needles

pathos -> pathogen

when i was five my mother called
old women to lift my shirt and say
german measles
though the doctor only said measles
with a needle in my arm
there were so many:
tetanus locks your jaw after
being pierced by rusty metal
and is prevented by
being pierced by shiny steel

penicillin in my hip and a dead leg
for three days, no bananas for fifteen years
no cats and a bottle of benadryl in every room
with a k on top, and so saying
pediatrician
was easier than saying hero

they saved me
from pneumonia, strep throat, blood in my lungs, asthma, chronic
sinusitis, pneumonia again, we thought it was consumption
tuberculosis tests by broken pathogen
like everything else
a needle in my arm
ear infection, throat infection, lung infection: idiopathic
pneumonia again, and every other winter a week in bed
doctors' orders, pill bottles lined up and I speak
pseudoephedrine, diphenhydramine, loratidine, acetaminophen,
depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, insomnia
the writers' disease
Enough.

If I have to choose, I'll take
rusty metal
and gather up bananas
cats and poetry,
laugh at the pollen on my grave.

and the wheel keeps on turning

Ten points to anyone who can figure out which song I'm referencing there. Tip: it's one of the more obscure turning wheel songs, by one of those bands nobody under the age of 40 should admit to listening to. And I love them shamelessly.

This afternoon's project is working systematically through the symbols of the zodiac, with a focus on linear progression and interrelationship. Begin at the beginning:

Aires(ram): April, Fire. Assertion of ego, proclaiming the self. First step in the hero's journey. (I am.) something new
Taurus(bull): May, Earth. The growing season, sensual beauty. First tentative exploration of the world. (I am here.) growing strong
Gemini(twins): June, Air. Examining the self. Dichotomy, duplicity. The mirror and the mask. (You are, too.) partnership/pregnancy
Cancer(crab): July, Water. Defenses, nurturing, sideways problem-solving. (We are.) childbirth/parenthood
Leo(lion): August, Fire. Leadership, marshaling of inner strength and external resources. (We are here.) establish the family
Virgo(virgin): September, Earth. The harvest, abundance as a result of due diligence. (Look what we made.) provide for the family
Libra(scales): October, Air. Justice and equity. Balanced decision making. (We must be fair.) dividing the harvest
Scorpio(scorpion): November, Water. Passion and narrow focus. Permeable boundaries. (I'm inside, you're outside.) looking beyond the family home
Sagittarius(archer): December, Fire. Soldier for a just cause, questing knight. (I must protect.) leaving the home/pursuing the villain
Capricorn(seagoat): January, Earth. Hermitage, gone to ground. Survival, thriving in scarcity. (I'm alone, really.) odyssey
Aquarius(water bearer): February, Air. Talking through a problem, reasoning through feelings. (We're in this together.) counselor
Pisces(fishes): March, Water. Paradox, intriguing dichotomy. Great truths and daydreams. (I am not.) enlightenment/death

Grouped by element:
Fire: Aires, Leo, Sagittarius: I am, I am strong, I can fight.
Earth: Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn: Touching, weighing, hoarding.
Air: Gemini, Libra, Aquarius: Speech, science, communication.
Water: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces: Maternal, romantic, spiritual.

The spectra: Implied dichotomies of opposing signs, grouped by elements. (Those with * are inherently dichotomous themselves, so get two descriptors.)
Air-Fire: Electricity! Is it even really there?
*Libra-Aires: complex, indirect - simple, direct
Aquarius-Leo: compromise - principles
*Gemini-Sagitarius: mercurial, adaptable - steadfast, hidebound
Water-Earth: Mud. It's really there.
Cancer-Capricorn: caring for others - caring for self
Scorpio-Taurus: anxious creation - peaceful consumption
*Pisces-Virgo: big picture, meaning - details, practicality

I've got no interest in pretending the stars dictate our personalities, but these symbols aren't meant to stand alone. That sun sign is just the starting point, the foundation(id); on top of that we layer the moon sign, the emotional, intuitive self(ego), and the rising sign, the face we present to the world(super ego). Twelve symbols placed into three slots, uni-directional and open to repetition. That's twelve cubed, right? 1,728 possible combinations. A bit too ambitious for a Tuesday afternoon.

belated annunciation

In my exploration of the mythic inversion of eternal mother to virgin, how on earth did I miss Mary? Seriously, the virgin mother of God, and I don't even mention her? *facepalm*

Miracle Metaphor

Okay, I've been stumbling around this same thing from several different directions for more than a month, but I have more I want to write out and commit to (virtual) memory. My gender poem as it stands now:
__________

Virgo

her hands are cold and sore

this is a weak metaphor
but she doesn't have much use for beauty
small hands, soft and round
make small miracles, milk with honey
turn back, water that had been wine
they aren't mine, but will be

temperance
is always drawn a woman

but daddy, i'm missing you
couldn't give me your time
couldn't give me a y, but i
don't know what to do
in a woman's skin

but miss you
and wish for a man
___________

Okay, so who and what is this? Virgo is the virgin, but she's also the eternal mother. Her Sumerian name was something to do with some fertility goddess or another, and that makes sense with her being all about practicality and caretaking and abundance, but after the Romans got ahold of her she somehow turned back into a virgin. Stupid Romans. When you make your symbols contradict basic biology they can't and won't stand the test of time. Really, who takes Zeus seriously anymore? The occasional inversion I can handle, and paradox is great, but a god who's petty and insecure as the worst man I've ever met is no kind of god. (Maybe Zeus can be my symbol for Ben? Abstraction helps me deal and work my way back to a place of contentment and compassion, so this needs further consideration.) But the Romans screwed Hestia over something fierce. She was flame and security and a safe place to rest, a nice union of what I usually perceive as earth and fire, but they wrapped her up in shame for female sexuality, and now she's missing her flame. Her hands have gotten cold. I resented the hell out of my mom for what I perceived as her promiscuity and the way it destroyed my nice, safe family, but if I'm honest with myself I know that's not the whole story. She was Mother to me, but she was just a woman to her, and she was clumsily stumbling toward happiness like all the rest of us. Unfortunately for all of us, she had two young children she kept tripping over along the way.

So, Virgo. My mom is a virgo, incidentally, and as far as I recall I don't have a single planet in my whole chart that's in virgo or any other earth sign for that matter. But it's just a metaphor, not divination, so that part can actually be kinda useful. Those particular hands will never be mine; I've got two of my own and I need to learn to use them. (And, really, you should see them fly across this keyboard right now. Let it never be said that in all my dreaminess I haven't learned to do at least a couple things with dexterity and grace.) But we learn by modeling, and I've tried to be my mother since I was an infant because that's just what children do.

It was a revelation to begin to see temperance as one of my potential strengths instead of a stumbling block and a weakness. As an adolescent I had a tendency to overindulge in just about anything I didn't set up as totally taboo, but I was an adolescent. That's what adolescence is about. The fact that I have a tendency to drink just a bit more often than I should, but only a bit and very rarely more in one sitting than is wise, is a testament to the fact that I am growing up, if a bit more slowly than I had expected of myself. I'm learning to do things in moderation, to balance head and heart, to keep one foot on the ground and one in the moving stream, remember to carry around a pitcher of water so I can nourish myself in lean times. Oh, I never posted that desert piece here. It's not so good, but it relates to the water bearer/water and emotions as nourishment theme.
______________

desert blues

wasting through dry desert days
aching for somethin green
coyote lurking, showin his ribs,
fear and hunger makin him mean,
and the sand in his eyes
sun on his neck
dust in the air

haven't heard the rain all year

the desert is makin me lean, makin me lean
got me missin things i aint even seen
waves on the shore, wet sand in my toes
green trees and forest, lord only knows
how this desert is makin me lean

yucca's got roots go a mile deep
'cause it knows the sand keeps shifting
and time can break any hard dry stone
does me no good, i keep on drifting
with this sand in my eyes
sun on my neck
dust in my hair

haven't heard the rain all year

and the desert is makin me lean, makin me lean
got me missin things i aint even seen
waves on the shore, wet sand in my toes
green trees and forest, lord only knows
how this desert is makin me lean
______________

Silly and sentimental, but not a bad first draft expression of this idea. I think it might do me good to work through the nourishment aspect of each of the elements. I've noticed today I've been cooking and eating, writing and reading my own words, and I feel very pleasantly full in a couple different ways. (For anyone who didn't catch that one: words, intellect, and communication get filed under air.)

Back to Virgo: Temperance is an excellent symbol of self-actualized, balanced femininity, and it would be helpful for me to learn to play nicely with her. David helped with that, good little water-bearer he is, always wrapping his emotions up in something seemingly cognitive and unrelated, but soothing all the same. That suits Jacob pretty well too, now that I think about it, though his wrappers tend to be a bit more visual or tactile and less talky. *smirk* Capricorn, fish that insists on pretending it's a mountain goat. It's a restrictive lens, but it sure is working at the moment.

But we move away from temperance pretty quickly, because even thought it's complex and multifaceted, I haven't managed to internalize much of it yet. We still haven't gotten to first or even second person, because to do that I've always had to invoke something masculine. And what's everyone's favorite masculine archetype? Daddy's home! Do we squeal and rush into his arms or hide in our rooms because he doles out the real punishments? Oh, you know better than to fall for that false dichotomy; it's both at once, of course, but on top of that he's not actually here. He didn't give me his y chromosome, or an explanation for his absence, or even enough closeness to ever really feel comfortable calling anyone Daddy, just Father (much to his consternation) and, much later, Dad. And what is female without male? You can't have a continuum with just a single point, and I like dichotomies, like moving back and forth across a spectrum and reveling in the rainbow between.

Why, hello there Iris. You'd make a pretty good Temperance yourself, with those wings and the water pitcher, and who needs to know it's Styx water and not something a little softer. Talked to your sisters lately? Poor harpies got a bad rap, getting all mixed up with the sirens, although they haven't been treated all that fairly themselves. Fierce women aren't well liked, whether their fierceness is couched in flame or wind. But we like them well enough when they're all pretty and colorful. You keep on keepin on, Iris, but I gotta admit I still resent you just a hair. What happens when you grow up and those colors fade?

small miracles

I've got to get this down before I forget: in my gender poem (arguably untitled so far), I had considered "small hands, soft and round // make small miracles, milk and honey" to be the weakest image and in need of tinkering. I've consider home and hearth, which are alliterative and monosyllabic but otherwise out of keeping with the general sound. I chatted with Laura tonight about how milk and honey are ambiguous as symbols of domesticity, but they invoke "female" from a frame semantics perspective fairly effectively, milk with the whole mammary thing and bees being rather matriarchal. I was pondering this on the drive home, then thinking about how Blake chooses his closed-case words very carefully, arguably more for their phonetic than semantic properties, and it hit me:

small hands, soft and round
make small miracles, milk with honey

so I get the assonance of the /I/ and invoke a personal frame that likely won't read for 99% of my audience, but is perfectly in keeping with that stanza. My mom used to make us "spiced milk" on special occasions (read: when she was affable and in the mood to be affectionate). Basically she would add some spices to milk, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and the like, heat it to a nice warm-drink temperature and stir in a spoonful of honey. I'm still of the opinion that this is one of the most delicious, soothing drinks in the history of the world and totally trumps even a good chai latte. And yet I almost never make it for myself.

It's not mine, but it will be.

**Edited @2:45 to add what seems like genius right now, but might be total crap by light of day: Hestia! It's the perfect title. I mean, sure, it's my mom and it's temperance and it's me learning to cook and clean for me instead of all the men in my life, but, really, it's totally the goddess of home and hearth! Oooo, or maybe even Vesta, from after she's been further corrupted by the Romans and less immediately understood to be all about keeping folks warm.

Mirror v. Mask

I'm thinking today about the phenomenon of knowing the self through knowing others, or at least attempting to. (Attempting to think about it or attempting to know me through you? Yes.) This idea is huge and sprawling, links naturally to more things than I could fully explain in a lifetime, let alone this afternoon's blog post. There's all of psychology and most of literature, for starters, not to mention every single interpersonal interaction I've ever had. Sociology has a role here (though I'm not entirely comfortable saying that in any situation), and hive/swarm/collective consciousness theories are applicable. Jung and Campbell are pertinent. I should probably do a thorough, historical examination of philosophy. There's a nifty little essay by David Foster Wallace about the role of media in creating consciousness that's very apt. I think there's some art theory on this concept as well, especially as it pertains to portraiture, but my body of knowledge is sadly limited to the liberal arts and so-called social sciences. Oh, biology too, with the mirror neurons and Paul Ekman's overlap between physiology and psychology. I think Darwin had some stuff to say about that as well. Richard Dawkins probably could contribute if he were around (or if I actually got the gumption to read some of his work myself instead of just letting my friends share what they've read. Ooooo, check out that mirror action!)

What got me started on this was a snippet of conversation last night with Clark where I mentioned that I don't like driving, which he hadn't realized, and I tried to explain how it's mostly a fear thing. That got me thinking about how David often talked about fear as a motivating force, usually as a criticism of certain societal trends but occasionally in reference to specific behaviors or individuals. I sometimes thought that was a little hypocritical of him, and then he picked up and moved to California all on his lone wolf lonesome leaving me to eat my (unspoken) words. (Watch out, I feel a big ol' extended metaphor coming! But I think I'll leave it unwritten for now and come back to it another day. Note to self: I have a voice.->expand) But several times since he moved out there he's mentioned the theme of looking for peace and dealing with anxiety.

I've come to realize that what he articulates as anxiety I often refer to as depression. Psychologically speaking, the two are distinct but interrelated, but without a firm grounding in psychology no one can be expected to differentiate consistently. That got me to wondering about the relationship between anxiety and fear. I tend to use them more or less interchangeably, with the primary difference being in scale: fear is bigger. But, is that right? Well, since words have exactly as much power as we collectively give them, I decided (in good academic fashion) to go consult an authority on words. Being a child of my age, that authority was Wikipedia.

"Fear should be distinguished from the related emotional state of anxiety, which typically occurs without any external threat. Additionally, fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, whereas anxiety is the result of threats which are perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable."* (I'm not blogger enough to use real footnotes, but the asterisk will do.)

At many times in my life I've avoided driving and social situations far more than is healthy or reasonable, so I suppose that might elevate those two from anxiety to fear, but right now they are both largely unavoidable if I want to be successful, so maybe anxiety is the right word. I'm trying to do more of both, and unsurprisingly they get less scary the more I do them. The "social" fear is mostly about rejection and humiliation, which are subjective experiences that combine the external threat aspect of fear with the uncontrollable aspect of anxiety and wrap it up into one terrifying, overwhelming package. For me, at least. This writing about it is one mask I can put on it to make it less overwhelming for me. For anyone who's reading this and relating, it becomes a mirror.

I like this metaphor! I'll have to explore it some more, but another day. I have driving and socializing to get to. (EEK!)

*Öhman, A. (2000). Fear and anxiety: Evolutionary, cognitive, and clinical perspectives. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.). Handbook of emotions. (pp.573–593). New York: The Guilford Press.

but what does it all mean?

This thing of being the friend I want to have seems to bearing fruit already, more than I wold have expected. I've been very lonely for longer than I would like to admit, starved for conversation and affection, and for the longest time I let that build into a self-perpetuating cycle: Nobody was talking to me, so I assumed nobody wanted to hear what I had to say, so I stopped offering my opinions, and consequentially was less interested in listening to others. But this exercise here of throwing my words out into the world via pixels and speedy little electrons seems to have broken the cycle for me. I'm more involved in more people's lives than I've been since that first year I worked in Physics, and my mailbox is full of long conversations on many different topics.

Yesterday I got an unusually long email from Jacob that just made my day. Among other things, he asked me (quite gently) where I stood in my "belief in God (...and Christianity)." I haven't answered this question in a long time, and have for the most part managed to steer conversation away any time it approached this topic. But after swallowing my pride and fighting through my fear I managed to give a fairly lucid, entirely honest response and even managed to send it off without editing out any of the really important bits.

Reading back through it today I got to thinking about how rewarding it's been for me to use this space to be honest with the people I trust to be able to handle my honesty. So, as scary as this is for me, I'm going to copy a big chunk of my reply and paste it here, with a bit of [parenthetical commentary] to compensate for the second-person nature of letters. *deep breath* Here goes...


"I'm going to try to answer your question about God and Christianity, but only with a heavy disclaimer. For the last several years I've adopted a policy of simply not talking about these things except with rare individuals, people who I can assume more or less agree with me. It's not that I need to have my own ideas reinforced, but rather that people get very attached to their particular interpretations and explanations of things, and it leads to fights and bitterness. And I hate that, the sick reversal of trying to share your moral compass with someone only to come off as a cold-hearted bigot. I hate seeing others that way almost as much as I hate being seen that way myself, and I considered refusing you outright because that's never been part of our dynamic and I'm loathe to introduce it now. But I reminded myself who I'm talking to and [some goopy friendship affirmation stuff]. It's still very important to me that I have your respect, but I'd rather that be based on openness and honesty than assumptions.

"You're mostly right; 'agnostic' is an accurate way to describe me, a bit more so than 'atheist,' and while I've used both labels when trying to give a quick, pat answer to this question, neither one is really right. They use the presence, absence, or nature of a god-figure as their defining characteristic, and I've come to see that as a bit of a distraction in terms of making moral and ethical decisions on a day-to-day basis. The term I'm most comfortable with is "secular humanist," though it is a bit awkward and carries a subtle connotation of indifference. I'm still looking for a way to answer this question quickly and honestly; recently I tried out "For me, kindness and generosity are the beginning and end of morality." Unfortunately, that's a little glib and probably best suited to being stitched into a throw pillow or something.

"Sometimes I wonder if it's possible to change certain things about the way one is raised, and religion is something I'm starting to think is really, really tough to deprogram. I was raised with the understanding that 'god' is just an idea, something people talk about because it comforts them. That was laced with alot of bitterness coming from my mom, and as a teenager I knew just enough to reject her bitterness. I was lonely and socially awkward, and really wanted someone to reinforce my idea that being kind and generous is inherently worthwhile. I found that in the church, and I tried very, very hard to conform my thoughts and behaviors to the standard I was presented with there. You know more of my successes and failures with that than probably anyone else..."

[but my wider readership doesn't, so: I made a very awkward youth group kid. I read my bible more consistently than most, because I was excited to have some nice black and white answers to the trickier questions, but ultimately I couldn't accept a lot of those answers. I was outspoken and assertive in a way that didn't jive with the southern baptist idea of what makes a "Godly young lady," and I was told I "lacked the joy of the spirit" enough times that I still can't say those words without bitterness. I was very, very depressed, but I was told in a number of different ways that good Christian girls should smile and defer and help with a glad and cheerful heart. I wanted to be like that, and I learned some good social skills by trying to squeeze myself into a role so different from the one I had been raised to, but I was certain that if anyone saw how miserable I really was that I'd be rejected in a minute. I started my habit of hiding my depression at church, but I kept it long after I left, which is a shame.]

"...I had an unspoken inner conflict all that time that ate me up: I never really believed. Not emotionally, not subconsciously, and I felt like such a dirty little hypocrite for it. I tried very, very hard to internalize the idea that there's a consciousness out there, and it's benevolent and powerful beyond my understanding, and I can relate to it through prayer and it will comfort me. But, you see that "it"? Always caused me some trouble. I was told I was supposed to be thinking "He," but I've got a big, aching psychological wound where my idea of a father figure should be, and it just all got tied up together with my fears of abandonment and discomfort with my own gender. How could I possibly believe I was loved unconditionally when I had never seen anything that even attempted to model that? And so I felt like a failure at Christianity, too. I tried to share that with people, reach out, but either I wasn't good enough at asking for help or I was asking the wrong people, because I never did get it. Self hate and shame won out, and I eventually slunk away from the church to seek community and morality elsewhere. I pretty much gave up on having the big, theological questions answered, because they had never mattered all that much to me anyway. Mostly I wanted assurance that I was good, but I was starting to understand that's something you find exactly as often as you go looking for it, and it means only as much as you let it mean.

"Internally, I tend to think of all religions as systems of symbols, ways of interpreting and understanding a chaotic, unkind world. If a set of symbols helps someone to be responsible, kind and happy, who am I to say that they're wrong or foolish? Conversely, if a particular ideology leads someone to be selfish, violent, or cruel, I don't hesitate to decry that, and too often people allow their religion to become an excuse for bitterness and exclusion. I sometimes think I'd like to find another organized system of symbols to make sense of this world, but I'm certain I don't want to get pulled into another social club built around those ideas. It seems to me that when a diverse group of people get together for the express purpose of discussing what is or isn't good, they mostly end up alienating each other. I've had enough of that. I desperately need inclusion, so I do my best to give it, but I'm not going to lie about what I believe anymore.

"And reading back through that, I'm concerned it's too harsh, too exclusive. I'm very tempted to delete it. It's hard to trust people with personal truths, and hard to trust myself to express them in a way that won't alienate the people I care about."

But, again, that's exactly what this space is for.

a bit of renewed optimism

Maybe more than a bit. Yesterday's prediction held true: that mood seems to have been mostly sleeplessness-induced, and today is much more sunny, if not literally. I didn't manage to stay up very late; I was out by five and woke up for "dinner" at midnight, went back to bed within a half hour and slept through to nine this morning. That's sure to make falling asleep tonight a bit harder, but I've been out and about for most of the day, saw a bunch of people on campus and had lunch with several other ling undergrads. I'm feeling like I'm in the right place again, and it's one of my favorite feelings. At lunch Josh and I were talking about the neighborhood around campus, and though we would both like to be done with school by the end of this summer, we tossed out the idea of finding a two bedroom to share if we end up stuck here longer than that. I'm not too sure how I'd feel about having a roommate again after all this time, but he's mellow and kind and loves to cook, and we have similarly unhealthy sleeping schedules so ideally we would be well-equipped to be patient and compassionate about not making too much noise. It's nowhere near a sure thing, but it's an encouraging thought that even if my long-terms plans don't pan out, I could still find very good things here in town.

On the bus ride home I listened to a TTBOOK podcast about the National Book Award runners-up, and they had some excellent things to say about being a good writer. I'll probably listen to this one again, but the bits that stuck out the first time through were "my readers are much cleverer than me" and "when I'm writing about the ineffable, I find the I must be very precise with the physical details." (The last one is likely a paraphrase; I was getting off the bus and had trouble following each word.) I'm enjoying thinking about being a better writer and being a better person, and how it's hard to do one without the other, for me at least.

Also: I'm taking a creative writing class this semester, advanced poetry, so all this literary energy of mine will double up and earn me some credits. I needed an upper-level elective anyway, and I'm pretty excited about it.

half paralyzed by fear today

My voice is all stoppered up, tight, and I'm afraid to even go looking for it. Want to reach out, but not sure how. I know this sounds melodramatic and I'd like to stop. The solution is simple, I'm sure, but my stomach is twisted up and my hands and feet are cold. Probably not sleeping last night has something to do with it, and I'll feel better tomorrow morning, but only if I can sleep tonight. That means staying awake for the rest of the day, probably should get out and do something.

I need to pick up my prescription from the pharmacy. I'd like to see Clark. The weather is nice and I would probably be happier in the sun. And yet I feel inadequate to all of these, afraid of them. Maybe I should give myself the rest of the day to be twitchy and fretful, but then maybe I'll feel even worse tomorrow if I do.

Why does today feel horrifyingly open and empty, when I've just had weeks of no responsibilities and enjoyed all the space? It's analogous to agoraphobia, I think, but I can't work out the particulars. This feeling is self-perpetuating, doesn't want me to sort out why I feel this way. I'm calming down as I write, yawning. I don't want to sleep yet. Maybe some caffeine? Maybe some simple affection? God, the one's so easy but unhelpful, and the other's completely out of reach.

I want a lap to lay my head in, fingers in my hair. I want to not want those things. I want to curl up and not wake up until I know what my future's going to look like, and I know that's a self-defeating, irrational thought. Maybe I'll just settle for a some tea.

new(ish) year's resolution

I'm not a big fan of the big, formal new year's resolution; so often it's just a way for people to feel disappointed in themselves by mid-February. All the same, I've spent this winter thinking quite a bit about how to change my life for the better, how to make myself happier and more productive. This has been coming for a while, but I just figured out tonight how to articulate what I want to do differently.

From here on out, I want to try to treat myself the way I treat the people I love. Kind of a reverse golden rule I guess; would that be a lead rule? It is kinda heavy. (Oh, man, I crack me up.)

So that's a nice, simple little sentence, but what does it mean? I'll have to work it out as I go, but so far I've got some pretty simple, basic things that I think might make a big difference. I always like to cook and clean for the people I care about. I have no idea how many hours I've spent in David's kitchen, but it was certainly more often his than mine in the years he lived here. Most often I was washing his dishes while, back at my place, there was a sad, dirty, cramped little kitchen in need of my attention. So, we'll start with the basics: For the rest of January, I'm going to take care of my home as thought there were someone else living here, someone I loved and wanted to impress. (Man, subjunctive tense is a bear, but I kinda want to bring it back after writing sentences like that!) Keep the kitchen clean, vacuum more often, take care of the houseplants, hang the laundry as soon as it's washed, all those things I let slide when I don't feel good. Also, I'm going to spend more time cooking tasty, nutritious food. This is something I'm very good at doing, even on a budget, but so often I don't bother when it's just me. So, I'll try to focus on those two, cooking and cleaning, for the next fifteen days and see how I do.

I'll re-evaluate in February and see how I'm doing. If I've managed those with any regularity, maybe I'll be ready to add something new. Or maybe I'll just congratulate myself. Possibly I'll need to remind myself that in the middle of January I thought it was a really good idea, and I should try a bit harder to make it happen. We'll just have to see.

Resolved: I deserve to be treated well, even by me. Especially by me.

Be brave, Kari

This idea is in its absolute infancy; I haven't even asked anybody about couch surfing or their plans or any of that, haven't even checked my budget. But I have a very bad habit of doing the safe, easy thing and abandoning ideas like this in their absolute infancy. So, in an effort to goad myself in to being brave and trying new things:


View Spring Break? in a larger map

**As of 7pm, got confirmation from David and left a voicemail for Matt. Tomorrow: call Karen and take a closer look at this spring's budget.

and words about words, too

A moment ago Pandora played a song that caught my ear, and I went to check out the lyrics. I liked them so much I almost posted them here, in the spirit of sharing the poetry that touches me (and, yes, song lyrics absolutely do count as poetry, because if they don't then poetry just doesn't have enough of a role in the modern world). You're not reading them now because I decided that it's more important for me to share my own words, but if you're deeply curious it's Secret Heart by Feist.

I realized recently that, not only do I have an almost obsessive love of words, I trust words more than actions. This is utter foolishness according to conventional wisdom, and I think I'm just now figuring it out because even I think it's just a bit preposterous. People can say anything, it's so very easy to lie, and actions always come with consequences of one kind or another. But the thing about actions is that they can be explained away with a few skillful words. I didn't mean to hurt you, it was an accident, I had my reasons, you're totally misreading me, I was drunk, you just didn't understand, you thought that meant something? Yeah, it's pretty obvious what kind of actions I'm thinking of. The things with words is they pin things down, or at least try to, so that these shiny, slippery little butterflies of meaning and intent can be neatly lined up and categorized, organized, understood. When someone says "I want to make your life better," that's a very clear and direct thing, and even if they don't totally succeed I find it comforts me to revisit the memory of being told kind things, makes it easier to patient and compassionate.

Being told I'm loved always, always, always makes my day, and there's little I enjoy more than trusting someone enough to feel secure and assured in saying it myself. Sadly, neither happens half as often as I'd like.

I'm wondering what this means for my romantic interests, past and future. It's time for me to put some serious thought into this topic. It's been six months, and he's not coming back this time. I'm not quite ready for someone new, but that makes it all the more important for me to really consider what I want, what I need, what I'm willing to sacrifice and what I'm not. I'm not entirely sure if I would do better with someone who matches me on valuing words so highly or someone who challenges me to think outside my natural, subconscious assumptions about words and actions and intent. So, let's compare: Ryan, Jacob, Ben, David, I hope you're not too tired of being made examples of. If you are, and you've found your way here, skip the rest of this post.

Ryan had quite a way with words when we were younger, though it seems to have declined in the last few years. He's still quite charming, but he mumbles a lot now, doesn't seem to try so hard to say the right thing. He's gotten better at listening, too. He's always been good at telling me the things I desperately need to hear: I'm good and compassionate, undervalued by my family, virtuous and bound for good things. And that he loved me. He said it again and again, and though his actions never really lived up to it, I always chose to believe him. And, really, who's to say which was right? He believed he loved me, and we both learned to define love as the way we treated each other. Which was, of course, quite damaging for me in the long run. Though I'm pretty sure he was what I needed at the time, he was never very good to me.

Jacob is so very uncomfortable with words that there is no way to say it that falls anywhere between understatement and hyperbole. He's sharp and adaptable and always tries to be a good communicator, so I don't think it's a serious problem for him or the people in his life. But, looking back, I wonder how I would have felt with him if he had given me fewer gifts and said he cared for me more often. Strange to want someone to be less good to me. Maybe this is a problem. Undeniably, he was always good to me and helped me through one of the scarier times in my life, but I could never quite believe, on an emotional level, that he truly wanted me. My histrionics on the subject caused us no small amount of strife. If I could find something like that again, someone who did all the right things but wasn't very good at saying them, could I appreciate it better now? Hm. We'll revisit this with David.

Ben wasn't particularly good with his words or actions. Better with words, I suppose, at least at first, and he managed to talk his way out of consequences with frightening regularity. He was very, very good at making me question my actions and bottle up my words, and I'm still not totally sure how he did it. He hurt me so much. Three years and I'm still dealing with the fallout of the things I let him put me through. Do I really need to keep talking about this, keep dragging all this ugliness out into the light? I'm still so ashamed of myself. Disgusted with us both. How did I ever call that love? He made me bleed for god's sake, several times a week there in the middle of things, and I always thought it was something wrong with me. He told me it was something wrong with me, and as always, I chose to take him at his word instead of considering the impact of his actions. Bad choice.

David is uncomfortable saying things directly and often very slow to act, but that usually means he's deliberate with both words and actions. Good trait, and one I'm very attracted to, but it left me constantly unsure of him and his intentions. I was so afraid to tell him I loved him, though I was certain I did, because I doubted he would ever say it himself. It took me the better part of a year to believe that I could trust him not to hurt me physically (thank you Ben for that little parting gift), but I never did learn to trust him with my heart. Would things have turned out differently if I had? Looking back, I pushed him away just as often and effectively as he did me. The big difference is that instead of shutting down and pulling back like him, I piled on contradictory actions and words, the way Ben and Ryan taught me to. Snapped and grumbled and scowled, but then insisted that I loved him and didn't understand why he thought things weren't working. I wish I had been better to him, more consistent. I wish I had been brave enough to match actions to words. I wish he had been brave enough to say he loved me when I needed to hear it.

What do I need? It's obvious to me that what I want is someone who's going to hurt me and tell me they love me, but I think it's time to stop tilting at that particular windmill. I will get past it. I will. I suppose the obvious ideal would be someone who's good and loving with words and actions, who treats me with kindness and respect even as he tells me I'm good and beautiful and loved. But I suspect that I will feel smothered by that, or at least overwhelmed and intensely distrustful. That's how it started with Ben. Maybe someone who's slow and deliberate, but eventually builds up to saying and doing the right things, giving me time to be ready for it. How will I know that's coming, how do I hold on to my patience when I find someone I want that from? I suppose I just keep investing in the people who are being good to me now, and keep an open mind about the ones I'm attracted to.

I don't have much of a track record with that kind of patience and openness. I'm much more likely to force things to a premature confrontation. So that's something to work on, I suppose.

My brain hurts. Enough words for now.

Today has poem pieces

To make sure no one worries too much, I think I should preface this with a disclaimer: this isn't my usual confessional voice, though it sounds an awful lot like it. I've been thinking a lot on gender roles lately, and this is more the product of my musings in general than any specific personal perspective. So, read and enjoy, but don't concern yourself too much with what exactly this means for me. I'm not too sure myself just yet.

her hands are cold and sore

this is a weak metaphor
but she doesn't have much use for beauty
small hands, soft and round
make small miracles, milk and honey
turn back, water that had been wine
they aren't mine, but will be

temperance
is always drawn a woman

but daddy, i'm missing you
couldn't give me your time
couldn't give me a y, but i
don't know what to do
in a woman's skin

but miss you
and wish for a man


**edited to reflect midday tinkering

Getting to know me

I've spent many hours over the past month cleaning and organizing, trying to bring some sense of order and beauty to my living space. Tonight, I spent hours pulling out old books and binders and journals, making a mess out of my bookshelves and covering the living room floor in drifts of paper. This seems both predictable and somehow right. I found plenty of interesting things. In no particular order:

A notepad with a series of rather detailed character studies and the vaguest possible outline of a novel. I remember writing these things on a plane, I believe to Seattle, and so this would have been the fall of 2006. Three years doesn't seem like enough distance to forget a novel, and it certainly doesn't make sense to me that my perspective has changed so much in that time. Reading through my notes, they seem very adolescent, little more than a clumsy, childish gesture at adulthood. I wanted to write a coming of age story about morality and religion, and honestly believed that a 23 year old might have the perspective necessary to do so. I suppose it kept me calm on the plane, and it never hurts to flex my writer muscles a bit, but I'm a bit embarrassed by the obviousness of my symbols and the utter transparency of my own moral insecurity. And by the fact that I kinda want to revisit it to see if I can make something of it, maybe just some short stories.

Old emails from Matt, along with some unsent hand-written letters to both him and Jacob, from 2000 to 2003. My god, I sounded pretentious. Do I still sound that way? It's distressing to realize how little my younger self and I would like each other if we could somehow meet. All the same, my voice is sweetly, achingly sincere, and so obviously full of love and gratitude for those two. And so was Matt's, in its way. It made me miss him intensely, though I know the friendship we had then was predicated on time spent together those last couple years in Odessa, and there's no way to get back to the same kind of closeness now, with so many miles in between. It's good to know that love can be like that, close for a time but still real even with distance that you know you'll never quite cross.

In one of Matt's emails, the words to a song he had just written, which I can still hear in my head and desperately wish I had a recording of. I don't think he would appreciate my sharing the title, even after all this time, but I have no doubt that he'd be flattered that almost ten years later, I still find it pertinent enough to repost in my own space:

I've got things to get back to
I don't want to think of you
Because that means that there's a choice
And a chance to fall back down
Well, I've been scared a long, long time
afraid to be afraid
so are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Do you care?

Can't you see
I could die inside tonight.
You make it seem and feel
like right is always right.
Do you trust me?
Oh, the things you'll see.
The things you'll see.

I've scared myself away,
and I'm afraid I'll do the same
to you and everyone that comes
to ask me how's my day.
Is it a wonder that I doubt
or a wonder that I pray?
And I don't know if you can understand
You don't need to understand.

I suppose it's a little adolescent, and it should be, seeing as he was all of eighteen when he wrote it. But it's also exactly the thing I've been chewing on tonight that led me to tear my apartment apart looking for pieces of my own history, remnants of my voice. I miss having people around me who know me, but I'm also afraid they never really did know me, because I hide myself away without meaning to. I want to be known, and I'm afraid to show myself, even to me. And is there any way to deal with these feelings that doesn't boil down to adolescent navel-gazing? I had a good and productive day, kept myself occupied with good and important things, but when it got dark and quiet and there was nothing left to be done, I filled up with this anxiety and loneliness, and I don't know what to do with but distract myself or dive head-first into analyzing it.

Getting back to the things scattered around me on the floor: a nice leather journal with gilt edges, a present from Brian for Christmas '01. Distressingly, I can't remember what I gave him that year, though I remember shopping/planning with him for Karen's present quite clearly. There are exactly two entries in the journal, because I'm always nervous about filling up nice, clean spaces with my messy words, and the first is a note from him that, among other things, praises me in terms I'm sure I didn't deserve at the time and haven't lived up to since: "Your love that refuses to give up on anyone has surely blessed my life..." Yeah. Sorry about that, Brian. That's certainly the most flattering way my clinging has ever been described, and I have no doubt that it was sincere, but it makes me feel sad and conflicted to think about it now. I can't really explain how or why I pick the people I decide to love, and I just refuse to let them go once I have, even when they really need me to. And it exhausts me, I can't sustain it and take care of myself, and I have to wonder how many potential relationships I've missed out on in all my chasing after people who were, for whatever reason, done with me. And, at the same time, I feel incredibly guilty that I haven't even heard Brian's voice in years now. So different than the way it felt to remember Matt, and I can't explain why. And, again, very pertinent to the events of the past few weeks. Do I keep loving Lain, keep chasing after Livvy, or do I let them slip away since that's obviously what they both want? I feel so very neglected and taken advantage of in both relationships, exhausted by the effort of being good to them, but it eats me up that the last time I spoke to each of them was in anger, and I haven't even apologized. The obvious solution is to write a couple apology emails, send them off and be done with it. Maybe I'll be ready for that in a couple more weeks, but right now I'm still far too hurt and angry to be able to do it with any sincerity.

Do other people agonize over these decisions like this? I know I'm no more generous or compassionate than anybody else, because we really are all pretty much the same when you get right down to it. It just looks from the outside like other people make these decisions with less angst and inner turmoil, and I'm not entirely convinced that all my worrying is actually making me a better person in any way. Of course, I'm also quite concerned that if I just dismiss these decisions out of hand I am essentially guaranteed to make the wrong choice and just hurt everybody more. Stupid brain. It's bedtime now; I promise we can worry more tomorrow.

At least I have my health

It's surprisingly nice to say that with sincerity. After nearly two weeks of being largely house-bound (not to mention a solid week of being quite nearly bed-ridden), it feels amazing just to shave my legs and do the dishes. This winter has been pretty hard so far, with lots of twists and upsets and some not-inconsequential heartbreak, and I've had plenty of time with nothing better to do than think about all of it. I spent a good chunk of that time in the altered consciousness of a high fever, so my musings haven't always been the most lucid, but I have managed to keep myself from melancholy and self-pity more often than I did through most of the fall. All in all, I think I can actually count this particular bout of pneumonia as a blessing. Which is weird.

I had the thought today that the last couple weeks have been about getting a taste of the things I've longed for, then having them stripped away, along with my ability to do even the simplest things for myself. It's made me poignantly grateful for every tiny bit of good that does come my way. It seems to me today that maybe I needed to have everything stripped away for just a bit, to be laid even lower than the self-pity I'm so habituated to. It means that as I get things back (like, for instance, the energy for basic hygiene) I can take joy in the ability, instead of lamenting the responsibility. I know this rush of gratitude and euphoria won't last; this sort of feeling is a sprinter, and shouldn't be counted on for the long haul. But right now I've got a chance to build some new, better habits and focus my thoughts in new, possibly healthier and more helpful directions.

I didn't live up to my own expectations last fall. In fact, I failed in exactly the way I had been so afraid I would if I took the risk and went back to school full time. And the world didn't fall apart, and the people I respect haven't written me off as a failure. (Well, not all of them anyway, but I'm not in the mood to dwell on that just at the moment.) Furthermore, I did get some other things done. I made a bunch of new friends, something I was very worried I wouldn't be able to do, and I think a couple of them are the quality of people I really, really want in my life. I put real, concentrated effort into my poetry, hours at a time and often several times a week, and the work shows. I'm seriously considering cleaning up a couple pieces for the NT Review, and maybe, just maybe, putting together a chap book and sending it to a couple periodicals. I mean, it'll only cost me a stamp or two, right? Why not?

And I've grown my understanding of social interaction as much in the past three months as in the year previous to that, possibly much more. Maybe it's more helpful to say that all the seeds that Sam and David and I had been planting in my psyche over the past several years have suddenly had an amazing growing season. It's been hard to deal with in a lot of ways. Actual compassion and insight aren't always gentle, easy things. They often mean accepting that people just don't fit together, or aren't giving each other anything good, and no one is at fault and no one is to blame, but everyone is hurting all the same. That part isn't so fun. But recognizing it sooner can only make me a happier, healthier person, not to mention a better friend. This is why I say understanding of social interaction and not just social skills, but really neither of those really captures what I'm getting at here. Awareness and self-possession have a lot to do with it, as do social grace and confidence.

And the most amazing thing to me is that all that interpersonal stuff, the social skills I've agonized over and the compassion I've always been burdened with/lauded for/confused by... it's the exact same thing that will make me a better writer. Because it's all about the exchange of information between human beings, and writing is just a narrow, focused version of the same.

In truth, I'm mostly communicating with myself right now. That's what I created this space for, after all. And there are a handful of people who have access to these words and will know that they're mine, and I'm aware of those individuals as I type, as I read through to make sure this is lucid and not riddled with typos. Is Lain still following after my two year hiatus? Has David finally decided to come check all of this out? Will Jacob or Laura have anything to say in response to all this? There is some potential for inter-personal exchange here, and that's what motivates me to get this all down instead of letting all these ideas chase themselves around my head all night. I think in the long run, though, the real value will be in having a snapshot of where my thoughts were running in the first few days of 2010, as I waited for my body to heal and my heart to... Huh.

What am I waiting for my heart to do? Heal? Be happy? Just pick itself up by the bootstraps and miraculously feel happy about the same things that have made me sad for so long? I would very much like to be ready to start trusting again, but that's a complicated, scary thing. I'm becoming more aware of my tendency to distrust, and that can only be helpful. Am I waiting to stop loving David? I hope not, because that would be a fairly stupid thing to do, seeing as I don't particularly want to. Maybe what I'm waiting for is the knowledge that there's room in my heart for new things and people, and that it won't be a betrayal to the people I've loved in the past when I start to move on. That he's not betraying me by moving on himself.

Well. This ended somewhere very different than where it started. I'm fairly certain that if I try to continue on from that last thought I'll circle back around to melancholy, and frankly I'm just not interested in that. I love him and I miss him, but there's a hell of a lot more to me and my life than those two little facts. What else? See above.