tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248063082024-03-07T15:47:31.281-08:00The Writing LifeWriting, parenting, living life to the best of my ability...kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.comBlogger891125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-12283966751298212392020-08-25T09:57:00.002-07:002020-08-25T09:58:08.500-07:00What Happens When We Can't Bear Witness<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcJ-crf949XHLEs1DhFRTkfhlQB-wAH0MADVOvEWbzUHTvbxUnzkPEyi4CxnT4gWVY24-PyGG58NeRT9O8tFhM-YQPXS_fpJf9VB5HmHfQ1_coFifGfbYRLtq691U1Rp3N3fWpPA/s1280/1280px-Tent_City_%2528Eugene%252C_Oregon%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Image Description: tent encampment in the plaza of a Federal Building" border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="341" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcJ-crf949XHLEs1DhFRTkfhlQB-wAH0MADVOvEWbzUHTvbxUnzkPEyi4CxnT4gWVY24-PyGG58NeRT9O8tFhM-YQPXS_fpJf9VB5HmHfQ1_coFifGfbYRLtq691U1Rp3N3fWpPA/w512-h341/1280px-Tent_City_%2528Eugene%252C_Oregon%2529.jpg" title="By Visitor7 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28672678" width="512" /></a></div> <p></p><p>Nearly once a week a "discussion" erupts on my local NextDoor site in regards to homelessness (or, more accurately homeless people) in Seattle. My neighborhood is a mix of upper-income, middle-aged white folks in single family homes and younger, mostly white folks in townhomes that are rapidly gentrifying the area, with some families who've been here for generations thrown in. Mostly, those folks who have lived in this area for a long time are people of color, as this is the neighborhood where, historically, Black people were redlined to. (Yes, I am one of the gentrifiers, and that is something I grapple with quite a bit).</p><p>It happens like this: someone posts an angry or disgusted rant about homelessness or tent-camping in public parks getting "out of control," the same five or six people chime in with questions about where these folks ought to be living instead, given the lack of housing and shelters in the city, and fifteen or twenty others clap back with comments about crime or garbage or needles and encourage the "libtards" to open their own homes to "these people." It devolves from there, and it only ends because people get tired of having the same back-and-forth. At some point, another person will post something similar about a different area of town or an encounter they had with an unhoused person and it starts all over again. </p><p>In other cases, I have read stories of people really struggling with basic needs on social media, written by friends and acquaintances in an effort to highlight the challenges so many families are having, and read comments by folks who accuse them of fabricating these stories just to create division. Other commenters pile on, asking if the original poster did anything to help or were they just co-opting the story to make themselves look good.</p><p>Why do we do that? Why do we deflect and make these experiences about things they aren't about? Instead of talking about the overwhelming numbers of people who are unhoused, we argue about "hygiene" or "cleanliness" or property values of homeowners living nearby. Instead of sitting with the knowledge that there are so many among us who can't afford food or medication or are one disaster away from being unhoused themselves, we fight with each other about the veracity of these stories or yell at folks for not doing something Right Now. </p><p>Discomfort. I think that's what it comes down to - who is able to sit with discomfort and who isn't. It is incredibly painful to witness another human being suffering or struggling, and when it shows up in our own neighborhood, we can't simply turn off the television or walk away. If you live across the street from a place where people have erected tents and are living without running water or enough food, it's hard to shut it out. It takes courage to be a witness to suffering and to really acknowledge that the folks who are struggling are human beings who deserve care and comfort. </p><p>The city of Seattle created something they call "Find it, Fix it" for citizens to report issues that the city needs to address. It was designed to address infrastructure problems like potholes or stop signs that fell over or are obstructed by trees, but increasingly, it is being used by citizens who don't like homeless people living in their neighborhoods. A few days ago, another resident of my neighborhood posted on NextDoor, imploring folks to flood the Find it, Fix it voice mail with concerns about a tent encampment in our area that just keeps growing. When I pointed out that tent camps are populated by people, not "it," I was predictably met with the same arguments - the garbage, the needles (minus any evidence that there actually is any drug activity happening), the loud arguments coming from that area at night. One commenter wrote about loud arguments he heard coming from the tents at night, saying they frightened him because he was sure violence was imminent. But, I asked, if you were sitting out on your back deck relaxing and you heard your (housed) neighbors having a loud argument, would you feel unsafe? If not, is that because they are housed? Are you only frightened by people having public arguments who don't have the privilege of being in a home they rent or own? </p><p>It is uncomfortable to admit that there are people who don't have enough. It is more uncomfortable to witness it. The whole NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) paradigm isn't about solving the problems our cities face, it is about making sure we don't have to see it. The assertions about property values and cleanliness are thinly veiled attempts to say that some people are more deserving of comfort and care than others are. When we blame unhoused people for being unhoused, we are more able to see them as people not worthy of the same comforts we have. When we begin to believe that they are somehow fundamentally different from us, we are more likely to be afraid of them and imagine them to be unpredictable or somehow dangerous. When we blame poor people for being poor, we are divorcing ourselves from any responsibility to them as humans, as members of a community. We are assuming that their actions, their choices, have rendered them outside of the collective we belong to, and diminishing the reality that their basic needs are not being met and they are suffering. </p><p>But when we choose to witness the suffering of another as an equal human being, as a member of our community, we have to be able to sit with all the fear and sadness that brings up. My friend Nicci said the other day, "being a witness to suffering is much different than suffering with suffering." Until we have practice acknowledging that someone is struggling and holding compassion for that without deflecting, we are simply suffering, whether we realize it or not. Sometimes we turn that suffering in to anger and resentment toward those people, and sometimes we try to deflect that in to action, to try and "fix" it. Our brains are so good at finding ways to keep us from feeling that it takes practice, and vigilance to learn to be a witness and sit with the discomfort. That doesn't mean we can't act, but the more we learn to be compassionate witnesses, the more likely we are to center the individual people in our search for solutions. This isn't deflection, it's transformation, it's metabolizing our empathy and compassion to find ways to act that serve those who are suffering. </p><p>It's the deflection that seeks to push the pain out of our visual range that is harmful, because it denies the humanity of others and our connection to community. We don't get to be selective about the communities we belong to, no matter how hard we try. The fact is, we are all connected whether we like it or not. That is being shown every single day in a myriad of ways. I see posts from people about their struggles with family members who hold completely different political views than their own, anecdotes about others who were surprised to find that someone they wouldn't normally choose to associate with was able to help them in some way, people who have to rely on others for assistance. We are all part of a community, like it or not. </p><p>I truly believe that most of the people who get indignant about homelessness and poverty are people who, if they really let themselves acknowledge what they're feeling, are empathic. I think that the coping mechanism they've developed to deal with the (very real) discomfort of witnessing suffering is anger and blame and if they allowed themselves to put that aside and really feel what they feel when they see a person who is unhoused or needs help with basic necessities, they might begin to feel more connected, and more empowered. I think that the instinct to share our views and feelings on social media is an attempt to build community, to ask others to validate our feelings and be witnesses for us, but ironically, it almost always devolves in to an argument about those who are suffering rather than an invitation to really witness what they are living with. </p>kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-33517166093068941122020-08-18T09:41:00.005-07:002020-08-18T09:41:37.069-07:00Why Being "Of Service" to Something Bigger is Over-rated and Misguided (Stick With Me)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr4F9zIaOqKPZmQX5Y-YqmCVTTRQSSCYsC3SGZ8-U6yJsddFWzK3UFnSUjpV8fHx-DtoiYSG-D7GRQgyytIhTdPffJFlpJvVyNDmJ1D1srKsELKWQ_HWABcc5FjrWU4JDCd0FPew/s2048/IMG_8675.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr4F9zIaOqKPZmQX5Y-YqmCVTTRQSSCYsC3SGZ8-U6yJsddFWzK3UFnSUjpV8fHx-DtoiYSG-D7GRQgyytIhTdPffJFlpJvVyNDmJ1D1srKsELKWQ_HWABcc5FjrWU4JDCd0FPew/s640/IMG_8675.jpg" /></a></div>My uncle said something last night that struck me and it fits in with so much of what I've been chewing on mentally. He said, "we aren't a <i><b>society</b></i>, we are an <b>economy</b>. We aren't <b><i>citizens</i></b>, we're <b>workers</b>." He said it ironically, as he and two of his sisters and I were railing at what passes for health care in the United States - at how we commoditized it and made it a business instead of a way to meet the basic needs of human beings in our communities. <p></p><p>And then this morning, Nicci sent me a Marco Polo (seriously, folks, I'm addicted to this platform and the way we can record videos for just one other person and instead of a dynamic, ongoing conversation, we have to really listen to the other person in earnest, hear their thoughts and ideas, and sit with them before formulating a response) that, among other things, made me think about my parents' generation and how they were taught (indoctrinated?) to believe that they had to be <i style="font-weight: bold;">in service</i> to something bigger, and how that was noble, and desirable, and that martyring one's self to that larger thing (Capitalism and "Democracy") was not only expected but lauded. </p><p>But, hear me out: a collective, a community, is only as healthy as its individual parts, and my parents were taught that they ought to eschew their own health and well-being in order to be <i style="font-weight: bold;">of service</i> to something else. And if they did a good enough job, they'd get a pat on the head and a pension and Capitalism and Democracy would live on through their efforts. And so my dad went to Vietnam and fought for "Democracy" and came home broken broken broken. And my mom quit teaching and stayed home to raise children and held on to her marriage with this broken broken broken man <i style="font-weight: bold;">in service</i> to her religion, her society (raising "good" children and all that), her country (as if). I know for a fact they both had dreams and passions and I also know that they sublimated those things out of a sense of duty. I know that they weren't able to ask the question, "What would make me happy?" From time to time, when either of them was particularly tortured and unhappy, they were able to ask, "what would make this suffering stop?" - but they never saw their own well-being as something that would serve the collective. </p><p>I once heard Gloria Steinem say "if you want to have something at the end of your journey, you have to have it all along the way." She went on to explain that if we're looking for joy or a sense of purpose, we have to have experienced it as we go, or else we'll never be able to recognize it or appreciate it once we get "there," wherever "there" is (for the record, I don't think there is a "there" there). But at least one entire generation of people were taught (indoctrinated?) that what they wanted in the moment wasn't important. They could plan for retirement, to have "joy" and an opportunity to relax and indulge your passions and interests at that point, but until that time, you had to be <i style="font-weight: bold;">of service</i>. </p><p>But a healthy collective is made up of healthy individuals. A peaceful collective is made up of peaceful individuals. The thing we are working for has to also benefit us in some tangible, meaningful way. I'm sure my parents both believed that Capitalism and Democracy would benefit them, but only inasmuch as it prevented other horrible things from affecting them - things like Communism and Socialism, lawlessness and anarchy and amorality. But I can tell you that, while my parents lived fairly comfortable, middle-class lives and they remained safe from whatever demons were out there, for the most part, neither of them got to enjoy their retirement. My dad died at 65 from an aggressive form of cancer (brought on by, you guessed it - his time in Vietnam) and my mom was forced into retirement by Alzheimer's. Neither of them got the chance to travel or pursue a passion or reap the benefits of their efforts <b><i>on behalf of </i></b>That Larger Thing. </p><p>So what if we flip this on its head? What if we teach a new generation of young people that grounding themselves in who they are, what they want, where their natural talents lie, and serving that is serving the collective? What if we teach them that, the stronger and more peaceful and purposeful they are, the more they are able to connect to others with clarity and compassion? And that those connections are what actually serve the collective? What if we don't place the emphasis on some external thing that <i style="font-weight: bold;">needs</i> them to be/act/work a certain way, but instead look at what they need in order to act from a place of security and abundance? What if we make sure that they have what they need (food, shelter, access to the education they choose, health care, a supportive community and family) and know <i>know </i><b style="font-style: italic;">know</b> that this is what the foundation of our strong collective resides on? </p><p>The kind of <b>service</b> my parents' generation was built on required more individuals to constantly replenish the ones that burned out. It was this hollow shell of Capitalism and Democracy with worker bees propping it up and it ran on volume so that when some of the bees got sick, others could rush in and replace them. But building our communities from the inside out, ensuring that each individual who is part of it is healthy and has what they need, means that we have a solid core from which to draw our collective well-being. While I spent most of my life saying I wanted to be "of service" and believing that that was an incredibly noble thing, I now think it is important for us to examine exactly what it is we think we're "in service" to. If what we really want to be is part of a community of care that honors all of us, then our work lies in making sure we are clear on our purpose and passion, that we are able to ask for what we need when we need it and offer our support to those whose needs can be met by us. Taking care of ourselves and being able to recognize our talents and gifts as well as knowing what joy looks and feels like along the way is how we serve the collective. </p>kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-60873313445412867092020-08-16T12:54:00.001-07:002020-08-16T12:54:28.190-07:00It's All Relational<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQyqfLlq3hOQdJF1UjOaDzs3AQrImV8dxMfWhqpsr9TpTCVR7ereeE0NJyJPCcXo_bqyYcK_Zg-Jvm5DDeM8yh3nG4j0AfEnuHVDzFVxarBjwAFXxbdi8gdMlHJIPDM0hOBPwTew/s800/Win_win_relationship.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQyqfLlq3hOQdJF1UjOaDzs3AQrImV8dxMfWhqpsr9TpTCVR7ereeE0NJyJPCcXo_bqyYcK_Zg-Jvm5DDeM8yh3nG4j0AfEnuHVDzFVxarBjwAFXxbdi8gdMlHJIPDM0hOBPwTew/s640/Win_win_relationship.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>I deleted Facebook from my phone two weeks ago and my nervous system is thanking me for it. I also decided to only go check the site once a day from my computer, in the morning, to make my way through the notifications, see what my friends and groups are up to, and maybe post a link to something I wrote, before logging off and leaving it for the next day. <p></p><p>Since my divorce two years ago, I've felt lonely. (Actually, I was lonely long before then, but that's not worth getting in to right now). Increasingly, I used Facebook as a way to connect with other people, to the point where I found myself checking it dozens of times a day. If I posted something and nobody commented or responded, I was frustrated, and conversely, when someone remarked on a post of mine or responded to a comment I left, I was elated. I felt that dopamine surge with glee. </p><p>I will admit to some fear of letting go of Facebook. In the last several years, I've secured writing work almost exclusively from groups I belong to, and I am honestly worried that I will miss seeing opportunities if I don't check the site more than once a day for five minutes. But I'd be lying if I said I feel good about supporting the platform itself and all that it stands for - capitalism, exploitation, curated news feeds, manipulation. </p><p>Today, in a conversation with a friend, I was finally able to articulate what it is that I'm discovering about Facebook and, to be honest, other social media platforms as well. They are transactional, but they masquerade as relational. And my work, my passion, centers on the power of relationship and how transformational it is if we really engage in it with intentionality. </p><p>To be sure, I am able to use social media as a way to keep up with my cousins who live two states away - seeing photos of their kids and hearing about the things happening in their lives. I am kept informed of important events in the lives of friends who live far away and able to celebrate those things with a group of other friends online. But that's not relationship. </p><p>When I post something on Facebook, it is the equivalent of me standing on a stage with a bullhorn, proclaiming my opinion or telling folks about some idea I have. While, in general, they are free to comment, I don't have to choose to engage with them, and often the comments aren't inviting that kind of exchange - they are simply an acknowledgment. That's not relationship. That's a transaction. </p><p>I have created relationship with folks I met online, but the connection was made offline - either in person or via email or FaceTime or, increasingly, Marco Polo. And in relationship, we are able to learn about and from each other, engage in conversations that are deep and also sometimes superficial and goofy. The communication is not performative in any way because there isn't an audience and I think that's important. I can talk to people about racism or what it means to struggle with trauma without voyeurs, and in relationship, I can make mistakes. I can say something and have the other person take a step back and let me know that maybe what I said was insensitive or even inappropriate and, without all of the rest of my Facebook friends looking on, I can take that information in and use it to learn. </p><p>I do believe, and have for a long time, that the way we will make this world a better place is through relationship. It is not by "fixing" systems or forcing outcomes, but by engaging in conversations with each other on a very human level where we are allowed to be imperfect, grow, make mistakes, and hold each other accountable. It will take time and a willingness to be present, to pay attention, to suspend judgment, and to show up in our local communities. It involves us taking a leap of faith to connect with other people and let them decide whether or not to invite us in to relationship, or to invite others in to relationship with us. It is the stuff of every day life - seeing someone struggle to carry all of their things and offering to help shoulder the load, volunteering at a neighborhood organization for no other reason than there is a need to be met and we have the resources to help meet it, striking up a conversation with the neighbor while we are both out sweeping the walk. When we strengthen those connections with other people, we begin to see them as part of our community, and when we center those relationships in our lives in a way that feels foundational, it is harder to see other people as stepping stones to our own personal success. </p><p>The <a href="https://the-writing-life.blogspot.com/2020/04/its-time-for-another-way.html" target="_blank">post</a> I wrote in April about systems centering themselves is part of this idea. When we center relationship, there is no way we can choose to disadvantage individual people in order to serve the "greater good." Because the greater good relies on all of us being ok, and we are not ok. There are too many of us who don't have shelter, or enough to eat. There are too many of us who are not safe, either in our own homes or out on the streets. And when we can create communities of care that are rooted in relationships, real, authentic, dynamic relationships where people have affection for each other, support one another physically and spiritually and emotionally, and see each other as vital to our own well-being, we will be on our way to inviting new systems to be born - systems that are grounded in the mutual exchange of ideas and love rather than transactions that serve some but not all. </p><p><br /></p>kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-22815645739587980652020-08-03T12:16:00.001-07:002020-08-03T12:16:29.347-07:00Thank you, wise women <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTt1MwasZMI5E39IOEC3BsChXMSuDZQaTYAyI9eQUclcQ79X7dU7iun0bViH3a2tVN5RW1YsBBreczwFkE_Ykl3D5dw_MnXFh6ua2yNF1l6pBHoZ4YP5KKvftxlusMO0OwiZwIqQ/s1600/IMG_2280.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTt1MwasZMI5E39IOEC3BsChXMSuDZQaTYAyI9eQUclcQ79X7dU7iun0bViH3a2tVN5RW1YsBBreczwFkE_Ykl3D5dw_MnXFh6ua2yNF1l6pBHoZ4YP5KKvftxlusMO0OwiZwIqQ/s320/IMG_2280.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
Chop wood<br />
Carry water<br />
<br />
I heard that message in a meditation today and I'm doing my best. My nervous system is a wreck, a jangly mess of tangled wires and antennae picking up signals from everyone around me and bouncing them back and forth like a pinball machine. I spent most of yesterday in tears, and when I wasn't crying, I was working in the yard, schlepping heavy pavers and bags of sand in an attempt to shunt some of that energy out of my body.<br />
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Make breakfast like a prayer<br />
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I heard that in my head this morning when I was walking the dogs, trying to stay present and remembering how damn hard it is to just do what I'm doing when I'm doing it with every fiber of my being. My brain wants to jump ahead to problem-solve and make lists and let my body navigate the daily dog walk. It's a struggle to force myself to feel the ground beneath my feet, take in the cool breeze on my skin, smell the neighbor's jasmine blooming, watch the crows hop from place to place on the wires above us.<br />
<br />
Chop wood<br />
Carry water<br />
<br />
My friend Susan used to say that to me when I was a kid and I was freaking out. I don't honestly remember if I ignored it, rebelled against it, rolled my eyes, or took it in, but somewhere it lodged itself in my body so it could come back out today when I needed reminding. And as hard as it is, the moment I start doing it, I can feel my nervous system calm down. Walking up the stairs to get a load of laundry, I repeat silently<br />
<br />
chop wood<br />
<br />
carry water<br />
<br />
with the rhythm of my breath. When my mind starts to drift, I note that I am gathering laundry and I focus on how my leg muscles feel as I go down each stair, how the muscles in my forearm feels when I turn the doorknob to the laundry room, what my core feels like as I bend at the waist to push the clothes in the washing machine.<br />
<br />
The hamster-wheel part of my brain is back there somewhere worrying that I am moving too slowly, that I won't get everything done.<br />
<br />
Make breakfast like a prayer<br />
<br />
My friend Jen says that and I do my best. Slicing potatoes, cutting chunks of sausage, watching the egg yolk and white swirl together as I whip them. Sitting down, I focus on the taste of a perfectly crisp bite of potato and marvel at how often I shove food in without really experiencing it. The hamster squeaks at me that I'm being ridiculous and clichè.<br />
<br />
But there is more air in my chest and belly. My jaw is relaxed. My limbs soft and comfortable. And by 10:30, I have walked the dogs, started two loads of laundry, eaten breakfast, helped my daughter navigate buying her parking permit with the city clerk, watered all the plants, cleaned and decluttered the kitchen countertop, and connected with three different dear ones via text.<br />
<br />
It is enough.<br />
The hamster is still spinning, but he is not yelling at me anymore. There are a lot of things left to do today, and I am reminded of something another strong, wise woman once said to me:<br />
<br />
there will be enough time for all of the things that matter<br />
<br />
She said this to me years ago, like Susan, and I wanted desperately to believe it then. I've heard it echo in my head often since then and she is right. It is amazing to me that I never believed that, or even considered that it could be true until she said it, but once she did, I began to trust it.<br />
<br />
The things I accomplish today are the things that will be important to accomplish. One step at a time.<br />
<br />
this breath in<br />
this breath out<br />
<br />
So many wise, simple phrases from so many wise women in my life. And each one of them calms me, centers me, puts me squarely in the middle of a place that feels held in abundance, connected to an energy that fuels me. I am grateful. Nothing has changed outside of me - there is still pain and chaos and uncertainty and suffering. What has changed is that I know my work is to chop wood, carry water, make breakfast like a prayer, believe that there is always enough time for the things that matter. This breath in. This breath out.kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-26661028577752152852020-07-29T10:27:00.001-07:002020-07-29T11:41:36.618-07:00Learning, and then what? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKPhKbLa8hgRbDmseIagIeMxyMHAvrjd8czjakzk4py8jrc-8_IDFQOxyoceuu3cx8hjXt7u_0obcADxm9YW7VoVNxzlmpisiVUUi9_IcRvvZcZCUttE2DICW_-2IA7HLYNK7_0A/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1272" data-original-width="848" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKPhKbLa8hgRbDmseIagIeMxyMHAvrjd8czjakzk4py8jrc-8_IDFQOxyoceuu3cx8hjXt7u_0obcADxm9YW7VoVNxzlmpisiVUUi9_IcRvvZcZCUttE2DICW_-2IA7HLYNK7_0A/s320/FullSizeRender.jpeg" width="213" /></a></div>
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I am really struggling today.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And, it’s not about me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But also, it is. There is a way in which I have to fit in to the community, be in relationship with others, and help push solutions forward.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Even saying the word “solutions” feels weird. As if there is a set of (elusive) criteria or steps out there to take that will make all of this turmoil and pain better once and for all. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bullshit.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I watch conversations ebb and flow online with interest. There are white women I know who are really digging in and learning; reading and talking with one another and exploring ideas they’ve never explored before. I heard a story the other night about a white woman at a protest who asked a Black woman what she should say to “get it Right.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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I understand the desire, the question, and I also know somewhere deep down in my bones that this isn’t about “getting it Right.” There is no “it” and there is no “Right.” This isn’t some box we can check – yup, read these seven books, had these important discussions, watched this documentary, I get it now. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Not that it’s not important to read and talk and watch the documentaries – it is. It is part of our unlearning, our acknowledgment that the education we received was whitewashed and carefully curated to present a particular viewpoint and make us all feel good about the trajectory of “history.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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But I think what it comes down to – what it always comes down to – is relationship. Doing your own work is vital, but not in the context of becoming woke or enlightened or saying you “get it.” It’s important so that you can show up and be better in community, be in relationships that are honest and evolutionary. Going to anger management courses as someone who is abusive to others isn’t useful as a philosophical exercise. You have to embed the learning in to your bones, commit to using it as a way to build connections and practice new ways of being in relationship. It isn’t enough to say you showed up and learned the things. You have to be willing to imagine a new way of being, and that requires shedding the old way, practicing over and over again until the new ways become more natural than the old ones, and doing it in the context of relationship. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The consent decrees and DEI training and de-escalation trainings police officers adhere to aren’t meaningful unless on some human level they are changed and they show up in a different way. And that’s hard to do because relationships suffer under power differentials. Community isn’t built, doesn’t thrive when all parties aren’t accountable to the same set of principles. When the goal is power, the end result can never be a healthy relationship. And we have raised generations and generations of men to believe that what makes them men is the fact that they reside in power. All of the things we teach boys about being men are really about maintaining power – not showing emotions that seem vulnerable, not admitting to mistakes or being unsure of answers, the importance of being a “provider” … We even teach women and girls that the way to be treated better is to be more like men, to “Lean In”. Power destroys relationship. But when you’ve been taught that power is the thing you’re supposed to be seeking, that you deserve to possess, the notion that you might have to relinquish it in order to be part of a healthy community is a tough pill to swallow. This is why some (mostly men) in authority try to twist it to say that that healthy communities include power dynamics – someone has to be “in charge.” But that is a lie. When we set up systems where only certain people or groups get to have agency and they aren’t held accountable in relationship to those they wield power over, that isn’t being in charge. That is holding up supremacy. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Watching what is happening in Portland is a powerful reminder that the desire for power is so much a part of who we are that it is destroying us. Not only are there armed militia men without identification grabbing citizens off the streets and detaining them without Miranda rights, or pressing charges, or due process of any kind, but the discussion online about who should be front and center in the protests, whose voices should be heard, who deserves to be featured in the stories is about power, too. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Folks maintain power through fear and I’m sad to say I’m scared right now. I am scared that there are so many willing soldiers in Trump’s army that will show up, rescind their humanity, and brutalize and scare peaceful protestors with impunity. I am sad that our government is willing to spend vast sums of money on “crowd control” tactics that are classified as war crimes by the UN but not spend our resources to supply our hospitals with the things they need to keep people alive in a pandemic, give money to families to buy food and pay rent. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I tend to be an optimist, and today I’m finding it hard to be optimistic. Being in relationship with one another is the one thing that keeps us alive and thriving, and we are destroying relationships every day. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s not about being a “good person” and doing your own work. (I almost wrote “it’s not enough to be a ‘good person’ and do your own work” but I checked myself because that makes it sound like there is some “enough”. DAMN! Even our language is tailored toward the idea that there is some binary Right/Wrong, Enough/Not Enough.) We have to act and exist within relationships that are dynamic and evolutionary and messy. We have to learn better and then DO better, not by checking some box or posting something online, but by engaging, by talking to people and listening to them and really doing the messy interactive stuff of relationship. I wrote last time about boundaries and how I think we can use them as tools to further relationship, deepen accountability, and become more connected to other people. I’m really beginning to think that is the goal and the thing that will make all our lives better – a willingness to overcome our fear of fucking up, an acknowledgment that community is worth the uncertainty and messiness of really connecting with others, and a complete dismantling of the idea that there is some end goal that we all need to aspire to. It is so damn tempting to think that The Answer is out there and we just need to find it, check all the boxes and find all the little fruits along the way until we get “there.” But there is no there there. There is only right now, and the choice of whether or not to do the next thing that will strengthen our connections with those around us. Showing up to learn and have conversations and center the well-being of those connections is what will move us in to a place where we begin to feel as though we are all important. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I listened to an <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ten-percent-happier-with-dan-harris/id1087147821?i=1000482826916" target="_blank">interview</a> with Resmaa Menakem yesterday and he implored us to talk to each other, build a culture of care, of learning, of acknowledging the trauma we carry and that we are inflicting on each other, and passing on to our children. I cringed when he said he thinks it will take a concerted effort to do this for “seven to ten years” before things will change significantly. But if we don’t start now, we are only continuing to do harm. If there is such a thing as “getting it right” that is where it starts: putting in the effort to learn and listen, showing up willing to make mistakes and relinquish power or authority, being in the chaos and mess of interacting with others for real, and doing it all from a place of love, grounded in the sincere belief that community is created when everyone is honored, respected, and cared for. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m in. Are you? <o:p></o:p></div>
kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-62267305384911845412020-07-14T08:11:00.002-07:002020-07-14T08:11:37.998-07:00 Relationships and “Healthy” Boundaries <div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTwC4No1rlIlOwc6p3iCjumTDJXMJ3jHyC_tj7nsiFz6GuoZx66xBar0wCstRhJuz_m-8Y8TU2Ku0H5yyB0V_24VTVzyXYKwUrT0gkho3sC9qDAkt7GWxFcecT2vQgJTnSUId8FQ/s1600/800px-Giant_rock_wall_with_a_central_fracture_called_%2527Spaccatura_delle_Lecce%2527%252C_Monte_Cucco_Regional_Park%252C_Umbria%252C_Italy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTwC4No1rlIlOwc6p3iCjumTDJXMJ3jHyC_tj7nsiFz6GuoZx66xBar0wCstRhJuz_m-8Y8TU2Ku0H5yyB0V_24VTVzyXYKwUrT0gkho3sC9qDAkt7GWxFcecT2vQgJTnSUId8FQ/s320/800px-Giant_rock_wall_with_a_central_fracture_called_%2527Spaccatura_delle_Lecce%2527%252C_Monte_Cucco_Regional_Park%252C_Umbria%252C_Italy.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Albarubescens / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)</td></tr>
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Confession: I spent the first half of my life without any discernible personal boundaries. I have spent the last twenty years or so believing that boundaries are the holy grail of healthy relationships. And in the last few weeks, I am really beginning to question whether or not that is really true. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Before you quit reading (or finish formulating your comeback comments in your head), hear me out. Because I’m <b>not</b> saying we shouldn’t have boundaries in relationship. I’m saying, what if we saw them as a tool instead of a permanent fixture (in most cases)? What if we could use boundaries as a way to press pause on harmful relationship dynamics while we go do some work in a protected way, with the hope that the barriers can be removed at some point to allow us to re-engage in that relationship with an eye toward deepening it and enriching it for the future? <o:p></o:p></div>
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To be certain, boundaries are often necessary to keep us safe. Continuing to be in relationship with someone who harms us physically or abuses us emotionally, tries to control us or is a source of active pain, is unhealthy. <i>But there are a myriad of ways in which we use boundaries to keep relationships stagnant, to effectively block people who challenge us and spur us to growth that can lead to more awareness.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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I recently had a disagreement with a friend I’ve known for nearly a decade. We have a lot in common and have had some really engaging conversations over the years as well as light-hearted, enjoyable times. This particular disagreement came about during the volatile time of COVID sequestering and the burgeoning protests in mid-May, and I think it took both of us by surprise, but it shook me and made me question what our friendship could possibly look like going forward. <o:p></o:p></div>
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A week or so ago, I had another significant, painful exchange with a family member I’ve struggled to create and maintain healthy boundaries with for decades. Neither of these people are folks I want to cut out of my life entirely, but if I didn’t find a way to respond, I anticipated getting triggered over and over again in ways that felt painful and not productive, or at the very least, holding on to some resentment, because it wasn’t possible to dive in and resolve the issue in a timely way. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In both cases, I pulled back and stopped engaging immediately, and I began to think about how to create new boundaries in response. It occurred to me at some point that often, we create boundaries in a punitive way – “you hurt me and as a result, I am going to stop sharing certain things with you” – and we generally think about those new boundaries as permanent. I’ve heard from lots of people who say that they’ve decided certain topics are off limits with individual family members, or that they will continue to be friends with someone on social media, but they will no longer follow them, meaning that their posts won’t show up in their regular feed. This is self-protective, but it also means that the relationship is stuck in a place where it won’t be able to grow. It occurred to me that relationships aren’t healthy unless they are dynamic, if both people aren’t allowed to grow together. And so I began to think about the possibility of using the new boundaries I was creating as temporary. <o:p></o:p></div>
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What if, during this time, I work to become more mindful of my own triggers, and really process where they come from, how I react, and what it would mean to move forward with this person in my life? In the past, I’ve created new walls and distanced myself from people and been content to interact with them from that place rather than seeing opportunities for each of us to work on our own stuff and then find a way to come back together and have a deeper, more accountable, more enlightened relationship. <o:p></o:p></div>
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What if doing the work on my own stuff while I am safe within my temporary boundaries enables me to have a greater sense of compassion for the other person and enlarge my own container so that I can hold that compassion <b>and </b>the opposing ideas with more grace? What if I am able to strengthen my own sense of self, my ideas around what I value and how I move through the world, and then come back to the relationship clearer and more ready to engage on a different level? How would that create growth in myself and the relationship? <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is, of course, predicated on the fact that the other person is doing work as well, that they are contemplating the nature of the disagreement and their own role in it. And it is my hope that if we are each doing this on our own, rather than continuing to trigger each other by trying to work through it together, we can eventually come to a place where we want to reconnect and deepen the relationship. <o:p></o:p></div>
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All too often in my own life, I’ve used boundaries as a protective mechanism – a way to wall myself off from folks who trigger me in one way or another – and then I rest in my safe space and don’t do the work to understand how to learn and grow from the painful interaction. Sometimes, boundaries become my own personal ‘cancel culture’ and I write people off entirely. Sometimes, boundaries are a way to convince myself that I am “right” and the other person is at fault, and I don’t need them in my life at all, or that I get to define exactly how they exist in my life. <i>But if I am a person who believes in community care and self-awareness and understands the importance of relationship for all human beings, and if I believe in the ability of each one of us to grow and evolve, and in the power of relationship to help us all grow and evolve, then permanent boundaries have no place in my relationships.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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I fully expect and understand the immediate, gut-level reactions of folks who will call to mind people who abuse others, who refuse to do the work, who don’t want the relationship to evolve because it serves them that it stays the same. I am not advocating for folks to toss all their rules about how they demand to be treated out the window in favor of compassion. <b>I am not saying that it will be possible for every relationship to evolve in this way.</b> I am saying that I hope that every person in my life knows, going forward, that I am working to deepen my capacity for compassion, for building accountability in relationship, and that I will attempt to keep myself available as I can. That doesn’t mean that you are free to treat me poorly without consequence. It means that I won’t use boundaries as a crutch to avoid doing my own work and keep myself small and safe and stagnant. It means that in order for me to be a vital, functioning part of a healthy community, I know that I can’t only surround myself with people who will always agree with me and make me feel good about myself. <o:p></o:p></div>
kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-84650389789033061322020-06-15T11:23:00.000-07:002020-06-21T08:13:32.340-07:00Work and Why its Roots in Colonialism and Whiteness Need to be Reckoned With<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I am learning so <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">much</span> right now. My head is full of voices I've not paid attention to before, pieces of wisdom from articles and books and conversations I'm having. I am often overwhelmed with the amount of information available to me and it's taking me a beat to sit with it all and synthesize it.<br />
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Several weeks ago, I created a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY2lqzkixu-4BY3QDHpt4YA" target="_blank">YouTube channel</a> for my work at <a href="http://www.theselfproject.com/" target="_blank">The SELF Projec</a>t, hoping to create content for parents and educators that would open discussions and new lines of thought that can create deeper connections and more self-awareness as we interact with adolescents in our lives. One of the videos on there is about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaFuSneWB4w" target="_blank">work</a>, our ideas of what "work" is, and how we can acknowledge unpaid efforts and invisible labor in a way that honors our kids. If you haven't seen it, and you want to watch it, I'll caution you that it's long - about 40 minutes. That said, I think it's a pretty powerful jumping-off point for what is happening right now in the world with the heightened awareness of racial bias and systemic inequality.<br />
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I grew up hearing about "work ethic" and how important it was. My parents both worked hard, and came from families of hard workers. Laziness was the height of sinful behavior in my household, and it took me decades to allow myself rest without guilt (but that's another blog post). One of the stories that was told in my family was about my great grandparents on my mother's side and it was told with pride, as an example of how to move through the world and how working hard would result in Success. My great grandmother was brought to the United States as an infant from the Ukraine and was married at the age of 14. She had been raised in North Dakota, and after she was married, she and her husband traveled by wagon train across the United States to what is now the Willamette Valley in Oregon where they claimed a plot of land to live on and farm. They raised four children there, and while it was not an easy life, they owned land, were able to grow their own food, and were surrounded by family. That is a legacy that launched my family in the United States.<br />
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It is a legacy that was not available to Black families.<br />
It is a legacy that, in some cases, was ripped away from Black families.<br />
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The fact that my family had land (that they literally just took because they were allowed to live on it and they began farming) meant that they had independence. They weren't working for anyone but themselves. They didn't need to rely on stores for food. They grew crops that they could sell to others to generate income that they used to clothe their kids. At some point, they could either give portions of the land to their children or sell it for more money. That was the beginning of status and stability for my family in this country. That was something that Black families didn't have access to until generations later, if at all.<br />
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A recent <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023120916616" target="_blank">study</a> by Northwestern University found that, "<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="color: #333333; font-weight: bold;">In 2016, black child households had just </span><i style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">one cent for every dollar</span></i><span style="color: #333333;"><b> held by non-Hispanic white child households.</b>"</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: bold;"> </span></span><br />
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Talk about the 99%.<br />
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Regardless of how poor I think my family was during certain times in our history, the fact is, we had a massive advantage over families that aren't white, and over time, that advantage has grown exponentially. I can no longer talk to my kids about "work ethic" without acknowledging the fact that the work they do as white people is and always has been valued more than any work a non-white person could do. Our notion of hard work is inseparable from white supremacy. It is inseparable from the notion that we were economically liberated from the beginning simply because of the color of our skin. It is inseparable from white privilege.<br />
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We have all heard the phrase, "40 acres and a mule," but do we all really know where it came from and how it played out? The idea of giving freed slaves 40 acres and a mule was reparations, and it came from Black leaders. And while it did happen for some folks, within a few years, it was reversed and all that land was taken away again. Black folks knew that in order to have any kind of foothold in this country, they needed to be able to generate their own wealth, and that's why they asked for land. But White Supremacy gave it to them and then took it away again.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This same scenario played out in what is now known as Central Park in New York City. I learned <i style="font-weight: bold;">just today</i> that there was a settlement called <a href="https://www.centralparknyc.org/blog/seneca-village?fbclid=IwAR1EpRpE7YB4vM_cFfvtPAWjxoZT8rjBGwqCoerctp9pM9NeEczs96MNRqg" target="_blank">Seneca Village</a> that, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">consisted of approximately 225 residents, made up of roughly two-thirds African-Americans, one-third Irish immigrants, and a small number of individuals of German descent. One of few African-American enclaves at the time, Seneca Village allowed residents to live away from the more built-up sections of downtown Manhattan and escape the unhealthy conditions and racism they faced there." But the state of New York decided they'd like that land to create a park for the residents, exercised the right of eminent domain, and kicked the Black folks and other landowners off that land. Because redlining was alive and well during that time, even if they had been paid a fair amount for the land (many claimed they weren't), the options for Black people to go buy land elsewhere were extremely limited. </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">So how do we value work?</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The labor and efforts of Black slaves wasn't compensated in any way that was valuable for them and their families, while the fruits of that labor were valued and realized by White people. Who do you suppose worked "harder" by our standards during that time - the landowners who sat inside at desks or the people who toiled in the fields, did manual labor on the property, cleaned the homes and prepared the meals and cared for the children? And whose efforts were rewarded with money and power? How can we white folks talk with a straight face about "hard work" and a "work ethic" when the work that was done by so many for generations was not and still often isn't compensated? Despite the rhetoric we often use, intellectual "work" or passive receipt of the labor of others is compensated well more than the physical labor that produces the tangible results we all rely on. We talk about work as though it is a virtue, and I wonder if that came about as an alternative to fair compensation; did we tell people the work is its own reward to avoid paying them for their effort? </span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">I know that I have a lot of thinking to do about all of this and that I have to talk to my kids and other white folks about it as well. I have rested comfortably in the space that my great-grandparents created for me in this country because they could, never questioning whether there were others who could never find themselves in this position simply because of the color of their skin. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Whose work do we value?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">How do we compensate work? </span></span><br />
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<br />kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-25518001024542341562020-05-29T11:41:00.000-07:002020-05-30T08:01:29.338-07:00White Women, We Need to Talk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In fact, we've needed to talk for a long time now, and we've been avoiding it. I'm looking at white women when I say that and I hope you're hearing me. I hope you don't flinch, or if you do, I hope you stay on your feet and don't turn away. It is well past time, and it's our responsibility to stay with this until we start to get it.<br />
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I want to call out some behaviors and tactics I see us all engaging in that are harmful and keep us from doing what we need to do right now, and I hope you stay with me.<br />
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1. <b>Performative Wringing of Our Hands</b> - It is fine to feel upset. It's good, actually, but it's not enough. It isn't enough to post on social media, to change our profile pictures by adding a "Black Lives Matter" frame around it (full disclosure: I did that when Ahmaud Arbery was killed). It isn't enough to tell everyone how upset we are, to cry and post petitions on Facebook and reTweet memes. <span style="font-size: large;">We have to stop making our feelings the center of the discussion.</span> It is great to amplify the voices of folks of color who are tweeting and posting without adding our own commentary unless it serves to call our fellow white women in to a deeper conversation. Telling everyone you're going to "Run for Ahmaud" is about you, it's not about him and his family and the systemic violence and brutality black folks in this country face every day. Run, by all means, and use it as a way to talk to your other white friends who run - ask them whether they ever go out for a run and worry that they will be shot by a white man under false pretenses, ask them if they worry about their children being shot by a white man under false pretenses, talk about why that is. Have those conversations often without telling your black friends about them and expecting praise. Have those conversations daily without expecting some sort of pat on the back or prize for doing it from anyone.<br />
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2. <b>Asking "What Can I <i>Do</i>, Though?"</b> - This is a cop-out (excuse the pun). It is an excuse to flinch and turn away. And we've been doing it for far too long. We can't "fix" this. We can't sign petitions and lament on social media and register a bunch of voters to work our way out of this. It. Won't. Happen. <span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33);">W</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">e need to get past our desire to "fix" something, because that centers us, once again, in all our White Saviorism. This notion that if we can't take some specific action, we might as well not do anything is an excuse to give up before we've started. The black folks I've spoken to have encouraged me to help them hold their grief, to <b>listen listen listen</b> to them and validate their lived experience, to light candles and pray in whatever form that takes. They've also encouraged me to have lots and lots of conversations with my white friends, to help them unpack the bedrock beliefs and hidden biases we all have, to practice sitting with the discomfort of knowing we are complicit because <span style="font-size: large;">we benefit from the systems that vilify and kill them every day in a million different ways</span>. Until we acknowledge that we aren't "lucky" or "blessed" but benefitting from privilege and colonialism and capitalism, we can't begin to really move forward to dismantle those systems. We white folks want to sign a petition, march one time, post all over social media and call it done. Black folks I've spoken to know that this will take continued, diligent effort, and many many conversations. Elevating their voices, stepping back where we can and letting black folks lead, and talking among ourselves so that we can build communities of accountable white folks is vitally important and far less satisfying than "checking a box". That said, there are absolutely specific things we can do - marching and petitioning are important, <a href="https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/donate" target="_blank">paying cash bail for black protestors</a> who've been arrested is vitally important, calling our elected officials every single day to let them know that we won't stand for police brutality, that we need to reform the justice system, and that officers need to be held accountable for their actions are important. But we will never make substantive changes unless and until we learn to really sit with the discomfort of talking to our white friends about how we are and continue to be complicit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">3. <b>Expecting Change to Come Quickly and With Minimal Effort</b> - This is a big one. The fatigue is real. But anyone who has ever fought for social change in a substantive way knows that, while there is always a tipping point, that point in time only comes after years and years of hard, honest work. That "it's not happening fast enough" notion comes from our unwillingness to sit with the discomfort. We want to "fix" it so we don't have to keep witnessing it, and what my black friends are saying is that it's incredibly important for us to keep witnessing, to help them hold the grief and rage of it because we've been denying it for so long. We can't fix it by ourselves, and if we think we can, we are buying in to the White Saviorism that will end up doing harm. I honestly believe that we white folks need to unpack our shit, get really clear on where we've been wrong, where we've been complicit, and then step aside and let the folks who are dying lead us. I don't think we can be silent, but we need to be loudest with our white friends and family. And that is going to take time and a </span>great<span style="font-family: inherit;"> deal of work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">4. <b>Blaming Systems</b> - </span>Expecting the systems to get us out of this one (voting in new leaders, a gradual culture shift in policing, greater education in our schools about racism and white supremacy) is complacency. It is laziness. It is us being unwilling to swim in the waters we have helped create that are literally destroying communities of black and brown people. Blaming systems (government, fascism, "our country") serves only to deflect responsibility from the people who run these systems and those (like us white women) who benefit from them. We need to stay in discomfort, acknowledge the ways in which we have held up these principles and systems, not wallow in shame, and work through our own fears about what we might lose if black and brown people are treated with full humanity and equality in this country.<br />
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This is our work. It is hard and necessary. And we can do hard things if we do them together. It is our responsibility as white women of privilege to do it. Telling others loudly and proudly that we want change without being willing to dive deeply in to these really hard conversations is disingenuous. It means we don't really want change, or that we want it to happen in spite of us. But the truth is, it can't happen without us. This isn't about judgment or vilifying anyone. It is about steeling ourselves for what we'll find, knowing that whatever happens, it won't kill us, and trusting that we have the strength and power to do this work. I hope you'll join me. It's well past time.<br />
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kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-23754497458565674952020-05-14T16:39:00.001-07:002020-05-18T08:32:02.297-07:00We are Reaping What We've Sown in the United States<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg9tfpOZ034D146CfVjeLKF_Zf2pZrYkycp5yNa3A2euYT0OtLv0rsDv_tpeNGh-YwYhuBR9RZSY8UzOoX5o7m3NgFOin15MyJZKnQSVSrmSkukUVlKL15DgwV-o9ZqiXBxYu92w/s1600/blackberries.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="800" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg9tfpOZ034D146CfVjeLKF_Zf2pZrYkycp5yNa3A2euYT0OtLv0rsDv_tpeNGh-YwYhuBR9RZSY8UzOoX5o7m3NgFOin15MyJZKnQSVSrmSkukUVlKL15DgwV-o9ZqiXBxYu92w/s320/blackberries.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ragesoss / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)</td></tr>
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If you have ever lived in Western Washington or Western Oregon, you know about Himalayan Blackberry - a plant that grows wild everywhere and is the bane of any homeowner's existence. When I was a kid, I can recall Mom pulling over to the side of the road to park in July or August so that we could fill any empty container in the car with the enormous berries, often covered in road dust, and head home to make cobbler or freezer jam. The invasive, thorny vines grew at the edges of fields, sprouted out between gaps in a rock wall, could take over an entire back yard in one season. Years after they were introduced to the Pacific Northwest by a man named Luther Burbank, they are listed as one of the most invasive species in all of Washington state.<br />
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The Himalayan Blackberry is the botanical colonizer, eroding soil and crowding out native plants, thriving in rural and urban areas, in rainy and in dry climates. And yet, come July and August, the consolation prize is that we get juicy fruit, often for free, if we are willing to brave the thorns and brambles.<br />
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We are reaping what we've sown, in more ways than one.<br />
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When White Europeans began colonizing other parts of the globe, it was with the idea that white men deserved to own land, own women, own black and brown bodies, and use them to further their own agenda. For generations, in places from India to South Africa to the United States, we have embraced that idea and embedded it in to the psyche of white men everywhere. It should come as no surprise, then, that there are currently white men arming themselves to push their agenda in capitol buildings and public spaces across the United States. We taught them that they have the right to use whatever tactics it takes to assert their dominance, especially if the person in power is a woman, especially if she is asking them to stay home for the good of all.<br />
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In colonialism, there is no "good of all." There is only the good of the white man, and the white women who choose to align themselves with the white men. It is no surprise that, given what these men think they stand to lose, they are furious. If you have been shown, in a myriad of ways, your entire life, that it is your birthright to own land, to take property from another by force, to use black and brown bodies and female bodies to enrich yourself, it could be hard to wrap your head around the notion that you are part of a collective that includes these other people. If you have been taught that competition is the natural state of things and that the winner deserves all the riches, I would imagine it's difficult to believe in sharing resources or viewing the whole of the natural world as one symbiotic entity. But men are not blackberries, even if the ancestors of these white men were transplanted to a place where they didn't belong but they somehow managed to thrive.<br />
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The only way we will emerge from this pandemic and be able to move forward without fear is together. If we use fear (and force) to emerge from it, fear will be the water we swim in for a very long time. We are reaping what we've sown in this country, and it is time for a different way of being. We can root ourselves in the belief that we are a collective, that we are one symbiotic entity, and that all parts of this collective can and should be cared for, none at the expense of the others. We can center the well-being of all rather than the economic prosperity of some because we have learned, time and time again, that those who become prosperous at the expense of others will not ever take care of the collective. It is counter to the purpose and process of capitalism and colonialism to care for the good of all.<br />
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But in order for this to happen, those white men who have armed themselves have to believe that they are part of the "all." They have to see themselves as not superior to or entitled to dominion over the rest. They have to examine their fear of losing something and decide that anything you have to harm other human beings to get is not worth it. And that will require unlearning much of what they have been taught for generations was their birthright, uncoupling the idea of themselves and their place in the world from the capitalist, colonialist waters they and their fathers and their fathers' fathers swam in from the moment they were born. That kind of work takes courage, and while courage does not exist without fear, fear can unfortunately exist without courage. Storming a public space to threaten others with an automatic weapon is not courage, it is a desperate attempt to assert dominance and an expression of fear.<br />
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Our stubborn adherence to principles of "Independence" fuel that fear more than any other country on the planet. Our lack of universal health care and paid family leave, our mistrust of anything that smacks of social services and the celebration of "private enterprise" have brought us a school-to-prison pipeline and a broken public school system and workers with two or three jobs who still can't afford to feed themselves and their families. Americans are loathe to imagine that they are not unique and exceptional and our ways of being reinforce the (erroneous) idea that our well-being is not intertwined with that of our neighbors' each and every day.<br />
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We are reaping what we've sown. The real question will be whether or not we have the courage and the intelligence to do things differently from here forward or if we are willing to continue sacrificing black and brown bodies and women and children on the altar of capitalism and colonialism because we are too afraid to ask the white men to give up their "freedoms."<br />
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<br />kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-52557501471131870292020-04-10T07:55:00.002-07:002020-04-10T07:55:36.064-07:00Of Dreams and Work and Working Dreams<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH8Fe4LJExDAW3jk9OLGSRqTueDkIDodVYR2HlDgAhTOqxHncyDESVKRdvFy3XdVZSzgwikswt1OYs_XfaSnPiTAPom1Bmjq2MglR-8L0AoqTFp4ugl5sEXq6ppVGLLdJqFoXItA/s1600/800px-Dreams_Cassandra_Lynn_Miller.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH8Fe4LJExDAW3jk9OLGSRqTueDkIDodVYR2HlDgAhTOqxHncyDESVKRdvFy3XdVZSzgwikswt1OYs_XfaSnPiTAPom1Bmjq2MglR-8L0AoqTFp4ugl5sEXq6ppVGLLdJqFoXItA/s320/800px-Dreams_Cassandra_Lynn_Miller.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cassandra.mllr / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)</td></tr>
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I don't generally dream, or at least if I do, I don't remember dreaming, for the most part. Occasionally, if I fall back asleep in the morning hours when I should be getting out of bed, I will have short, strange dreams that I can recall, but for the most part, I have no active dream life.<br />
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Lately, I've been dreaming about the food bank - specifically, how to configure boxes and pack them efficiently, what kinds of food we have left on the shelves that we can share, what supplies we need to order to bolster our pantry. I am usually a champion sleeper - falling fast asleep within minutes and sleeping soundly for 7-8 hours at a time. But in the last two weeks, my sleep has been restless, dreaming of squatting to pack cardboard boxes with dry goods furiously, sliding them across the concrete floor to stack higher and higher. I dream for a while, wake to acknowledge that it's a dream, roll over and begin again. All night long. Strangely, I wake rested, but by 3:30pm I am exhausted and ready to nap on the couch with the dogs.<br />
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This morning when I stepped out of the shower, recalling last night's dreams of scrolling Costco lists and counting the jars of peanut butter we have left in storage, I shook my head, remembering the other times in my life when I dreamt like this. I recalled my first job as a waitress, my sleep peppered with scenes of heavy trays of clam chowder and sourdough bread, refilling coffee cups and forgetting the creamer, sliding across the kitchen floor as I smeared my rubber-soled shoes through a spill someone had left behind. I dreamt like this again when I took a job managing the wait list for children's inpatient psychiatric care, imagining spreadsheets and databases, sorting by county and age and number of days in foster care.<br />
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This is my brain's way of working out how to master something new. It's what I do, and even as it is repetitive and lasts for weeks, it is not something that feels distressing to me. I have come to appreciate it as a way my brain works while my body rests.<br />
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I volunteered for a while leading groups for parents of newborns. I spent 12 weeks with couples or just mothers with new babies, helping them build community, giving them a safe space to vent and find solidarity with others, and teaching them about the unique qualities and milestones their children would make their way through. I remembered those days of sleepless nights, not ever feeling like you were on solid footing, reinventing every single day anew. I didn't dream during those times, mostly because I never slept long enough between feedings or rocking my babies at night to get to that stage of sleep.<br />
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But I do remember counseling new moms about their babies' sleep patterns. I remember cautioning them that even when their babies did settle in to an overnight routine - sleeping 5 or more hours at a time - that every time they came to a new milestone, their sleep would be restless again for a while. A week before they figure out how to crawl, many babies will revert to old ways of waking over and over again in the night. They repeat this when they're learning to walk, and talk, and when they start solid foods. I imagine it the same way my brain works to figure out something new, to master a new skill or task. And so while it is stressful and frustrating for parents to feel as though they have finally gotten their baby to sleep for a long stretch at night and then have to go backward, what their babies really need during this time is care and comfort. It is hard work creating those new neural pathways, but once created, they serve us well for most of the rest of our lives. In general, once we learn to crawl, we never forget how to do it. Same with walking and talking.<br />
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It is a reminder to me to nurture my own disrupted sleep as my brain toils to find a better solution, and to react to my teens with compassion as they stay up later and later or lie in bed for 12 hours and come down for coffee still looking like they haven't slept much at all. We are all, in our own way, working out how to manage this time in a way that feels right and sustainable for us. Like I tell my newborn parents, the least we can do is be gentle with each other and know that even if we can't see it happening, there is magic going on in our heads that takes time to work through.kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-24992470789708091672020-04-03T08:23:00.002-07:002020-04-09T13:01:00.089-07:00It's Time for Another Way<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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You know that phenomenon when you notice a pattern somewhere and you can't believe you hadn't seen it before, and suddenly you start seeing it everywhere? It's even more eye-opening when there was something you thought was a little 'off,' but you couldn't quite figure it out and then, once you do, you realize it's a cancer. Hindsight and all that.<br />
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I volunteered to be part of a task force for my local school district in 2018. Our job was to dig deeply in to the "highly capable" program and come up with ways to make it less elite (less white, less geared toward rich families, less racist). We spent months looking at data, examining the history of the program, the laws surrounding it, the myriad ways the district had tried to identify and serve kids with extraordinary academic prowess over the years, and how other districts were doing it. It was no secret that our system was deeply flawed from beginning to end.<br />
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We weren't the first group of folks to ever attempt this here. Indeed, there had been a similar task force just a few years earlier that had done the same thing - volunteering hundreds of hours of their time to come up with recommendations they put forth to the district, many of which got a head nod and a sad, "we wish that were possible" before retiring to the packet of information to be passed along to the next task force - us.<br />
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We were a fairly diverse group of parents, educators, and community members - cutting across racial and ethnic lines, but not really across socioeconomic ones. I mean, if you have to be able to offer your labor for free for 18 months and show up at prescribed times in a central location, it's not exactly feasible for many folks, is it? But we did our best to try and bring voices in to the room that may not have been represented.<br />
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I think it was around month 12 that I finally figured it out. And now I can't unsee it. And I also can't not notice it everywhere I look.<br />
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We were never going to be able to make radical, substantive change to this system because no matter what we did, the system had a way of continuing to center itself.<br />
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Supposedly, the public school system was created to benefit kids and society (well, mostly society if we're being honest). Over time, we started thinking that the benefit to kids would work itself out if we just threw a little money and a bunch of rules at it. We kept adding layers and layers of bureaucracy (standardized testing, mandatory minimum days/hours of instruction, core class requirements, etc. etc.) without ever looking at the impact it truly had on society or the kids. And even if we recognized that some of those things were detrimental or not really serving the kids, the system had invested so much time and money in to setting up the scaffolding for those things, we weren't about to abandon them. When we went in to that task force work, it was with the goal of increasing equity, but that has to do with the kids, what's good for them, and the system kept saying, "how can we do that?" or "how can we pay for that?"<br />
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It's the same with our "health care" system. We don't center the patient - we center the system. Asking how we can afford it, or wringing our hands as we think about the logistics of dismantling the private insurance system and the administrative bureaucracy fed by it is centering the system. The system has taken over and become our driving, bedrock force in every decision. We consider the needs of the individuals only within the context of the system's needs being met, not the other way around. We bend over backwards to try and find solutions (add layers of bureaucracy) to protect the system. That's why Joe Biden wants to have a private insurance option and just expand Obamacare. Not for the good of the collective, the good of the individual human beings, but so we don't disrupt the system.<br />
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That is why women and people of color and folks with disabilities and those along the gender and sexuality spectrum are the progressives - because they have historically not ever been served well by the systems we put in to place and they are willing to center the collective, the human beings. But the white men who are served really well by capitalism, indeed, who have their identities tied up so deeply with capitalism and colonialism, feel threatened.<br />
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So many of the things we take for granted - 40-hour work week, retiring at 65, the stock market as the measure of the economy - those are things that were set up to benefit the system. If we don't question them, when we want to make things better for the people who aren't served well by the system, we just add little appendages here and there. Overtime pay, retirement jobs at Walmart as greeters, no-fee online investing opportunities. WE ARE CENTERING THE SYSTEM.<br />
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But here's the thing: this time in history right now is showing us that we can live outside the system, that we can find ways to center people.<br />
<br />
Do you know how vulnerable people are getting fed right now? Not through systems - in SPITE of systems. There are collectives springing up all over the place to feed people who need it, neighbors offering to shop for other neighbors and deliver groceries to their doors, donations of gift cards to folks in need, people sending money through Venmo to people they've never met before. People centering people.<br />
<br />
Do you know how people are going to survive not paying their rent? Not because of systems. The systems aren't responding quickly enough - there are too many layers to cut through. <i>If we suspend rent payments, we have to suspend mortgages for the landlords and if we do that, we have to bail out the banks who hold those mortgages and then people will be mad that we bailed out the banks, etc. etc. </i> But local folks are banding together to form coalitions that are demanding that renters not be evicted and that rent be suspended - without penalty or interest - for now. There are millions of dollars in grant money flowing to artists and small businesses impacted by this because of individual people who centered the collective good.<br />
<br />
Small farmers who were de-centered in favor of the system are banding together to find ways to get food to folks who want it. And in many cases, it's working. Because we are centering people, not systems.<br />
<br />
The huge hospitals that are cutting pay for healthcare workers because their clinics have all but shut down for elective visits? They're centering the system. They are saying "we can't pay for this" instead of saying "we will do what it takes to make sure that everyone is taken care of."<br />
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The politicians who refuse to order shelter-in-place rules? They're centering the system. They are saying "having people out buying and selling things in my community is more important than the health and well-being of the community."<br />
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That pathetic stimulus package check you may or may not get? Centering the system. Even it doesn't address everyone - college students who live on their own but are still claimed as dependents on their parents' taxes get no check, social security beneficiaries whose threshold income is too low to file a tax return get no check.<br />
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The thing is, the system will tell you that it is working for the greater good, for the collective. But it isn't. The system is working for itself. Anytime you hear "what will that cost?" or "we can't logistically manage that," you are witnessing a system centering itself. These systems are crumbling for a reason right now and that is because they rely on people to make them work, whether they serve the people or not. The system will try to coerce a certain number of people to stick with them by any means possible (overtime pay, threats of job loss, appealing to the needs of others), but make no mistake, your needs are not paramount.<br />
<br />
One evening toward the end of our task force work, I walked out in to the dark parking lot alongside a teacher who works with students with special needs. We talked about our frustration and our hope that we hadn't just been wasting hundreds of hours of our own time to come up with strong, bodacious recommendations that would simply be cast aside by the Superintendent. I talked to her about my theory of systems centering themselves and she got teary and it was then that I realized she was the inflection point and I felt overwhelmed for her. In a system that centers itself, if you are a teacher or a health care worker who truly centers the person you're supposed to be serving, you are caught in a vise. In order to keep your job and do the work you do that you believe is so vital, you have to bow to the system. But in order to serve the children or the patients who come to you in the way they deserve to be served, you have to eschew all of the principles the system wants you to embrace - you have to be creative, find workarounds, often use your own resources to go above and beyond. The system is hurting us all if we truly want to center people and the collective good, not only the individuals being served, but those who are exhausting themselves and their resources to be the conduit between the systems and the collective.<br />
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It's time for another way. May we use the next several weeks to dismantle the systems that center themselves. May we find the strength and courage to answer the question "how can we pay for that?" by saying "it doesn't matter - we have to do what is right." May we remember that if we value each other, we can look to the underground groups that are springing up to help each other outside the system and learn from them. This truly is the Matrix and we're seeing the glitches.kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-74425986008049293142020-03-29T10:54:00.001-07:002020-03-29T10:54:14.247-07:00Lessons Old and New<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUjTkqNgBcc3Bm1r44dykwJ1246Xv-tJGPtz2nBu9azzK4CD5rtTuJUg04y70nDuH9n1NI5Odsbd1vOdXuELJ3bm1tO-HSXuNv6B_GPXPlBlkmxL8Vv-n5iMFBsfSzDWNUkqvOWw/s1600/B5304747-4DE6-4CB1-B440-44501120A442.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUjTkqNgBcc3Bm1r44dykwJ1246Xv-tJGPtz2nBu9azzK4CD5rtTuJUg04y70nDuH9n1NI5Odsbd1vOdXuELJ3bm1tO-HSXuNv6B_GPXPlBlkmxL8Vv-n5iMFBsfSzDWNUkqvOWw/s320/B5304747-4DE6-4CB1-B440-44501120A442.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
A few blocks from my home is a care facility called <a href="http://www.bailey-boushay.org/body.cfm?id=1" target="_blank">Bailey-Boushay House</a>. It started as an AIDS end-of-life unit and when I first moved to Seattle in 1994, I signed up to volunteer with one of their partners, The NW AIDS Foundation. I was working as a surgical assistant 40 hours a week, but I keenly recalled the explosion of HIV during my high school years and I wanted to be part of the solution, if I could.<br />
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In the beginning, I was assigned to a room with multiple desks and stacks upon stacks of newspapers. It was my job to comb the stacks and clip out articles about HIV and AIDS, looking for information about new treatments and anything that felt relevant to the work being done at Bailey-Boushay. As an aspiring physician and someone who doesn't sit still well, it was frustrating. I couldn't work out how this was meaningful, how it was helping anyone. At some point, I asked whether I could be doing something more personal, more interactive with humans.<br />
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My next task was to stand on the sidewalk behind a folding table on Broadway - a neighborhood that was populated with mostly gay men. My props were an underripe banana and a box of condoms, and I stood there for hours, arm outstretched, offering free condoms to whomever would take them. Occasionally, someone would stop and listen to my spiel, watch me unwrap a condom and demonstrate how to put it on using the banana as an erect penis. Most of them laughed as I did it, and I went along with the joke, imploring them to take a handful of rubbers with them and use them. This job felt slightly more important and real.<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
This morning, I walked past the facility, which still serves those who are dying of AIDS. A block away is a park where some of the patients hang out during the day, smoking and joking with each other, many of them in wheelchairs. At night, there are always a few who settle down beneath the rhododendrons because there aren't enough beds for everyone. I wondered how they are weathering this storm. I think about the decades and decades it's been since the HIV outbreak, how it didn't feel like an emergency in the beginning and then it did, but only for health care workers and those who were most vulnerable. I think about how this population of people were set aside, vilified, and how they've been largely forgotten over the years because we don't have the collective energy to sustain alarm, and because treatments have been developed. I wonder if they feel particularly frightened with their immune systems already open and available to many avenues of attack, and if anyone is lifting their voices to be heard at this time.<br />
<br />
The vast majority of those served here are men, many with addiction histories, many with co-occurring chronic illnesses, many homeless and mentally ill.<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
It rained hard last night, huge drops pounding on the roof of my home for hours and hours. This morning the sun is out and steam rises off the streets. One path the dogs and I headed down was strewn with worms of every size - so many it was nearly impossible to walk forward without stepping on at least a few. I widened my gaze to scan a large swath of ground in front of me, walking purposefully and carefully, and marveled at how I was able to know where my feet were in space such that I could continue forward without having to tiptoe or look straight down to avoid the worms. Doing so would have slowed me down considerably, but somehow the combination of my body's wisdom and my intention to tread lightly carried me through to a place where the path was clear.<br />
<br />
On the way back home, three patients from Bailey-Boushay were sitting on the bench at the bus stop, smoking and laughing together. We kept our distance and smiled at each other. A block later, there was a man sleeping in the doorway of a hair salon, bundled in to a sleeping bag, and I wondered for a split second whether there was something I could leave for him that might ease his day, but I just kept moving.<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
I think about how different things are now. How the internet has changed the world and how that job of clipping newspaper articles wouldn't exist. We are able to see, almost in real-time, what innovations are happening to treat this new virus that didn't feel like an emergency, and then did, and whose effects are largely unknown. We are as unprepared to manage it as we were to manage HIV, but standing on a sidewalk, unrolling condoms over the top of a banana won't make a difference.<br />
<br />
I think about how things are the same. We are still abandoning those who are marginalized, talking of rationing care and treatment, not acting quickly enough to find housing for those who are homeless, and worrying as much about the stock market as we are about the lives that will be lost. We are finding ways to blame others for getting it or spreading it.<br />
<br />
I hope for transformation. I see people - regular people, not people in power - coming together to provide equipment and care. I see groups taking the time and energy to acknowledge, with enormous gratitude, the sacrifices of those who are caring for the sick and the dead. I hear messages of love and solidarity and I hope that these are the stuff of change. I want our collective wisdom and intention to move forward with care to carry us through to a place where the path is clear.kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-53640631780851481852020-03-22T12:25:00.000-07:002020-03-22T12:26:06.215-07:00Fear and Avoidance: Old Patterns<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ6soSxnrIrQRIu9RQYahH9Qr_4v3kmk5fJBfWlScXKl2uvcf8WanD26BM4hvfLxrjHUZdUUtaGecTwYgHxe_0g7jL4ijFtwOaiTRJXWfCq2g4H-PStzLYyKK6EhKfaPCnbeqC4g/s1600/IMG_3523.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ6soSxnrIrQRIu9RQYahH9Qr_4v3kmk5fJBfWlScXKl2uvcf8WanD26BM4hvfLxrjHUZdUUtaGecTwYgHxe_0g7jL4ijFtwOaiTRJXWfCq2g4H-PStzLYyKK6EhKfaPCnbeqC4g/s320/IMG_3523.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
We are all learning a lot about our own fear responses and the fear responses of others, whether we know it or not. If you know what to look for, you can see how people around you have learned, over time, to acknowledge fear (or not), since most of us tend to fall in to our old patterns of responding when faced with a threat.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, when faced with a crisis, whether it's in our face and obvious or more non-specific and invisible, we rely on the things we've always done.<br />
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If we were taught to "suck it up and move forward," we may throw ourselves in to work right now, crossing things off our list and attending video conferences with hair brushed, a pile of papers next to us, and a mug of hot coffee at the ready.<br />
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If we were taught to compartmentalize, set aside the alarm bells and "fake it," we may be inviting friends over for dinner, gathering at the beach to play, heading out to the movies to take advantage of the empty seats.<br />
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If we were taught to seek understanding and plan for every contingency, we may be scouring the internet for articles to share, advising our friends on the best way to protect themselves and their families, and stocking up on cleaners and medication "just in case."<br />
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I am reminded, when I hear people angrily commenting on how others are still out and about, or mocking those who seem disproportionately afraid, that many of us are running on autopilot because we are in fight or flight mode. Because the "fear" part of this response is jarring to many and uncomfortable for all.<br />
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We are not taught to acknowledge fear in healthy ways, for the most part.<br />
We are not taught to sit with fear.<br />
We are not taught that fear won't break us in a way that is irrevocable.<br />
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But it won't.<br />
<br />
My ex-husband was a person who said things like "it's fine," "it will all work itself out." He was someone who didn't ever say to me, in 26 years together, that he was afraid. In many ways, I appreciated that. I was afraid a lot and having someone around who was seemingly never worried about the outcome, who was supremely confident that things would be ok, gave me a strange kind of confidence.<br />
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Except when I wanted him to be afraid. Then, his demeanor enraged me. It felt like gaslighting. I needed someone to acknowledge that some things are scary, and that being scared alone is a really awful, isolating thing. But I think, at that point, we had so firmly set our pattern that it would have taken a lot to undo it. I relied on him to be the stoic, fearless one, and he relied on me to hold the fear for all of us. It worked because my fear didn't paralyze me. I was one of the "plan for every contingency" people who got strangely calm in the face of crisis, was able to discern and move forward with purpose. But there are some crises that call for us to do nothing for a while and I think this is one of them. I think that we are being called to learn to sit with fear and uncertainty and let it break our old patterns.<br />
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If we can learn to be scared together, and trust that it won't kill us, we will learn so much. If we can acknowledge that the "sucking it up" and the "faking it" and the "just in case" are all avoidance mechanisms that don't serve us and that place the burden of fear on others in disproportionate ways, we can begin to come together. It is a privilege to pretend that you're not afraid and just go about your normal business. It is a privilege to choose not to sit with the emotions that this crisis stirs up within you. (Folks with disabilities and chronic illnesses, and those who are not served at all well by the dominant systems in place already know that - watch them, listen to them, learn from them).<br />
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We will not come out of this with privilege. We will not come out of this with the systems that serve us intact. And if we rush to either preserve the systems that are crumbling or to craft new ones before we've truly understood what this is all about, we are not doing the work that we are being called to do right now. We are being called to listen, to get very small and quiet and pay attention to what sustains us. Not what sustains the systems we rely on to sustain us, but what sustains us - the people, the connections, the acts that give us joy, the art and music that touch us, the nourishment and types of rest. We are being called to shed the notion that we can be independent, the idea that we can pick up where we left off without being changed by this.<br />
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While there are individual traumas happening because of this, this is a collective crisis, and it requires a collective consciousness. While there are individual people and families who are being hit harder than others, in one way or another we will all be touched by this and we will weather it much better if we recognize that. Having compassion for those who have not had to examine the way they respond to trauma before is key. Sitting together in fear (without wallowing - just noticing, acknowledging, and recognizing how we try to avoid it) is key.<br />
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I wonder how I may have harmed my ex by letting him be the one in our relationship who wasn't allowed to be afraid. I regret not knowing that I was doing that. And I know how to recognize it now because I've sat with fear and I see how I avoided it. I wonder how I show up for my kids in this time and how I can shift to a way of being that is more in alignment with the collective consciousness. This will not destroy us. But if we let it, it will change us for the better.kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-63553586735851234652020-03-21T08:52:00.001-07:002020-03-21T08:52:26.503-07:00Mom and Kenny Rogers<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="KennyRogers.jpg" class="mw-mmv-final-image jpg mw-mmv-dialog-is-open" crossorigin="anonymous" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/KennyRogers.jpg/800px-KennyRogers.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="197" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;">By John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA - KennyRogers, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75141455</span></td></tr>
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<br />
Kenny Rogers died last night. He was my mom's absolute, first-line celebrity crush. She used to joke that she would marry him in a second if he showed up at her door. Every time we got in the car to head out to cross-country ski, we would settle in to our prescribed places in her baby blue Volkswagen square back and she'd pop in a cassette and crank the volume. If it was a sunny day, we'd roll the windows down and sing along, she and I, while Katy stared out the window trying not to get carsick and Chris cranked up the sound on his Walkman to drown us out.<br />
<br />
I don't know that I was a massive fan of Kenny Rogers, but I loved the effect his music had on Mom. Before she and Dad divorced, he was pretty much in charge of the music for road trips - Doobie Brothers, Little River Band, those were his choices and I never really thought about whether or not Mom would have chosen them. But after the divorce, it was Kenny Rogers and Anne Murray in Mom's car, belted out with feeling. I think I get it more now. After my divorce I had the sensation that there was more room in the world for my choices, that while I hadn't disliked the music or trips my ex chose, I hadn't ever felt fully free to stretch my limbs out in to space and freely choose what I would have preferred.<br />
<br />
My ex and I had similar taste in music - we both grew up with Def Leppard, Led Zeppelin, The Cars, The Rolling Stones, Mötley Crüe. But I also loved REM, 10,000 Maniacs, Depeche Mode, and The Thompson Twins. As young adults, he drifted toward Green Day and The Killers, which I liked, but I stockpiled Indigo Girls and Annie Lennox and Pink as well, which he jokingly called "chick music." It was really a seamless, unspoken understanding that when he was in the car, we'd listen to his preferences and when he wasn't the girls and I could indulge ourselves with our girly stuff.<br />
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Right now, as mom is sequestered inside her assisted living facility, safely taken care of but also on hospice, I am resisting pulling up the audio of "If I Ever Fall in Love Again" because I know it will push me over the edge of this lump in my throat in to a crying jag and I'm not ready. I'm reserving it because I cry at least once a day now, and I find a sweet release, but this cry will be different. It will be the tears I shed for the loss of my mom's voice. The only place I can hear it now is in my own head and I don't want to waste it or erase it or cover it up with Kenny and Anne singing to each other. It will be the tears I shed on behalf of mom because she won't know that he's gone and couldn't grieve for him. It will be the tears I shed for the idea that I might not see Mom again if she dies before they lift the ban on visitors. I want to sit with her and hold her hand one more time, maybe sing some lines from The Gambler to her and dig deep in to her reserves one time to see if her spirit can conjure up that feeling of freedom, wheeling along the highway, windows down, one hand surfing the waves of air as we laugh and harmonize on our way to play in the snow together.<br />
<br />
"You got to know when to hold 'em<br />
Know when to fold 'em<br />
Know when to walk away<br />
Know when to run..."kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-40222984008242837782020-03-12T12:06:00.000-07:002020-03-12T12:06:18.327-07:00We've Got This<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMTALS2xrkgQ5r3nEJHupqgkHVeikV81o0MoEmgEvDxxLJ_J2N2-xoCphMnM9AiCg7o4LiYZ4bZWTNgcZETl8xJyRNpdCoDsGeVJA0AE4QpEYzpyPSVpFrUA5S6hcjyMKk438lPA/s1600/IMG_3944.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMTALS2xrkgQ5r3nEJHupqgkHVeikV81o0MoEmgEvDxxLJ_J2N2-xoCphMnM9AiCg7o4LiYZ4bZWTNgcZETl8xJyRNpdCoDsGeVJA0AE4QpEYzpyPSVpFrUA5S6hcjyMKk438lPA/s320/IMG_3944.JPG" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Description: a spiral tattoo with the words "You are here" pointing to a specific spot on the spiral</td></tr>
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<br />
I don't know about anyone else, but in my life, when the Universe decides I need to make a big leap to the next phase of my personal evolution, it tends to pile on. As in, give me many instances of the same kind of bullshit over and over again until I start to pay attention and recognize it for what it is.<br />
<br />
Thus, the last two weeks or so have been a lot. To say the least. A whole lot.<br />
<br />
I won't go in to the details, but I finally figured out this morning that this particular lesson is about making choices, pretty consequential choices. And that's something I can have a hard time with because I am not one of those "trust your gut" kind of people. My gut is either not particularly loud, or I have an overdeveloped connection between my gut and my brain such that my brain is always always always weighing in, considering options, looking at potential outcomes and thinking of unintended consequences.<br />
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When this happens, I spin. The part of my brain that makes decisions goes very quiet and offline, and the part of my brain that convinces me that <b>this particular decision is incredibly monumental and I'd better not fuck it up</b> rules the day.<br />
<br />
So, yeah.<br />
<br />
At least three times in the last two weeks, I've faced decisions that I considered, second-guessed, made lists about, considered again, tried to divorce myself from, and then ultimately made. And guess what? The world didn't stop turning.<br />
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I know I'm not the only one who worries about making the "Right" choice, but I think I'm learning that what I need to pay attention to more is the <b>right reasons</b>. Meaning, it's more important to get really clear on my own values and needs and use those as the basis for examining why I'm conflicted. Figure out who or what is being centered in my deliberations.<br />
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In this time of crisis, I am reminded that we are all entrusted with caring for each other. that there is nothing more profound or elemental than that.<br />
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Today, my youngest daughter got up and went to work, nannying two precious boys she has taken care of for a year - 18-month old twins whose faces spread into grins when they see her, whose arms reach for her, who giggle when she makes silly noises. Who trust her.<br />
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I am holed up in my bathroom with a tortoise, having just filled a tub with warm water for him to bathe in, put together a pile of fresh greens for him to munch on, and cranked up the heat so he can roam and explore comfortably.<br />
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My pups are fed and walked. I've checked in with my oldest daughter who is far away and having to scramble to pack up and move out of her dorm. She and her friends are collaborating, pooling resources, opening up couches and offering rides to each other to ease the stress.<br />
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I just got off the phone with my mother's caretaker, having learned that she is being placed on hospice care as of today, and the facility isn't open to visitors. "She is so pleasant and lovely," he says, detailing to me how they are caring for her at this time and encouraging me to call and get updates as often as I want to.<br />
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Someone posted in my neighborhood Buy Nothing group an offer to shop for anyone who is afraid to leave home. "How can I help you?" she asked.<br />
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Funds are being created for small businesses who are hit hard by the lack of mobility in Seattle.<br />
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We are entrusted to each other's care.<br />
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Our strength is in our compassion, not our fear. Care comes in so many forms: a text message or DM, a Twitter post asking if others are ok, feeding our pets or tending the garden, offering thanks and gratitude to those who are working hard to make policy and heal the sick.<br />
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We've got each other.<br />
We've got this.<br />
It's all we've got, and it is a lot.<br />
Let's take care of each other.<br />
<br />
<br />kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-73791607185592538382020-02-27T10:19:00.001-08:002020-02-27T10:19:42.584-08:00Rage and the Potential for Change <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJMET51HVJbRAkS-kWeue1AgfCirk88jH7pvJY0sEwXAHKWhluRtwt9VXQ0PWq0chP96gXZBINAkscx-1QednSqIENw6Atklc_eG6UbSxGTsMDo75c5O8WF92S09D3dnIyLmRzZw/s1600/92EB7C94-0FFE-4165-BDB2-FD57532D6153.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJMET51HVJbRAkS-kWeue1AgfCirk88jH7pvJY0sEwXAHKWhluRtwt9VXQ0PWq0chP96gXZBINAkscx-1QednSqIENw6Atklc_eG6UbSxGTsMDo75c5O8WF92S09D3dnIyLmRzZw/s320/92EB7C94-0FFE-4165-BDB2-FD57532D6153.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Description: blue candle holder with lit candle sitting on a metal table top</td></tr>
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I have been thinking a lot about rage lately. About how we hold it and offload it, about who ends up being the container for it and what it feels like and how much energy it possesses.<br />
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Rage is the product of anger and fear suppressed. It is borne of a feeling of powerlessness. In my own life, it has shown up as the result of childhood molestation, gaslighting, and a lack of agency or ability to change my circumstances. It multiplies in dark places, building on itself until it can no longer be contained, and it is this aspect of rage that I find the most compelling. It is also where I see the most possibility.<br />
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Men like Harvey Weinstein who have massive quantities of rage seek to dispel that energy at some point. No being can walk around and function while they hold that storm within them. And as women (or those with feminine qualities) are seen as the containers for emotion in our society, it follows that men like him would seek to literally insert their rage in to the women around them, the women they see as the perfect vessels to hold their rage. These kind of men tend to hold their rage as long as they can and then expel it outward in violent acts, often toward women.<br />
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We have even, in many cases, normalized that response. The Australian ex-rugby player who killed his wife and children last week prompted an outpouring of grief and shock, but also comments from men like "he must have been pushed over the edge" or "she took his children away from him" as though it was somehow understandable that a man would discharge his feelings in a way that destroys the lives of people he purported to love.<br />
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If I think about the archetypal feminine and masculine (not gender, but the qualities we have ascribed to the Feminine and the Masculine), so much of how we address our rage is in line with those energies. Masculine energy is associated with linear thinking, decisive action, control and competition. Feminine energy is about nurturing, creativity, emotions and collaboration. Our culture has embraced those notions along gender lines and it is killing us.<br />
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The problem with rage (and energy, in general) is that you can't let it go or give it over to someone else entirely. If you don't transform it in some way, the seeds of it will continue to live within you and grow again. It is why men who assault others don't often stop - the issue hasn't resolved itself. It is why some men choose suicide - often after they've killed others. It is why most men choose methods of suicide that are loud and outrageous. These men have embraced the notion that transforming their rage by processing it, feeling it, talking about it, examining it is unacceptable, not masculine. And if you don't know how to morph it in to something else, but you don't want to feel it anymore, you have to try and get rid of it. And if our culture has told us that it is acceptable for men to be outwardly expressive and show their anger, and that women are the nurturers, the carers, the containers, it somehow feels ok for men to offload their rage on to women.<br />
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The human body is not designed to hold emotion or energy. If it were, we wouldn't have to continue breathing or eating to sustain ourselves. We wouldn't have to find a bathroom every few hours in order to eliminate the things that aren't necessary. When we hold on to rage, trying to contain its energy within us is destructive. It continues to ping around in our bodies and brains, wreaking havoc. Even if we think we can wall it off, it sits inside us like a coiled cobra, muscles quivering, senses alert, ready to strike.<br />
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Rage makes us hyper-focus on control - the masculine energy seeks to control others, and the feminine energy seeks to control itself. Female rage often turns to depression, anxiety, dissociation. Male rage often turns to violence. And when that energy is offloaded, it multiplies like one candle lighting another. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. But it can be transformed, and until we begin recognizing the rage we carry and learn how to transform it, we will all continue to swim in it. It is and will continue to be the legacy of toxic masculinity, perpetuating physical and sexual abuse, domestic violence, shame and isolation. Excavating rage, examining it, owning it, and alchemizing it in to something that can be used to build rather than destroy is freeing. When I have taken the time and done the hard work it takes, I feel free, light, strong. The space that rage used to inhabit becomes a place for hope and optimism, and the energy builds connections that end up serving the collective. It is on each of us to do our own work, but we can create a culture where the work is important and necessary and normalized for all of us if we begin to recognize the power of rage and just how much of it we are all carrying.<br />
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<br />kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-30809883836613739442020-02-16T11:26:00.000-08:002020-02-16T11:26:24.341-08:00My Open Letter to All Elizabeth Warren Supporters Who Are Afraid<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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"I want her, too, but she will never get the nomination.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“She’s not electable.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I don’t think this country is ready for a woman president.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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I could go on, but I’m certain I don’t have to. I’m certain many of you have either heard and/or uttered similar phrases. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is absurd. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is us staying small and playing within the confines of the system that was set up without us and not for us. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is how we give away our power and agency. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Can we stop? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Please? <o:p></o:p></div>
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It is not only a lack of imagination that leads us to this place, but it is also fear. Which makes it understandable and also incredibly difficult to break free from. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Many of us have spent years minding the levies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Many of us have been groomed to hold fast, take baby steps, think about the ones who are coming behind us. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But it is important to recognize that the levies are man-made. They weren’t created to keep us safe, but to keep us small, to keep us compliant, to make us believe that venturing beyond the boundaries will surely destroy us. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The overwhelm is real. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Once we begin to think about what might be possible if we look up and out, peer over the walls we’ve been told are impenetrable, or at least can’t be breached right now, we can be flooded with confusion, and we are much more susceptible to the cries of<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Not yet!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Be realistic!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“You’re going to ruin it for all of us!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is true that change can be made one tiny step at a time. We have seen it happen with everything from women’s suffrage to same-sex marriage.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But how many years did we wait for the ERA to be ratified? <o:p></o:p></div>
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And what happened in the interim?<o:p></o:p></div>
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How many women’s voices and talents were hidden and squashed?<o:p></o:p></div>
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We are at a tipping point, and we’ve gotten here with baby steps – this adherence to Capitalism at all costs, Individuality above all else – it has gotten us a health care system that is quite literally killing people. It has gotten us an overwhelming population of people living in cars and tents and sleeping on the street. It has forsaken education and locked up children and made a world where people who aren’t white, non-disabled, cis-gendered, heterosexual, English-speaking, non-mentally ill have to work harder and harder to simply stay alive.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The old saw about whether the glass is half full or half empty? That’s us keeping ourselves small. That is Capitalism and patriarchy giving us the parameters within which we are allowed to live. That is the way we are told what our reality should be. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But the truth is, we don’t have to just have one glass. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And it doesn’t have to be filled with water. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We can cup our hands and drink from an ever-flowing stream.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We can fill a mug with tea.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We can squeeze juice from an orange in to one glass and sip it alongside a mug of coffee.<o:p></o:p></div>
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During this presidential primary, maybe it would work for you to set aside what you’ve been told by fear or the media or your trusted Uncle Joe. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Maybe gathering the courage to vote for the woman who shows up to listen, who has proven herself capable of learning and growth, who comes with a plan and a history of getting shit done is a way for you to stand tall and peek over the levy to imagine what might be possible if we do this in a big way. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Maybe marking the circle next to Elizabeth Warren’s name would feel like you’ve just entered a bigger room where there is more air to breathe.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It could be that that simple act of courage, taken by all of you who say she is your preferred candidate, is a powerful counteraction to the shrinking, the resignation, the acceptance of the boundaries we’ve been told are unbreachable. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And if there are enough of us who are willing to vote with hope and agency and clarity of purpose, we can begin to untangle ourselves from the Gordian Knot we’ve been told we have to live with. Join me? <o:p></o:p></div>
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kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-67795907837296651352020-01-28T09:10:00.000-08:002020-01-29T07:28:02.586-08:00Benign Neglect <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I have orchids in my kitchen window - five medium-sized plants that I've been gifted over the years that I coax in to blooming about once a year. I'm always surprised and rather pleased when the stems begin poking out from the folds of the thick, dark green leaves and I've somehow managed to keep them alive enough to show their gorgeous flowers at least one more time.<br />
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Someone asked me once how I do it - what's the secret. She had never been able to get an orchid to bloom again and she was keen to understand.<br />
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Benign neglect, I said. Honestly. I keep them in the kitchen window not only so the cat and dogs won't devour the leaves and unruly air shoots, but also so I remember to give them water every few weeks.<br />
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**<br />
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Today is my mother's birthday and it is the second birthday in a row when I won't see her in person or give her a hug. The second birthday in a row that she has lived in a memory care facility and been wholly unaware of her birthday. The second birthday in a row that I haven't sent her a card or flowers because she doesn't know who I am and she wouldn't understand getting a gift and she doesn't even know it's her birthday unless someone tells her and then she promptly forgets.<br />
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The last time I saw Mom, I sat with her in the dining area and fed her soup and while I was terribly happy to be with her, I may as well have been one of the staff who feeds her. I focused on making sure I didn't rush her, that she was eating enough, that the soup didn't go cold and feel awful in her mouth. I talked to her in a constant stream of consciousness banter, much like I had with my children when they were little, sitting in a high chair, opening wide when they saw the spoon coming in. The woman who sat across from us fed herself and tucked napkins and plastic cups and other people's spoons in to her bra and when we made eye contact she said, "you know she doesn't understand you. She doesn't know who you are."<br />
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**<br />
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In the months when the orchids aren't blooming, I wonder if this is the year they just won't throw up those showy flowers. I fret about the roots that stick out like bedhead, but I know I can't trim them or tuck them inside the pot. I have to let them reach out and take the moisture from the air, but they encroach on the dish drainer and bump in to the windowpane and I brush against them when I turn the faucet to hot.<br />
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About once a month I carefully lift each plant and place it in the deep kitchen sink. I dissolve the sky-blue crystalline orchid food in a gallon jug of warm water and drench each one in turn. The bark soaks up the water and I think about how orchids cling to trees in the tropics, absorb nutrients from rocks and soil and exist in nearly every corner of the planet. They are both delicate and ubiquitous. They need me and they don't. Benign neglect.<br />
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**<br />
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Mom stopped knowing who I was nearly four years ago. Before that, we spoke several times a week on the phone about whatever was easy for her. The weather, mostly, because all you have to do is look outside to talk about that. There is no need to try and remember details or conjure up names, and even when she couldn't think of the word for rain, she could still say "water falling from the sky." I saved the last voice mail she ever left me, not really knowing it was the last one, but when I dropped my phone in a parking lot at the grocery store a year ago, it disappeared. I can't tell you how sad that makes me.<br />
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I have a microcassette sitting in my closet that I know has her voice on it, but I haven't listened to it yet. I found it last year when I cleaned out her bedroom, sorting through shoes and piles of old bills and cancelled checks and the cough drops she hoarded in every pocket, bin, and drawer she had. I don't have a micro cassette player, but I took the tape so that I can one day hear her voice again. I can't imagine what she was recording, but it doesn't really matter.<br />
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**<br />
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A leaf on one of the orchids has gone yellow. They do that sometimes and it always makes me worry, but after a week or so, I carefully cut it away and just keep with the program. I wonder how they know to re-direct their energy toward the rest of the plant and let this one leaf wither away. I wonder if I'm making it worse by surgically removing the dying leaf or if I'm giving it a leg up. I like to imagine I'm helping.<br />
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I wonder if it's silly to think of mourning that part of you that is no longer needed. Being sentimental about one path when what you really need to do is refocus your efforts in another direction might be a waste of time. If cutting this withering leaf off means that the plant can use that energy to bloom again, maybe it's the right thing to do. I suspect plants don't exist in terms of Right and Wrong and it's only human beings that try to make meaning where there is none. This is just the way life works.<br />
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**<br />
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I like to think that Mom is beloved. The last time I visited her, one of the caregivers remarked to me that she really enjoyed being around my mom, that she was very sweet. I don't know if she says that to all the families or not, but it made me feel good. Mom was always fiercely independent and hated asking for help, so when she first moved in to the care facility, even though she didn't have the words to fight, she fought in other ways. It was hard for her to be taken care of, and I worried that it meant she would be a difficult patient.<br />
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I feel guilty that I'm not the one taking care of her, but I also know that she would be furious if she knew I were the one taking care of her. She hated asking me for help more than anyone, so I suppose it's for the best that when I do go visit and sit with her, spooning soup in to her mouth, she doesn't know it's me.kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-60712797354598847462020-01-01T09:42:00.001-08:002020-01-01T09:42:54.558-08:00Whoa! 2019 Was Pretty Wild<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm not generally much of a retrospective kind-of person, and I've been watching other folks do their year-end and end-of-decade roundups (favorite books, favorite movies, what to look forward to in the next decade) with a bit of wry humor. It's just another day, right? Another human-centric, artificially constructed milestone that offers us a chance to set new goals or assess progress or feel like we get a fresh start (that's a loaded phrase for me, which you'll understand after you read my memoir that is <span style="color: #e06666;">DUE OUT ON FEBRUARY 4 OF THIS COMING YEAR</span>).<br />
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But I digress.<br />
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It turns out that 2019 was actually a pretty seminal year for me in many ways and it feels like it might be important to at least write about it for posterity. Or to solidify it in my head, to find a way to make sense of it and get a different perspective instead of having it just roil around in there like some swirling mass. So, in no particular order, as they surface from the messy tumult in my head and gut, here's what my year was like:<br />
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* I got two publishing deals in 2019, neither of which I really expected to get. I submitted one of my bodies of work to an academic publisher on a whim because I had been trying to market my social-emotional education curriculum on my own and I was getting no traction. The publisher emailed me right back (which, if you're a writer, you know is solid gold - so many agents and publishers and editors simply don't respond to writers' emails at all), and said that they felt it wasn't right for them, but they knew a different publisher that might like it and I should send it there. <span style="color: #e06666;">Two amazing occurrences! A quick response and a referral to someone else instead! A unicorn!</span> And because unicorns are magical, the second publisher, <a href="https://rowman.com/" target="_blank">Rowman & Littlefield</a>, responded with an enthusiastic "Yes!" and the book <i><a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781475851472/One-Teenager-at-a-Time-Developing-Self-Awareness-and-Critical-Thinking-in-Adolescents" target="_blank">One Teenager at a Time</a></i>, was published in August after an avalanche of emails tightening it up and getting permissions and copyedits and excitement.<br />
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*The first book led to me learning a ton about PR, the disappointment of radio hosts ghosting you, and discovering how much I really enjoy being interviewed about my work and talking about teenagers and their special powers. I challenged myself to do a <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/watch-11-stories-about-teaching-learning-and-growth-from-ignite-education-lab-2019/" target="_blank">story slam</a> for the Seattle Times Education Lab and while it was absolutely terrifying at first, I met an amazing group of folks in my local community who love kids as much as I do, who are as committed to making their educational experience better as I am, and who are working hard every single day to see that it happens. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.<br />
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*The second publishing deal came about when I sent my memoir manuscript out one last time to a small press in New Jersey, <a href="https://cavankerrypress.org/" target="_blank">CavanKerry Press</a>, and promptly forgot I'd done it. A few months after I sent it in, it snowed a lot in Seattle. A lot. The first morning, I woke up to that magical quiet that happens when there are eight inches of snow on the ground - no cars, no bird sounds, no city buses roaring down the street in front of the house. And then I heard a scraping noise, a repetitive, plastic-on-sidewalk scraping. My neighbor was shoveling my sidewalk and clearing the snow off of my car in case I needed to get out that day. By the next day, there were nearly 15 inches of snow and it was clear none of us was going anywhere on wheels. Seattle + snow = shutdown. The steep street I live on featured snowboarders racing down four solid blocks of perfect slope for days. On the third day, I borrowed the neighbor's snow shovel and took my turn clearing the sidewalks and while I was out there, my phone rang with a number I didn't recognize. It wasn't worth it to take off my gloves and stop what I was doing to see who was calling, and only later did I realize whomever called had left a long voice mail. It was Joan Cusack Handler, the senior editor at CavanKerry, letting me know that she wanted to publish my book. <span style="color: #e06666;">I still have that voice mail saved on my phone. The letter they sent me to formalize the offer hangs on my refrigerator.</span> I cried. I called her back immediately, thanked her profusely, ran up to my daughter's bedroom and told her, danced in the living room, cried some more, and called my closest friends. After nine months of work with their team, the book comes out February 4. You can preorder it <a href="https://cavankerrypress.org/product/truth-has-a-different-shape/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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*I also got to watch my daughters continue to shine. My oldest finished her first year of college, came home for the summer, and went back to start her second year of school with an eagerness and optimism that made my heart split wide open. She did that thing that some parents talk about where her perspective changed a bit and she chose to sit in the kitchen with me and chat while I cooked, emptied the dishwasher upon waking up before I had a chance to do it, offered to pick up groceries if I needed something. She fell in love with a philosophy class and ran for an executive position in a club at school and made friends I've never met. My youngest started nannying twin infants, juggled that while taking high school and college classes, and booked live gigs all around Seattle to showcase her musical acumen. She converted the guest room to a recording booth and put out an album's worth of original music on <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/1VzMRLlJzJbV9hlin8Vl0g?si=rQF1M-SwQcqLgnPWEMC3dg" target="_blank">Spotify</a> and iTunes. She lobbied me for a pet snake, but we settled on a Russian tortoise.<br />
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*There were so many intangible things that happened this year, too. I learned that sometimes grief comes back to bite you when you think you've already dealt with it. I learned that I can say something in my head over and over again and it doesn't necessarily change the belief I harbor in my body. I spent many, many lonely nights pondering how someone my age creates community and close friendships anew. I wrote less than I've written in 15 years - at least new content - and agonized over when I would get that flow back. I learned to do with less - cutting the cable, driving less, buying fewer things, killing 2/3 of the lawn to put in native ground cover and create a space to grow veggies and berries, actively participating in my neighborhood's <a href="https://buynothingproject.org/" target="_blank">Buy Nothing Project</a>. I remembered that every time I embark on a new self-improvement regime (exercise more, eat less meat, organize my writing life), it opens this checklist of things in my head that overwhelms me (stop drinking alcohol, no sugar at all, cardio 3x/week, don't use plastic anything, make your own condiments, isn't apple cider vinegar supposed to be good instead of shampoo? put solar panels on the house...) and makes me feel horrible about myself.<br />
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*I did stop drinking this year, though. I'd stopped for periods before - either when I was pregnant with my girls or for fast-like fads - but this time that magical thing happened where I made the decision to stop (you can read about why <a href="https://www.thegirlfriend.com/health/i-quit-drinking-and-its-been-the-strangest-experience" target="_blank">here</a>) and after a few weeks, I 'knew' I was done forever. Previously, I would see a tv commercial where someone was drinking a glass of golden chardonnay with a hint of condensation on the outside of the glass and I could taste the buttery sweetness in my mouth. Or I would open the refrigerator to start making dinner and my mind would go to the cupboard where the wine glasses are kept and I would begin the mental calculation of what kind of wine would be best with what I was making. But this time, it was different. Something shifted in my neurons that diverted the path from seeing alcohol or things I had associated with it and leading me to the physical desire for it. Yesterday, I walked past a woman who was sitting in the bar at Nordstrom (which is a really weird thing to write, that there is a bar inside Nordstrom, but that's the crux of my essay in a nutshell), and she was talking on her phone and holding an enormous glass of white wine and I felt nothing. Thought nothing beyond, "hmm, that's a generous pour!" I wish I knew how to make that shift happen, what is actually going on in my brain and how to trigger that particular phenomenon where I literally shut off one old, well-worn pathway that is no longer serving me in favor of a new way of being. It happened once before when I was able to forgive my abuser and shed all of the physical sensations that came with despising him and wishing him ill. It is an amazing feeling, incredibly powerful, and if I knew how to re-create it reliably, I could do so much more forgiving.<br />
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*2019 was a massive year for me. It was truly a roller coaster with enormous ups and downs. There were some dark, scary moments that bled in to weeks and simultaneously co-existed with joyous, optimistic times. It may be the year where I lived more outside my comfort zone than any other year, spending a great deal of time resting in equanimity, relying on the Universe to hold me as I forged ahead without knowing what the hell was coming. The list of things I did for the first time in 2019 is as long as I've ever seen it, and while some of those things flopped, many of them didn't, and that is proof that continuing to put myself out there whether I know what I'm doing or not can be a pretty exhilarating way to live. Exhausting, but exhilarating, which is why I'm taking the rest of the day off to nest and rest.<br />
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Happy New Year, all. I hope that your 2020 offers opportunities to stretch yourself, reminders that you are held and supported, and lots of laughter. We're going to need it to get through some of what's coming.<br />
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kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-38819944855063381582019-10-29T12:31:00.000-07:002019-10-29T12:31:28.929-07:00Musings on a New Way to Live<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We know about biorhythms - the idea that human beings have certain cycles they go through that affect wellness and health. Circadian rhythms dictate when our bodies release hormones to help us sleep (melatonin) and wake up (cortisol). Other cycles include menstrual cycles and control fertility and reproduction. We know that our biology and physiology are affected by the rhythms of nature as well - mood and energy are affected by the number of hours of sunlight in the day, and for people who live in the extreme parts of the planet where there are endless days of light and then later, endless days of darkness, it is well-documented how their moods and productivity are affected. Similarly, people who work the "night shift" or graveyard shifts often have a difficult time synchronizing their sleep/wake patterns and can suffer from depression or anxiety and develop sleep disorders.<br />
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School-aged children have rhythms for their school "year," at least in the United States, where they can expect to be in classes nine months of the year and then have summers off. We have decided that a work week ought to be five days on, two days off (if you're lucky - many people with more than one job or who are engaging in work that requires overnight or weekend shifts don't often get that cycle). In the case of summer, it is widely acknowledged that this began because of the agrarian cycle - that is, that families needed children home during the biggest growth and harvesting time of the year so that they could pitch in and get the work done. Now that our society is increasingly not driven by agriculture, there is a push to eliminate this and have school run throughout the year, and I have to say, conceptually, that seems to make sense, but when I think about cycles and rhythms and nature, I wonder if it's a really bad idea.<br />
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If human beings have biological cycles that are influenced by the natural world, such as circadian rhythms, and if when we push past or ignore those influences we tend to struggle, I think it makes sense that there are additional, natural cycles that make sense to adhere to as well.<br />
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As we are in Fall in the Northern Hemisphere right now, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to watch the plant life around me ready itself for a hibernation of sorts. I remember learning in my Plant Systematics class in college that it's best to plant new trees in the early fall so that they will take root and then rest during the winter before "waking up" again in the Spring and starting to grow. It seemed counterintuitive to me, given that soon after planting, the leaves would fall away and the ground would become hard and cold. Wouldn't it make more sense to plant them in the Spring when they are beginning to really burst forth with new growth? My professor said no way. Fall is the time when trees focus their energy on developing roots - just because we can't see it happening doesn't mean it isn't. In the Spring, the tree's energy is directed toward flowers and leaves and new branch growth, which doesn't leave much for roots, and since roots are what the tree really needs to thrive, Fall is the time.<br />
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Several years ago, I became aware of a similar phenomenon in my own life. I have the privilege to work on my own schedule, and I noticed that there were distinct times when I would become less productive as a writer. I do much of my "writing" in my head, and that part was definitely still happening, the deep thinking and rumination, but as far as putting actual words on paper that resulted in coherent essays or book chapters, it wasn't showing up. I got frustrated with myself and tried to disrupt my normal practices, forcing myself to sit in a chair and type words, figuring that I was being "lazy" or just not trying hard enough. Everything I wrote during those times was garbage.<br />
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Generally, about halfway through February, I found myself on fire with ideas - writing writing writing and producing pitches and essays and making headway on manuscripts. Whew! I was back. Until about October - when things died again. It took me a few cycles to figure this out - I wasn't *not* working during this time, I was simply not producing visible results. Everything I thought about, scribbled little notes about, chewed on in my mind, during this fallow time somehow made its way in to my finished products in the late winter or following spring, like buds on a tree. Beating myself up during the time when I was working on roots wouldn't change anything about the end result.<br />
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Our culture is so obsessed with <b>progress. Goals. Continual growth</b>. But the truth is, there is no such thing as constant growth where you surpass old milestones over and over again. Yes, trees get larger and larger, but they do that with a built-in fallow period, where they rest. We know that much of brain growth in humans occurs during sleep. To expect ourselves to be continually setting goals, working toward them, setting new ones, working toward those, setting more, working toward those, and only expect rest to happen at the end of our lives (retirement, for the folks lucky enough to afford it) is making us sick. The natural world knows that we need rest on a regular basis - that there are times when resting is actually in our own best interest if we want to stay healthy and keep growing. Education researchers know that giving kids time to sit with new ideas and incorporate them on their own after they're introduced is important. Instead of packing class time full of content from beginning to end, kids process information better if they're given opportunities to ruminate on new content, turn it over with classmates in discussion, let it rest.<br />
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All the signs point to the importance of rest and fallow states, both for physical and mental health, but our culture isn't set up for that. We revere the folks who can survive on four hours of sleep, praise the kid who goes to school, plays sports, and has a part time job, and expect parents to work full time and then come home and help kids with homework, prepare meals, do laundry, drive to extracurricular activities, and volunteer for the PTA. The failure has come for us humans because we've centered the system and not the collective good. Centering the system is what leads us to ask questions about where we can impact "the economy" or why it's dangerous to let our kids have the summer to play instead of looking for jobs that will look good on a college application or going abroad on a service trip (that will also look good on a college application). It means that the families who see their kids burning out and falling to pieces feel as though they have to find a way to help their kid do the "personal work" of assimilating to the system as opposed to listening to their own inner guidance that will tell them what they need (often, rest and a recalibration of their energy toward their passions and values).<br />
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But this centering of the system, where has it gotten us? Centering the system is also centering those who benefit from the system (often, white, male, capitalist, Western-ideals, individualism-as-paramount) and sacrificing the rest of the people to that system. This is how we end up with an increased suicide rate among adolescents, college sophomores declaring majors because they <i style="font-weight: bold;">have</i> to, not because they actually have spent the time cultivating their own ideas about what is important to them and what their true passions are. This is how we end up with mid-life crises where people who believed in and followed the system suddenly come to realize that their own satisfaction and well-being are not important in this schema.<br />
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So why center the system? Why buy in to it? Because we've been told that it will keep us safe. But we're learning on a large scale that that was nonsense. Actively disrupting our own biological rhythms and imperatives, cycles of work and rest, the phenomenon of belonging and cooperation, has meant that we are divided and miserable, and burning our own planet. Our blind faith in the system (or desperate clinging to it as a life raft in the middle of a burning sea) leads us to ask questions like "how will we pay for universal health care" (centering the system) instead of asking ourselves whether or not we truly believe that each and every person deserves to be cared for (centering the collective).<br />
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When we as parents and educators of kids shut down conversations about disrupting the public education system for the good of all by saying "it's too expensive" or "that is too hard" we are acknowledging our allegiance to the system and not to our children. Many of my personal heroes have been people who didn't follow the "traditional" pathways, but who recognized their own worth and the value of connection to others and forged ahead. Those who followed them often did so because that message stirred something inside them - a longing to be like that, to find themselves rooted in and cared for by the community, not isolated by a competitive, capitalist, lone wolf system.<br />
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Our world is literally burning and flooding right now because we've centered the system (and the folks who benefit from it in the short term). We have some choices to make and I, for one, feel like listening to the kids. If we haven't completely crushed their sense of wonder and curiosity and passion and desire to belong to something bigger than themselves, they will lead us.kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-47663783053554339732019-09-22T10:38:00.000-07:002019-09-22T10:38:44.314-07:00A Different Sort of Book Launch<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Yesterday, I went to a book launch that was very different from any other launch I've been to - for a book I've already read that brought me to tears more than once, as a writer, as a mother, as someone who loves people who struggle with addiction. The book is <a href="https://www.uipress.uiowa.edu/books/9781609386597/a-house-on-stilts" target="_blank">A House on Stilts</a>, written by Paula Becker, and she took great care to bring this book out in to the world in partnership with representatives from agencies in Seattle who help young adults with addiction and homelessness.<br />
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More than once, I found myself swooning during the launch. First, when Paula spoke about addiction as a <b><i>community issue</i></b>, rather than a personal or familial one. Then again, when Christopher Hanson, the Director of Engagement Services for <a href="https://youthcare.org/" target="_blank">YouthCare</a> in Seattle used the phrase "unconditional positive regard," and when all of the panelists spoke about the necessary collaboration between families and social service agencies as we work to craft supports for young people in crisis.<br />
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Paula wrote this book knowing that there will be readers who will seek to distance themselves from her story because it is so painful, and many of them will do that by examining her choices and using them to excoriate her and her husband. The book itself is brilliant in the way it combines her personal journey as the mother of someone who fought opioid addiction with the facts about how our communities treat those who struggle and their families. While it is often incredibly sad, it is not a 'woe is me' tale or a defense of her individual choices, but a call to action that we must heed if we are to do right by this generation of young people who have been caught in the grip of addiction and all that it bleeds in to - unemployment, homelessness, mental illness, and physical health challenges.<br />
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Unfortunately, so many of our public health systems fail to adequately address the needs of young people and families who seek help - especially black and brown people. And over time, the continued failures make it hard to believe that the systems won't do more harm than good. Threatening to put folks in jail, cut off services, remove children from their parents' home - these are not ways to heal, and they are certainly not ways to engender trust. If you are a person who has been denied services or threatened with punishment of some sort over and over again, the likelihood that you will continue to ask for help gets smaller and smaller, and you become more isolated and more at risk of harm.<br />
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When families are expected to support a loved one with addiction in isolation, they quickly become overwhelmed. I have had personal experience loving and supporting someone who is constantly in crisis - waiting for the phone call that will tell me they are injured or dead, getting the phone call with an urgent plea for shelter or money, holding that person time and again while they shake and sob and say they are ready to get help. The toll it takes on your physical body is real, and the emotional triggers last for - well, decades at this point, and I don't know if they'll ever go away. The adrenaline rush that floods your body when you get that call, the shaking, the lump in your throat, the voice in your head that says, "it's happening again and I have to marshall the strength to manage it," are nearly impossible to ignore. If we do not have others to reach out to for help who don't have the same visceral ties to the person struggling (and, thus, can help in different ways that are often more effective), we are quickly depleted in every way.<br />
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When partnerships are rooted in genuine care and a purposeful dovetailing of skill sets and resources, they are amazingly effective. As a family member or individual who is struggling, finding those people to partner with is challenging at best, and finding partners with adequate funding and training and physical space is even harder. When we can find them, as mothers and fathers and caregivers, we are allowed to set boundaries that enable us to continue to function and take care of ourselves. Paula's story is not unique, and it is imperative that we listen to it keenly. Her willingness to share the pain of her journey with her son's addiction and her ability to hold it up as a call to action for all of us to come together and recognize this as a community crisis is courageous and wise. Find this book, read it, and reach out. Our elected officials need to know that we want them to support funding for the agencies who are tasked with helping individuals with addiction. They need to know that we believe this is a crisis for all of us, that we all belong to each other, and that nobody can do this alone. Even families with financial resources cannot buy their way in to rehab facilities if there are no beds available.<br />
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Perhaps the most striking thing Paula said during the book launch was this: "...you cannot starve someone in to recovery, nor can you shame them in to it. I ask you to have compassion - the next time you see someone who is homeless, don't look away. Offer a smile, meet their eyes, ask if they are hungry and buy them a sandwich."<br />
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The beauty of this book is that compassion not only means kindness toward that one person you see struggling, but it also means that we need to work to build systems of compassion that support our community members in their endeavors to heal. We do, truly, all belong to each other. May we start acting like it, soon.kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-44502890921681099432019-08-29T09:38:00.000-07:002019-08-29T09:38:15.753-07:00Music and Memory <div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>Hey -</i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>The Fixx are playing in Seattle on Aug 28<sup style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">th</sup> - if you don’t have plans for that night, you should really take L to see them. They’re in Portland the night before and I just got tickets for that show . . .</i></span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiIT7qYZnNxZye_mq7i__2K8qzMdhbjIqG29-r6i9ophlNsUnWO_XHfTkwYzgYnSJOtb29nigXLgzzAt7G0ibIiRgmKBy7RCu3IwYwEjMxrC5QHkg4nbWK33sywUdtL2sJGuEODA/s1600/IMG_2873.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="917" data-original-width="1600" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiIT7qYZnNxZye_mq7i__2K8qzMdhbjIqG29-r6i9ophlNsUnWO_XHfTkwYzgYnSJOtb29nigXLgzzAt7G0ibIiRgmKBy7RCu3IwYwEjMxrC5QHkg4nbWK33sywUdtL2sJGuEODA/s320/IMG_2873.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">My brother emailed me sometime in June to give me a heads up about this show. I'm incredibly grateful because there's no way I would have found my way to it without his suggestion. I am notoriously horrible about names - band names, song names, celebrity's names. In the moment, I couldn't conjure up even one song The Fixx was known for, but I knew if my brother was cueing me, I'd know them when I heard them. </span></div>
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<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I bought tickets that day. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As a junior-high kid (we didn't call it middle school in the 70s and early 80s), I went to a lot of concerts - most of them with my big brother. Mom went to a few with us, but eventually, I think she burned out and decided that if I tagged along with C, there would be no hijinks, even though the nearest big city for concerts was Portland, which was a two-hour drive from home. I was the happy recipient of that policy, although C has pretty eclectic taste in music. We went to see Debbie Gibson, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, as well as REO Speedwagon, ZZ Top, Metallica, and Judas Priest. He knew all the songs - A and B sides - and which albums they were featured on. He sang along with them all, knew when the drum solo or guitar solo would come, knew the names of each band member and which other bands they'd been in. He still does. He's a walking encyclopedia of music, and I trust his taste. Every year he sends me a CD for my birthday and while sometimes it's a performer or band I know (Tom Petty, Steely Dan), other times it is an entirely novel act, but I always love it. He knows what I'll like and respond to. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As a kid, I used to listen to the album for whichever band we were going to see next obsessively, reacquainting myself with the lyrics and the rhythms. I could remember songs really well, but I never knew their names or which album they were on or who was playing which instrument. I never really felt the need to catalog that or keep it in my brain. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">My big brother is 50 now and I can't even begin to imagine the number of concerts he's been to in his life. He goes to about two a month, at big venues and small, and he always has recommendations for me. On the day of The Fixx concert in Seattle, I woke up to a series of text messages from him, complete with photos of the show he'd just seen and a review of how great it was, which albums they played music off of, and which songs were the best. I smiled and got excited for my own experience. But unlike when I was younger, I didn't seek out any of the music to refresh my memory. I went in cold, as did my daughter. She was definitely the youngest person in the crowd, but as a musician herself, she's usually up for a concert (especially if I'm paying).</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As the early strains of "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP8Pe8tp2TQ" target="_blank">Are We Ourselves</a>" began to play, I felt a warmth in my belly. When the lead singer pointed his microphone out toward the audience, I knew exactly where to come in and what the tune was. It happened again with "Saved by Zero," "Red Skies," "Stand or Fall." At one point, I leaned over to speak into L's ear and tell her that I was reminded of sitting on C's bedroom floor, playing cards and listening to music - these very songs. Had we not gone to this concert, I'm not sure I would have ever thought about The Fixx or been prompted to seek out their music. I simply hadn't remembered they existed. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">There is a lot that I don't remember about my childhood, a lot I dissociated from as I tried to find a way to survive emotionally in the firestorm of days after my brother disappeared and my parents divorced. I've been researching <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3108032/" target="_blank">polyvagal theory</a> lately as part of my work with adolescents and trauma and trying to understand how our bodies protect us by disconnecting from so much of what is going on around us. As I listened to the band play and felt the comforting memories of hanging out with C, listening to music, I wondered, </span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>is music the way in to those memories I want to have?</i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As I let my mind play with that thought, I realized that I was feeling calm and peaceful, that I was recalling the safety of being my big brother's little sister, remembering a mundane, "normal" childhood activity that must have happened dozens of times in those frightening, sad days. I'm not so sure anymore that what I want is to use these memories to push my way in to other ones. For now, I'm simply basking in the reminder that my brother and I shared a connection through music, that it was his way of being in relationship with me and showing me the ropes, leading with his passion and inviting me in to share it. What a beautiful gesture, what an amazing, seemingly simple way to be part of each others' lives, even though we haven't gone to a concert together in decades. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #201f1e;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 31, 30); font-size: 14.666666984558105px;">I'm so grateful to have these kinds of memories come back to me as I get older, to remind me that there are myriad ways to connect with others, and that the ones that come most easily, most naturally, are often the ones that endure. I hope that someday my big brother and I can go to another concert together, but in the meantime, I'm definitely listening for his advice on which ones I should buy tickets to myself. </span></span></span></div>
kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-84478214732927354322019-07-30T09:37:00.000-07:002019-07-30T09:37:17.282-07:00The Seven P's That Lead to Peace<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK1_3uvBZicJUU4LAAhhfrbjG7aFJKjwpl28zzowzbdCgKgglurSuQLibrzi3JmbaxKIvlGIxoTIjNn4Rf7qV7H6I24Wpa7dqJFlxfQksbPILhDvcpBt-YKsjconznq6TEKaoefg/s1600/IMG_2448.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK1_3uvBZicJUU4LAAhhfrbjG7aFJKjwpl28zzowzbdCgKgglurSuQLibrzi3JmbaxKIvlGIxoTIjNn4Rf7qV7H6I24Wpa7dqJFlxfQksbPILhDvcpBt-YKsjconznq6TEKaoefg/s320/IMG_2448.HEIC" width="240" /></a></div>
My <a href="https://the-writing-life.blogspot.com/2019/06/falling-and-staying-put.html" target="_blank">last post</a> pointed you to my friend Jen and her work that helped me set a new tone for my life. I have several pages of notes from a day I spent with her last year in a tiny little cabin on an island in the Pacific Northwest and every now and then when I'm feeling a bit lost, I revisit them and find new nuggets of wisdom.<br />
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Last week, I unearthed the notebook again and found a loose sheet of paper I'd tucked inside. It features just eight words, spaced out and written in sky blue pen. I don't remember when I wrote them, but I vaguely recall sitting down one morning with my coffee, lighting a candle, and doing metta meditation to start my day. When I finished the meditation, I reached for a sheet of paper and wrote what came to me. I do this often, and it doesn't always make sense in the moment, but capturing them for later has proven to be powerful.<br />
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Sometimes, I have epiphanies or sudden shifts in thinking that have profound effects. It's a little like an earthquake that suddenly and irrevocably changes the landscape of my mind and heart and life. But more often, I'm learning that making substantive changes takes intent and practice. I have to embed and embody new ways of being in to my life so that they become habits, and these seven words are emblematic of that hard work. <br />
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<h2>
Patience </h2>
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Being patient requires me to trust in the abundance of the universe, the kindness of people, the rhythms of life. Like a surfer whose timing is off and has to watch a perfect wave pass by without begin able to ride it, I have to wait and know that it's only a matter of time before the next good one comes by and lifts me. Once-in-a-lifetime stories are romantic and cinematic, but not really an accurate reflection of the way life works. </div>
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<h2>
Perseverance</h2>
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This also asks that I trust - in my own ability to keep moving, in the fact that one step will lead to another. It doesn't mean that I have to know what all the steps are, or where the ultimate destination is, just that the next step will come and then the next and the next. And it doesn't mean that I can't rest, only that I listen closely so that when I'm called to start moving again, I hear it. </div>
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<h2>
Passion</h2>
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This word is sometimes over-used, but it is also under-rated. Being able to tap in to the things that drive me, that motivate me, that stir that feeling in my belly that excites me and makes me smile is a skill, if only because it asks that I acknowledge that those things are intrinsically worthy, that they are enough, important, valid (whether or not they lead to monetary success). I've been in relationships where my passions were trivialized and called "cute" or "sweet" and I learned to doubt myself, but I'm (re)learning. </div>
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<h2>
People</h2>
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We are designed to live in community, and many of us enjoy it, but we aren't taught to be comfortable resting in it, being held by it, surrendering to the give and take. We cannot accomplish the things we want to do without other people, and celebrating our victories is not nearly as sweet when we do it alone. A willingness to be seen and heard and see and hear others is vital in my journey to a better life. </div>
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<h2>
Paths</h2>
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Not path. Paths. Plural. There is no one path, there are many, and they connect to each other. It is ok to head down one path, change my mind and veer left or right or even make a u-turn and head right back to the last fork in the road. It is perfectly acceptable to travel for a long time down one path, decide that I've learned all I can from it, and hop off or run as fast as I can to a different one. </div>
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<h2>
Plans</h2>
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Gloria Steinem said, "Hope is a form of planning." This P brings together passion and perseverance and bathes them in hope. It gives me a place to start and a goal to strive for, even if things ultimately go sideways. As long as I remember that a plan is simply a blueprint and I get to decorate the walls however I damn well please, I can see opportunity in it rather than feeling limited by it. </div>
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<h2>
Presence</h2>
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This is often the hardest P for me. It requires a willingness to pay attention to what is happening, even when it's scary or uncomfortable, and <i>especially</i> when life is joyful. Having learned to be dismissive of my own successes ('humility is sexy,' I was once told), I have to practice being intentional about noticing when I feel joy and imprinting it on my brain and my heart. Paying attention to my instinct to minimize my own efforts or hedge against jinxing myself and correcting it to bask in the feeling of happiness is a lot of work. Noting my reaction to fear or sadness and counteracting the shrinking by opening up further has only gotten easier the more I am present. </div>
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When I remember these pillars (ha! another P), I am rewarded with a sense of peace. When I slow down, envision them, act with intention to give them a place in my life, and embody them, I begin to transform the way my brain reacts to the world so that the old lessons of scarcity and bootstrapping and fear fall away. </div>
kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-88662954869895667392019-06-16T12:08:00.001-07:002019-06-16T12:08:58.368-07:00Falling, and Staying Put<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhWlpdaGqGSoU32tE8JVwypkda-hDEGgSd51rqRH7NjpQ6nA3dFr5ZwGBMdGW7yVqHUlvba310R8ieEmAfkOISGgwnosoqkGEb7SYfeEfHIVNTSDo2VSt3LKxdTT7hU1ckiB9A4g/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhWlpdaGqGSoU32tE8JVwypkda-hDEGgSd51rqRH7NjpQ6nA3dFr5ZwGBMdGW7yVqHUlvba310R8ieEmAfkOISGgwnosoqkGEb7SYfeEfHIVNTSDo2VSt3LKxdTT7hU1ckiB9A4g/s320/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
Over the last 18 months, I've wrestled (well, thumb-wrestled) with something that keeps cropping up for me. It's nothing major - thus, the thumb-wrestling - but nevertheless, it keeps showing up for me and I keep nodding at it and then moving on with what I've been doing.<br />
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Six days ago, I started a ten-day program with my lovely and amazing friend, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/jenlemen/?hl=en" target="_blank">Jen Lemen</a>, that has re-surfaced all of this and put it front and center, and it's profound and moving and scary as hell. In a good way.<br />
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This morning, I woke up and sat in metta meditation (part of the program involves saying metta every morning) on my deck. Surrounded by fragrant plants and bathed in sunshine, I opened up as wide as I could and by the time I was finished, tears were rolling down my face unabated. As is my ritual, I wrote down the messages I'd heard as I sat and texted Jen to download.<br />
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The next, very critical piece of this for me is to walk. I have access to a gorgeous arboretum about six blocks from my house, so I leashed the dogs up and we headed out. There is something about opening myself up and making myself vulnerable and then walking to the trees and sitting in quiet for a while that grounds me and lets the messages of love and compassion sink deep in to my bones.<br />
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Between my house and the arboretum is a play field and this morning, there was a t-ball game in full swing as the dogs and I approached. There was a father and son (young, maybe 4 years old at the most) playing catch off to the side, and we rounded the corner just in time to see the little boy running as fast as he could with the ball in his hands, racing on chubby legs and laughing and then he just crumpled in to the grass, his legs giving way beneath him as he rolled on to his back and giggled with his face to the sun. Then he sat up and stared down at the grass next to him, the game of catch completely forgotten. He pulled a blade of grass, ran his hand across the top of others to feel the tips on his palm, and was generally engrossed where he sat. His dad kept trying to coax him to get up and throw the ball back, come back to the game, but the little boy just sat, smiling, playing in the grass.<br />
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I began crying again. I have been falling, over and over again, for the last 18 months. Not hurting myself, not upset, just falling. And after each time, I get up and go right back to the thing I was doing when I fell.<br />
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As I watched that little boy, my heart swelled with nostalgia and longing. I remember being a kid and staying where I fell for a while. I remember the joy of it, the discoveries I made that I wouldn't have seen if I had just gotten right back up and kept playing.<br />
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It's time for me to let myself fall and stay where I am for a while. My body is crying for me to let it be, to pay attention, to sit in that place and be still and quiet and open up to different possibilities. I'm listening.<br />
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*If you're curious about the program with Jen, please check out Jen's Instagram and look for information on the Path of Devotion. She's starting another group July 1 and it is life-changing. She is a gentle, wise guide if you're looking to create new, meaningful rituals and rhythms in your own life, and you pay what you can.kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24806308.post-50356013532128935232019-06-05T17:07:00.000-07:002019-06-05T17:07:57.253-07:00The Power and Promise of StoryWe know the power of story to motivate and connect people, to convince and add color. But I am increasingly aware of how storytelling has become co-opted over time, bent and twisted to be used as a power tactic or a marketing tool.<br />
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Story is a tool - it used to be a tool to educate; elders would tell fables and parables to illustrate concepts. It is used to entertain, to take us out of ourselves, and it is an incredible way to build empathy. Telling our stories helps us release them from our bodies and, in the right setting, reminds us that we aren't alone.<br />
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In the last several decades, story has also become a way to ask for validation, acceptance, consideration. And while that might not seem like a bad thing on its face, in the context of people without power telling their stories to people in power as a plea for empathy or understanding, it feels heavy in my gut. It feels more and more like justifying our existence, defending our choices, hoping to be considered equally human and deserving of care.<br />
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Many years ago, I began interviewing women about their stories. Specifically, their stories around being pregnant and having to choose whether or not to stay pregnant. I was increasingly frustrated that the political tug-of-war around abortion rights seemed never ending and I was certain that the conversation was all wrong. My hope was that centering the stories I wrote on the issue of <b>choice</b> would shift the spotlight a bit and add depth - open people's eyes to the notion that the issue wasn't two sides of the same coin, but far more complicated than that.<br />
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I had fully bought in to this new notion of what story was for. I was using these stories to not only educate people, but to convince them that these women deserved their consideration.<br />
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Sharing our stories is an enormous act of vulnerability. Opening ourselves up and shining a light on the parts of us that feel different, look different, <i>are</i> different is incredibly courageous, especially if the listener is not simply a vessel, but a judge. And while story is known for building empathy, it shouldn't be the key that opens the gate to empathy. If, in telling our stories, we are hoping to gain acceptance and validation of our worth, and the listener is the one who gets to grant that (or not), story has become twisted and co-opted.<br />
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The notion of needing to tell our stories so that people in power will acknowledge us and tap us on the shoulder with their scepters, allowing us entry in to the world of Worthy Humans is abhorrent to me. We need to start with the belief that we are all worthy and cherished. People with disabilities, people of color, transgender or non-binary people, women, elders, childless folks, immigrants - nobody should have to tell their story in order to be regarded as worthy of respect. Nobody should have to show their scars and bare their souls so that they can be deemed worthy of care and honor.<br />
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Our stories are reminders that we are not alone. They teach us about the depth and the breadth of human experience, but they should not be a pre-requisite for civil rights, for love, for worthiness. The power of our stories is that they help us connect to others, and to use them as currency for equality and humane treatment is wrong.<br />
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I admit that when I started my interview project, it was with the intent to use the stories as political capital. I hoped that they would be published in a book that would reach the ears of people in power, that the stories would shift something inside them fundamentally and convince them once and for all that reproductive rights are vital, foundational, human rights. The women who spoke with me trusted me and, in some cases, had never told their story to anyone else but me. I was powerfully moved and believed that it would make a difference. These days, I resent the fact that I should have to tell my story in order to gain agency over my own body, in order to maintain or regain my civil rights and be seen worthy of that by people in power.<br />
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I believe in the power of story. When someone trusts me with their truest, deepest truth, it is a gift I do not take lightly. As receivers of story, we have an opportunity to be deliberate and generous with our listening, to recognize that we are being given a gift. I have felt the significant difference between telling my story to someone who is willing to hear it, contain it, hold it and reflect back to me that I am not alone in my difference, in my pain, in my perspective and telling my story to someone in an effort to get them to recognize my humanity. The first instance feels healing and fuels connection - the second feels defensive and frantic and defiant. Sharing something profound in an effort to find community is expansive. Sharing something profound as a way to justify my existence or worth or right to have agency over my body is like always being a step behind, and it reinforces the power differential between me and the receiver.<br />
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I appreciate the people who gather the courage to speak for themselves and others - the ones who testify in public hearings in support of accommodations or policy shifts or funding sources. I simultaneously lament that movements like #shoutyourabortion or #youknowme have to exist, that we have been forced to use our stories as justification for our choices, to plead for help from those in power. It isn't as though there is some tipping point, some critical number of stories that are told that will shift the narrative in favor of acceptance and compassion, in favor of the foundational belief that we are all human and, as such, equally deserving of the right to live freely, move through the world without obstacles in our way or a target on our back.<br />
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Until we can start at a baseline of humanity for all, equal rights, and acknowledgment of the historical systemic ways we oppress women and people of color and folks with disabilities and non-binary gender expression, etc. etc. we will not be able to truly hear the stories of our fellow humans. We will always be looking for the "hook," the seminal difference, the spark that makes us say, "Oh, ok, you're not like those other __________." But in my heart, that's not what story is about. Story is about bringing us together, reminding us of our connections, and reinforcing the power of being acknowledged.kariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10150537989886423212noreply@blogger.com0