Words for a moment when there simply are none.
For there is nothing heavier than compassion.
Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone,
a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes. ~ Milan Kundera
There are some things that are so horrible and awful and terrible, that they don’t ever seem real. Until they are real. And even now when they are real, I find myself continuously being drawn back to a place of suspended animation and disbelief. That this reality cannot actually be real. But it is real. And it is horrible and awful and there are simply no words in any language that can impart the kind of raw, visceral sadness I am speaking of.
I woke up today for the third time since a permanent shift occurred in the reality I inhabit. And the cats wanted food, and the sun came up, and the people went to work, me among them. As I sat on the train, knowing I would soon be riding the same train back to the City with 50 tenth graders, I read the news. I wanted to read about news really far away from me. From places where terrible, awful things happen all the time and so they don’t seem like such incomprehensible aberrations. And the first thing I read was about how this month is National Stalking Awareness Day. I am fairly certain in this context the focus is on internet stalking, but the connection between cyber-stalking and real stalking is too real for me. Especially now.
There are a litany of self-aggrandizing idiots on the internet who consider themselves “internet-famous” (a euphemism for being NOT famous…) and as such are constantly blubbering on and on about how they are “stalked.” These people post photos of their boobs all over the interwebs, try desperately hard to be titillating… and then cry, “Oh my! That person thinks I want to talk sexy with them!” Or, “God, that person is so obsessed with me!” In light of what it really means to be stalked, and what is on my mind today, these sad little people only add insult to the injury I am feeling right now. The things that lead a person to stalk another are probably impossible to be understood by any other, but when the outcome leads to tragedy, it points to a whole host of problems that have far-reaching effects. And when the tragedy touches you in a deeply personal way, you find yourself trying to make sense of things that make no sense and becoming enraged about pitiful people you don’t know or care about on the internet while you ride the train to work because to think about the pain that is really weighing on your heart and soul is so awful you cannot even breathe when it enters your mind.
I need to breathe.
We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who’s right and who’s wrong. We do that with the people who are closest to us and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don’t like about our associates or our society. It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others… Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground.”
~Pema Chödrön
Looking for explanations for the inexplicable is probably a road straight to insanity, but it is something I keep coming back to. It also leads to assigning false causality to minutia, and to conjecture, and to blame. I wanted to place this overwhelming grief onto someone else for the simple relief that anger might offer. For a moment I felt better.
But the relief was short-lived.
The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive. ~John Greene
The events that transpired in my hometown on Sunday afternoon, to people who I have known and loved for so many years, have left me and this small town adrift. That a family who I hold so dear in my heart and who have had a tremendous influence on my life are going through something so horrible is unconscionable. It is unfair. It is enough to engender feelings of anger that I was unprepared to deal with. But the worse I was feeling, and the more wound up in anger I became, I realized I was only adding to the horror of this situation. And compassion and forgiveness might be the only way I can regain some sort of balance in my mind. I do not have to forgive an individual who I have always struggled with for being who they were, but perhaps as the only way to quell the negativity within my mind, I would have to forgive them for this final act, if only as a small act of compassion towards such an injured person. This forgiveness actually felt quite selfish. I was doing it only for myself and simultaneously felt wracked with guilt for attempting to forgive.
But I kept thinking about it. In forgiving one person, I was not minimizing the other. Nor was I excusing the behavior of that individual, in recent times or further back. What I was trying to do was realign my energy to focus on the people for whom I am intensely grieving. And then, strangely, I started to feel a bit better.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle. ~ Plato
As I look back on the life of my friend who has been taken away, the interconnectedness of all of us becomes so painfully clear, and not just because we come from a small town, but because the lives we live have far-reaching effects in wonderfully positive ways, as well as some that are terribly tragic. To try to understand why things happen after the fact is futile. There is no way to truly understand what you watch from any sort of distance, really you would be lucky to have a clear understanding of things you directly experience.
There are no words I can offer right now to a family I wish nothing more for than relief and peace. A family that has always welcomed me, and remembered me, and supported me no matter what. And to the friends I have on all sides of this tragedy, I feel equally helpless. Perhaps for these reasons I find myself here, writing in vagaries and tangents. Though it is little compensation I am sure, I turn now to another great mind:
To know even one life as breathed easier because you have lived… this is to have succeeded. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Please give if you can: Conover & Sullivan Childeren
*photo: Curtis Stankalis
Family: The unfamiliar is so familiar.
my daddy was a bankrobber
but he never hurt nobody
he just loved to live that way
and he loved to steal your money
Everyone has their own narrative about their family. The story a person tells about their family really tells you very little about their family, but it opens the book on them. The idiosyncrasies one chooses to emphasize, to hide. The funny tales everyone can relate to that thinly veil the truths no one wants to admit they all understand.
Family is fraught.
Family is familiar.
Family is beautiful in dysfunction.
Family is tragically supportive.
Family is dynamic – though we tell the tales in stasis.
There is safety in a familiar narrative but it belies reality. And reality simply waits for you to show up so it can remind you of all that exists beyond your story. My narrative has always had a penchant for the dramatic, some might even say melodrama. My narrative has always had a tendency to over-emphasize the fragility of others and forget that the people from which I come are strong, in every way, even weakness. My narrative has created an anxiety that has no place in my reality. My reality has always been underscored by a complicated but beautiful fabric of love.
When you jump into your narrative you remember things like this.
Yesterday, I jumped.
It is never as hard as I think it will be.
<3 and sushi.
And very merry Christmas.
Rule #1: Be sure you are not placed on the end of any group photo.
My parents recently moved back to the area. Apparently the true 1%ers they have spent a lifetime trying not to be, they are now going to be snowbirds, (of a sort, still choosing rather atypical resting points.) As this move was getting closer everyone was asking me about it: Was I excited? Did I want to be closer to them? Was it going to be ‘too close’? I never really thought much about my answers. Of course I was glad, I have not lived within a reasonable driving distance of my parents since 1988 – at which point we were still living together. And after more than five years of a minimum of 18 hours of travel time to see them, I have been looking forward to easier parental access. Haven’t I?
Plus, if you know my parents, they are kind of The Shit.
Anyhow, along come the holidays… always an ass-kicking time at work and the days don’t just seem shorter because of the dark, I am convinced they really are shorter. Add to that, the family equation and life just gets busy. But it’s cool you know.
It makes for good material.
Unfortunately mom has taken to proclaiming that I am not allowed to write about certain things. Like my family. I can’t always tell which family things will get the kibosh and which will be okay, it seems kind of random. Okay, that is not entirely true, but I have to say I was getting seriously censored for a while. But, the way I am looking at it, their locality puts them back on the front page. I was willing to let slide many an opportune tale while they were up North, but now their mountain hiatus has come to an end.
So.
I will make little mention of the navigational skill of the Ways-ie App, or my step-dad’s triple-protected new-new iPhone. I’m going to jump right into my Bridget Jones montage. [The Back to Future remake will be for a later installment.]
That pretty much sums it up. For the second time in two weeks, I was completely mal-attired and borrowing clothes in order to not be simply ridiculous – though as my aunt says, at least I did not show up in a bunny costume.
But barely. Visualize, if you will, my arrival: Jeans (7 for All Mankind, but still: JEANS) and motorcycle boots. And a cute black t-shirt. And I walk in and see my grandma all dressed up. For high tea in honor of her birthday with all of the ladies.
There were petit fours on the table for goodness sake.
I thought it was weird that my uncle wondered why I wasnt carrying anything with me when he picked me up at the train station. And my aunt asked me if I needed to hang anything up. I definitely did not get the memo. Suffice it to say that one more day would be spent in a state of awkward dress. [The irony that I spent years cultivating awkward style for family events is not lost on me. A particular outfit of blue and black plaid pants, blue suede boots, a fuchsia over-sized button down shirt over long-sleeved thermals and a fedora comes to mind.]
Back to now, the afternoon moved along into the evening… everyone else was dressed totally appropriately, not that I want to harp on this, or anything, but any thoughts that my Bridget moments were finished would be incorrect.
“So, do you have a love in your life?” I was asked.
“Umm, no, not at the moment.”
“Oh, the last time we saw each other I think you were with someone.”
“Yes, yes I was.” I say. [I want to say, 'Yes, #3. He was the one who went to jail and led to Rule #1. What is Rule #1? See that picture over there? You see how it looks like I have a hand growing out of my abdomen? Yes, that is the effect of Rule #1: never find yourself on the end of any group photo. Excising (or exorcising) of anyone is made far too easy if you are on the end. That is what happened to #3. And you should see us jockey for position in the group photos these days.']
I don’t say that.
“That can’t be the granddaughter?”
“Oh, no, this is A, not K…”
“Ahh, I see I knew it hadn’t been that long!”
In discussing my work with a really amazing couple they tell me they are in a Current Events Group, and that it is really fun “because everyone is a [whispers] Democrat.” I smile and explain that if it were not that way, “group” might not be the correct noun. “We probably shouldn’t talk about politics,” she whispers, shh-ing me.
Sitting down to eat, my step-dad and I get to talking. Somehow my (lack of a) love life comes up again. I am not bothered by this conversation, I know the discussion comes from a place of concern… or maybe that is the wrong word, but I am sure my parents just want for me what they’ve got. And truth be told, what they’ve got is awesome. But, still… I don’t really know why I why I don’t meet many people and etcetera and etcetera. [Not totally true: I don't meet people because I work all the time and because most people my age [who are not categorically dysfunctional or insane] are happily married to rad people, or gay.]
By the end of the evening, my clothes faux pas (and my neglect in remembering to bring my camera), my obvious singleness, and my concern over mom being angsty about all of the above had faded. Partaking in a marathon goodbye (the length of the goodbye seems directly proportional to proximity) none of it seemed to matter. I was getting a ride home from my parents and the weekend was still young. I made a call to see about going out.
Maybe some things really are meant to stay the same.
Just be sure to get to the middle when the group photos commence.
I Love L.A., Part Five: “We love it we love it we love it!”
Century Boulevard – We love it!
Victory Boulevard – We love it!
Santa Monica Boulevard – We love it!
Sixth Street – We love it, we love it, we love it!!
We love L.A!
I get up early now. I do not know how or when this change occurred, and I don’t mind that much, except for the part about how I still stay up really late. Anyhow, up early on this occasion was okay. I was getting a ride back to Hollywood in time for brunch. My aunt was totally cool to make the drive, especially since Carmageddon had been such a bunch of baloney, and Malibu takes a few hours to be beach ready anyhow. The Malibu surprise had been epic on many levels, and my work there was done. And I was going to be eating some brunch with a side of magic, apparently.
When A first told me they were staying at The Magic Castle, I was nonplussed (and I mean this in the vein of the actual meaning of the word, not that I was unfazed, which apparently many people believe that word means.) Why not The Roosevelt? A explained that with the entire A-Team in tow, The Roosevelt wouldn’t be ideal. Fair enough. And, why I am at all surprised that anything A plans is not entirely thought out just shows my forgetful nature (this is the girl who shows up at music festivals with coded spreadsheets of the bands. For real.) The hotel was great. And by great I mean, generous, friendly, and insanely tolerant. I give them an excellent rating for customer service, location, and chillness. On Saturday morning, I was greeted by Dr. I (aka Mr. A) bearing a Bloody Mary. Nice start. Showers and outfits done and we were ready to get things going.
Come on, you know you want to go.
I Love L.A., Part Four: “Look at these women!”
Look at that mountain
Look at those trees
Look at that bum over there, man
He’s down on his knees
Look at these women
There ain’t nothin’ like em nowhere
I met my aunt at the Vanilla Bake Shop in Santa Monica. Let me just tell you, if you are in the greater LA area and you need a cake – of any kind – go here. Epic. The staff, the cakes and the whole vibe is just perfect. I sat and had a coffee while getting (slightly illegal) text updates from my aunt about how there was absolutely no traffic on the 405. #Winning. When she got there our excitement levels started to rise because my aunt generally increases the excitement level whenever and where ever she might be, and the bakery peeps were getting excited too, (I had told them what we were up to. That earned me a free cupcake. #Winning) The cake weighed a ton, but we managed to heft a couple of bottles of champagne along with it…
Where were we headed you ask? Well, let me tell you.
Another holiday that serves to stir up some confusion, but in the end, it is about gratitude.
Father’s Day (more correctly meant to be written Fathers’ Day) lands squarely on the third Sunday in June every year. Today is that day. It should be a fairly uncomplicated concept: a reciprocal day to match Mother’s Day occurring a month or so prior, and honoring… Thy Father. But, it is not so simple. Not because I have uncertain parentage, or horrifying “Daddy Issues”, or because “it takes a village…” But more because I have been truly blessed with good parents, of the mother and father types. To specify a single day to recognize this seems like a very trite, and narrow, sentiment.
Still, for those of you who do know me, you may know why the day brings up issues for me that do not parallel the feelings I have surrounding Mother’s Day. [I have an alpha-momma, and I recognize and honor her everyday.] But I have two very different men who share responsibility for me. I hope they are okay with this… I have tried to make them both proud.
I have a dad. He reminds me of this song. I know him – really know him, and acknowledge him and appreciate him. I love him.
But I also have a step-dad. I hate that term, it is so… secondary. And my step-dad is not. He reminds me of this song. Don’t ask, somethings just are what they are. (T, I resisted using Edith Piaf, you can thank me later.) Though I put him through the paces that all (or maybe not all, but at least the strong-willed among us) six-year olds would, he stuck around. Always. In every possible way. And I know him and acknowledge him and appreciate him. I love him.
There is no way that I could have, or would have ever, in a million incarnations or efforts, become the person I am today without either of these men, though obviously through completely different contributions and means.
And so here I sit. Amidst a slew of cards that have never ever reflected any bit of what I have seen as “fatherly.” Ties? The Home/Office Depot™? Golf? Beer with the dudes? Who has these kinds of dads? Hallmark™, WTF are you even talking about?
In gratitude…
Last weekend a large part of my family got together to honor my grandma who passed away this past January. At what could have been a completely somber event I found myself surrounded by a family – immeidate and extended – that resonated everything that my grandmother always had.
I am so grateful for her. For everything that she brought to my life: the people, the wisdom, the love, the compassion, the smiles.
And for a sunny day in LA, the exact kind that drew her west from Detroit, we remembered her.
And we thanked her – we thank her – for everything.
Love you, grandma.
and happy birthday mom, this one is for you. xoxo
Do you realize??
Do you realize
That you have the most beautiful face?
Do you realize
We’re floating in space?
I couldn’t help looking across the aisle at the two UMs. They were not traveling together, but because they were UMs they were, of course, set right next to each other. I wondered if they were going from one parent to another parent. Or maybe they were going home from their grandparents’ house. I looked at their quiet faces and the big, awkward UM tags the airlines still hang around their necks. It seemed somehow perfect that I was flying from LAX to SFO, still Unattended, though no longer a Minor, going home from my Grandma’s house for the last time.
How many times had I made this flight, back in the day on PSA, with my UM tags? There would be no way to count. Every summer practically from birth I found myself in The Valley with my grandparents. I think I started making the trip on my own when I was five or six. I continued to go throughout my college career and beyond. But this weekend I had not flown down to The Valley, I had gone to Santa Fe. And this was a different kind of visit. I did everything I could to try to get to Santa Fe to see my Grandma Joan. But I was too late. Or maybe I wasn’t. It is so hard to tell sometimes.
Do you realize
That happiness makes you cry?
The entire weekend was temporally elastic, rubbery, vague, anachronistic… much like the entire experience of Alzheimer’s in many ways. Not all bad. But sad. Sitting in the airport in Albuquerque with my Uncle Patrick and my Aunt Kay today we could not even remember what day it was. When had we arrived? When had we heard? How long had we been here? It was all so surreal.
Only January 17. Just seventeen days into the new year and so much has happened.
it came upon a midnight clear…
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. ~William Blake, 1790
Christmas Eve, Sandpoint, Idaho -
Last year I said I would be home for Christmas. And here I am. Though I have my moments of missing Hong Kong, this would not be one of them. I am knee-deep in Americana up in the North Woods. For real. There is a big old moon (just past full for that impressive lunar eclipse caught so wonderfully in the Petaluma sky by my friend Gabe) and snow on the ground. It is sparkly inside and out. It is warm inside. And I am with the core of my family – the epicenter as it were: the nuclear group.
Things are as they should be.
And what of Christmas Eve? A walk down the snowy road returning to alpenglow and meeting a friend lighting ice lanterns [luminaria in the Norwegian tradition, imagine his dismay to realize his discovery a centuries old tradition, though none the less spectacular for its prior existence] at the end of the lane. These lanterns are so beautiful and fragile and temporary. This must be what makes them so spectacular.
Thank you very very much.
Last year a friend from home suggested posting something on your chosen social media outlet, for which you were thankful everyday in November up until Thanksgiving. I took the bait. I was going to be working through my fifth Turkey-free holiday in Hong Kong. Literally. Working. Straight. Through. In fact, the week of Thanksgiving tended to generate some of my busiest work days. It sucked. But the act of consciously contemplating what I was thankful for was really cool.
This year everything has shifted for me. And even though I did not do daily posts about what I am grateful for, I certainly have been aware of my gratitude. The way 2010 shook down for me was nothing short of amazing. Do not make the foolish assumption that this means it was easy; but phenomenal shit doesn’t really seem like it should come easy, now does it?
This year I am so thankful that I get to spend the holidays with my family for the first time since 2004 – or maybe even 2003. That is too long to go without a family holiday, no matter how crazy (wonderful) or unpredictable (interesting) your family might be. We have had some doozies too. Some high/low-lights include:
- Wisdom teeth removal over Senior year Christmas and looking like a total chipmunk, and my last with Willy.
- Santa Fe, 1989 – “The Driest Christmas I’ve Ever Had” [Thank you Frances] add to that the vomit, drugs and Gramma ordering eggs it was pure holiday bliss.
- Every Thanksgiving my dad’s ex-wife cooked for: NO ONE LIKED YOUR OYSTER STUFFING. DEAL WITH IT.
- Tofurky at Bodega Harbour.
- And many many more – but in the interest of protecting the semi-innocent…
This year I am so glad that I will not be working through the day and calling my family from 15,000 miles away and a day late to play pass the receiver and wistfully dream of the food.
And how did I get here? Most of you know the story. I wanted it all to happen. And it did. I keep hearing all these people bitch about everything from the gigantic things totally out of their control to the minutia that they have created for themselves and I wonder, have they never taken the words of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama who tells us in no uncertain terms: “If you have fear of some pain or suffering, you should examine whether there is anything you can do about it. If you can, there is no need to worry about it; if you cannot do anything, then there is also no need to worry.” And when they say they are not worried they are just pointing out how lame everything is, you gotta wonder why there is nothing better going on up there. At least you could be Alfred E. Newman about it and STFU.
The other day at the beginning of my yoga practice the instructor asked us to identify and share something that we love in our life. One person said cappuccino. Another said her job. I thought for a minute and the only answer I could think of just came out:
“Everything.”
I love everything about my life.
Again, I would reassure you that I am not some daft Pollyanna about this and I do not think that my life is perfect, but at the same time, there is not one part of it that I do not love. I really could not think of one thing. And the more gratitude I acknowledged the more obviously rad my life appeared.
Through a rather pragmatic lens, one has to ask, what is the alternative: bitching? To what end? My BFF quit Twitter this year because she said that she was just sick to death of the negativity and the bitching. I was a little surprised. When my mom began to share more of her spiritual practice with me, I remember being very concerned that she was no longer going to be funny (a key element of her multi-faceted personality) if she was all concerned about being so bloody nice. I understand both of them now. When I look around and see how everyone is just so bent on waiting for the next week, month, year, job, boyfriend, girlfriend, carping on every situation, circumstance, potentiality… they are missing not only the point, they are missing the opportunity to live. And really? They are not that witty either. Just redundant. Plus, I have it on good authority, when shit goes wonky… it’s hard to know who to blame.
And so, yeah, that sounds totally all hyperbolic and syrupy sweet. But really, I am not worried about it. I am just acknowledging.
- I am thankful for my family and being able to spend time with them
- I am thankful that I have a job that I love
- I am thankful that I have a place to live that I adore in a city I love even more
- I am thankful for the ability to afford to do the things I want to do
- I am thankful for the teachers in my life who manifest in very surprising forms
- I am thankful for my friends right here and around the world
- I am thankful for the love of my small, bossy cat
- I am thankful for plenty of good food
- I am thankful for a body that does all the things I want it to
- I am thankful for 40 years of a life so interesting
- I am thankful for the shit which has made me stronger, but not bitter
- I am thankful for the opportunities that I have had and then ones that will come
Happy Thanksgiving.
Do you miss it?
If the way that you need
Is too much like greed
Decide if you are rich or you’re poor
I went to a wedding the other day, or rather a wedding reception, for a friend who is more like family than friend. I went with my own parents and the parents of one of my oldest friends who are more like than family than friends too. Chelsea Clinton got married that day too, I heard. Poor kid probably had a lot more headaches than we did out under blue skies and oak trees where I used to suffer through cross-country races back when I was doing anything I could to win the approval of my high school coach. We were headache free.
The people at this party were people I have known (had known?) since before I was able to construct complex sentences or form lucid memories. There is something wonderfully visceral about being around people who you know this well, or at least that you knew well enough at a certain point that the relationship is somehow indelible. It’s nice. These relationships are like Sharpie markers; eternally satisfying.
I caught up with people I had not seen in enough years that they seemed to have gone from first grade to adult in one fell swoop. The kids I babysat had kids. The aunties and the uncles seemed more relaxed, perhaps a little more grey (who isn’t if they don’t have a hair guy like me) and the parents were free to not be.
Of course I faced the questions that one expects after statement, “I just returned from five years in Asia,” comes out. I am getting pretty good at answering a lot of these questions, most of which I have no real answer for… But one of them has been coming up a little more these days:
“Do you miss it?”
I suppose that is to do with the fact that I have now been home a month and the questions about where I am going to live or about work must seem kind of uninteresting when there is no ready reply – or perhaps people feel badly for me that I’ve yet to work that out, I am not sure. Either way, the question of the day was whether or not there was anything I missed about Hong Kong.
I thought about this. In concrete terms, aside from my friends over there, I gotta say: Nope. This may change, but at the moment, it is categorical. But there are things less tangible that are gone, like that certain flair that comes with saying you live overseas… imagined or not, I always felt flair-worthy when I said it. And there is also the loss of the built-in caveat for all commitments that has to do with the reality that every visit may be the last visit – for a very long time. But honestly, that fact remains regardless of one’s location if you want to look at things as a matter of fact. So, those are the sort of ego-stroking possibilities that are no longer there. But in terms of anything else?
If I had to pick something – one thing – that I miss about Hong Kong it has to be the ease with which I could leave Hong Kong. Ironic? Not exactly: HK is the pinnacle of hubs for travel around Asia in my opinion. Somehow, (is it magic?) it seems like everywhere is 2.5 hours away from Hong Kong. I don’t know how that can be possible, and I’ll grant you Bali is 5, but seriously… I am going to miss going to Thailand for the weekend. Or Vietnam. Or Japan. Or Shanghai. You see my point.
Otherwise, as I felt in Hong Kong, I feel pretty good to be right here, right now. Because you know, if the way that you need is too much like greed… it is all down hill from there.
Just ask Boy George.
Online Suicide. [Don't get emo - it is not what you might be thinking.]
I made a decision last week to delete both my MySpace and my Facebook accounts. I had been thinking about it for a while for myriad reasons, but every time I considered it, I came up with a reason not to do it: But, I have all those photos on there… But, how will I know about all those ‘events’… But, what if that ONE person I MUST meet is on there… But, what if I miss something really, really, really cool…
Yeah, right.
I spent a lot of time as an adolescent worrying about missing shit. Like, if you were not somewhere, something amazing might happen. This caused me tremendous stress the one time I was put on “restriction” by my mother for antics that had gone just a few steps too far. My mom decided that I would be on “restriction” and this meant that I had to be home by 9 pm on weekdays (you know, all those nights spent at the Petaluma Public Library – working so hard…) and I could only go out one night on the weekend with a midnight curfew. I thought my life was over. Only one night? What if I picked the wrong one? Oh.My.God. Total devastation. Looking back on this now I have to laugh for a couple of reasons: 1) I lived in freaking Petaluma after all, if it happened on a Friday it was gonna happen again on a Saturday and truth be told, shit rarely ever happened… and 2) The fact that what I just described was restriction is sort of hilarious – my unborn children better hope they never cross the line because I will lock them down – and for the record, after like five months of said “restriction” I asked my mom when – oh when! – would it be over and she went for the total killer blow saying, with complete coolness and appropriate aplomb, “Oh, yeah, I suppose it can be over now.” Talk about fished in. Mom, FTW.
Anyhow, to have this happening in my adult life was becoming too much of a recurring and horrifying déjà vu.
There were some other issues. I am really irritated at how both sites are operating and using our information/photos/etc – regardless of the fact that there are “Terms of Use” and the framework itself may necessitate said operations. The more I read about how they work, the more I don’t like it. Then I checked out the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine and it really made me think. [It is with no small bit of irony that the reason I heard about the Suicide Machine was through a blog I am linked to on Facebook.] But the developers of the concept have a point. Get back into the real world.
Then consider the fact that I have more than 300 “friends” on Facebook, and 150 or so on Myspace. [This after much culling, which has led to all sorts of drama. I have actually received emails asking why people had been deleted. From the people in question as well as other friends. Seriously. And then, someone I know was speaking to another person about me, and person #2 said, "Well, can Amanda be trusted? She deleted me from Facebook." I know you think I must be making this shit up - but I assure you, I am not. ] Who the FUCK has 500 friends? I mean, SERIOUSLY. I have already expounded on Dunbar’s number here, so I will not bore you with that, but SERIOUSLY. And the politics of social network friends. Holy Mother of God. I know there are tons of articles about it already, but it is like people lose their sense of reality when they enter the virtual world of social networking. Perhaps that is the point for some people, but where have the boundaries gone? In real life, you have to have a reason to be someone’s friend, don’t you? Just because you know Person A does not mean you are therefore friends with all of Person A’s friends… or does it? Though, to be sure I have fallen on both sides of this equation as well, as I mentioned here.
“Cats, who’d have ‘em?”
I’ve been thinking about cats a lot lately. Okay, it is not like I don’t think about my cats a lot in general, but lately I have been a little more global in my consideration of cats. I have long worried that I may turn into a “Cat Lady,” and the attendant stigma that goes with that. I am really the perfect candidate: single, approaching middle-age, cat-loving, History/Literature teacher. I mean, they don’t write Cat Ladies better than that. And my cats run me. For instance, right now, I really want to get up and get another cup of coffee but Matilda is on my lap and she is content, and gives me stink-eye when I move, so coffee is more of a contemplation at this point. Eventually, I will get the coffee, but not before considering what a great reason this situation is for having a live-in helper, roommate, even a boyfriend.
When I returned from Bali and I called my parents, I could hear in my mom’s voice right away that something was wrong and there were only a few things that might make her sound this way; as I was okay, it was either going to be gramma or kitteh. It is kitteh. Their 12(?) year old cat is not well, and as is the case with cats, the reasons are ambiguous, but the reality is clear. Taking her to the vet is traumatizing and causes kitteh to really make you feel bad, and so Ella was keeping to the safety of the subregions of the bedroom and not taking food. This cat is Ella Mae, who they adopted, along with another kitty named Callie, from the shelter in their North Idaho town. The adoption of these two cats has a lot of significance to me because I was there and helped my mom pick out the cats. She had been reluctant to get another cat after the death of her most recent furry friend, Celeste. But after enough time had passed she realized that she really missed having cats and had decided to adopt two, so they would have company, and also to select adult cats as everyone always adopts the kittens but the older cats often go overlooked. I happened to be staying with my parents after a very dramatic break up [look at me be understated] with Ex #3. I was not totally myself, but cats always cheer me up. I went to the shelter and we picked out the two (very different) calico kittehs. They were bewildered and everything esle that comes with a total rearrangement of every known detail in ones existence when we brought them back. Callie was the wilder, more adventurous of the two. Smaller and more traditionally calico, she ran around and checked things out. Ella, likely a little older, is a peachy calico – white and grey and peach colored. And she doesn’t like other cats. One night we couldn’t find Callie and every issue that I was dealing with regarding the recent turn of events in my own life totally manifested in a total freak out about her (temporary) disappearance. I totally lost it for a minute.
Then she came back.
Cats.
So, now Ella is getting ready to say her farewells. Callie left them long ago, likely the result of her wandering, she got really sick and gently passed. Ella really came out of her shell at that point and became the Queen of the Manor. And now as she is preparing to go, it is just totally sad all over again.
A handful…
The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands. ~ Anne Frank
I was recently posed a question through a very silly portal (formspring.me) asking what I considered to be my best feature. My assumption is that this meant best physical feature, and so I gave myself a cursory once over. I guess my eyes stand out because sometimes they look really blue, which is cool, especially in Asia. But the eyes are fickle; when I am in a mood they are stormy grey. I did not want to choose a favorite feature that capricious. I do have good hair (save for the tedious fact that it is going grey and not in the glamorous way. Oh, and a constant Afro in HK.) My hair is thick and grows fast. Once in high school my friend Tracy asked what my secret was and I thought the question was sort of funny so I told her that I pulled it every night for at least ten minutes. I never thought she would take me seriously. I found out years later from another friend that Tracy had taken to pulling her hair nightly for years. Oops. But my hair, like my eyes, seems too easily modified or changed to be one’s “Best” feature. I am tall, which I love now, but did not always, and I have long legs. But I don’t really see either of those as “features” – they are just facts, and a giant retail pain in the ass in Asia. So, I considered another option, my smile. Like most people, I look better when I smile, and I smile often, but I would not pick that as my best feature either because I am mildly self-conscious of my kind of crooked (though very white) teeth.
Then I looked at my hands. I have big hands, like, I can palm a basketball, but I don’t think I have man-hands. I have long fingers, and good nail beds according to my friend Deanna, and I assume she knows of which she speaks. I wear two rings on the ring finger of my right hand that I got from my mom. I don’t take them off and they are the only yellow gold jewelery I wear with any regularity. My hands are a little veiny, which always reminds me of being a little kid and looking at my friend Kelly’s hands – she was so thin and the veins on her hands always showed, even when we were six. I was jealous of that when I looked at my larger, browner hands next to her delicate porcelain white ones. My hands are strong and have lots of lines in them. Right now, my hands are very tan. And when I look at them I can see my mom’s hands sometimes.
Sometimes when I look at them I see my grandma’s hands, too. My grandma had great hands and hand rituals. I used to sit with her for hours (it seemed like) while she did her nails; long ovals, perfectly filed and painted one of her myriad shades of taupe. And my grandma used her hands too. She used them for cooking and hugging and patting the seat right next to her to tell you to come sit down and tell her how you were doing. She used them for expression, she tapped the table absently with her index finger while she read the LA times and shook her head about “those darn Republicans!” She always kept time with her fingers and punctuated key notes in the air with a little “Da-da-da…” as she moved around the kitchen doing this and that, listening to Ella or Frank or Sarah. She still keeps the time to those songs with her fingers, even now when she is not doing any of the other things she used to do.
There is a black and white photo in one of my mom’s photo albums of my great-grandma making Syrian bread (what she called pita bread.) I know it is Sittee simply because I know, it shows only her hands kneading bread dough. I used to look at the picture a lot and wonder why my mom would have taken a picture of my great-grandma’s hands when she could have taken a picture of all of her. I think I kind of get it now.
Hands say a lot about a person.
What they do.
What they don’t do.
What they want to do.
I thought of the hands I have known. My mom’s hands. Doctor’s hands. Builder’s hands. Musician’s hands. Junkie’s hands. Six-year old hands. White-collar hands. Blue-collar hands. Sure hands. Nervous hands.
The woman who was my dad’s second wife had hands like the ones Seinfeld was afraid of. She used to say I was so lucky I had my mom’s hands. But she made it sound like an insult. My best friend from high school has beautiful hands… long graceful Eurasian hands, the kind that are certainly meant to be taken care of. One of my best friends from college has hands that are completely double jointed – it is crazy what she can do with her hands, and all the women in her family have these cute little thumbs. I know someone in Hong Kong who told me his fingers looked like cow’s teats, and holy shit, if he wasn’t correct. My yoga teacher can contort his hands as deftly as he can his body. Tom Robbins wrote a whole story based around Sissy Hankshaw’s hands. Ex #1 had funny callouses from playing bass on his hands, but I liked them – it was like boyfriend braille or something. #2 had good hands – a nice combination of all the right attributes and he used them well. Ex #3 said he was mesmerized by my hands when he got out of the clink – he couldn’t stop looking at them. I don’t really know why. Ex #4 had really, really, really clean hands. #5 had hard-lived hands. One of my Government students once challenged me to see if I could get through one class without using my hands to gesticulate and otherwise contribute (distract?) to the lesson. I could not.
Hands can hold.
Hands can defend.
Hands can offend.
Hands can teach.
Hands can tickle.
Hands can hurt.
Hands can soothe.
Hands can create.
Hands can catch.
Hands can destroy.
Hands can heal.
Hands can save.
For my best feature, I choose my hands.
Sometimes it really is all in the details…
My cousin Lorena asked me yesterday when I had my last Christmas at “home.” I told her I have not had Christmas at home since I came to Asia. I have just spent my fifth Christmas here… my third in Hong Kong… one other was in Thailand and another in Borneo, and when I say it like that it sounds cool enough to make not being home with family at the holidays the way forward. But they have been a mixed bag, these Christmases, all important in their own ways, which is not to say the stuff of a Hallmark TV Special. It is my opinion that people are often disappointed in the holidays because there is so much build up and so much pressure and so many expectations. I have not felt disappointed in a long time about this time of the year but this is mostly because I have fallen out of the habit of even considering that there might be anything remotely similar to the holidays of stereotype for me to compare my situation against.
At the end of the day, I think that is probably a pretty good thing.
I spoke to my family several times over the past couple of days and while they are all in groups and gatherings elsewhere, we made one here. I spent the day with my Hong Kong family and it was lovely. We had all the little details that make up a holiday. Curly ribbon, sparkly lights, chocolate, the exuberance of a six-year-old that can only come from a six-year-old at this time of the year, warm food, music, movies, gifts, neighbors dropping by, smiles, a growing family, pets, poinsettias, crystal, snuggles and silliness, hugs, headstands, questions (“Can we open the presents?), mysteries (“Why can’t we open the presents?”)
It was lovely and I am so grateful for my Hong Kong family. I may not be at home, but I am somewhere that is just fine for right this very minute.
No sense worrying about keeping up with the Jones’s when everything here is so lovely.
A chance to get caught up for/on the holidays…
It is strange that somehow, no matter how one tries – there always seems to be a mad dash to get things together for the holidays. And I say this as a person without children and the requisite efforts that adds, far from family and the multiple events that adds, and with all of my needs met, basic and otherwise. There are so many things I have been meaning to do – and though I do not feel particularly stressed out about them, I am aware of them nonetheless.
Today begins three whole days in Hong Kong, without work. This is fabulous and very unusual (not just because of the lack of time off in Hong Kong, but also because I generally leave town whenever I have days off – I might not even leave me little island home today.) I have already spoken with my BFF and parents in the US as they embark on their respective Christmas Eves. I am cooking for Christmas lunch. I gave my first Christmas present yesterday. I wrapped presents last night and am eating cookies for breakfast today. It is about 70°F (22°C) and the humidity has shot up to 90% already. I have an incredibly corpulent and loving dude-cat on my lap. I have three blogs in various stages of completion and photos to edit. (A fun to-do list to be sure.) One of my favorite bloggers has been doing the Holidailies blogging project and I am trying to get caught up with all of her recent posts… they are excellent.
I am very much looking forward to the chance to breathe deeply and prepare for the upcoming Full Moon and New Year. 2009 was such an education in every way, and through the lens of increased awareness 2010 looks to be awe-inspiring.
Merry Merry Merry…. Everything!
“Come on and let it show!”
Do you thank your family much?
I spend a great deal of time talking about my family. Among friends, old and new, in countries near and far: My family resonates resonance. In my classrooms they become models, examples, heroes, metaphors, motifs, sages, symbols; paragons of all the things that combine to make up the complex conglomerate of a family such as mine.
But they do not become these things through my words. They are these things through the way they live their lives.
I am thankful for my family.
And sometimes it is especially important to thank the ones who are the hardest to reach.
Leaving my Heart [and Finding my Brain] in the USA, Chapter 5: THE BAY AREA
Remember wealth is not always measured by how much money you have. You are a very rich person! ~ Ed Nowak
Thinking that things might slow down a little bit for the final week of my trip home, I headed to the most beautiful place on Earth. [That, by the way, is Northern California.] Blue skies, golden hills, the clean side of the Pacific, SF, Berkeley, Bodega, Petaluma, Forestville, Sebastopol, Woodside, Foothill Avenue in Oakland… err, well, okay they aren’t all spectacular in the same way, but now I know exactly where Sonny Barger used to hang out, and how many Crips you can find on a single street corner at 3 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon… and you know how I love to gather info.
My mom and I arrived in Oakland early (you go Southwest!) and were picked up by Mara at which point I was absolutely stunned at the amount of luggage that a Prius can accommodate. Very impressive. In no time we were river-side in Petaluma enjoying Red Rooster Ale at Dempsey’s with Dee and a bunch of flies. (I really do love Petaluma.) It is so fun to see people you have known forever and know that whenever you do see them it will be exactly as it has always been. I suppose that is the measure of true friends… low maintenance, high value, huge appreciation. The girls told me all about their kids, and as I tend to do when this subject comes up, I listened with amazement. They have all done so much, and so well, it makes me weary to contemplate. Then it was off to Bodega and Grandma Mollie’s for walks on the beach and tea time. Nice.
The week reminded me of the Beatles song Eight Days a Week… Eight days a week, Is not enough to show I care. And that is for sure.
Hey, uh huh huh, hey hey hey…
Amanda’s Epic Tour de Force of America ’09:
What I like about you, you really know how to dance
When you go up, down, jump around, think about true romance, yeah!!
- Anna – I love it that you know exactly what I need when I need it. You go, Flamer Flav.
- Ian – I love it that you really do have the most fun where ever you are… that is straight skillz.
- Sean – You called like you said you would… well played.
- Ivan, Alex, Jarad – You hung with the older generation and remained cool. And you took me to Jimboys. Nice!
- Michael V – I love it that you are totally real. In every way. Complete awesomeness.
- Annie – I love it that you were a ‘virgin’ with me and brought perfect weather! And thank you for reminding me to wash my belly button!!
- Uncle Reecey – I love it how you embraced all that was unexpected. Your efforts were unsurpassed.
- Mom – I love it that you made everything how it was and is.
- T – I love that you stay you ’cause you rock.
- Rennie – I love your humor and grace at a Wonder Woman pace.
- Tres – I love that you continue to have hope in the crazy that is me.
- Eric B – I love it that you know that a shout out from HST would pretty much be the pinnacle of existence for me.
- Aunt Nancy – I love it that you identify (and kind of embrace) the hypocrisy that is everywhere and show me how it is okay.
- Aunt T – I love it how you are still the hottest thing going and still swoon for Jackson.
- Andy – I love watching you be a dad.
- Lowell & Claire – I love that you were so psyched to see and make time for your long lost cousin.
- Mara – I love that you handle everything, and time and distance aside we are still Amos and MPFW.
- Dee – I love your authenticity and sense of humor and that you get all the quotes. (Amy’s Chinese Take Out? Really nice.)
- Mollie – I love that you were so generous with your time and space and up for meeting all the wonderfully crazy people I surround myself with.
- Will & Cynthia – I love that being with you was just perfect; from first birthdays to ninth birthdays to 39th. Solid love.
- TJ & Marcia – I love all the millions of ways we are family.
- Ned – You rock! Thanks for sharing September 22nd!
- Ron – You truly are the Brother from Another Mother. There is not time or space to list what I like about you. And since you are going to call me a giant kiss ass for all this I am including your picture (in our Target shoes.) (more…)
Out Back in the USA, numero cuatro: My Santa Fe Trail
It has been a long, long time since I was in Santa Fe. Too long by all readily available accounts. The family member to time ratio was also not completely in my favor as there was to be mucho activity in a small amount of time. It made for a fabulous, if manic paced mini-week in the Southwest. This was my fourth regional variation since I got to the States and another reminder of the amazing geography of the American West. I am sure I have mentioned this already a million times, but it is so nice to be back in clean environments. I miss clean air a lot lot lot.
Santa Fe’s elevation is over 7,000 feet (for everyone in the world outside of America, that would be more than 2,100 meters/metres.) It is an awesomely arid climate and a true painted desert. My uncle was very worried about my water consumption for all of those reasons. And in spite of my sturdiness and stubbornness, I acquiesced and made sure to hydrate. (I never did get a headache or really, even winded. Yay me.) The city also has building regulations that keep things looking, well, Santa Fe-ish, so it has a consistent aesthetic, which is cool, because it is a good one. The adobe and the chile ristras were a welcome sight. It is also the time of year where green chiles are being roasted everywhere so the place smelled fantastic, and of course my gastronomical tour continued. (It is probably fair to admit I miss the food from home at least as much as the cleanliness.) While in Santa Fe I would be seeing my grandma, my mom’s sisters and their families – two of my cousins who we determined I had not seen in eight years, and in the words of Lowell, “that is so wrong.” Also friends who are basically family that I’ve just missed terribly. It is weird how much you can miss people even with all of the other crazy stimuli that permeates daily life.
I did a lot of stuff in Santa Fe… eating, drinking, visiting, hugging, laughing, a couple emo moments (yes, mom, you are not the only one on the ’09 Emo Tour), yoga, eating more, shopping, chile coveting and future planning. It was clearly a very busy time.
What I took away from Santa Fe most noticeably was a reinvigorated sense of myself within the context of my family. That sounds cheesy, but I cannot think of a better word. I commenced birthday celebrations for the big 39 there too and in a lot of ways it just really felt like coming full circle. My cousin Claire is now a senior in high school. When I told my girlfriends this they couldn’t believe Baby Claire was almost 18; they all remember her from photos in Trento when she was maybe two… and I was feeding her strawberry gelato sans parental permission. Time does fly. Lowell is driving now and maybe even contemplating a visit to Asia in the not too distant future. We will see. The one thing that is certain is that there cannot be so much time between visits next time. Lowell, is right, it is just Wrong.
And then there was grandma. She looks terrific and had some moments of heartbreaking lucidity. I am so glad I saw her and say again, it is just never enough.
I would do dinner parties every night over and over like we had in Santa Fe, it was just too much fun.
And I feel confident in saying – that time is coming.
My mom, my aunts and I went and saw It Might Get Loud, which was great fun and as I thought back on it, also really an appropriate tag line for our time together in New Mexico. At one point my uncle was saying how it has been hard for him, on occasion, to get a word in edgewise around all of us. As I looked around the table at mom, Nancy, TT, Ellen, myself, Nubia and the kids, I thought, “Yeah… we are a raucous crowd, and it is awesome!”
It definitely WILL get loud.
xoxo
Burning Man: Living with Intention.
“It is like they decided how they wanted to live and they are doing it.”
My favorite question since I decided I would make the difficult, conscientious and labor-intensive decision to be a resident of Black Rock City this year has been: “What exactly is Burning Man?” Most people who have never been to Burning Man, or those who have taken advantage only of one narrow bacchanalian element of it, do not understand what the Black Rock City concept is all about. Yes, it is a giant party – in some ways. Yes, it is completely insane – in some ways. Yes, it is a totally bizarre, freakish, intense, right of passage – in some ways. But, as most of us are discovering about ourselves, it is far more than the sum of its parts.
As I mentioned before, and as the Burning Man website stipulates: “Once a year, tens of thousands of participants gather to create Black Rock City in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance. They depart one week later, having left no trace whatsoever.” For me, Burning Man represents/ed an opportunity to refocus on, and in many ways reinforce, ideas about living that are so easily pushed aside in the aptly-named rat race of our contemporary daily existence. Though there were accommodations made for cell reception this year and though my camp had the means for a sat-link for internet access (helpful for things like our musician in residence learning she had been called to perform in her class at the SF Conservatory and would not be able to make it…) I chose to completely, intentionally, disengage. For me, this experience had to be about complete immersion and I had limited time to make this happen. I had gone back to the desert to remember some parts of me that I know have been forgotten; forgotten by living overseas, by being a foreigner for so long, by drifting, by being away from a lifestyle and set of priorities I was raised with, by allowing myself to live amiably and resistance free – without intention.
Make no mistake, I am not living a life burdened with regret, but I am also becoming more and more aware that (for me) the life well-lived is one that is not accidental or inadvertent… characteristics that have plagued my ex-pat experience. Anyone who knows me knows I am a completely rubbish ex-pat anyhow, I exist overseas in a state of impermanence… I want to come home. My good friends know this and accept this about me, other people use it as a means of labeling me any number of ways from provincial to ignorant to unimaginative. Whatever. My point is this: I want to live a life with intention and to be around people who share this ambition and are willing to work for it; work hard and diligently and consistently for it.
This is Burning Man.
My presence at Burning Man was, no pun intended, a gift. Were it not for the generosity of many people, I would not have been able to participate because, as always it seems, my circumstances were complicated by logistical and chronological limitations. For years I have been ‘friends’ with a lovely person in Las Vegas through various and diverse but not necessarily tangible connections. I have been watching, contemplating and discussing the evolution of Mike since well before my own Nevada-exodus. In some ways our experiences have been quite similar – in others totally distinct. But the connection has persevered and this year, through Mike’s generosity and energy, I was able to join him on the Playa. For this I am ever grateful. I am especially grateful that Mike is the authentic and honest and amazing person/a that he has always appeared to be (I look forward to his full realization of his awesomeness as well.) I had no idea how rare this quality is until this year… my previous assumption of human authenticity being, apparently, a very naive world view. Additionally, I had to assert myself in the workplace and explain that I had to have time off. This was a non-negotiable situation and one that was met with bewilderment, confusion, and a gigantic demotion. So be it.
This is Burning Man.
Amanda
