less and less important...

If the fears come true

2009-05-31T08:55:00.000-07:00

If this turns out to be among the many things I fear it to be, I will survive it.

I have survived things similar before.

The bad thing about that is that I know what will be in store. I will be very, very, very angry, and anger is very frightening for me. I will be very, very, very scared, and fear is the most terrifying thing of all for me. I will feel shattered—but I won’t be—and I will have a really hard time focusing on anything else—but I will manage to. I won’t want to eat, and when I try, it will be hard to swallow—but I will get myself to the gym and work up an appetite enough to lose only so much that I am changed but not in danger.

I will feel horribly alone, but I won’t be. I will thrash around at night looking for a lifeline and I will sometimes miss it and just keep thrashing, but then sometimes, I will find it, and there will be deep peace.

I will look around and I will see many dear friends. They won’t be physically present, and that will be very scary and hard, but they will call, they will write, and they will listen to my tears, and rage, and fear, and confused words, as they have so many times before.

And I will pray. And I will pray in the dark alone with no one listening sometimes. And those will be the long dark nights of the soul that will be miserable, but I will survive them. And sometimes I will whisper, and I will be heard, and held, and I will feel myself start to come back to life again.

This time will be different, because I’ve never been where I am before. I am pretty sure this time will be worse. But I also have something I’ve never had before, and that is the years that have come and gone, that I have worn like clothes that then became a new part of my skin. Maybe to make it thicker. Maybe.

But whatever comes, I will survive it. I will survive it, and it will just hurt like hell. So why fear it now? I can’t stop the pain if it is on its way. But what I can do is rest up for the storm. I can know that something really hard might be coming, and I can take precautions. Not the kind that prevent things, but the kind that make one more ready for the struggle. Resting. Loving myself. Keeping things simple. And working.

I don’t know if I can do those things, but they are good goals. And if I can’t, I can still know that I will get through, whatever is on its way.

And of course, it might only be my fear, and I might be passed over this time, once again. But if not, I will go on.

violence

2009-04-11T16:09:00.000-07:00

Its been a loooong long time since I have written here. I don't think many people read it, because I don't let many people know about it. I am still a bit ambivalent about being a blogger. But there are some things on my mind and I can't find people talking about them, so I'll start.

Something is up, don't you think? Violence is every present and certainly focused on in the media, so I'm not saying that the recent string of family murders, child murders, and domestic violence cases are new. But combined with what seems to me to be an unusually large number--in an unusually short amount of time--of mass murders--rampage style random or not so random killings--this does seem unusual. Columbine shocked us, and then there were more Columbines, and that shocked us. But in something like three weeks we had the Alabama shooting spree, the shooting rampage at the nursing home, the shooting rampage at the immigrant center, and at least one other that my sickened mind is blocking out. Before these rampages there seemed to be a large number of parents killing their children them themselves out of desperation of some sort. Can these things really be disconnected?

Are things accelerating? Do we always think that? Is the problem only about firearms? Obviously this is a problem, but is something else going on too?

I don't have any theories. But I'm disturbed and concerned. And I have a sense its an expression of things much more ordinary and commonplace, and our sensationalizing of it all doesn't help us get to the bottom of it.

Wisdom from Audre Lorde

2008-12-05T22:28:00.000-08:00

Pleasure. Some wisdom I remember...its been a long time since it guided my life, but it is present in my mind, and today I have been calling it to the center...

"...we have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and nonrational knowledge." "...a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings....an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire. For having experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling and recognizing its power, in honor and self respect we can require no less of ourselves."

"It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work. To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society is to encourage excellence. But giving in to the fear of feeling and working to capacity is a luxury only the unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies."

"this internal requirement toward excellence....must not be misconstruied as demanding the impossible from ourselves nor from others. [it is]....a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing. Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion we can then observe which of our various life endeavors bring us closest to that fullness."

"Within the celebration of the erotic in all our endeavors, my work becomes a conscious decision--a longed -for bed which I enter gratefully and from which I rise up empowered."

Can we live with that? Live up to that? Can we afford a world in which we don't?

My old kitchen floor

2008-07-08T07:05:00.000-07:00

My kitchen floor is teaching me a great deal. First, let me say that I am grateful to HAVE a kitchen floor. Not everyone does, and it is a luxury and a blessing. Having said that, my kitchen floor is my least favorite part of the house I am currently living in. It is a white and pale gray linoleum floor, but the problem is that it is very old, and being very old, has degenerated to the point that its surface is very grainy and porous. It looks fine when it is clean, but its surface sucks in dirt and dust at an amazing rate, so that after a few days it starts to look and feel (if you are barefoot like I prefer to be) really gross. The worst part, though, is that it is very, very difficult to clean. Mopping is not enough--no matter the mop, no matter the cleaning fluid--the only thing that works is getting down on your hands and knees and scrubbing hard with the scritchy side of a scrubby sponge.

It takes about 30 seconds of scrubbing for each square of linoleum. Depending on how dirty the floor is, this means from 2 to 3 hours of hands and knees scrubbing. Even if you like to clean, which I don't, there is no way that 2-3 hours on your hands and knees scrubbing fiercely is fun, though it is a good work out. My partner and I try to clean the floor once a week and we take turns, so each of us is only facing this onerous task once every couple of weeks. Nonetheless, every time I had to do it, I used to feel miserable, and then continue to feel worse and worse until by the time it was done I was exhausted and very grumpy.

But the thing is, I hate a dirty floor. I hate the way the grit and grime feel under my feet and I hate looking at it while I'm having breakfast or making coffee. And the entrance to our house is through the kitchen, so its the first thing I see when I walk in. So for me, there really isn't an option, but to face the scrubbing at least every other week.

And there is no way to speed it up while its happening. This I have discovered as my insides try to hurry the task along and my outsides try to find shortcuts and tricks--none of which work. So something has started to happen that is rather mysterious and spiritual, actually. And yesterday, I realized that it has something to teach me about many tasks in my life--particularly, currently, the arduous process of finishing my dissertation.

What happened is that I began to surrender. I didn't decide to, exactly, it just sort of happened. After failed attempts at resistance, rather than cry, I just began to sink into the rhythm of the scrubbing. Scrub scrub scrub scrub, wipe wipe wipe wipe, and move on to the next square. As I went, I began to see the brightness of one square at a time compared to the parts I hadn't cleaned yet, and it began to fill me with some kind of joy--a satisfaction and hope. Rather than being dismayed at all the squares that lay before me, I focused all of my attention and energy on the one little square I was cleaning. And I found it to be meditative, even therapeutic. My mind quieted, I began to sing sometimes, listen to the birds outside my window sometimes, and actually, I can't believe it, but enjoy the task and the process.

Now I actually almost look forward to my turn to clean the kitchen, because I know that the job itself will force a state of being that I rarely find on my own. The hardest part now is when I am nearing the end. When the squares get enticingly fewer, I begin to rush ahead, longing for the end, and I inevitably feel a return of the impatience, frustration, and my own daily anxieties. The last part of the floor is never as clean as the rest of it!

So yesterday I thought of my floor and this place that I have found in the cleaning of it, and I thought of it after realizing that I have (temporarily, I hope) fallen out of love with my dissertation. It has become drudgery and my procrastination and need to take breaks with increasing frequency and of increasing lengths is not just a reflection of my character flaws, lack of discipline, or laziness, but rather of the reality that I don't love what I am doing anymore. In fact, I sometimes hate it.

It was scary, but freeing to say that "out loud" to myself in my mind as I was going on a walk past a beautiful stream, wishing I could spend all my time doing things like that. And once I felt that freedom, I was able to move past it and into acceptance. Ok, so maybe I hate my dissertation right now, maybe I'll even always hate it, though I suspect that is not the case, but say it is, I still have to finish it, and it is not even a question in my mind that I wouldn't give it my all to finish it. There is too much I want and need on the other side of its completion.

And that is when it hit me. My unfinished dissertation is like the dirty kitchen floor. I can't just leave it that way--I have to clean it, because I love a clean floor and a dirty one is not something I can live with. And no one is going to clean it for me, and there is no short cut to make the task any easier, shorter, or less hard work. So there it is. I don't have to love it. I just have to do it. And maybe if I relax into it, surrender to the task of cleaning each square before me, the "drudgery" will transform--at least sometimes--into something meditative, something therapeutic, something meaningful in its quiet way. And maybe then I can stop seeing all of the unwritten chapters and the revisions left to do, documents left to tabulate, and instead see the pages and pieces I've done slowly add up. It takes the time it takes, but if I keep going, I can't help but get to the other side of the kitchen.

Presence

2008-06-30T11:42:00.000-07:00

Its been a while. I have been searching for synthesis. I have been searching for balance. But not the kind that is like a great big blur--not a melting pot of my different aspects--but rather a sharpening of the distinctions and greater skill in moving between them, and an even strengthening of them all. I don't want to be a mental person--a mind-identified person, nor do I want to be entirely a body identified person. I don't want to be mostly political, or mostly spiritual, or mostly intellectual, or mostly sensual, or mostly physical, or mostly creative. I want to feel whole and to be able to play with all that is human to be.

When I sit at my chosen desk to write my dissertation chapters, or when I ask myself hard questions and puzzle out the answers, or when I try to read very old documents, I want to be able to use the different parts of me like I might pull various tools out of a tool box. I want to learn to focus my analytical mind to the task in a way that is pleasurable and effective--but without letting it control my life. I am not my mind--or at least my mind is not the entirety of me, and because I forget that, my mind runs wild, gets distracted, and hops around--grabbing at things like my friends' new puppy.

When I swim, or run, or go on a bike ride, I want to give to the experience everything that I have. I want to enjoy my body, love it, and embody it as the gift that it is. In every physical experience I want to be fully present--not trying to dominate my body, but learning to listen to it, follow it, but also to lead it firmly.

When I meditate, I want to be open to all the states of consciousness that are available and flashing like tempting jewels at the edge of my peripheral vision. I want to fully give to this part of being human--to the explorations and experiments that shift my perspective and lift my spirit.

When I feel--when I am happy or sad or angry--when I am sharing emotions with others, witnessing and holding space for their emotions, I want to be fully present there too. I want to feel and be rather than think, or solve. This is not the place for my over active mind to run free.

I want to move through these ways of being actively. I want to chose powerfully. I want to live life as a physical, spiritual, intellectual, creative, sensual, and conscious being. I want to enjoy it. I want to get all I can out of the experience of being alive and human--the experience of being me--in my path, in my choices, right here, right now. Nothing fancy. Nothing completely new. Just a transformation of being. A new ontology, informed perhaps by a new epistomology, but maybe the other way around. A new way of knowing might grow out of a new way of being. But what I am looking for is presence. Full, embodied, conscious, present, presence. Sounds like the best and sharpest tool, the most delicious drink, the deepest breath. This is my quest, though I wander from it.....

Enligtenment, Colaboration, and Coalition.

2008-04-15T17:40:00.000-07:00

I don't know what the relationship is between surrender and responsibility, between empowerment and humility, or between learning to create our own reality and learning to let go of control, but I know that for me, this relationship is what life is all about--the dance between these seemingly different ways of seeing and being. And I think that maybe enlightenment is just a moment or moments of understanding this relationship, and that it wouldn't be a thought or word thing, but a heart and spirit thing--a moment where all the seemingly diametrically opposed truths would appear as perfectly intricately arranged continuities--a shimmering landscape whose many colors catch the eye differently at different moments, each leaping forward and waning in its own special time as the sun moves across the sky.

This is what life is for me right now--learning about the relationship between letting go and diving in, between taking responsibility for my life and what I create and surrendering to the beauty and struggle of what is. And the process of learning about this reminds me of other truths that dance together--the relationship between boundaries and connection, between autonomy and interdependency, between the individual and the collective community. between structural forces and personal experience. Maybe like enlightenment, collaboration, communication, and especially coalition is only possible if and when we can hold these things together in our hearts and minds--if we can conceptualize them all as true.

This is what I had to say tonight after walking alongside a moonlit lake reflecting a midnight blue sky.

To engage in our world of information exchange

2008-03-24T10:38:00.000-07:00

Communication. Ideas. Thoughts and words. The velocity of exchange--verbal, conceptual--is so high today. But I wonder if other things can keep up, things like perception, understanding, and those emotional-emotive states that such comprehension sometimes creates when we are lucky--states like compassion, empathy, or affinity. I hope so. And on my hopeful days I think it must be that such things will at least closely follow the increase in communication--the quantity, speed, and distance across which it travels.

But the key, I think, is that intangible thing I always ask from my students when they arrive to class having "done" the reading but still having nothing to say, nothing to share with me or the other students, nothing to ask. It is the thing that makes up part of their participation grade, works its way into letters of recommendation, and is the core requirement for their papers. It is engagement.

As teachers we ask students to do more than read and listen; we ask them to engage. To engage is different than to receive and it is different also than to consume. Blogs, cell phones, internet video clips, podcasts and the endless list we are all familiar with have exploded the possibilities of reception, consumption, and even the exchange of information and ideas that can be rightly understood as communication. But for all of this to lead to connection--a connection that I hope we would seek to make ever more complex, ever broadened and deepened and therefor sophisticated, and ever more humane, compassionate, and spirit-expanding--we must engage. Engage as we read. Engage as we watch. As we write, text, post, and talk.

The dictionary lists many meanings of the word "engage". Websters has 15. The one that reflects most closely what I am talking about here is:

"To occupy oneself; become involved."

But there is another that perhaps we should aim for as well, and that is:

"to pledge one's word; assume an obligation."

Perhaps there is a giving of one's word, an obligation to assume, in all of this increased communication? Perhaps it is a matter of respecting the word and its power, our own use of it, and others right to it.

There is another definition that I think is worth considering. I haven't ever thought of it when I asked my students to "engage" with a text, an author, or an idea, and I am intrigued and a bit disturbed by the military implications that I had not ever seen before in this word. Definition number 14 is "to cross weapons; enter into conflict." I guess that in a paper, if I saw a student taking on something she or he had read in this way-- as if to "cross weapons" or "enter into conflict," she or he could definitely get an A if it was done well. So perhaps in the same way, crossing weapons in the kind of communication I am pondering today--the blogs and videos and podcasts and internet based discussions--is sometimes necessary, sometimes honest, and sometimes a road towards understanding, community building, and even intimacy.

Perhaps.

Perhaps as long as we respect certain "rules of engagement" and learn to fight fair.

The point of all these musings I suppose is that we must not be passive. Or that if we are, all of the increased "communication" will really just be more noise for our background, more channels to surf, more choices to have, more information to consume, more stuff to receive. But if we are active, if we "occupy" ourselves and "become involved" as we read, watch, and listen, and if we "pledge our word" and "assume an obligation" when we speak, write, post, text, or create, then perhaps all of this velocity, all of this ever increasing exchange has magical, fantastical, and dimension (or at least paradigm) shifting potential.

Peace.

Inspiration....

2008-03-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

I am inspired. My new friend from the library, the author of the blog Social Change in Mind, check it out at http://socialchangeinmind.blogspot.com/, is moving forward on his idea for a showcase of homeless and unemployed folks' talent. He's making it happen, and it will probably be in June or July, so keep your eyes peeled if you live in Western Massachusetts. I'm inspired, because its great to see someone with an idea and passion who can then figure out how to make the logistics happen, even if he or she has do to do it on their own. Me, I find it hard to be creative without structure. Not that I don't have creative ideas--I have a crazy list of them always growing in my mind, on scraps of paper, in computer files. But without deadlines, workshops, classes, requirements of a job, formal requests from a friend or committee, a call for papers or proposals. conferences (you get the picture) I find it really hard to follow through. Not my new friend from the library. Cheers to Social Change in Mind man!

These days I spend my time reading, transcribing, and thinking and writing about 17th century Mexican Inquisition documents. I do this because I am passionate about learning about the lives of women who lived in this time and place and this is one of the very few good ways of learning about them. I am not, however, all that passionate about Inquisition documents, and its getting a little tiresome. I find myself spending more hours than I should indulging my fascination with Quantum physics, metaphysical, and esoteric philosophies and spiritual theory (is there such a thing as spiritual theory? It seems so to me. Right up there with spiritual politics.) But the other day I finally made my way into my "art corner" and what I found was incredible.

I can't claim to be an artist, but I have always had an art corner. Every house I have lived in, I have carted my baskets and boxes of strange clippings, collections, and crap that I save for possible collage projects or other fantasy ideas I have. When I move in, I lovingly arrange my plastic drawers full of paint, glue, pencils, brushes, and the rest of my very hodgepodge and incomplete artistic tool kit. But in every house that I have lived in, I have probably spent less then two weeks collectively, actually using these things.

My mother is an artist. She is a dancer by spirit and an amazing one, but she has branched out in the last 20 years to translate her dance in both words and visual mediums. She's a wonderful painter, and now she is in this wildly creative place where she turns everything into art. She does giant collages and uses coffee filters and take-out boxes to make the most beautiful pieces of magic. She inspires me, and when I go home, we sometimes have art days. After a visit home about 6 months ago, I came back to Northampton and stocked up my art corner with all kinds of new things. I also made my art corner the most beautiful one I have had in any previous house.

But ask me how much time I have spent in it? Since August, I have visited it about once a week. Visited. To say hello, admire the possibilities, and think about how I would like to spend more time there. But I have not created one damn thing.

Until the other day. Sitting at my computer (or rather easing up to it from the side, hoping it didn't see me so that I would still have time to escape) I suddenly bolted out of my chair and ran up the stairs to my art corner. Once up there, I found that I didn't have the materials for the task I had in mind, but I didn't care. I made do. It was less important that the finished product be good, or be anything at all, actually, than that I follow the impulse RIGHT THEN, before it faded behind the thought "I don't really know what to do," or "I'll come back to this some other time," or "I don't have what I need, but I'll get it, and then I will make a regular 'art hour' where I always do art, right along with my regular exercise hour, meditation hour, writing hour, etc etc." (Ask me how many of these regular hours I regularly attend with any regularity!)

So I made do with what I had, and it was incredible. I found myself, for probably about 40 minutes, completely absorbed in what my eyes and hands were doing and in the wonderfully messy and disorganized materials. Once I was done, I spent only a second considering the final product (something with wax paper, tissue paper, some leaves, tassels, glue, water, and paint.) My impression was of the kind of art created by ambitious kindergarteners. But this is really not the point. The point is, that for a brief period of time, I was caught in the rush of unplanned, unstructured creativity. And it was FUN.

Thats my thought for the day. Inspiration. Pass it on.

New England late winter

2008-02-29T09:21:00.000-08:00

Now its cold! Its 15 degrees in march, and that is just wrong, says my California mind. But I am not, of course, in California anymore. I am in Northampton, Massachusetts, where I have been living since August. I was very much like many northern California folks, particularly those of us from the SF Bay Area, who quietly or not so quietly thought that other places were great to visit, but that pretty much no where else could compete for permanent residence--as long as you could stomach paying two thirds of your income to rent. Now after 6 months, and three fourths of the way through the winter, I gotta admit my former California arrogance. Yes, its cold, (and I don't like being cold) and yes, there are many things I miss about the place I call home, but you know what? Its gorgeous here.

I've never agreed that California doesn't have seasons--I love the subtle changes in Northern California and can tell the difference between the mid-fall crisp but sunny day and the early spring skin-warming glow with a still slightly chilly breeze. Nonetheless, the sheer drama of the seasons here are stunning. And since winter seems to be the longest season, I am learning about the subtle changes within these months, at least as they played themselves out this year.

November is the tricky, sometimes fall, and sometimes snowstorm time. December treats you to regular winter wonderland days but then warms up and melts it all away a few days later. January gets bitter cold and snows a lot and provides a layer of snow that hardens into an icy foundation for future powder layers. February can be described in one word: unpredictable. 8 degree days that are bright and sunny are immediately followed by 40 degree days and heavy rains, 25-30 degree stretches that include snow storms are followed by 45 degree days when it all melts.

And now, entering into March, I'm experiencing my first "late winter" phenomenon. Somehow it looks like fall a bit. The trees are putting forth these rust colored things (blossoms? leaves? What are they?) and swarms of robins brave the cold. But I know that last year the worst storms were in mid-March, and we are due a big one in a couple of days, so I may have to revise this March description once I am through it. In the meantime, its bright and sunny with blue, blue skies, but freezing at 17 degrees.

There are other interesting differences, culturally speaking, between California and Massachusetts--too many to mention, here--and differences between even the tiny states of New England. One thing that I have found that I wasn't fully expecting, is that New England is nothing like New York. This is not news to either New Yorkers or New Englanders, but the difference for me was striking after hearing everyone talk about east and west coast cultures writ large.

It is true that neither New England, nor New York (nor Washington DC, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or New Jersey, for that matter) is like Northern California, but New York was easier for me to adjust to, and in fact the differences seem complementary to me. Some of my favorite people are transplants from NYC to SF, or from SF to NYC, and that is because the cultural combinations that result are quite lovely. But New England is a different animal. It takes more translation and work at deciphering people's modes of expression. The end result is worth it, but I often feel like a fish out of water speaking a foreign language.

The toughest thing for me to get used to here is people's general reserve. I find that with most people, I never really know how they feel about me or what I am saying. In California people are either warm and sincere, falsely warm ( or fake and sappy, in other words) or grumpy. In New York, people are how they are, but however that may be, they don't try to hide it. In New England, its more like people dole out their affection and affirmation in small and carefully guarded doses.

Its not that people aren't kind. They are. I just really have a tough time reading them. Knowing whether I am irritating someone and I ought to take my conversation elsewhere, or whether she or he is actually enjoying my company has never been more difficult! I honestly find that my intuition is less effective here than in many other countries and parts of the world much farther away from California than Massachusetts.

One last thought on this last point: people here rarely hug. Nor do they do much cheek kissing, which I find a perfectly good alternative to hugging. I am both a cheek-kisser and a hugger, depending on my cultural context, the person I'm greeting or saying goodbye to, and everyone's general comfort level. But here, people who are friends just say hi and bye with waves of the hand and no physical contact.

I was startled to find how much that affected me! I felt bereft and odd, like something had been skipped over and we were all left with the awkward tension of something un-said. After a while, I just started announcing that I was a hugger and offering hugs in at least some hello and goodbye moments. To my surprise, I found was that most people loved it! Which added to the feeling that people here are not cold and unfeeling in any way, but just slightly held back--and oh lets just say it--a little bit repressed! Now I know that California can be fake, and that people can take themselves way too seriously with very little sense of irony and extreme sensitivity, and I am not saying that repressed is any worse or better than that. But I am saying that I've noticed here, of all places, how shaped I have been my my local culture and its modes of expressions, and that I really like a good, sincere, hug and plenty of expressions of lovey, gushy, affirmation. (I have now graduated to cheek kissing with every hello and hugs only sometimes, and everyone is still going along with the plan!

This long discussion of climate, cultures, seems oddly out of place with the other things on my mind. The elections race on, full of spoken and unspoken tensions, shaped by racism, xenophobia, and misogyny. Castro has stepped down and Cuba is facing a very tenuous and unknown future. And the war rages on. Global events seem increasingly high pitched in recent weeks, but I don't know what to say about those things, so I leave you with a late winter image from western Massachusetts: This morning I walked to work and passed a previously dead looking tree now full of these strange rust and brown foliage that looks like something perfect for a dried table arrangement. And as I passed by, the tree exploded in chirping and flying as scores of fat red bellied robins sprung out of the branches and flew straight up, before circling around haphazardly and returning to their branches. Where did they come from, and where have they been all winter? And how do they keep warm with all the snow on the ground in 17 degree weather?

I'm looking forward to early spring!

History

2006-02-15T21:09:00.000-08:00

February and very, very cold. I'm writing from Redwood City, where I found that affordable rent I called out for in my last posting. My partner, my kitty, and I are now cuddled up in a cute, but small and cold apartment. I spent January and the first week of February in Mexico and still have some unpacking to do. I am behind schedule for submitting a conference paper, so it seemed like a great time to write in my long neglected blog.

I'm a historian in training so I think alot about the records of life--the records created by individuals, groups, events, cities, activities--these kinds of records. I personally work with old manuscripts--mostly from the 17th and 18th centuries. My personal favorites are the ones that come bound in beautiful leather, but many of them are faded, worm eaten, scorched, or water damaged. In general, however, they are pretty damn well preserved given how long they have been around and what they have been through. At any rate, I think all the time about how different the records of our lives is and will be: online journals, discussion boards, all of the electronic forums for expression---such a rich and extensive record, unlike anything we have had before, of the thoughts of so many people--but will there be anyway to access it? Will much of it last? In 50 years, 100 years, will there be anyway for historians to know about what we imagined, felt, and did? Even institutional records are disappearing--online job applications, resumes, portfolios, company records, databases....... I'm not bemoaning the loss of paper trails, though I do love paper. I'm just very curious about what people with my job will do in the future.

I'm curious....What do you all think about history? When you think of the word history, what do you think of? I would ask more specific questions, but I don't want to limit your answers. I have lots of thoughts and I have lots of experience with people with thoughts very different from mine, but I won't share any of that just yet, because I don't want to influence the responses. Share, share, share.....

Batman in a bottle

2005-06-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

Long time no blog! I have not quite resolved the indulgence question I wrote about in my first blog and as a result, I have not told ANYONE about the fact that I have a webpage. My fantasy was that strangers would simply stumble upon it in their web surfing and someone might enjoy what I had to say or at least check out some of the eclectic links I put on the page. But months later, my page still doesn´t turn up in any google searches, so how could anyone find it? I suppose I should let people know about it, though I`m not particularly interested in writing for my friends, really. Or rather, I`m not particularly interested in making my busy and already over-stimulated friends feel obligated to read what I write. Its an online journal, anyways, not great poetry--not so far anyway.

There is also something appealing about writing into the abyss. Its like the appeal of putting a letter into a bottle and sending it out to sea. The idea that someone somewhere might discover it and in the meantime, the joy of expressing yourself without any particular audience in mind, but still to someone other than yourself. Its more gratifying than an imaginary friend, but less pressure than knowing for whom you are writing.

Today I write from Mexico City again. My time here is coming to a close. In August I will relocate my favorite sheets to somewhere in the bay area. (Affordable rent anyone?) I will return to D.F. for a month in October, again in January, and probably spend next summer here as well, but they will be visits. August marks the end of almost two years of having my primary residence be in Mexico City. Its very hard to believe that its been so long.

I write today just to touch back in to the hypothetical if not imaginary cybercommunity that I am a part of, not because I have anything particularly important to say. But don´t let this fool you, gentle readers, someday soon I will overwhelm you with profundity. For now I will end with a pop culture thought I recently had--or rather a question for those who know much more about DC Comics than I do. tTere is nteresting stuff going on about social class in our three classic heros--Superman, Spiderman, and Batman, is there not? Both spiderman and superman were adopted by people not their biological parents and raised in humble circumstances but with lots of love. Both of their best friends who become their arch-enemy are rich kids with no mothers and sociopath fathers they can never please. Batman reverses this, however, in that the heroe is a twist on the rich philanthropist. He is an orphan, however, and feels responsible for the death of his parents, just as Spiderman feels responsible for the death of his Uncle Ben. hmmmm.... Any thoughts?

Signing off now. With fierce love and anger, hopes against hopes for peace, and solidarity in your efforts to transform the madness.

The skill of irony and the life of sea otters

2005-04-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

My favorite blogs--though the blogging thing is very new to me--are those with a high level of intelligent irony and sarcasm. A good example of this is the website belonging to an old friend of mine, (though we have not spoken in years) My First Mine. I love a good wry wit, but the truth is, its not my strong suit. My own mode of expression tends toward the hyper sincere bordering on melodramatic. Occasionally I can sling a good parody, but even then, the humor is closer to camp. Only when I am truly in a rage am I very skilled at sarcasm. Among my sarcastic friends , I think I'm sortof like a Mary Poppins--kinda dorky, a little annoying, but somehow still catchy and endearing.

In our current political and social climate, I do suppose there's a place for all of it--irony, sarcasm, dry wit, parody, hyper sincerity, camp, simplicity, earnest proclamations, exaggeration--but there is a particular excellence to the words of those friends of mine truly skilled in irony. Heather Murphy wins the prize for me--she has always wielded the perfect combination of playful wit and twisted humor. Lovely. And of course there is the said author of the above mentioned website--Justin Foster. Those who know him know I need say no more. I should also mention an old musician friend who had an excellent song he called "meat comes down from the pockets of God." For all of you with this particular talent, hats off to you--you are truly cool.

But for those of us without it, its really better not to fake it. I've never been cool and that will just have to do. I'm more like Tigger than rabbit (or as my partner's sister calls me"Christopher Robin on crack"--I think its meant as a compliment.) I've been called "puckish" (as in midsummer night's dream's Puck, who actually, come to think of it, knew how to mix irony and the magical fantastic) and my partner says that if I was an animal, I would be a sea otter. I must admit, I really love being that way.

Hey, did you all know that in March, Mexico City is filled with blooming Jacarandai trees? Its incredible--streets lined with brilliant purple. Breathtaking. You should come see it. But then, nowhere beats Sonoma County in April, in my humble opinion....

Thirty three

2005-04-24T22:42:00.000-07:00

Maybe its turning thirty three, or maybe its having lived between Mexico City and the Bay Area for nearly a year and a half now. My own website never before appealed to me--posting my ramblings for all the world to see--too strange. But lately I've read things in people's online journals that make me think, laugh, and shake my head so vigorously...... For some reason I find myself here, shyly naming a website, choosing a template, posting my first rambling.... Its so easy, I had no idea one could create an on line journal or communication thread without having to devote hours.

The specter of self indulgence is what gives me pause here--though I enjoy other people's thoughts and rarely think of self indulgence when I read them. Curiosity is what nudges me along. Perhaps this will prove a space in which I say things that might matter to someone. Perhaps I might learn more about what the thing I call self indulgence means.

At first I wrote Audre's full quote as the heading for this webpage, but seeing those words in first person below my name was far too humbling--I can not fill the shoes they would have me stand in. When I read or hear those words, it is from the person she was, and they are my inspiration, they call me to something that as of yet I am far from: "When I dare to be powerful--to use my strength in the service of my vision, it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."

...and for now, the goal is for much more to become less and less important: whether I am afraid, what others think of me when I'm doing my best, what I know and need to prove to you, whether I win, whether I convince you.......all of these less and less important so I have time and energy to do and say more of what matters more and more.