Your Prefabricated Life

Your life was made for you. I don't mean the sperm and egg creation. I don't mean the hopes and dreams of sometimes overbearing and generally well meaning parents. I mean your adult life in North America and many western countries, in that if you are sitting at a desk looking at a computer screen while being paid to work for a company or organization, you are inside the carefully crafted creation that was laid out for you. 

Even if you are not an office drone (and bless you for figuring out how not to do that), certain things have been crafted with your schedule in mind. Regardless of the hours you work, you work. Afterwards, you are tired and distracted and want easier, faster, convenient. They knew that. They made sure of that. The worst part is, 'they' are doing it to themselves too...read on and you'll see what I mean.

We are all trying to get off the wheel and as soon as we think about it, another carrot gets added to the stick and so we think, well hey if I keep running I will get 2 carrots! But the carrots are plastic, the wheel is a desk with a computer and the chain that holds you to the wheel is invisible to your own eyes; it is made up of societal pressure, familial obligations, cultural norms, security needs and the exploitation of your basic physiology that takes place without your notice and agreement. You're the bunny in this scenario. A social bunny who needs its bunny friends. I like metaphors, so sue me.

The way I see it, unless you follow your dream at a very young age and reach out and take exactly what you need from the world, have a support system to pay your way until it works out, you will end up in an office/wheel and even if you have all of those things, the world will keep tilting you like a handheld maze game until you end up in an office/wheel anyways. 

And then you will slowly work to tilt the whole thing back a millimeter at a time to try to reach the cheese. That is only if you are ambitious and smart and hardworking. The rest of you? Good luck, Chuck... And we buy into the idea that there is no other way (literally and figuratively) and some of us praise a god or system of gods that are believed to be judging us, all to keep ourselves from sitting down, taking a time out, reassessing our lives, the purpose we hold dear and making real change. 

But you better pray to whatever god you believe in if you really do make the change. One rabbit jumps off and all the other rabbits will stare fiercely and cast the lone one out so it is not in the group, therefore making it uncomfortable, not supported by a structure of friendship and meaningful relationships. The pain of that pulls the rabbit back onto the wheel on its own, so it thinks it was its own idea. BAM!  The security is cruel and the system is self correcting. You are rewarded for your compliance.

The hierarchy that created all of this for you with mass marketing and plastic toys aimed at your children is amazingly linear..they cannot escape either. Those that will market to us for their own carrots are in offices, on their own wheels....and when they get off work that day, they too will buy the fast, convenient, easy item to fill in what is missing. Its a carrot shaped peg for a Grand Canyon sized hole, though. No satisfaction can ever be large enough to make up for selling yourself and so you will do it again, thinking you can buy enough carrots.

I feel like I have known all of this for a decade and at the same time like I am discovering the matrix.

You have to agree to this. You have to be complicit in the arrangement. That is how it works. There is no success to the prefabricated world without you as a participant/observer. There is no them without us and no us without each individual. Your complicity is the most unusual part. You have to be in on the illusion, and most of us are doing it without even realizing it. This is the devil of comfort, but that is a talk for another day.

I don't expect this to blow your mind. I really don't. The truth is, that you can read English and so you know that a great many things are crafted to suggest certain paths to you in the maze of life. That is knowledge you already have. What you do with this knowledge, dear bunnies, that is a whole other story.

I Know This Sounds Crazy

I am forever torn between all of the things I am interested in, want to discuss, be a part of and solve. I am perpetually thinking about the plight of the poor, the treatment of women and girls, the state of the ecology of earth, climate change, illiteracy and general lack of education here and abroad.

This is not a focus on the negative. This is more of a 'needs assessment' if you will. See what is there, see what needs changing and needs help instead of looking away. These are the big problems, to be sure. Clean fresh water for everyone on the planet, the ability to read in one's own language and the societal and cultural shifts to get an education to the women and girls of every country and also eradicating hunger and long term poverty (and its effects) are enormous goals, larger than any one person. Larger sometimes than even thoughts to wrap around them.

Today, however, as I walked from my car to the building I have been working in for almost two years, I had a thought I have not had before. I wasn't even particularly thinking about all the world's problems and what can and needs to be done, but this thought was not a big bang either. It was spawned by listening to a news radio program about a study on the effects of warming and CO2 on the coral reefs and their inhabitant plant and animal species and what you could determine from that. They show this to students in hopes of giving them some perspective of the effects of our choices, the decisions we make and that we vote for.

I left the car and started walking in like I do on any other day...with my coffee, my packed lunch, my purse.... and I almost stopped in the middle of the road. What if.....

What if I have been thinking of all these things the hard way all along? What if I and everyone I have talked to thus far has it wrong? Could it be possible to work on all of these at once instead of separately? We tend to say- wow, this is a lot of huge problems with deep roots of political, economic, religious history and we cannot fix this. Or we cannot fix it now. Or we cannot fix it alone. It will cost too much, be too hard, we need to separate these and work on them one at a time. Someone else is doing this. They are working on it. I had that same thought right before this one. It is a defense mechanism. Your brain says, 'Hey, why am I not doing anything about these things?" and then you have your built up plausible excuses ready right then.

The worst thing is when we dehumanize these issues, we decide that poor people deserve what is happening due to the fact that they are not smart enough or working hard enough to fix their own problems. That the women are putting up with terrible men. If they would just not do that, it would be different. Then we turn our attention back to our life with its trappings of wealth and feel secure that we are good and that is why we have what we have.

This is a fallacy. We are sitting on the top of a pyramid and under us are the layers of imperialism, slavery, racism, industrial revolution, pollution, greed and manic corruption that holds us so close to the sun. Many women gave their lives so that I could have the education I have, the freedoms and rights I have, the ability to even write this right now. Change must take place and progress happens whether we want it to or not. We need change. To determine how to get everyone what they need while furthering their economic and educational lives, thereby changing the cycle and slowing the ruination of the natural world.....

But...what if....? What if in our need to educate people, is a way to not just tell them what to do? What if we found a way to help people get the clean water they need, the food they need at the SAME TIME as we teach them to grow it and develop a system to keep growing it...and using organic and non invasive species, alternative energies and conservation methods? What if the women and girls had the same holding in this and were not secondary learners to the systems? What if?

I know this sounds crazy and like Greenpeace, the Peace Corps and your hippie uncle all got together and came up with this idea while high on peyote...but hear it out. Let it roll around in your brain and marinade for a while like all ideas must do.  Sure it may be impossible, but seeing as how we don't know what we are capable of until we are tested, we need to do more than dismiss it and make excuses. The best ideas seemed crazy at the time. Cars, airplanes, going to outer space? Probably sounded nuts at the time. You take those things for granted now. What if we used our abilities to fix the worst problems the world faces, the people affected and saved the planet for everyone?

Crazy? Sure. But we have to do  it.

The Last Stand

Friends,

I hope you will join me in thoughts of hope and healing for those affected today in Boston. There are not words to express my sympathy for everyone involved in this fatal attack. We do not know who or when or why but we know human beings' blood has been spilled unnecessarily in a way meant to incite fear in all of us.

We have had our share of homegrown wackos in this country before but I fear we are starting to see a trend of the roadside terrorist, looming at potentially every corner of every busy city.We are not looking to NBC anymore, we are seeing this right here.

Those that would throw away human lives to make a point about their ugly message deserve nothing from us, so don't give them your fear. Don't give them your shock. Don't give them your horror. Turn your attention to the skilled hands of those who will lift the wounded and save their lives, who will carry the dead and mourn them properly. Put all of your thought into those hands and to them doing their best work today.

Today I am grieved for the human race. We are better than this. Nature removes those species who cannot make it and progress further. We will be dinosaurs and take ourselves out of the equation with our own guns and bombs if we do not progress from these destructive forces.

Look to your higher selves. Find your message, learn the truth and speak with a soft and sure tongue. Leave the judgement of others to those we have elected to do such things. Send all of the positive feeling you have to the ones who will bring this justice. And if we are lucky, peace.

Change Your Life

Many times, starting in my mid twenties, I found myself fond of a particular phrase: It will change your life! I would tell people about a certain thing I had used or place I had been and in telling them, would attempt to sway their opinion about this amazing new concept by telling them that it really, in fact, would be so different than anything they knew before that it would change how they saw everything. This phrase worked perfect for communicating to my circle of friends and acquaintances just how perfect that new gelato place by my house was, or what some new website could do for them. I use it to convey to people how they will never again be able to eat another donut that is not from the wonderful Bosa Donuts once they have had a mere bite of the delectable cloud of perfection contained in that box.

In my opinion, everything changed your life. Every.Single.Thing.

People would interject that there should be some variation of this, that they weren't sure they believed that whatever it was could really alter their existence in any way shape or form. They wanted a Homeland Security color coded graph of just HOW much it would change their life. People are short sighted like that. Why would you want to quantify changing your life? This could only serve to assist you in weeding out opportunities, making your world smaller and leaving room for only the most shattering of changes. The only time you notice something would be an earthquake.

Is that what you really want?

Here is my proposal: Change your life. All of it. A little at a time. In big ways and in small. I know, I know...you love your life and everything in it. Great. Then change it by doing more for your community with the talents you have. Go out and find something great and share the information with others. Not everything has to be a Hollywood directive to dump your spouse, move across the country or the world and start all over while ditching all of your responsibilities.

I offer to you, the people of Earth and believers in what is real- go out there and ADD to it. Find your cause.  Look high and low until you find a reason that today is beautiful and then help make it that great for the next person you see.  Change is inevitable and beautiful. Nothing is the same. Winter comes every year but no two winters are alike. We stand in awe of the changing nature of the outdoor world and we forget how malleable human beings are. Change that bad habit you hate. Change that you hate. Change it up to make it better. Then find something else to change. Don't wait for something to be 'worth' changing. There is no bar graph on this, you have to do it because you want to, not because it is 'important' enough. Sometimes the smallest of changes make enormous impacts. How will you know?

Drink more water today. Hold a handshake and look them in the eye. Give yourself a break. Take the walk you always say you want to take. Go on that hike you tell people on your dating profile that you love to do. You know what you really want to change. You are the keeper of that secret knowledge. Today, I challenge you, I beseech you-make any little change at all. Most importantly, don't be afraid. You will need to do it again and again and again.

Let's Talk About Something, Shall We?

Let's talk. Get your coffee, your tea, your sippy cup full of Bailey's that you think no one knows about, whatever. Just get your beverage and your ass into a chair and listen up. Put down your phone. We have to talk.

You know who you are. Don't look over your shoulder, dear. I'm looking at you. There is no one back there. Good? Good.

Stop posting shit on facebook. I mean it. Stop. You are on a hiatus.

For one month, just live your life. Go out, eat dinner, look at the person you are with. Talk to them. Enjoy the savory and the sweet and don't touch your phone. Keep your hands free to gesture while you talk, gently touch the hand of your loved one or stick your gum under the table. I don't care. But stop staring at the four inch screen that you think is better than the world. It is not.

Stop staring at the computer monitor. Yes, this one. This very one. Stop staring at it while lurking through other people's lives. Stop putting yours there. Because the truth is, Facebook and other social media sites are like a pair of glasses that don't belong to you. Sure, you can see through them. Maybe even better than your regular vision. But soon enough, they give you a headache. You are trying to see normally through a lens made to avoid just that. You are being fed certain pieces of someone's life and you are plucking out choice pieces of your own to offer up for slaughter comments. STOP.

This is your life. Right here and now. The feeling of your elbows on the too-hard desktop that you wish was a pillow. The tightness in your legs as you keep the laptop propped up in bed. The glow of the lamp you need to turn off to get any sleep. The feeling that you are being watched that makes your head tingle so you look up. Right into the eyes of someone who wants your attention. Give it to them. Even..... no ESPECIALLY if it is all you have to give. It is precious and rare and real and full. Like your life when you stop trying to live it through a carefully crafted narrative that you think makes you look better to people you never see.

Go.

Now.

Fat Girl

A couple of months ago I had a revelation. Like all revelations, it happened fast but was a long time coming.

Just like that. It turns out I am fat.

Not a little chubby, not 'lose a few pounds' and be at my all time ideal weight. No kids, this time its for real. I am overweight. Over. More than. Too much. I have checked the BMI calculator and determined that there is a range I can fall into and things will be OK. I am NOT in the range right now.

I have been alerted to this problem for some time, and several pounds ago I thought, Hmm .. maybe I should lose this weight...and yet I had no idea where to start or what to do.

Yet again I was busy ignoring this and then I hit up a dressing room. You see, I don't shop for clothing every single day.  I don't have a full length mirror in either bathroom or my bedroom and haven't actually seen myself in one since, well, fuck- a long time. I KNOW! I KNOW! Then I tried on clothing in front of a full length mirror with another one behind me and the 360 effect was chilling.

Not bone chilling, because there is too much blubber on top to chill my bones, but terrifying nonetheless...

I am in relatively good health and yet, my body is trying to morph into a strange shape to accommodate all of the Costco muffins and bread and pasta I have ingested. Clothes don't fit. Bras don't fit. Where did these boobs come from?  Not cool. So not cool. I was so distracted by this new development I started thinking about an Exercycle and rice cakes. You may not even remember these 80's relics of weight loss, but let me tell you- I was scared straight.

I've got the same problem that a lot of people do: I do a LOT of things- I go to work every day,  I am responsible for a house and a budget and a child, several pets, being the best wife I can be, connecting to family and friends as often as I can...and I get all of that done. What I don't do: WORK OUT. That is why I am fat. I am not moving at a pace that will keep my heart rate up and the constant little errands and dry cleaning and dishes and laundry and dinner and and and are keeping me from being who I am.

I'm losing myself. Literally. Under mounds of excess flesh. Gross.

I'm also losing myself in that I am always lost in a series of small but endless things to do to keep the ship running at regular speed, and all the while, no one is getting anywhere. No one will be happy. And I will get even fatter.

I know what I had to do and my sister and I began stretching and moving and calisthenics and aerobic exercise for at least 30-60 minutes. We'd get together and burn up a whole bunch of calories. It was great. That lasted a while. But she lives far away and old habits die hard. I found myself worried about it, then stagnant. One day I woke up and thought about how ridiculous it is that I can explain to other people how not to drive their life in a circle and I was not taking my own advice.

Now I am just moving, trying, changing, taking walks during the workday, drinking vegetable juices for breakfast. You have to do something different to get something different. I will have to change or I will have this talk with myself again in two years. The time will pass either way. What do you want to have on the other side of that time?

I had the motivation but no idea where to start to really change things. Not just start drinking spinach first thing in the morning, but how do you start to become someone else? Someone who is living a healthier life? You stop.

I stopped getting home and rushing around. I stopped believing that I could put taking care of myself at the end of my to do list instead of at the beginning. I stopped making myself feel bad for not being the same size I was in high school and I stopped comparing myself to others. I stopped coming in the door from work and tearing apart the kitchen, as if a clean sink and a homemade meal were some kind of insurance against being a bad person and if I just kept cleaning, I would be fine. I stopped being that which I caution others against. I stopped hiding myself behind chores.

Sometimes I sit down and don't get up for a bit. Sometimes I immediately change and go outside and walk the dogs, for  the exercise and sanity that helps all parties involved. A couple of weeks ago I had the best dog walk I've had in 2 years with these dogs. Best walk. It could be because I wasn't pulled down the street by a mangy mutt, but I believe it was also a great walk, because for me, I was finally headed somewhere. I was headed toward me.

Saving Feminism

Today I had a spark -the kind where a small fire started in the center of my brain, spread out and encompassed everything with its purposeful flames. I have been wondering (i.e. ranting) about how women both young and mature have lately eschewed the term feminism. They are afraid to be labeled as such, and make all sorts of back pedaling murmurings about how they believe in equality, they love that women have the right to make decisions for their bodies, believe in equal pay for equal work, and all other hallmarks of the movement, but no, they, themselves, are not a feminist.

Let's put this into perspective. Say you are eating an ice cream cone. You are enjoying the crispy wafer of cone, the sensual smooth feeling of ice cold creaminess on your tongue on a hot, sweaty day. You are licking away at this thing like it holds the meaning to life when someone comes up to you and asks, "Do you think ice cream is a good idea?" and boldly, without reservation, you lick your lips, hold your cone even more firmly in hand and reply, "Nope."

Perhaps you are confused. It could be the brain freeze from too much cold on your upper palate. Or maybe you feel that the term "ice cream" does not actually describe the wonderful treat you are enjoying like its your last meal. Another possibility- you don't know what you have in your hand at all. That yummy frozen delectable to you has no name, its just another thing you love about life and about being you, which is analogous to bouquets of daisies, unicorns and butterflies stopping slightly to rest on puppy ears.

I want to examine an as-yet-unmentioned possibility for the problematic scene above. Maybe, just maybe, someone has spoon fed you (pun intended) the idea that "ice cream" means a bitter taste. A hateful, spiteful, tar like substance that is never to be created nor ingested. There is the possibility that someone has ruined the term 'ice cream' and made it sound like something you want no part of and will not associate yourself with.

This, dear readers, is what I believe has happened to the word feminism. In order to call one's self a feminist, one must realize that a large proportion of society, both men and women, younger and older, have been taught and passed onto others the idea that feminism means feminazi. That the term really means jack booted female thugs in ugly clothing with too much black eye makeup (and not enough mammary support garments) rioting outside of a government building while living unwashed in tents, burning traditional text books and listening to angry punk music or, gasp! the Cranberries.

Let me try, in my small way, with my minuscule readership, in this tiny corner of the world, to set the record straight. I am a feminist. I am raising my child to be a feminist. My husband is a feminist. My brothers are feminist, my sisters are feminists and I am glad to have been raised by a feminist. To my knowledge, all of my readers are feminists. To be so means to hold the belief that women are equal in rights and importance to men. That women deserve the right to vote, own property, go wherever they please within the law and should not apologize for being born female. That women should aspire to all things their hearts and minds are open to and need no further introduction than their name, or occupation as when you might introduce a man... (We are not "lady-cops" or "lady-doctors" etc.)

To be feminist is to know that women hold an equal place in the world next to men, not second to and not in front of. A feminist holds dear that girls should be given the same educational opportunities, that women should be given the same career and earning opportunities, and should never be punished or excluded for the biology that makes us the bearer of children as infants into the world.

So the next time someone comes up to you while you are enjoying the sweet freedom that is equality and asks you if you believe in feminism, stand tall, square your shoulders, look them in the eye and say, "Why, yes, I do!" Because if you really and truly do not believe in feminism, you need to put down the awesomeness that is the freedom and equality of living in a place where feminism even exists. Go live somewhere it doesn't and then come and beg for that back. I dare you.