tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76345832024-03-07T20:00:45.725-08:00in time of daff0dils...whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.comBlogger505125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-39405385615284368682024-01-02T19:36:00.000-08:002024-01-02T19:41:05.337-08:00<p> I guess its highly unsurprising I have abandonment issues. You know, if you know me. Know my origin story and all that.</p><p>Still its so humiliating. Its one thing to mourn, curse and in general deeply resent familial loss, or some shitty shitty dumping action.</p><p>But what to do with the slow icy freeze out that is almost closer to a ghosting from a whole community that you thought might be a touch of your found family, but in truth was just killing a very long time with you and is now probably is giving this even less thought than you might prefer to believe? </p><p>I dunno. I just can't let it go. Even though I am horrified, humiliated, just completely ashamed to admit it.</p><p>It's not just horrible. It's dumb.</p><p>Part of the astounding stupidity is, naturally, that I actually kind of knew this would happen. The signs were always there. The signs of strained awkwardness over obligatory shared social situations and a touch of "lets try to make this deeper" that seldom stuck. Those seeds...well over time grew into very oddly overly chipper curious and polite check ins at parties and events and actually, over time. became moments of just suddenly, seriously, finding myself alone in a room at a social gathering, one just bustling moments ago.</p><p>And I would say it, sometimes, out loud. I don't feel welcome. I don't think these are my friends any more. I don't think these people actually like me.</p><p>And even with all this , more confounding and frustrating was, in retrospect, my urge to fight it. To reach out...to produce events and coordinate gatherings to reignite the passion of friendship love affairs that weren't actually anything more than tantamount to the one night stand you stretched into a 3 month relationship because your were B-O-R-E-D.</p><p>Only this wasn't 3 months, this was 10 years, and this wasn't something based on a too many drinks and pretty eyes, this was weekends away, and late nights and all sortsa shit that doesn't just normally proceed, not one, but several people slowly making it evidently clear that you are now, pretty much, disposable in their world.</p><p>Which is to say, I thought they were my friends. And I thought they cared. Despite evidence to the contrary. And still I miss them.</p><p>Yeah. Bummer.</p><p>And now, beyond all reason I find myself pissed.</p><p>And yes yes, I am perfectly clear you can't be angry with people just because they don't like you. And yes, I realize I have no right to resent it when people choose to spend time with people they actually like, and not spend time with people they don't.</p><p>But because I am not comfortable with just being hurt and humiliated. I am pissed.and I am retconning the shit out of all of this and pretending it mutual so it isn't what it really is: rejection.</p><p>But honestly, what is it about being rejected that makes you want to to plot revenge, to hurt back, to want to reject back?</p><p>I wonder if it has something to do with wanting to fill the absence of feeling...with something. Wanting to cure the seemingly unjust inequity of concern with a shared experience. even if that is experience is nothing fun.</p><p>Or maybe it is just straight immaturity.Dumping mud on your best friend because she went to play with someone with better toys.</p><p>There is no good answer. And frankly, there is no point in pondering a situation you fully have no power to affect. It is what it is. Sad. Pathetic. Over.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-83936989613742787382023-02-05T15:07:00.002-08:002023-02-16T17:28:45.025-08:00acceptance<p> A friend of mine and I were talking the other day about loss: specifically loss of a friendship or relationship wiht a loved one (not a death per se) and I noted, at some point, you just have to accept your general lack of power in a situation to really move on. He asked how you get okay with that. And I didn't have a great answer, but I have some thoughts.</p><p>1. This is a little bit about getting okay with injustice: Often when things go down, we struggle, internally, externally, interpersonally to accept that things are just, put simply, unfair. You are being asked to carry the weight, or being asked to let go when you don't want to, and it isn't the door that opens a window or whatever. It isn't opportunity. It just sucks. Most people have a very hard time with this concept. That something bad has happened to them and there isn't a reason, there is just a void, a sad reality, a mourning. Your parade was rained out and the town didn't band together even stronger than before. It just didn't happen. </p><p>I think people have a problem with injustice because a universal sense of fairness makes them feel safe. But of course, this is bullshit. Young children are killed in shootings. There is no justice in that. Trying to convince anyone of the sense of fairness in that illicits its own stash of very unpleasant and revealing thought processes we best not engage in.</p><p>Does this mean there is no justice, that fairness is a farce that we should abandon? Absolutely not. Striving, personally and interpersonally, as a social norm and societal goal to be fair and just is part of having a successful happy society. It is a core tenant of pro social behavior. It is critical. But believing we should strive to act just, be kind or fair, because it builds a better world is different than believing you should do so because there is inherent justice in the world, or in life.</p><p>And so maybe you are religious. You believe in a just deity, a kind faith, the scales of balance. I think that it is still tenable to believe in a such a world order while still letting go of the idea that your immediate environment is governed by just balance.</p><p>I will explain: </p><p>2. This is also about accepting the limits of your personal scope: which is to say, that as unsafe as people feel letting go of justice, they also have an even harder time accepting scale.</p><p>I would like to posit, based on nothing other than my personal upbringing and my puny brain's thoughts, that if there is a universal order, someone at the wheel, a collection of deities controlling reality, or an octopus in the sky, than that is pretty epic situation, and if justice is one of their key drivers, it is probably happening on a bigger scale than you can fathom. Which is to say, the dinosaurs migtht have died so we little flesh monkeys could walk the earth, but if you ask a dinosaur, they aren't going to be thrilled with the fairness of that equation. 10000 years of a just equation might be pretty fucking unfair for those skimming by for 100. Expecting life to be fair on a personal scale just because the universe might be isn't necessary logical.</p><p>So I guess I am saying: accepting that bad things can happen and we will never see the justice of those occurences is, sometimes, just critical in deciding what choices still exist for you to move on and try to be okay.</p><p>Once upon a time I had to accept that someone I loved just..for whatever reason, wasn't going to have me in their life any more. My dealings with this includes a variety of ways I could change this and a bunch of interpersonal dealings around how this might go that would make this okay for me. Just. Fair. Okay.</p><p>But the reality was that it just wasn't okay. It was never going to be an okay thing. That didn't mean I had no choices. I just couldn't make it okay. I could move on. I could find <i>other </i>things to love and be okay with, but those choices and actions wouldn't make this particular personal suck any less tragic, awful and unfair for me. This was my story. My story included that fucking awful thing. That was that.</p><p>But acknowledging that also meant I could decide to do things (or not do things) associated with, get right with it, as it were, and move along. I could leave the door unlocked because that made me feel good, but not because they had to walk through it to make that choice okay. I could also lock the door. Those were my choices. Nothing else.</p><p>Which is to say, sometimes you just have to accept that your life contains a shitty unfair and unhappy thing. It doesn't mean you have to be unknd of unfair, it doesn't mean all things will be unkind or unfair, it simply means you are powerless to change that a bad thing has or is happening. And you work with that, not against it, or around. Stop pushing the boulder, than is actually a mountain. It is attached. It is now part of the landscape. You don't have to like it, but you would do better visiting the ocean than trying to bulldoze over that shit.</p><p><br /></p>daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-44486354092964634282022-05-28T11:05:00.003-07:002022-05-29T10:34:41.166-07:00I need a better visual<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Theme for the week is pernicious trauma and the fundamental necessity of seeing and being seen.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have been watching the Sinner. Without going into an indepth review there is a quality about the main character that makes the characters, the very traumatized and emotionally vulnerable characters trust him when they are so past trust that they no longer, really, seem to hope. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is something, something born of his trauma that lets him see them. There is something in him that unflinchingly stares when others look away. There was a quote, I once read that noted that Joan Didion "<span face="Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">her life to noticing things other people strive not see" and that resonates, in this thought. And yet I think it is more. I think some people, without choice, even without consent see things others either cannot or will not. Be it their trauma, or their choices, or their fundamental disposition, or something bred over time with experience and environment, lets them see into spaces others will miss. Like an emotional tetachromacy. Not</span><span face="Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"> really unique in chemistry so much as an accident of time and place, in a world that seems increasingly interested in creating spaces to hide. </span></span></p><p><span face="Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have, since I was young, often looked at things a little closely. It annoys most people, I think. Seeing the ugly with the good. Some call it pessimism. Others just find it exhausting. I don't know. I notice the crumbling foundation of an amazing house. I don't think my insanely awesome friends are especially beautiful or smart, even though I love them deeply. I do know that that outfit doesn't work for you. I do wonder at the missing flavor in many dishes I eat. Although man do I love to eat. I seldom hear a statement and think that this is fundamentally true. I experience curiosity where others might experience revulsion, and it just feels right. It is how I experience life and love.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">But enough about me for the moment, because I think, broadly, globally and personally, there is healing in seeing. Because how can you fix what you cannot see? I think love is seeing and being seen. You hear people say it, the first time they fell truly, madly in love, they felt seen. Personally, I think we owe to those we love to see them, to look at the all, the experience and validate the all, even if we don't like it. Especially if we don't like it. Letting them show us their trauma, their flaws, their possibilities and limitations is part of that love. Sometimes we need to pretend to look away, but never blind ourselves to the all that is them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Globally, I feel the same. We have all heard that phrase "love it or leave it". Missing the whole point. We can't leave because while we may not like, but we DO love it we can't feel safe because we saw the flaws in something we care about. Loving means seeing. Caring means you look.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Which is exhausting. Because there is so much to see and so much more to heal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Which is where I come full circle. This week I have come to really notice, to see on a personal level how trauma never leaves. It just grows inside. Like a ring in a tree, at best like complimentary gut bacteria, at worst like a deadly parasite. And either way it needs to be tended. It needs to be managed, and to manage it we must see it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">And make no mistake. This doesn't mean we let it take over. This isn't an argument for sunken investment. Not an argument for becoming our mistakes or doubling down on our trauma until it is all we are. If this is a lifelong condition, this trauma, then love necessitates we study it, and we learn to address it, to hate it with all our love until it becomes a meaningful detail, not our only defining characteristic. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">We must admit that our joy and beauty comes with pain and threat and fear and greed and confusion if we are to address things. We have to see the poverty if we want to address it. We have to see the cracks in our foundation, or our outdated and often cruel history if we are to solve it. </span></p><p><br /></p>daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-40696716695694271822021-05-09T10:38:00.002-07:002021-05-09T11:01:39.803-07:00<p> I was watching Shrill (spoiler alert) and there is this big scene, where the guy who has been calling her and texting her and flirting with her suddenly tells her he just doesn't see her that way</p><p>and it kind of goes downhill from there, with her humiliated and him basically gaslighting her by claiming that she projected feelings onto his constant stream of affection</p><p>and first can I say that was SO SO SO a portland singles moment.</p><p>but also I keep thinking about this, and the fundamentals of romance, and how they aren't always sexual, but we aren't really taught that love can be complicated and people's feelings need be considered even if our needs are confusing</p><p>so let's dissect this...</p><p>this guy, in the moment, mentions that she is currently his favorite person. and on some level I believe him. it would be simple and one sided to suggest he was just using her affections for his ego, when the show implies he has found someone he adores but doesn't want to be romantically be with. As a person, especially a straight man, such feelings are complicated, because of a history we all know but I don't need to get into in which men can feel violent or sexual but not intellectually enraptured or romantically drawn without the above feelings being part of the picture.</p><p>but also, anyone can see that the odds of confusion were high. and there is no doubt that he was deliberately enjoying the romantic moments that had no potential for him without communicating clearly and explicitly because he was scared of ruining something that was amazing for him (platonic love is under valued in our society and thus complicated to pursue) and doing so at the clear risk of her emotions, which is, to put is bluntly, selfish. How much can you really be falling for someone, even as a friend, if you are just hoping their emotions will never get in the way of your needs? It is also possible he wanted her on some level as more as a friend, and wasn't ready for THAT and construed the next step (physical) as a promise beyond what he was ready to pursue. our very hetero monogamist and commitment centered world creates cognitive dissonance around these moments, because we cant just say, without being insulting "I kind want this, now, but may never want more"</p><p>we have all been in relationships in which one person didn't voice, explicitly, the scope of their needs, because if they did they were worried that they would lose what they already had. in which someone had, perhaps even despite their best intentions, implied but not stated, that a situation was different than it truly was to get or keep what they wanted. It is called leading someone on, and whether it is to get laid, or keep someone around to feed your ego, or to develop a friendship they really need but don't understand themselves, it is still putting their own needs before another.</p><p>which is a no brainer. it isn't okay to, even indirectly, create a false bubble because part of becoming a kind human being is giving a crap about the other person in every situation. But I also want to blame society here, just a little bit, which teaches us that hard conversations are to be avoided and needs must be simple. which teaches us to blaze ahead and hope what we want is truly what the other person wants, even when it is self evident that isn't the case, and to manipulate situations that keep a dream alive, even at the expense of real connection. a society that is far more enraptured than the romantic impossible than the deep and beautiful if slightly dirty and uncomfortable reality. which makes us want all loves to be easy, even when it is the nature of love to prove itself through sacrifices big and small.</p><p>so how might this have gone differently? how might he have been a bigger man. well, from that start, when he realized that he was falling, in a friendship kinda way, he could have been clear, pulled back from his hearts instinct and said it aloud. you are so great, it is hard to find someone you want to be friends with. he could have talked about him complicated feeling for those he was romantically interested in. he could have pulled back, even when he wanted to lunge forward, with an eye towards her feelings, early on, and understood that he might be risking what they had, but that there might be the potential to truly be friends, if he gave her the space to want that too. and frankly, he could have said it. " I need a friend right now, and that is hard to find, especially one as cool as you" and let her walk in, OR NOT.</p><p>but who knows. we are also, if we are being honest, often the last to even know ourselves. and being so clear, so honest, takes confidence and self awareness that can often come long after the moment has passed.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-19641181551446103142020-05-21T22:10:00.001-07:002020-05-21T22:10:23.578-07:00so we are all rational adults, right? we earned that title. through bills and exercise and taxes and early hours and mortgages<br />
<br />
I dunno.<br />
I hear it all the time ..." I have to do what feels right". "I am gonna follow my gut"<br />
<br />
So if your gut has never lead you astray, if you have a history of making sound decisions to lead to personal satisfaction, then believing in your instinct, well, that is just sound logic<br />
<br />
But it is a funny thing, these cycles of abuse. they tell you to do what evidence has shown is wrong, time and again, to ensure your past of mistakes<br />
<br />
I had this friend, the other day, she told me all about her plan, he plan to do this thing. it was not a very smart thing. we listened and we knew she wanted validation. that it was right. that she was right. that she was a rational adult. it was a bad bad plan and she wanted validation. and when she did not get it she stated she wanted to do what felt comfortable.<br />
And all I could think was 'what makes you comfortable hurts you"<br />
<br />
I had another friend, slowly moving out of an abusive relationship, ask me to trust her, and I had a similar thought. I want to trust you, but right now you are so invested in bad ideas that it is hard to believe you can be trusted to make good ones<br />
<br />
it is unfair. punitive. it probably sounds unkind<br />
<br />
but part of breaking the cycles of abuse. be it a relationship or an addiction or self-destruction of a less common brand, it is to recognize when you are going out of your way to get comfortable with things that just don't make sense so you can feel comfortable with cognitive dissonance of your fuckery. when you train yourself to see zebras and unicorns in a perfectly fine horse, when you convince yourself that your own logic cannot be proofed by another's you lose the ability to be taken at your word. which is to say, you cannot display to the world that you lie florridly to yourself and then expect open and honest communication. you will not get a vote of confidence from me when you are demonstrating a lack of fitness<br />
<br />
there is only one way out, and that is out, away and with a panoromic view that let's you reset your compass<br />
<br />daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-64142163074730842022020-04-22T16:22:00.001-07:002020-04-22T16:22:35.748-07:00sometimes you only notice the vastness of your landscape when you step too far back, and you are suddenly struck by how some huge stories loom only as their end makes them finite.<div>
a romance scanning decades in tiny moments and huge punctuations. marriages and child birth and graduations and birthdays and illnesses and recoveries. </div>
<div>
breakfasts shared together, </div>
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books read in tandem</div>
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frustrations and annoyances and questions overlooked for the greater picture. </div>
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all the innate and subtle little gestures that become habits of affection as you continue to build and sculpt your life: buying a favorite food at the grocery, saving the last bite, making a joke at the right moment, brushing a forearm</div>
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you think those moments will just continue when they become so much a part of you</div>
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how can they not? </div>
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<br /></div>
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growing up with my parents around one of the only things clear to me was that they had a great romance. great, in the way only a real world romance built on love and trust can be. awesome in its incredibly domestic ways: picking each other up for work, taking the same sunset walk every day. not a world spanning, war torn, tanned and youthful romance, but the kind of bond built on the beautiful and sad, the comfortable and sometimes ugly. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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it was a strange thing to behold, so close. whereas some of the families around us clearly had parents that revolved and evolved around their children, mine were like satellites to each other. they may have had love for others in the family, but they were locked on each other.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I don't mean to make sound unrealistic, or schmaltzy. I don't even mean to claim I understood it. It wasn't mine. I have no right to bear witness.</div>
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But growing up I knew one thing: you could find your best friend and love your best friend and want to see your best friend every day. and that could be good, and that could be enough. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Today my father died. And I will mourn that as any child would. But when I step back the part I just can't look past is the vastness of their story now finite. One of them continuing a thousands memories that make up almost the whole of their life and existence. It is blinding and sad and beautiful. It is less like a giant light extinguished as a shift in the landscape that puts so much in shadow. You can still see it in the back of your head. feel it there and guess its warmth, but that is only expressed in the wistfulness of the shadow it now casts.</div>
daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-30486186925711315672020-03-01T11:35:00.002-08:002020-03-01T11:37:15.355-08:00things I never get to have again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhg3AkYJMXwIEj-mVF_jswHJztr2Ptrr5XpIvWzJ6ViX3VyfkXHkvlnQjuNiVEM4adN-hEKuLZRaPOIzt7jc8B9rOz-l-TY6MMlZKK2TDD7A0X8wqCPgZp_QcIPrQVfBi1d-s/s1600/87800622_219925152741639_8056573415605141504_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="857" data-original-width="850" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhg3AkYJMXwIEj-mVF_jswHJztr2Ptrr5XpIvWzJ6ViX3VyfkXHkvlnQjuNiVEM4adN-hEKuLZRaPOIzt7jc8B9rOz-l-TY6MMlZKK2TDD7A0X8wqCPgZp_QcIPrQVfBi1d-s/s320/87800622_219925152741639_8056573415605141504_n.jpg" width="316" /></a></div>
It is easy, in aging, to get caught up on the things you miss, the things you never get to have again. You know, like taught skin, or romantic optimism, or mental clarity.<br />
But there are these temporal opportunities we also lose and they only become evident when they are gone.<br />
I will never love a dog like I loved Esme, because I will never have those years to get to know an animal without the context of all the other things that matter and need love and attention.<br />
These things: love, marriage, children, career, are incredibly beautiful things that I wouldn't change in any heartbeat.<br />
But relationships with pets are unique. They are so luxurious, nurturing, voluntary. Each pet reflecting circumstance. They live almost in phases, capturing youth, maturity, deep old age. I know we will likely have other pets, although the thought makes me very sad, right now. I know we will love that pet as a family, and it too will be beautiful.<br />
But the part of me that is having such a hard time letting her slip away is the part that bonded with her, independently. Nights sleeping, just Esme and I, and then Jason seamlessly joining that team. There is this quiet, almost peaceful bond forged from moments like those that feels more like a partnership and less like the frenetic love that a family shares, with all it silly and beautiful complications.<br />
I try not to miss the past, the present is so beautiful.<br />
But sometimes, the part of me that got to be me, with Esme, feels like it was snatched, in the night, with no ceremony, no respect, and I want that piece back. just for a moment. In true visceral form. Who I am, in a field, watching Esme leap through the fields, so fast I could never catch her, so happy I could barely see inside such light, so beautiful she puts humans to shame and seems in deep harmony with the sun, the grass, and the birds in flight in the distance. Just that. A thing I never get to have again, a love I never get to love. And that. That breaks my heart.<br />
<br />daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-3257717936079912852019-10-12T11:59:00.001-07:002019-10-12T12:01:13.585-07:00somebody that I used to knowHow often do you think about your exes?<br />
<br />
On my lengthy drive to work, which I listen to music which always sends me to parts of my past (sometimes best left buried) I find myself increasingly thinking of lovers past (sorry, Jason).<br />
As someone prone to drift between temporal time zones frequently in the least nostalgic settings this isn't altogether surprising. And music, so visceral, pops the most unlikely memories into your head. So I am really asking for it.<br />
<br />
Sometimes I think this must be a modern problem: extended lifespans, increased ability to travel, release from early breeding and other elements that might tie you for longer and tighter to someone probably used to mean that most people had a lot less exes. I mean they might have longed for an old school love or the neighbor across the street, but I assume there were on the whole a host less lost and intentionally misplaced lovers to catalog and attempt to forget.<br />
<br />
All of that being said, I am always fascinated by which ghosts haunt more than others. Which portions of my past stay insistently present, while others are purged comfortably.<br />
<br />
I once was playing that "how many have you" with a friend and she was listing people to count and halfway through we realized she had missed two very long term partners. We laughed, uncomfortably, and shrugged it off, but if got me to thinking. She made a note that one of them just seemed so...irrelevant to who she was now. And it made me wonder: Is it who we miss that stays with us? Who rocked us the most? Or who was most present or instrumental in helping us to know and love ourselves.<br />
<br />
So the other day on my drive as I was thinking about how I still actually miss some of my exes (sorry again, babe) I contemplated: why? I mean, I don't want to throw everything overboard and I don't think something key is really absent from my life way. But I do ponder how, if the world was different, how there are certain people I would integrate into my world, if I could.<br />
<br />
It also struck me how fine it is to feel this about my friends. I don't feel bad because I miss close friends I rarely get to see. Hell, I have offered to have distant friend move in with us if they could live closer. I miss them, and I miss who I am with them.<br />
<br />
I was also thinking about those I don't miss. Those I am truly fine with never seeing, smelling or talking to again and I realized the correlation wasn't who I was happiest with or who I felt the most strongly about or even those who I felt the worst about. Indeed there were exes who were terrible to me at times and I miss them, wish I couldn't know them again. There were also people who occupied extremely brief periods that I still think about, and even one that, at the time, seemed barely elemental and often pops up.<br />
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And it dawned on me that the ones I never want to see again (and are fortunately few in number) were the ones I least liked myself when I was with. There are relationships that are just not good for you. They require sacrifices that are less than ideal, challenges in un-therapeutic ways. Sometimes they simply inspire the worst in you: jealousy or laziness, sometimes they breed your worst instincts. Sometimes they just lull important parts of you to sleep. They rarely start that way, but over time you realize this is definitely not the place you want to be and you are not the you that you want to become.<br />
<br />
I don't miss those relationships. I don't miss the people who got to share them with me. I assume they share that sentiment, but I can't guarantee it.<br />
So it goes.<br />
<br />
In the same vein, I know I will never be who I was, and that is okay. But I am not so blind to my own foibles not to recognize that certain people were part of a key evolution or a prime period in which I felt really good about myself and the life I occupied, even if it felt misguided (or was at the time).<br />
More clear to say sometimes I miss who I was or how I was at times, and I know that it was partially the result of a unique chemistry, an important exchange, and while what I learned is not gone, it is much harder to rouse alone.<br />
To put it straight, sometimes you want to get the band back together again and remember how that harmony felt, how that song is constructed. It just isn't the same with a different guitarist, not matter how talented they are.<br />
<br />
And yes, it is so so self involved. I don't miss you. I miss what you did for me. But let's be honest, our brain creates it's own unique planet of experiences, whether we like it or not. Humans don't dreamfast. Would that we could.<br />
<br />
<br />daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-88955970810768714502019-10-08T10:24:00.001-07:002019-10-08T10:24:36.593-07:00Rando thoughts on the eve of atonement<br />
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Rando thoughts on the eve of atonement<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is my fault really, so I’ll take some responsibility.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I made it easy for you. I encouraged you to see our similarities
under the assumption that are our differences would be too divisive. You had
not just my permission, but my connivance to overlook core parts of me in
exchange for a comfortable place in your world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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But what people don’t realize is: when you are different…either
in subtle or pronounced ways, when given the option of being accepted ( if not exactly
embraced) you are likely to take it. Even if it means only parts of you are
being given a hall pass, even if it means you downplay core parts of you so as to
highlight the pieces that fit.<o:p></o:p></div>
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You can call it self loathing but I think this garden is
more rooted in self-preservation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
self-loathing is a weed that grows as you encourage the overgrowth of the roses
to obscure the orchid that just isn’t part of the garden scheme. As the ecosystem
is compromised more weeds of self-doubt, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>wildflowers rooted in uncertainty take root. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And as you see only parts of yourself reflected
in the world around you it is easy to forget who you truly are. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in a world that continuously reminds us
what happens to those who are not “in”, it isn’t exactly crazy to resist
standing out.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Understand, my experience is but a shadow of those who experience
true insults to their being, their history, their safety, their soul. LGBTQ
partners, and those whose skin, whose features are not afforded the luxury of
such a compromise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That being said,
there is a certain anxiety in recognizing oneself as a last ditch scapegoat. As
a member of the majority by the good graces of those in power. Still, agreeing
to stand in such a blind spot comes with mixed emotions. And it is easy to
understand how, even in the safest of spaces, one might not choose to be truly
seen. Societally this is all old hat, and it should be obvious, even it is
sadly not. We ask those less fortunate to cow tow to those who in power in a
multitude of obvious and subtle ways.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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But we don’t always talk about how it affects us personally.
Intimately. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And I am not talking about the linger of fear I felt when I,
not my husband, started receiving fliers from the J4J folks because of the clear
ethnicity of my last name (am I tracked? Am I seen?) or the twinge of
discomfort I sometimes feel when asking for a Jewish holiday off of work.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I am talking about those I love, and the way I introduce
them to the myriad of ways I experienced the same culture as them, differently,
including the swath of holidays they have never heard of, but are part of me,
or the alienation and discomfort that marks the enormity of holidays the world
celebrates with them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or the ways I don’t
introduce it, because I assume it is not their interest, and I don’t want it to
be their problem. I don’t want my weird eccentric needs to get in the way or
their good time. I don’t want them to reschedule a whiskey tasting for after Passover,
I don’t want them to reconsider a dinner party on Yom Kippur. Don’t bother, because
it’s a test. it’s a question: do I matter enough for compromise in a world in
which I have never been asked to do the same? In a world in which my compromises
are not even seen because you are the norm and I am the exception. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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True story: someone once told me I was a bad hugger. It was awkward
and even more so as I avoided truly having the conversation. I was so shocked
by this strange admission that I didn’t share my many thoughts. How I, as a woman,
have a justifiable reason to be defensive about my body. Or how I went to a youth
group and a shul where men and women did not touch each other because of laws
of modesty attached to my religion. How I very simply, for a myriad of reasons,
will never take touch casually, and how I love a hug, but not as a default, not
as a cultural norm. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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It is these little things I internalize. Boundaries and
preferences and concerns that even my friends and loved ones are protected from
because my experiences as a Jew, or as a female shouldn’t have to be there
problem.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So leave you with just a tip: those you love may not always
invite you to see the parts of them that are a little different. But if they
do, you should probably take the invitation, because you have just been invited
to join a club, a special club that involves trust and care and is hoping you
might find that which is different just as compelling as that which is same,
because it where true love and acceptance lies. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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You can take this as a personal tip, or one as a member of
society where everyone is walking about with their own background, which might
be very very different <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>than yours. And you
aren’t really sharing space if you can’t see the space they occupy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And finally, just to
come full circle. Tonight is Yom Kippur. Today we are supposed to forgive and
ask for such a favor in turn from our fellow man before we seek broader salvation.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So I ask forgiveness for all I assume and all I deprive
through assumption.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-59432229167778101352018-11-28T14:11:00.001-08:002018-11-29T12:36:15.595-08:00<div class="MsoNormal">
At the risk of stating the obvious a bit too acutely, the
other day it dawned on me that we don’t all see relationships in the same
manner.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was a visual realization. I was staring at a ven diagram
and realized that for some, romantic relationships are like a ven diagram. There
is me, and there is you, and there is this overlap, the relationship. My
personal space and your personal space is this potentially vast arena we begin to
carve into when we begin to overlap, like an eclipse, into that intersection, and if I say I want more
personal space, I am, by default, giving you more as well. By definition, we have a discreet
intersection, and the rest is personal, not interpersonal. <o:p></o:p></div>
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On some level, it might be true to say that everyone sees a relationship
this way, if they have the vaguest sense of self, with the size of the intersection, and the nuances of the overlap
being the area of dissent…how big should that overlap be? What goes in us vs
me? Does our overlap include the house, the home, kids, sex, finances? When we grow, change, what bucket does that go in?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Perhaps that is the end of the argument. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But I think it is possible that many look at relationships,
true, long term and encompassing relationships they inhabit, like a planet,
like a bubble. They expect to get a bit absorbed, and that is the very definition of "all in". And when you share space, when there is only one room, taking
space requires the other person to inhabit less, and make room for your needs,
while they sublimate their own, or find a way to want that thing too. In order to consider any other way they begin to move
outside the relationship, creating a valve, or perhaps a fire exit. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is a very difficult but important distinction. Are we
sharing a room or the whole house? Is the room we share a bit of you and me in that house, or an uncomfortable middle ground that resembles each of us, just a bit. Is it that dining room that never gets used, or the bedroom with all our personal stuff? Are we all in, mixing and matching like a kaleidoscope
of colors, or are we playing tetris, shoving a piece in, re arranging the
pieces so the whole thing fits, lest we drop a whole row and lose our colors.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So many mixed metaphors. <o:p></o:p></div>
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One meaningful reality: what a shared life is, what it encompasses, is the most important conversation you will ever have with your
partner. It is the essence of your contract, the understanding of your intersection.
It defines the essence of compromise, and even clarifies how transparent we
need be when occupying space.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And either way, how you occupy that shared space has the
potential to be a continuous battle without clear boundaries, as we shrink and
contort to make room for our dreams. and our demons.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">And another meaningful addendum: for centuries (in the culture I occupy) men built a house and women moved into it, and never
got a room of ones own, unless it was the kitchen, or a space that served the larger shared commons. Space was at a premium and none of it was truly theirs.
This meant their bubble might expand as their family grew, but usually it just
got more crowded, with their needs slowly making room for others. This ven diagram looked very different, because they had so
little to call their own, and they weren’t
conjoining households, they were joining a household. They were a bubble within a bubble. Men, in this scenario, often still had their own piece of the pie. A wedge outside the unit, an office outside the home, a train to get there, restaurants for business luncheons, maybe even a drawer in the mistresses apartment. Consider this we discuss
what it means to share, what it means to make space, and what it means to
consider the emotional burden women tend to carry as we grow within and without
a relationship. And consider what it means, when we draw a line, and call an element of our lives strictly outside the shared space, and how little agency that can give a partner, if they thought they had some control over your shared destiny.</span>daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-38875773065869552382018-11-22T13:12:00.000-08:002018-11-22T13:12:02.637-08:00humbleDuring a recent performance review a member of my team of seemed surprised that I had used the word "humble". He asked if others had used it in peer reviews, dug into it a bit until I had to admit that it was me who had observed that behavior. I specifically noted that he brings a certain humility to his position that makes him a talented communicator.<br />
I am not sure I conveyed that this was, in my estimation, one of the highest compliments I could convey, when speaking to another's intelligence and cultural agility. It is that soft space I cannot teach, a recognition of others and their relative importance that creates a better listener, and in the end, I suspect, is the special sauce in continued education as our brains harden and our certainty solidifies.<br />
I had an interestingly converse conversation with someone else the other day, someone who could not comprehend that they might be so very good at communicating with some, and yet alienating and frustrating for another group. How could they be good and bad at something at the same time? How was that possible?<br />
How do we know we know anything if we aren't open to context? How can we learn anything if we don't recognize our ongoing role as a student?<br />
I consider my own brain, increasingly a sieve, noticing less and less details I wander this space, filling in blanks with expectations honed by empirical evidence and so much repetition. What am I making room for as I forget the past and miss the present? If I can't believe others have more to teach me then I could ever learn, then how am I not simply pruning to a stone, taking active steps toward death, head first? If I don't bring humility to the table every time won't I miss the very evolution I was born to experience? If I am not open to always becoming someone new, aren't I just leaving myself behind?<br />
On a broader, less personal note: It is also what I most note when describing a missing attribute in our current culture. The other day I heard someone ask the President "Does this make you reconsider your position?" and without missing a beat he said "no, I am quite confident in my opinion" ...as if it were an asset, as if it proved how far he had come.When I think of the last few years, on a global scale, as our nation has become more notably divided and fractured, as hate and confusion and a certain disdain for education takes center stage, the one thing I feel we are being quickly denied is humility. Appreciation for others, awareness of our own limitation is the death rattle of success. Lean in, move up, fake it until you make it. If you aren't sure project misguided certainty is always a better ploy than admitting that someone might know twice what you have regrettable already forgotten.<br />
It is a tragedy that breeds weakness, sadness, and in the end, stupidity.<br />
<br />
We love people who know themselves, we use pride as a compliment without considering why pride has been considered a sin.<br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong, self love is one of the most important qualities one can have in the course of happiness, and one should celebrate their success, giving credit where credit is due. But if one really loves themselves and wishes to love others, wouldn't they want to house themselves in more than a luxurious cocoon, or, at least, build a window where they can enjoy the view?daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-3165165616276543972017-01-23T09:48:00.002-08:002017-01-23T09:49:10.615-08:00Women<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I made the sad mistake of debating the various virtues of the Women’s March in the comment section of someone’s Facebook wall the other day. To quote a very famous man: Sad.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I should know better as it moves into the petty squabbling that is apt to characterize and belittle what is really going on in a more broad fashion. It is hard to focus and facebook tends towards a certain trolling tone that implies idiocy so broadly that one gets…umm…emotional, and fails to make a point, as one argument blends with another and my natural instinct to give credence to other reasonable points comes off as weak.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So below, up for debate, but not ridicule (which is to say, if you are going to dismiss a point outright, feel free to use words we can all understand and relate to) is my take on the women’s march…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It was awesome. I want to just end the analysis here. I wish I could. Over 3 million women around the world mobilized to show their power and their ability to unite and demonstrate peacefully. The is huge. Yuge. And worth of awe. Period.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">That being said, I’d like to discuss the conversation around whether it could have been better focused or had a clear point…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">First off: I think the fact that I have gotten into arguments over this point with more than one person is indicative, is in and of itself, that there might have been a clearer list of demands. However, I think we might be conflating two very different issues if we just think a bit deeper. I agree that a movement should have a clear and cohesive message.I think clear asks make for clear response.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">THAT being said: I think “stop treating us like second hand citizens” is a clear enough message, given the CONTEXT. The context being: blatantly sexist platforms from the republican platform, the election of a man who makes sexist and arguably violently misogynistic statements, the appointment of key staff that have a history of creating disadvantage in the form of blocking women’s healthcare, the selection of a VP who has a horrific track record when it comes to women’s health and rights…I think this constellation of recent occurrences associated with the election create a broad context that would be belittled by focusing on specific legislation. Which is to say that I don’t think there was any real question of the point of that March. I think implying there is a both insulting and gaslighting. Much like broad reaching and systemic racism, sometimes there is a bigger point that just one law.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But I think understanding the clear message is predicated on an believing the message has merit. The REALITY is that many many women feel like this country, with the election that just transpired, is poised to make a horrible u-turn back to a place where we have less rights and where we feel less safe. Period. And I think this is based on what we are hearing people in power say and what we have seen them do. The real subtext of questioning the point of the women’s march is questioning the legitimacy of the complaint. And that is a much darker conversation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">THAT being said. Why now? Why that day. Why not wait for something truly horrifying? Why not last week? Last month? Last year?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And yes, for that I have two comments: You might be right. Maybe 12 months ago would have been better. Or when Trump picked Pence. Or who the hell knows when. Maybe if this march had gotten the vote out we would all be way way happier. Oh hindsight. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But, you know, I am a big fan of not letting perfect be the enemy of good, and I think it is useless to spend time pondering when the exact perfect moment is to make a broad “WHAT THE FUCK” demonstration. I will say this: a galvanizing piece of legislation may add focus, BUT waiting to start until that action runs the risk of both allowing the gradual erosion of rights waiting for the “big one” and also risks starting too late. It also legitimizes language and subtext during the lull and sends a message of apathy. Plus we can (and SHOULD) march again. And I think there is a strong and undeniable power to making the first thing our new President sees, in office, is one of the biggest protests or marches in history. Showing that more people will show up to that than his inauguration is a statement, and a big one. It was as good a day as any, basically.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">That being said, I would also like to discuss the relative power of the march, to which I can only say: time will tell. Tea Parties gathered and demonstrated and changed the way the republican party worked. They made a fringe group seem bigger and more relevant than they are and I would argue that loose message snow balled. The women’s march was much much larger. And if the marches, the demonstrations, continue, if they follow up with galvanizing multiple generations around specific legislation or appointments, combining that with a “we are watching and next time we will make sure to vote” comments, then I think it is incredibly powerful. In and of itself, making our current government question how apathetic we truly are has power, as we have shown. But I do think what follows is just as important.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And finally, the question of: was it a march or a party or just a great big feel good outcry. I don’t think there is a simple answer an I don’t know that it matters. Characterizing it is a party is just a way to delegitimize the complaint. Personally, I think of it a lot like like I view gay pride, which is a big ol’ party…no denying it…but it is also inherently political, in that it is grounded in a unifying desire to make it clear that a group that understands they are repetitively discriminated against still can’t be held down. It energizes the group in question but also creates a presence. This movement understands it isn’t just one piece of legislation (although there are very clear big ones) or just one right, but a variety of things: from failure to convict murderous bullies to the right to marry that continue to serve as a reminder that their safety, their rights, and their abilities to just do what a lot of other Americans take for granted are continuously threatened. Similarly, a bunch of women saying “hey, this is so big that we can’t just focus on one thing” is a pretty big statement. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Which is to say, I think the women’s march was a big beautiful great big start. And also kind of sad, because I think it is acknowledgement that at this point we expect it to be coming from every side: more expensive and harder to access healthcare and family planning, a glass ceiling that just got passively reinforced, a clear statement that reporting sexual assault (and assault in general) isn’t worth it, tax laws (ehem, head of household) that affect single mothers most poorly, and in general a spin that blames those least fortunate for the sins of those most fortunate, creating a tail spin of squabbling that only serves to reduce everyone’s rights, across the board.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Am I being histrionic? I am sure anyone who thinks so also will not understand this point.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Because WHY we are questioning it is my entire point. We aren’t arguing about whether the women’s march had a point. We are arguing about whether it was timely and necessary. In that I find such a huge chasm in belief that I doubt facts and figures could dent resolve. And there ARE facts and figures that women experience barriers men do not. I could share them, but I can’t imagine what effect that would have when over half the human race could affirm that they are experiencing discrimination and you would still dismiss that as petty or irrelevant. </span></div>
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daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-67604940531848362212016-11-25T15:09:00.003-08:002016-11-26T15:18:53.672-08:00that greenpeace stare (or how I became bad at networking)There is a look someone gives you when they don't especially want to be in a conversation and are fairly convinced that you are about to trap them, possibly for minutes on end, in just that.<br />
<br />
We have all seen it before: awkward, slightly terrified, skittish and a little cagey. It is the look of perfectly well meaning people who don't want to be rude or unkind, but are suddenly unable to escape an especially boring conversation with a person they have little true interest in.<br />
<br />
I think the most obvious example is the look pedestrians get when they have missed the street light next to an especially aggressive canvasser who is selling something they don't particularly disagree with but also don't want to donate to or discuss. For this reason, in my head, it has become the green peace stare. It is a look usually accompanied by a human creating a bullshit excuse of why they need to be not there.<br />
<br />
I first noticed it in high school, when geeky students with a poor understanding of social cues would answer an innocent question at excruciating length, sentencing the querier to sit through this extrapolation as they hemmed and hawed and danced around like a toddler that had to pee but wouldn't admit it, I then also began to notice it on the face of popular people whenever anyone they didn't want to become too associated with would take up too much of their time. As if they could see the possibility of social acceptance slipping away with every moment they wasted talking about this unhip band with this sad little nobody.<br />
<br />
Maybe you have never seen this look ...maybe you just don't care, but it is the look that made me want to avoid approaching anyone, in my youth, EVER for fear of meeting that politely horrified reaction.<br />
I mean seriously, you only have to see that reaction once to feel both sorry for the person giving you that look as well as incredibly sorry for yourself.<br />
No thank you. I'd rather be alone.<br />
<br />
And so I was. A lot.<br />
<br />
Somewhere in college I came out of my shell. Less people seemed annoyed to have to speak with me, and conversely I approached people more. Maybe I was more interesting, maybe youthful sexual energy meant some were more apt pretend I was interesting ...more likely I was just a bit tipsy and tuning out the expression, when it appeared. I guess I'll never know, but I didn't miss it.<br />
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But I also never truly got over it, and as a result, while not shy, I became...permanently uncomfortable approaching others. <br />
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Alas, I will never be a politician and am a horrible salesperson.<br />
<br />
I am just too keenly aware of all of the moments when people would rather be talking to anyone, or even no one, rather than being trapped with me. And while sometimes I can ignore it, usually out of my own act of charity and a little bit of pride, as I have gotten older I am becoming more familiar with that look again. I could go into the details of why I suspect this is so (a litany of details to do with my declining physical appearance, mundane daily routine, and propensity for serious conversation) but I will only bother to truly elaborate by saying that having a child has fished out a whole other group of people who now give me this look: those without children who are convinced I am about to bore the shit out of them with stories of my child. What stuns me most about these people is that I invariably do just that: because like someone unable to avoid looking at the elephant room that is always the only thing they ask about. Rinse rather repeat.<br />
<br />
And I am still not sure what to do about it, other than politely spare such individuals the discomfort of such an experience. Which is sad, because it keeps me away from meeting those who are perfectly happy to sit in a corner at a cocktail party and discuss with equal comfort boutique shoes and health equity.<br />
<br />
I'd like to say it is their loss but I think we all know the real story.<br />
<br />daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-79332020807660931072016-06-22T14:22:00.001-07:002016-06-22T14:22:26.683-07:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The biggest mistake I make, time and time again, is letting myself bond too quick with especially charismatic people. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It is a common mistake, it is why people become rock stars: because they care capable of letting large amounts of people feel, inexplicably, “close” to them, even though they have barely met, people become attached.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I am not<i> that</i> bad, I understand that total strangers, despite a winning gaze or haunting lyric, don’t really understand me, and more importantly, that I have no idea who they are. And I don’t believe charming people I have met only a handful of times love me based on a good conversation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Where it gets hazy for me is the middle ground, these semi frequent acquaintances who have a piercing gaze, who listen closely, who have a cultivated and attentive manner that allows me to feel that giddy sense of intimacy that is should be reserved for true connecting but is nonetheless elicited by the sense of undivided attention and affirming eyes. That fucks my shit up.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I think in order to understand this there might need to be an undercurrent of, shall we say, awkwardness in your past. Perhaps a less than robust history of quick connections and easy rapport. And as someone who is, despite a tendency toward gregarious and overly (nervous) chatter, actually pretty shy and insecure about social interactions, “connecting” with someone still feels like a rare treat. To sit and gab for hours effortlessly, to have moments of sharing that feels natural, is such a novelty to me, especially with someone reasonably available within my social circle that I immediately imagine a friendship closer than might actually be warranted. I imagine that a rare chemistry is fueling these moments, not the mad skills of a social butterfly. And what I always forget, without fail, is that those who have such a winning personality, those that have a way with people don’t understand, is this very assumption, because they experience this with most, if not all, of the people they interact with, reserving true close friendship and intimacy for those who they have a long demonstrated history of trust and caring. Which makes sense. Because that is the basis of close friendship, not a handful of generally pleasant interactions spattered over time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And as one can guess, this generally leads to disappointment, on my end, at least. It leads to completely unfounded feelings of rejection. Like a jilted lover I find myself yelling “but you said you would love me forever!” after the platonic equivalent of a successful one night stand and some sweet talk.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And, of course, this has other even less desirable effects: to an increasing sense of shyness, a tentativeness around forming friendships, an evolving tendency to never take the lead in forming social attachments, as I don’t want to assume anything, don’t want to put pressure where it really isn’t deserved. And it leads to self doubt…did I really just bond with that person? Or do they just have social skills?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Also, to be only fair, I realize it isn’t okay to reject, across the board, or dismiss, charismatic people based on the presence of that trait. That is like refusing to love beautiful people: ultimately a poor and self-defeating strategy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So the only safe tact to take is to very tentatively build expectations, and to remind myself of how few things are truly personal in this world. To reserve real love and expectations for those with a demonstrated history of interest, with an ongoing indication of investment, and to let that spiritual sense of love and connection be more of an accompanying motivator, that an actual impetus. The proverbial cherry on the Sundae, not the meal itself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But, like I said, it is hard. I am a thirsty creature.</span></div>
daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-51472752924655075722016-06-11T14:42:00.003-07:002016-06-11T14:42:50.539-07:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
I don’t understand why it is that the world is suddenly so much more encroaching. I am finding this election cycle weirdly demoralizing and intensely frustrating.<u></u><u></u></div>
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I mean, it isn’t like I haven’t seen ludicrous candidates elected, offensively lacking in empathy and deeply at odds with my way of thinking. It isn’t like I haven’t seen propositions pass that limit the rights of those I hold dear, limit my own rights, limit all of our access to the basic human necessities<u></u><u></u></div>
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But somehow, somewhere, this one got in deeper.<u></u><u></u></div>
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It is like watching a reality TV show where you like so few of the contestants that you can’t even get enthused to defend them in the face of such overwhelming odds. It is realizing that you do not share this aversion with most of the humans that surround you daily. It is, in short, alienating.<u></u><u></u></div>
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And it is personal. I have made a living trying to expand access to basic services for those most marginalized by society. I have seen the margins skitter and move. And I have seen legislation move with those margins and I am finally seeing some alignment between needs and funding and policy. And that could all go away, and knowing, closely and deeply how that will look is nothing short of nauseating. If those allowing their privileged version of individualism truly understood they would oppose it to, but we are so caught up in the competition that fear of being voted off the island keeps us from seeing that the island is more than big enough to house us all, peacefully.<u></u><u></u></div>
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And also, it is personal. I mean, I am a woman, a mother, a religious minority by some standards, a friend, a human. Some of the things being thrown around make me feel immediately threatened. Not in some climate science very obvious you would have to be an idiot to see we are ruining our planet way. More in a “ I want to build a taller fence because I fear for my general safety and worry that my child will be victimixed by racist xenophobic sexists who are now empowered to act on their violent dangerous ways”. More in a how can anyone not understand that a bully and abuser looking to take more away from those he sees in his way by any means possible puts us all in danger way. But ALSO in a climate science way because I don’t like imagining end of days being during my lifetime or even my childs lifetime.<u></u><u></u></div>
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But also, it is personal, in a more removed philosophical way. Because I don’t’ believe people are bad or stupid, but I do think that too large a majority of our society has been slowly led to believe that our bootstrappin legacy necessitates pitting one of us against another and ranking in order to justify personal success. Which is to say, if you believe our society is so fair and just that anyone can succeed on their own merits and that anyone who doesn’t is being punished for those flaws. Well, lets just say there are about 3 things in that sentence I powerfully, deeply disagree with. Intellectually, emotionally, morally. Even as the most pragmatic and unidealistic human I understand the recipe for success maintaining that belief in direct conflict to the evidence holds.<u></u><u></u></div>
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And so it is making me sad and exhausted. Stunned by the blinding emotion everyone is wielding in the space that well honed idealistic intellectualism should enhabit. Horrified that our leaders are this filled with hubris, cynicism and selfishness.<u></u><u></u></div>
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daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-30446504443058044682016-06-11T14:41:00.002-07:002016-06-11T14:41:17.183-07:00constant cravingI have wasted time nurturing desires that will not satisfy<br />
<br />
like a musician who was taught fame, and not skill would make him happy, who spends time chasing bits and pieces of attention, making album covers instead of albums tossing rocks into a pond that would happier filled with rain and with a stream from the lake nearby<br />
<br />
but it is hard to not want what others desire not to give you, and even harder when we are encouraged to chase dreams that were never best ours to begin with<br />
<br />
and yet encouraged we are...dreams, mountains, skills, love...we are told we need things that we do not, we are raised to want what is not right for us because it comforts another to see us chase.<br />
I don't think it's malice that creates this unkind cycle, but merely insecurity, as there is comfort in watching other want what we too want, no one wants to be lonely, even in their desires<br />
<br />
all I know is that chasing anything you are not apt to get, or perhaps will not satisfy if delivered, be it fame or skill or, more often money or love just creates a craving that will constantly build more hunger. it digs holes in our soul we can never fill. it is the thirst that feels like hunger, the unrequited love we can't quite quit, even when we know that is all there is<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-3295565747028198272016-05-26T19:19:00.000-07:002016-05-26T19:19:07.156-07:00the fox news title read: does Trump have a problem with women?<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
It is barely even worth discussing, but it is a no brainer that Trump has a problem. He has effectively communicated his complete lack of respect for women in countless ways, ranging from his dismissal of their words, to the bullying belittling way he addresses even females he pertains to like. This is not news, as it is not new, and is not even, necessarily, hotly contested.<u></u><u></u></div>
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What is worth discussing is the lack of problem so many people seem to have with this. What IS an issue, what isn’t a no brainer, and what is sad and unforgiveable is the fact that a large population sees Trump, hears Trump, and follows him, not despite his despicable attitudes towards women, but with complicit support of these beliefs.<u></u><u></u></div>
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People ask: how can any woman vote for Trump?<u></u><u></u></div>
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I don’t know, how can any woman hate herself for gaining wait, or measure herself against her husbands success, or belittle another woman for being something other than a charming accessory.<u></u><u></u></div>
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The sexism, the passive violence against women is so ingrained in our society, so pervasive and often unquestioned, that a better question to ask is not how can anyone vote for this person, but how can anyone, of any gender, stand this kind of discrimination against half the human race?<u></u><u></u></div>
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And the answer is simple: many people, in their heart of hearts, even if they are taking strides address it, still view women’s as most valuable when they are a good accessory and subset companion. You see it in the most simple language: we “protect” women because they are “someone’s mother or child”. As if we need to justify the value of their human life in context to what they mean to a male. You rarely see a male’s value justified in similar fashion. You see it in the many ways rape culture actualizes: instructing women in the myriad of ways they might protect themselves, versus the obvious other solution: ingraining that violence is not an option, of any kind, to women. And you see it in the way women speak to women as well, magazine upon magazine preying insecurities rooted the very notion that we are not earning our worth if we are anything less than delicious arm candy. And yes, we see it in the way Megyn Kelly went back to interview Trump again, cowtowing to his abusive and bullying language, and taking it like a champ, because secretly so many people believed she had overstepped her bounds by expecting respect, requesting rhetoric of equality and inclusion. The barely concealed subtext is clear: she wasn’t bullied or abused, she was punished, like a child, corrected, as she should have been, for challenging what many see as a given.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Look, I know this will all come off as across the board angry feminism to many, and I can live with that. And I actually do believe there are a great many who walk and talk a dream of respect and equality for the half of the human race consistly deprived of it. But it is hard to read essay upon essay of “why doesn’ Trump have such a problem with women” when the answer is so clear: because Trump is a product of a society that has the same problem. And that is why they accept it, and why they won’t even consider it when it is time to cast a vote. Because what he is saying is actually not nearly as controversial as we wish it were.<u></u><u></u></div>
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daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-5138052567401404652016-05-17T21:47:00.001-07:002016-05-17T21:47:52.265-07:00it is funny how you can un learn lessons and need to relearn them again<br />
<br />
you might be stunned to find that I was not, as they say, popular in highschool. <br />
<br />
consequentially I spent a lot of time oscillating between actively not caring, angrily resenting, and occasionally trying to get people who just weren't that excited by me (and vice versa) to like me.<br />
<br />
and so it was a revelation when I moved to Berkeley and found that I could fill a room with people who I actually liked and who actually liked me as much as I liked them<br />
because when I moved somewhere that happened to have a wealth of people
whose company I found stimulating, whose presence excited and inspired me, I came alive, and I
became more interesting. I became more...me. The barely concealed shame
I had in suspecting I was, at heart, an unappealing person, the shame
that told me to conform, to hide my unique parts, to just shut the fuck
up, or talk when I least should have, just dissipated. And I relaxed, And I
felt loved. Even when the friendships were dramatic or stupid or had
bumps and tragedies and long slow points, I still felt supported. I felt
I mattered. At least to someone. Someones.<br />
<br />
See...the thing about trying to forge intimate bonds around people that you just don't find stimulating is that it ...seems to kill your soul just a bit. every time. friendship is a two way street and odds are if you are straining to find them interesting, they are doing the same, and you can feel it and they can feel it and sooner or later you are stymied to picture yourself as anything other than a painfully boring or awkward person. it is a negative feedback loop with diminishing returns<br />
<br />
understand, I am not talking the process of spending time around people who
actually annoy or offend you. I am talking about compromises that are far easier to make. the girl next door or your boyfriends best friend or that girl who works with you. decent people who it seems you should like more than you actually do. because, the simple fact is that
there are a lot of reasonably nice, reasonably intelligent people, who
might even have the same interests, politics, mutual friends or zip code
as you, who you just aren't ever going to love. friendship has a chemistry just like romantic love, and there are some
people who make watching paint dry stimulating, while others can talk
about your favorite subject until you want to gouge your eyes out<br />
<br />
and so this lesson, to not fake friendships, to spend the scant social time you do have around people who truly make you happy to be you and happy to be you with then, while seemingly intuitive, is still a valuable lesson to learn.<br />
<br />
and one I occasionally find I need to be studious about yet again, if I want to be happy<br />
<br />daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-30097055224458888762016-04-23T10:18:00.000-07:002016-04-23T10:18:48.007-07:00One of the weirdest parts of Portland, Oregon for me, and the thing I actually find most like living in Santa Barbara, or any other fairly homogeneous, mostly tolerant, is the quiet, sublimated and confused bigotry of a melting pot culture that is more a puree than a stew.<br />
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Let me explain, because this mostly seems to happen in liberal cities where everyone believes they are tolerant and loving and embrace culture, but what they really seem to appreciate is a casting off of strong beliefs for something that has a more decorative and celebratory nature: here you will find a variety of foods from a variety of cultures, reimagined, often, and made with ingredients that culture never even imagined. You will find pinatas and menorahs and prayer flags. You will find multicultural music fests but very few mosques and temples.<br />
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It is like the renfair of cultural diversity, cosplay for those who grew up with dominant paradigms but like exposure to truly diverse thoughts and cultures and beliefs. We love our punks, our kinda budhist vegan bike riding anarchists, our lesbian jews, our multiracial babies in ironic onesies. We like hues of cultures, but not chunks we need to chew on.<br />
<br />
being a jew I often stumble into the center of this more squarely than some. being a "minority", or at least someone who carries a less dominant culture, but looks and feels and smells like the vast majority of beige christianish majority, it is often assumed, even if I outright state my lineage, that I carry the same trappings. and you know people say things around people they feel they have something in common with more unabashadly. so there is that. so I will say I am jewish and they will nod and say it's cool because that is an interesting culture to them that isn't too terribly different so doubt I don't think too much about it. it is a thing I do a few times a year and instead or in addition I get to have a menorrah or something. sometimes they even go a step further and imagine how cool it is to grow up free from the dominant religious paradigm that is causing such stupidity around the world<br />
<br />
and I almost choke on my coffee, because the religious paradigm I grew up with includes segregation and women covered head to toe, and food laws so stringent you can never eat out and a full day without electricity and fasting and a variety of other things that are pretty intense and which I carry with me to this watered down and mostly assimilated day. they are me. I carry the beauty and the confusion and the frustration of coming from a culture that I both struggle with and defines me. but I know what it is, and it is a lot to chew. <br />
<br />
the other day I read a post about a jewish mom who got an eye roll from a preschool when she asked if her child could bring matzoh for a week (no outside food normally) because he wouldn't be able to eat their crackers or bread or muffins. they made a surprised comment about her being that religious. they were, quite actually, being a public institution required to accomodate in some fashion. and suddenly the cuteness of the jewish kid who drew stars instead of crosses became something they regarded as an annoyance, because there were needs, it was real, he was different, and that was something they weren't interested in dealing with, let alone learning about.<br />
<br />
and ofcourse, they didn't recognize it as antisemitism, any more than someone doesn't recognize they part of themselves that says they aren't racist, but rejects dress or slang or accents that are part of another culture. they are fine with skin hues and history, but they reject the actual belief systems and history of joy and oppression attached to that culture. that is problematic and inconvenient and requires a level of introspection of your own<br />
<br />
I want to say I am fortunate that the way I carry my culture allows me to not experience some of the more overt racism we tend to express. but part of me carries an anger and curiosity towards those who cannot digest diversity in it's truest form...I think of it is cowardice, because what does it say about you if you can handle dark skin but you can't handle the culture and belief systems that someone carries with them if they are different than your own? are you nervous about loving someone with unique thoughts? does it challenge your own beliefs to experience someone fulfilled by others? or is it simply lack of exposure because even the most hodge podged and atheists societies carry strong and insular paradigms?<br />
<br />
I suspect it is all of the above. most people mean well but find it hard to imagine that someone they love and respect has a wholly different mind and history unless they get to truly, personally express it. and so I think it out job to sensitively remind them that cinco de mayo isn't a chance to get drunk on margaritas, and new orleans isn't all about one street and a party, and jews aren't a cute sideview of semichristian agnosicism, and there a ton of different asian cultures with radically different paradigms and they aren't just here to bring you good food.<br />
<br />
there are things to be learned. and they need to be learned if we plan to move away from oppression, in all it's forms, including embracing something as abrasive as anything else: willful homogeneity.<br />
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<br />daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-1138634599707306972016-04-20T21:06:00.001-07:002016-04-20T21:06:20.485-07:00dewy and lushwhenever I see women who are holding a cup of tea and feeling blessed I want to grow my hair out.<br />
<br />
I picture these ladies making satisfied sounds like "mm" as they sip their tea and snuggle up in a home knit shawl, and am suddenly thirsty, imagining all the water I haven't drunk and all the fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds I haven't consumed. I want to cleanse and stretch and find a certain peace that will produce the robust and dewy complexion I see. I imagine myself, voluptuous and full lipped, bright eyed and smooth skinned, muscles concealed a smooth sheath of elastic flesh.<br />
<br />
This is how I picture one feels catching a sunrise or enjoying the last wisps of a sunny day. Swimming in a river, you imagine such an image, or meditating a lake. This how one looks drinking a glass of wine on the veranda after a day of recreational exercise and a night of full sleep.<br />
<br />
Then I capture a glimpse of myself in the mirror: sharp edges and fine lines, piercing but tired eyes, round, yet somehow lacking a certain vibrant voluptuousness one associates with youth and am forced to admit that a certain ship has sailed. I am not saying that days of beauty or fitness are behind me. Hell there are handfulls of celebrities to show us just how hot a lady over 40 can be. But that other thing. The pretty pretty smooth and soft, glowing and flowing beauty of carefree youth: she, as they say, has flown.<br />
<br />
And so I make an appointment for a hair cut.<br />
<br />daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-58533514525529189662016-04-19T13:13:00.002-07:002016-04-19T13:13:10.244-07:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">What’s new?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It has been one of my least favorite questions. Especially in a year where “nothing much” is a fairly positive answer and the other, more excitable answers I might have would foot to details that might be found mundane or annoying or alienating.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It wasn’t always like this. In youth I found that the constant metamorphosis meant that this question often elicited exciting tails of new romance, adventures, jobs, projects. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">All of these elements might exist in some level, to this day, but what I have found, as time goes on, is that those most likely to ask this question really don’t want the answer: acquaintances, social friends, distant relatives, are asking a question that can only be answered by details that will emphasize the path that has eroded out intimacy, or details too intimate to share with the kind of person who would ask this at a party.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Natural instinct here leads me to the topic of CHILDREN. Kids. To breed or not to breed and the slow and whistling chasm that seems to widen between those who do and don’t make that leap, making this question especially annoying for everyone involved. You are asking me what is new, and I will tell you all about little Timmy and his first tooth, and you will smile and wonder when my run-of-the-mill boring story that only reveals how mundane my breeder lifestyle has become will end. And I will wonder why I didn’t talk about my job or working out or something.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But because this is a sensitive area and people love to defend and object to the reality that this gap exists, I am just going to use another topic, for the sake of metaphor, instead.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Let’s say I got really damn into …vegan movement and conscientious eating. When I went to a party of my old paleo buddies and you asked me what was new I might discuss my latest discovery into my newly fetishized eating regimen and you would nod with a mix of fake amusement and barely hidden contempt as I went into the many ways my new life didn’t cause as much death and destruction as it once did. In contrast, walking into a room full of all natural vegans might yield a different result: excitement over where to find that new fake cheese or joyful pats on the back and we congratulated ourselves on our latest lifestyle choice.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Do I sound judgmental? I mean to. I mean to sound every bit as judgmental and tone deaf as I just did. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Because all vegans aren’t like all parents aren’t like all health buffs aren’t like all venture capitalists. And some paleo people might be fascinated by this transition, and want to know more, knowing you were an educated fascinating person who took their consumption seriously. Sadly, this isn’t how it always goes, though. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And walking into a room full of people who tolerate, but do not support your life choices invariably tends to lead to the same tone deaf conversations in which one person asks what’s new out of polite hope that you will pop up with the one thing you once had in common and the only thing they cling to as proof that you are still an asset and not a hold over obligation, and when you predictably can’t produce a lengthy diatribe about said commonality…well, we know where that goes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I am not done with old friends. I am not done with childless friends or vegan friends or friends who moved to Peru, or friends who can’t get their shit together, or friends from “that” part of my life. Truth be told, I miss them. I am often hoping someone will tell me a story so far from my own experience that I don’t even know how it will end. I mean sure, your decision might sounds completely insane at first blush, or I might expect to find the details of your new tech job dull as doornails. But I also very much may not. It just depends on you and I am going to grant you the benefit of the doubt, even the open respect to imagine that every decision you make deserves respect, and means something to and about you, or you wouldn’t have made it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But what I am done with are events that are characterized by a bunch of people who have written me off because they lack the creativity to imagine that each diverging life choice is multidimensional and as interesting or dull as you make it, and those who populate it. I am done with friendships that require me to be a ghost of who I once was because someone can’t imagine the value in who I have become. Which is awesome. Maybe. If you like me. And if you don’t see that, you aren’t a friend, and I would rather talk about the TV then tell you what is new</span></div>
daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-56780766409399085512016-02-23T17:16:00.000-08:002016-02-23T17:16:16.371-08:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">My close friend lost her teenage son a few days ago.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I won’t begin to speak, directly, to the loss of that beautiful bright light itself, and the all of the direct tragedy and horror that is wrapped up in losing a soul so young. To say that it is heartbreaking is only the tip of the iceberg.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I will save that for another day. Sidestep that conversation for something a touch less horrifying and unpleasant.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Because as the days tick by and the loss becomes a thing the living must deal with, I am struck by another loss as well.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Without putting too fine a point on it, watching a close friend lose a child is a little like losing a tyat close friend, themselves.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Yes, I realize that sounds dramatic. Or maybe self-involved. And yes, I realize that I will go on to have more times with her. Good times, bad times, amazing times, sad times. I am sure of it. I look forward to them all because I am happy to know her as long as she will let me.<u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But she will never be the same.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Look: There are a lot of clichés around this: Having a child is like watching your heart walk around outside your body. True. You would give one year of your life for an hour of your child’s. Also true. No one wants to outlive their child. Beyond true. Truth itself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Watching someone that you love so absolutely learn to live in this world is terrifying and exhilarating. To lose that, to lose the joy of watching their lives unfold…that is devastating. A phantom limb, a phantom soul. And while you can continue, while you can even go on, thrive, have more joys of your own, like a chandelier with multiple bulbs, the loss of that joy is like the bulb that will always be out, forever changing the hue and quality of that light, of the mood, of the atmosphere of your world. <u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And so I mourn for him and I mourn for her and those who loved him in a totally different way, because that person who was building a future and a life and a family that always included him in it is gone, replaced with someone who is now a shell and the battle hasn’t even begun to rebuild the rest to something she can barely recognize, at this point, as her own life. The absence of the person she was ...is palpable, and brings me to tears when the loss of her son doesn’t.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Sometimes I wonder if this is why people avoid people who are mourning, when they wish they could be the person who would be there instead. Because to miss someone in their very presence is a unique ache, a powerless gut punch. And only the love for them itself overpowers that unique horror.</span></div>
daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-75214933535428216432016-02-13T14:59:00.000-08:002016-02-13T14:59:07.715-08:00public service announcementthere are ways, subtle, and not so much so, to let the less secure know that they cannot feel safe experiencing a full range of emotions around you.<br />
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some are more obvious, like mocking or yelling at them, but others are more common, more universally accepted, and just as clear<br />
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1. remind them of their past: there is nothing like clearing that moment of sadness or frustration or embarrassment only to be reminded of it, again, and again. nothing will encourage someone not to lose it around you faster than being certain to remind them that the incident is present in your thoughts and encourage ongoing judgement<br />
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2. ignore the reaction, notably: tuning someone out, as they escalate, is a sure way to clarify that this is an emotion you are not comfortable with. you don't want to encourage it, you don't want to wade in those depths, and you certainly don't want to work on it with them. trying to bottle an emotion in another? this is a sure fire way to go.<br />
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3. comment, without encouraging words: Hard day huh? How awkward! Seriously, the irony is that acknowledging, in a way that lacks empathy, a bad moment can be just as direct a message as ignoring the emotion. Want to make it worse? Add a dose of annoyance. Nothing will remind a human to mask their emotions more quickly than another human pointing out that they are weak, and have no sympathy for that reality<br />
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4. denying them that emotion: almost as bad as ignoring, and possibly as bad as mocking, is the moment in which you acknowledge a bad feeling and let another know that they do not have a right to react as such? the mild version of this is the "bright side" or silver lining. The more extreme is implying that someone is somehow negative or ungrateful or has some sort of disorder or perspective problem because they are reacting to something you don't think is worth that reaction.<br />
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So what can you do? How do you make a person feel safe to work through hard times and sad thoughts? At the very least, acknowledge kindly? Can't relate, don't feel safe or comfortable diving deeper: just let them know you hear them, don't have those feelings, but can respect that they can, and if you can't listen further, suggest options if that is what they need.<br />
Even better, validate the emotion, share, if you can, a time you felt the same. Give them a hug, or even just let them be near you feeling that these are feelings they can face head on and work on directly.<br />
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Do everything you can to discourage shame, because shame helps no one. <br />
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Look, no one wants to be a downer. No one wants to be that person. You know, THAT person, who can't handle their shit, who is always sad or freaking out or acting out. Really. Or, at least the majority of people without severe personality disorders, just want to be thought of fondly. They aren't trying to upset you in order to win a sum gain.<br />
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The ugly part of this is: often in order to be holistically, we need all need to be that person from time to time. And whether it is death or destruction or just a bad day at the office that is calling up those feelings, we all deserve to feel safe having those feelings in order to figure out how to address them.<br />
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So next time you notice someone going there...going deep down there, consider your reaction. The smallest attempt to allow them to feel safe can make all the difference.daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-36279243371024278942016-02-11T15:27:00.000-08:002016-02-11T15:30:24.294-08:00another poorly kept secretthat moment, when someone reminds you that you are not allowed to have problems<br />
or, at the very least not handle them as poorly as you have been<br />
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and here I had been proceeding with the idea that we were all enjoyable and together if a bit sloppy, loving eachother, foibles and all. right more than wrong, clean more than...<br />
well, you get it. <br />
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I wish there was a way to respond gracefully to such words. I wish there was a way to absorb the news of ones failings with a little more grace than apparently I employ in every other situation<br />
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but truth be told I was pretty much as bitchy about that moment as I suspect I have been about a bunch of others because as he noted, so succinctly, I am pretty much a mess all of the time these days<br />
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and you know what that means, when someone tells you something like that. it isn't that they are concerned and you are a lovely and strong person who seems to be kinda unhappy. they are letting you know that your problems have gotten so annoying and unavoidable and present that they are becoming a part of who you are. that they are an issue, and not just for you. they are letting you know that they are stepping in the mess, and everyone else is too. or they are tired of stepping around it. and neither is ideal. <br />
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don't get me wrong, I am not so in the dark about my own emotional state that I haven't picked up that I am having PROBLEMS. Anxiety, frustration, loneliness, and a little indignation and rage. And exhaustion. All true. Not the only emotions I experience, daily, but certainly ones that are making far too frequent an appearance.<br />
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and also, please, do not misunderstand: I know that these are emotions that have value, that they shouldn't have to be hidden in a veil of shame. but I also know that I would rather have them be occasional guest stars in my constellation of emotions, not regularly reoccuring cast.<br />
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which is to say: I don't think it is possible for me to embrace vulnerability enough to be okay with the idea that I careen through life the embodiment of such resolute unkempt emotions. Or more to the point: I don't want to be that person. I am not okay with it and I don't think anyone else is okay with my being that person either. I am not interesting enough to also be that annoying. But to be more specific: I don't want to be the person who so clearly has issues and problems, who so clearly cannot handle her shit, that other people are inadvertently absorbing the static and handling them for her, or at least along with her.<br />
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I don't want to be a mess, and even though I felt like one up until that moment, some small part of me had been able to believe that the rest of the world didn't know, that I some how was not, in actuality, one.<br />
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Live and learn.<br />
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I wish I could end this with a feel good point about how you need to see the mess to begin the clean up. How you need to lay eyes on the destruction to know how big a clean up crew you'll need.<br />
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Maybe this is true and knowing is the first step. So there is that.<br />
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But I can tell you about the clean up crew, and you are looking at her, and I can tell you how much effort it is gonna take, and that is all of it, at every moment. So that is where I'll be for the next long while...over there with a shovel, digging a hole, and possibly a moat.<br />
<br />daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7634583.post-50105989142344651362016-02-06T17:13:00.000-08:002016-02-06T17:13:53.042-08:00we are missing an opportunity<br />
As usual, we are missing an opportunity with this election<br />
And that opportunity is not to be found in a campaign speech or promise.<br />
Please note, one cannot run a fully positive or substantive campaign. Differentiation is found in the positive and negative, and sometimes illustrating what you have to offer must be found in exploring another's deficit.<br />
Similarly, and sadly, as is the nature of our times, the likely efficacy of the candidate is only part of the selling point. So I don't want to get into the fact that a candidate is going to grossly over represent the likelihood of pushing their agenda and strongly under represent the opposition they will face.<br />
People will take everything you say and apply a %. If you offer something realistic people will expect your office to include exactly zilch.<br />
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What I am talking about, in my own grass is greener, mildly metaphysical way is something else.<br />
Specifically, what we, the always searching, always snubbing, always frustrated liberal end of the spectrum are missing is the opportunity for celebration.<br />
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The front runners are a woman and a man spouting some actually progressive, truly liberal shit.<br />
Not two white guys of middle age, with lots of money and good hair, spouting middle of the road bullshit that represents so very little, not more of the same. Not more of the same.<br />
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And the reason we should be celebrating is not because these elements are new. There have been women candidates, there have been progressive candidates for years. There have, in fact, been better candidates with the same attributes in just about every election so far. And we haven't voted for them. We have chosen the guys with the good hair and the least offensive message, and this time though we are painting this election with the angry and resentful, only one of those guys even hung on until the caucauses and he was unusually progressive himself.<br />
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Here is what I think...we should be proud and excited that we are actually voting and embracing thoughts and opinions that could make a difference. That we are supporting people who represent a desire for change, and we should be emphasizing that there is no such thing as "they could never win" just because they are expressing thoughts that winners have never had before. We should be shouting that voting is empowerment and the only thing that will stop a candidate from winning is our unwillingess to elect them. And then we should vote for who says the closest to what we want to hear.<br />
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That is how we participate, that is how we move forward.<br />
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Or we could just keep tearing eachother down and resenting all of the shit going on and making every candidate look like they are a last resort.<br />
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All I am saying is: perfect is the enemy of good. And there is such a thing as very very bad.<br />
And we all need to stop fighting like we want to lose the battle just because we are so comfo.rtable feeling the underdog<br />
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We need to stop fighting a losing battle.daff0dilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11698532080377831571noreply@blogger.com0