a guess.

I don't remember at what point I began to cry, but I know it was after I had left the table settings and had moved to the Herstory Board section- a chronology/brief description of the contributions of every name on exhibit. I felt as though I'd been punched in the gut. Somewhere, deep within, something had been stolen from me. My education had failed me. My culture had failed me. I had failed myself. How could I know so little about the power of the feminine? How had I missed my own history so succinctly? Who was Margaret Sanger? Natalie Barney? Virginia Woolf and Georgia O'Keefe were names familiar to me, but they provided little comfort after the onslaught of the unfamiliar.

I cried. I cried for myself. For my culture. For the education that I and my sisters and brothers were missing. It was a quiet cry, privately witnessed by an almost unending row of names.

I sat down on a bench and tried to center myself, attempting to pull myself back from the brink of destructive self-pity, searching for the redemptive righteous anger that I knew must be on the other side of such a deep wound. While I waited a man came over to the lady sitting next to me on the bench and commented on the 'fascinating' board of names.





. . .





Fascinating.





Even now I am filled with an anger and a hurt that is beyond my ability to capture.





Fascinating.





I understand how a board filled with the history of influential women one has never heard of could be a fascinating concept. I understand and respect this man's ability to recognize a resource he had not previously encountered. I understand to a certain extent.

But it goes so much deeper than the cognitive whimsy of a 'fascinating' history display. This is personal. It is my mother, my great-grandmother, my as-yet-undreamt-of-daughter. It is me. It is the mantle I inherited by being born into this body, or rather more so by living in it. It is the lie that has been perpetuated by silence. It is the gaping holes in my history. In me. It is the lack of acknowledgment of those holes- my previous inability to even conceptualize how many holes there might be.

I knew, of course, that there was much of the history and contributions of women that I didn't know, but I had never before been confronted so tangibly by the vastness of the unknown of feminine beauty, strength, thought, and power.

I am enraged.

I am crying.

I am crying, and I am enraged by the bleeding hole where my knowledge of my grandmothers should be. I have been robbed. So have you.

We, all of us, have been robbed by patriarchal thieves bent on silencing the brilliance of half our forebears. This cannot stand, but who will stand with me?

Why do we allow such silence? What do we do about it? How can I turn this wounded-ness, this anger, into a vehicle for change?

How can we?

October 17th, 2007

To know something deeply, softly, in the moments of quiet after my light has been put out, this is to be at peace. To feel so surely the beauty at once. To let flow, at once, the harbored fears. My judgments and expectations of myself, of others, have been killing me. To know that such stillness can be, to find in a brilliant sky some small, chaotic cluster attesting to the gorgeousness of this life- the incompleteness of all my former pretense of life is apparent in the slight rustle of leaves on this otherwise soundless morning. I think I can call it morning, even though I haven’t slept and the sun has yet to rise. I wait for a bus that seems never to come. This morning arrived without my even thinking of it. Gone is the sleeping time. Gone, too, are the worries I cherished yesterday. I haven’t been able to cry lately. Did you know? I have felt cold. I have wished for tears to empty out the sadness, to release my well, to validate my own pity. I have longed to let loose a stream of tears each time I hugged my knees on the back porch. None would come. After great strains there was not even one tear to hold, to shake hands with, to comfort, yet this morning I cry without meaning to. Simply feeling held- neither holding myself not cradled in another’s arms, but held none the less.
You Know.

"Judy"

Walking quiet streets was a pastime for Judy in the purest sense of the word- it was a way to pass the time. The ache in her abdomen refused to give way, crowding her senses and refusing her favorite form of personal abandonment. She had tried to go walking three times already, but she couldn’t catch her breath enough to conquer her stairs, let alone the hill she lived on. She settled for a puff of guilt-ridden cancer and sat on the stoop while its acrid taste seeped into her cheeks and fingertips.

She wondered if the ache in her belly was something more than bad food. The recurring fear of a tiny parasite leeching the walls of her uterus drained her mind of its store of calm and left every signal her body sent tinged with dread. She couldn’t be pregnant. She just couldn’t be.

Why hadn’t she insisted that he be safe? What was it about her that allowed those sudden bursts of passivity in the worst possible moments? She was a pillar of strength and intention except in those terribly hopeless moments when an older man pressed himself against her or an unknown stallion pierced into her. She couldn’t understand herself and she had all but given up hope of forgiving herself for such weaknesses. They were to be born, and that was all.

Judy climbed into her bed and swaddled herself with blankets. She was always cold, her extremities tingling even in the full weight of the sunshine. She pulled the neck of her sweater up over her head to trap in every escaping molecule. She stopped moving to survey the results and found that she was trapped. The warmth would come soon, but the knocking in her head and chest would not leave. She wished for a sign, a desire, a passion, even hatred. Her apathy was paralyzing.

If her blood returned in a week would her numbness disappear? She listlessly hoped it were so and curled her hands into a twisted ball, cradled under her chin. How she longed to sob into the night, but there was nothing for which to sob. There was nothing wrong with her life even if there was nothing right. She wished for sleep.

The elusiveness of such dreamless sleep was ironic for a woman who often battled competing waves of depression and narcolepsy. At any point she could sleep for a dozen hours without stirring, that is, any point but when she desperately needed to escape. She could not banish the thousand empty thoughts running loops in her head. For a woman without conflict she carried too many fears.

And anger, though she was reluctant to admit it, was creating its own course through her body. She couldn’t believe that she had allowed her ex to seduce her. She had been weak, she had been clouded, she had been lonely, and though she knew she could have done things no differently, she was still disappointed with herself. She should have known the future, her gut pushed. She should have seen the falseness and the trap. She could never forgive her own humanity.

How she expected herself to resist That Woman’s smile and shoulders is a mystery, but Judy was still crucifying herself for it, and laughing at the reality of the conversation the day after when That Woman had spoken of being cautious and building friendships with respect. Somehow she seemed to miss the glaring inconsistency in her own philosophy, having pounced on her confused friend and former lover only the night before. Judy felt stupid for having believed any of the words that came out of That Woman’s mouth. After all, she had prior offenses and a history of laxity when it came to being genuine with her truth.

But this was past, as all her transgressions were. Lying in bed and considering all the ways that life had gone awry was Judy’s least favorite pastime and the one that recurred most painfully and insidiously. It was frustrating, but it was her only reality. What was life without these occasional forays into the pitiful and pathetic? She couldn’t be happy, not really. Perhaps she didn’t believe that such happiness or comfort was acceptable. Perhaps she was happiest in her soul when she was huddled alone and crying. That was a sobering thought. These journeys into her sad, illusionary world were becoming less frequent and, Judy thought with a hint of a smile, maybe she was growing past the sadness. Maybe she was beginning to live.

That life made these moments all the harder to bear. When she had fallen asleep every night cradled in her own arms, it had been comforting to know that her self-pity would always be there. Now its presence brought a stale, mildewy stench with it and memories of that life, many lives ago, when she had believed that she truly was alone. It was jarring to find herself lifted from the joy of life to this self-induced trauma. She hoped it would pass soon. If only she had the energy to walk right now she might walk until she flew away. Instead she tucked her head in and pressed shut her eyes, praying for sleep and a little bit of clarity.

1.01 AM, Friday, August 17th, 2007

What if the what ifs in life are beyond the sane? Well, of course they are, but then what if the sun had dozed a little on the 23rd of January, if its temperature had cooled the tiniest parcel of a degree centigrade, if the weather 90 million miles away shifted in the slightest, would it have changed the course of time or the vandalism in my chest? If a single drop of dew had lingered an extra moment in the mid-morning sun, would it have been enough to alter this reality? Would my guts still urge me to rebellion, toward the pavement, toward a salty display of fireworks in honor of a witnessed kiss? Not my kiss, of course, but igniting nonetheless a sort of sour dramedy. Working at the carefully mended knot, pulling at the pieces and loosening the only nice bits, and then again what if the moons orbiting Jupiter had paused in their journey, paused to sigh or think about which skirt they might wear on a Sunday if the opportunity arose? What if the gravitational pull of the entire universe was altered, would that have changed a damn thing?

If everything happens for some reason, even the birth of a wormy caterpillar, and every tiny gasp plays its power in my universe. . . if everything that happens, happens, would a speck of past intervention or even a giant boulder colliding with a puppy dog change the happen-ness of my happiness?

It remains that the sane lack the ifs, the 'what the world might look like' outside of this world. This world is, and without my gut's personal revolt it would no longer be this world. In another world I might have challenged in the iditarod, or scaled a pyramid with my magical fingers, or made her want to stay and love me. In another world I might be a frog, too. Or a flea, which would explain the dog-racing. The ifs continue without pause when you think about it. All the ways this world might mirror another.

But then again what if I lived in this world, with these hands, and these aches? If I lived here and knew it, would it be better than the worlds I imagine when the aching just above my gut reaches its height? Would I care if it were better?