Life Is Precious

JANUARY 7, 2015.

That was the  day as the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. I was so sad that day for Paris, for humanity, for freedom of speech. I did not realize that I wasn't even seeing the bodies at my feet.

Research led me to find out that the same day as that attack, merely one week into this year; January 7th- the 20th person killed by police in the United States this year had died.

Today, April 14, 2015 that number is 328. That is people killed by police during this year in the United States. You read that right. This is slaughter.

And it has me thinking. Particularly about the conservative pro life stance.

If all life is precious, and we must enact legislation to protect all life,

1. Why do we have the death penalty?

2. Why do we have lax gun laws and allow corporate interest to trump science?

3. Why don't we do more to stop companies who allow hazardous workplaces?

4. Why don't we fund health care, pre-natal care, palliative care and nutrition at full levels?

5. Why do we send young men to war to protect a democracy that is not in place or to support our efforts to control the economy of another country? Why not spend that human talent and ability saving the people who need us? The ones who are starving? Dying of preventable illness?

6. Why don't we do more to educate people about religious and ethnic diversity and the value that brings to all of our lives rather than let them mow people down with military weapons for their differences?

7. Why don't we make high school mandatory and not allow students to drop out at 16, knowing that they don't have the ability to make long range decisions yet?

8. Why do we talk about life being precious when we allow citizens to be killed by our own local security forces? Before they are charged? Before they are given a day in court?

9. Why do we shoot first and ask questions (or plant evidence) later?

10. Whose lives are really all that precious that we would change?


IF all life is precious
If ALL life is precious
If all LIFE is precious
If all life IS precious
If all life is PRECIOUS

When you look at it with your eyes open, only certain lives are precious. Only those that meet the criteria of worthy. We've been down this road before, America. I'm looking at you, too Europe, Asia, South America, Africa! Don't try to hide, India! I'm talking about women's lives too!  Don't get proud, America! I mean Poor people! Brown and black people!

ALL PEOPLE, right?

Isn't that what you meant? That is what you said. All life is precious. That's what you keep saying.

Put your money, your merit, your heart, your effort, your votes, your special interests and your taxes where your mouth is. Or is it so full of hate and misogyny for the freedom of women that you got caught up in a battle to save every embryonic life form ever begotten in the U.S.? Because we have ourselves a quandary. 

Where will you put all these bodies?

How will you explain yourselves at the jury table of history with this blood on your hands?

I've Missed You

It has been over 3 months.

Gone, but not forgotten. Hidden in a drawer, the edge of you peeking out at me when I grab my keys and run out the door.

I have thought of you everyday.

There are 8 pieces of evidence looking at me every time I open this door. They are unfinished. Much like this.

I have a lot to say. We can't talk here. Soon.

I give you a longing look. You touch my hand and beg me to stay for one more minute. I would stay a lifetime. I will come back. I always come back, don't I?

This affair is not only a pleasure for me, but a guilty one. I do this best when I should be doing something else. When I have the time I cannot seem to connect the dots. I can't focus on you.

I won't make the time for myself. I won't give that gift to me. I don't think I deserve you. Or this. I'm not good enough. Not yet.

Soon I will brush away the last of what is keeping me. I can do it. I have to.

You believe me, don't you? I never give up on you. Don't give up on me.

Privilege is a Struggle

You are living the struggle.

No, seriously.

You are in your own version of the struggle.

Maybe you have to work to live, instead of lazing about reading and writing all whilst being famous and broody and thin.

Maybe you have to get up at 5:00 in the dark morning just to get yourself anywhere near ready to go to your hateful job before you start waking and readying small children.
By yourself.
In the cold.
With a cold.

Maybe you can only dream of having a hateful job.

Whatever your daily grind or worry or strain, it is the struggle. Your struggle.

I have mine too.

I often straddle a very thin and uncomfortable line... It balances between two vastly different worlds:

One in which I am grateful for all that I have; my health, my family, the love of a wonderful husband, the chance to be part of raising an incredible, talented, beautiful, sweet child. The companionship of quirky, fun pets. Amazing people that I get to call friends. The ability to earn a living. An education. Freedom of speech. Feminism. 

In this world, I live in a nation that thinks I am good because my skin is light. Because I am a woman married to a man. The awareness to even realize what a huge stack of gifts I have been granted. The sick feeling in my gut that I deserve none of it. That I have earned what I have only on the basis of what I had to work with from the start. 

The other world is one in which I am bitter and angry that I am not free of the constraints of meaningless work, able to be having fun and meaningful conversations with people, choosing what to do with my time and making important changes to improve the lives of everyone on earth. The only thing that really separates the worlds is choice. A choice  I actually have.

I know how good I have it. I do. It's just that I want it to be different. And that makes me like everyone else. The things that connect us are so often the conflicts we share. If you are reading this, you have it good. You may or may not agree with my definition of good. you may not even realize how large your stack of gifts really is. You live in a developed nation. You have likely never known the oppression of a dictatorship. Or the hell of war. You are literate. You have either sight or hearing or both. You most likely have a bed to sleep in tonight.

You almost certainly want to improve your life.

I want even more than that. The act of wanting in itself is privilege.

What I want is monumental. So large I cannot see the edges of it, only some spot in the middle that I fix my eyes on when I feel brave enough to even look. It is in the background all the time, like a mountain when you live in the foothills. It is nothing, when I want to hide in the anonymity of a mediocre life. It is everything when I look up for a moment and see the sun hidden by the sheer size of it.

I want to take my privilege to its logical conclusion. I want to make others aware, to show them how things are framed to make them believe that they live in a white male world where everyone is middle class. Where products and services will make you clean and shiny and fulfill your every need. I want to strip down the edges of the blue sky and show you the machine that runs underneath.

Most of all I want you to look. I want to see you lift your hand to cover your mouth, to stifle your screams, to hide your absolute horror. I want you to feel your pulse quicken, your anger rise, and your hands get sweaty. I want you to know.

The privilege I often joke about is the result of money and class. Of capitalism and education. Now I want to pull back the entire curtain. I want to show you the ugly face of imperialism and religious dogma that controls your every single day. That determines who is right, good, worthy, and yes- alive.

Look around you- you live in a mansion. One built of ideas and social constructs that keep you sheltered, warm, safe. You can't even see the mountain. Go for a drive sometime. Get far enough away from your reality that you can turn and see the edges. Know that what you think you know was taught to you by people who have never seen it either.

Then you can struggle with your privilege. If you win your struggle, maybe you can help me with mine.

When You Grow Up

I never had the super clear vision.

I always thought that everyone knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. Everyone except me. It seemed like lots of people had it figured out well ahead of time. The rest bopped along, falling backwards into amazing opportunities at every turn. I didn't really know what I was heading towards, I just kept moving. At least I felt like I was moving. Then one day I realized I'd been standing still for a decade.

From early childhood, I would get glimpses of what I wanted to do, what I would "BE", as if one day you became something merely through the effort of wishing it to be so. By declaring it to the well meaning people who bent down to ask me.

"I want to be a teacher!" I would say. They would smile approvingly. I knew that you needed to have an answer to the question. And we all understood what kind of answer it had to be.

It was preferable if you desired to mold yourself into something mirrored by a smiling Barbie "I Can Be" career doll. One of those was ok. Just not the one where she is a rock star. That is fantasy, not career.

I suppose that is a safe thing to do, to reign in the expectations.

One time I decided I wanted to be a stand up comedian. I was ten years old. My mother did not approve of this decision and she let me know that it was a ridiculous notion. More than anything she let me know that it was not a real job. What? What is "real" and what is "not real"? You mean fun and interesting or boring and predictable?

The dichotomy of real/not real options said so much.

She also told me that to be a comedian, I would have to live on a bus. I'll never forget that. In that moment, I was transfixed. You get to live on a bus? What an adventure!

Unfortunately, I had not yet learned how to hear those subtle noises about "real" in the way they were meant to be heard.  In truth, it tells us more about the person drawing the line than it does about our own abilities, opportunities, interests, etc. It tells us about their own fears, their failed journeys into fantasy and how hard the realities were when they hit.

It's not their fault. Someone did it to them too. They are just passing on the shared experience and generational discontent. It is difficult to teach something you have never learned. Like hope.

I realize now that all of my visions of how it would look to be a working adult were a result of what happens when you take what I watched, both from my household point of view and that of school, friends, church, and people I saw socially and mashed them together with television, unrealistic dreams, ambition and the hope I inherited from a long lost relative somewhere.

I thought I would work as a  teacher, or maybe in an office somewhere. Maybe I would have my own office. Maybe I'd work in a high rise building, or as a police officer someday? They were all things I thought of to have easy answers to the questions people loved to pose. I had no idea what I was doing that minute, let alone twenty years down the road. I still don't.

One day, in a fit of desperation and hatred for a disdainful human being that held the title of my boss, I dug deep. Really really deep. Deeper than my own self preservation and deeper than the fear that held the tight grip on my mother's sense of reality. Deeper than doubt and indecision, further down than the inertia and self loathing of office work than I had ever gone before. I knew where I was heading. I had heaped lots of garbage and responsibility on top of it, hoping it would not ever rear its ugly and demanding head.

Down there I found a little girl with a journal. A carefully guarded tiny notebook that she clutched tightly, writing a few lines or a dozen pages, depending on the kind of day it was. A book that was a prized possession, a best friend, and a source of solace in the storm. The little girl looks up at me and whispered; "write".

Writing is all I have ever done. When I was happy, when I was sad, when I needed to work things out and when I needed to speak my mind. I used writing to convey thoughts when I had to communicate with someone without letting my own fears block the way, and when I knew they would not listen without interrupting. I've written to remind myself of what I am and I've written to tell someone else that I cannot be what they need. Writing is how I live.

When I grow up I will be a writer? No. I was born a writer. I will grow up to get paid in the currency we exchange, giving my writing the cultural credit for being more than just thoughts on paper or words on screens. I will exchange a tiny dream, chunks of my soul, the essence of myself and any hope of getting to live on a bus, for the monetary validation of what I already am. We don't grow up to BE anything. We peel off the shell of expectation to reveal what was  there all along.

Bitches Be Communicatin'

Like all of my blog posts, you are just going to have to hear me out on this one. Today I am thinking about how women "dog" each other. By which I mean, we communicate in a way that is similar to how dogs communicate. Its interesting. Yes it is.

I did say hear me out, yes? Ok then.

So here is what I'm noticing. Women have a couple of forms of communication with other women in which they display classic canine behavior. One such example we'll call the Appeasement.

The Appeasement is typically found in the form of a flattering compliment about another woman's outfit, shoes, hair, jewelry, general overall style, sunglasses, you name it. This is our IN. This tactic is used when we want to make another woman feel relaxed and at ease, and even when we want to lift her status in reference to our own. We want her to know that she is looking good, that we approve of how she has styled herself, or that it appears she is losing weight. 

We do this for the same reason that dogs display appeasing or calming behaviors. It is a signal that we come in peace, that we are friendly, and sometimes even a display of discomfort and looking for a way to start conversation with someone we aren't as familiar with. Luckily we don't run over and sniff, then lick the other woman's mouth. So there is that. Score one for the chicks.

Another interesting communication behavior I notice with some women is the subtle notification that you are on shaky ground, and she would like to keep you there. This form of communication we will call the Warning.

The Warning can be expressed a number of ways, both verbally and non verbally. A common form of the Warning is one woman making a remark about another woman that is neither outright negative, but not positive either. It is a comment meant to make the other woman unsure, as the speaker herself is unsure and wants to convey that message. It can take the form of something like, "Oh, Darla, I didn't know you were into comics..thats...interesting." Accompanied by non verbals such as raised eyebrows and a body posture that moves away from the other woman, this is clearly a sign that she is not included and separate of the speaker. Moreover, the speaker is keeping her there. The signal is usually received and understood, creating a new relationship structure between the women.

Again, while this is better than baring our teeth, raising our head and ears and giving a low growl, it is not as obvious but just as effective. Our way of doing it bites underneath the skin, though. We are able to inject a sort of suspicious unease into the situation and therefore, into the other person, with the smooth movements of a practiced hater.

We can let you know you are about to cross an invisible line into your own personal hell and yet we are also able to diffuse a situation or put ourselves in good graces with people without even warming up a single neuron.

Is this inherent? Did we learn it? Perhaps watching, like when we saw our mothers putting on makeup, we imitated the behavior, not even understanding what we were doing. Can we teach other things the same way? I don't know about you, but this has me thinking. I want to see how I can change other people's behaviors by enacting rituals in their presence. I wonder how long it will be before I can get a man to scratch at his upper chest/shoulder like he is adjusting a bra strap, because I do that shit all the time.

Brimming with Shit

You GUYS!

I need a shrink. Or whatever politically correct version of a person who can hold the bowl and scrape the sides while I empty the contents of my bullshit addled brain into a bundt pan so we can eat my pineapple upside down crazy together.

Like today.

If you know someone good, feel free to pass along their info. I prefer to meet in person, as I believe my showered, gelled, manicured visage helps people to believe that the things falling out of my mouth like cows from the sky in a trailer park tornado are totally normal and then they will tell me that I can continue to express all of that to them. But you know, clinically, in a licensed therapist sort of way.

I can't share all of my insanity with people I know. First of all, they have put my station on their first button of the car radio and they know to tune me out as soon as this static starts up. Secondly, they have all heard different versions of my shit and they aren't even sure what to make of it anymore. They helpfully offer their time and companionship, solace and booze, but I need the real deal. With the booze. Do they have shrinks like that? Or is that only in 60's television shows? I'll get my bouffant hair and short dress on if you hand out whiskey. Ok that sounds like a different kind of show. But you understand.

I need someone with the capacity to own my very full brain for a moment, even if it is in pieces. I need a place to dump off all of my insecurity about how lame I am, my neurotic fears about strange distant people and places, and the fascination I have with string theory and the connectedness of all beings. And that person needs to LISTEN and not give me a 'diagnosis' or pills. I just need two hands that belong to another rational person who is used to listening to crap like this and will find my brand of it utterly charming.

At $200 an hour, I hope you can find me charming. Shit, for that kind of scratch I would wear that mini dress and listen to your bullshit.

Let's make this happen.

I Had No Idea

I had no idea...

That when I stood outside that salon, calling you over and over again desperate to figure out what just what had happened and to patch it back up with my kit...

The one I had built in haste long ago, the one made of half truths and bandages and sweet words of salve that I knew just how to apply in the way that they had always soothed your insecurities....

of what was to come after that.

I had no idea in that moment what was being ripped away from me, no idea of what I had lost, no idea how my life would go on without the crushing weight of your broken soul to carry.

I had no idea what went wrong ... I knew it was something I had said. It always was. Or the way I said it, of course. You had read into it that I was hesitant about a life with you. For once you were right.

I had no idea how far away you had gotten. I knew you moved to another state, but I couldn't see the divide that had happened in front of me. So I tried to keep driving up the hill that you created- all piled high out of self preservation tactics and the worst of you. I had a well worn road on that hill. This time there was no horizon in sight.

I had no idea how hard it would be to accept the end of you. To believe in a time and place that I had not allowed myself to look at, to expect more from life than what was left after pleasing you. To ask myself the hard questions about how this ever happened in the first place, who I was, what I wanted and how to get away.

I had no earthly way to conceive of both how easy and hard you would be to get over. Of all that I would have to appreciate ... simple things like having time to myself and not having to account for every action I took, not holding my breath when a bad mood would befall you and leave our house in shadows. Ones that were shaped like the independent person I used to be.

I had no idea how hard it would be to get sleep to return - to just lay down and let go. I had no idea how tight of a grip your memory still had around my neck. I chased the beautiful sleep back with my charms instead of wasting them anymore on you.

I had no idea what I lost that day. If I had known I would have laid it down long before. I had two hands full of my past and none left to welcome my future.

I had no idea what was to be gained. Returning to myself, I found more than I remembered and strength I didn't know I had left behind. I had been waiting for me all along.

I had no clue whatsoever that someone else's life was patiently waiting to come face to face with mine. I didn't know that their heartache and loss, their disillusion and pain, their confusion and rebuilding - was all being done to get them ready for who I was going to be for them and what they needed to be for me.

I had no idea that two shattered pieces of glass could be made into a beautiful diamond and that I would live in a place of both windows and mirrors, able to see out to what was and back to what had been.

I had no idea how great it would be when you came running to me for escape- wanting to go back to where things were, feeling unloved and sad, alone with your wife and child and your hollow heart. How wonderful the rush of vindication after so many years to tell you what you needed to hear for a long time, to remind you that your life was a result of your decisions and expressions of how you felt about yourself. That the reflection you saw was one you had made. That I wanted no part of what you were suggesting. That your wife undoubtedly deserved better.

I had no idea you would have the nerve to call again. Especially after she found you out. You wanted closure. You wanted to say nice things. You wanted me to think kindly upon my memories with you. I wanted to get off the phone, I had better things to do.

I had no idea how well I would sleep after that. I had no idea how much I would appreciate my life after I saw it through your eyes. I had no idea how important you would be to my life. I had no idea that the day I stood there frantically trying to fix you and you shut me out was the day my life truly began.