Fall too

This week has been hard. I feel like I need to cry, maybe I do. Some fog permeating my aura, a half inch above and below my skin. Almost invisible, not stagnant but moving, permeable. And sometimes a joke or a good picture will cut through it. But mostly it feels like a hazy curtain. Part of it is the weather of course. The dark creeping in, the cold that lasts from night into mid afternoon. Part of it is work. I am not feeling successful. I am not seeing an easy means of success that would show I was worthwhile. Some of my cases feel hopeless, and the ones that don't are also logistically nightmarish. The work space is fine, and then cold and lifeless. People are nice and then absent. Part of it is societal. The supreme court nominee was accused of sexual assault, an incident that happened when he was a teenager, but still too real. He reacted petulantly, but will probably still get a life time appointment. If he had said "yes, I did that, I'm sorry. I've been trying to make up for it since." Would the story feel so disheartening? There is no new information but I am drawn to the news. Part of it is that I feel like I am settling into comfort, hibernation. The crazy excitement and mystery is wearing off, but I still feel drawn in a different way. I want more time to just be, but worry we will always be running away.

The idea of having my own children is slowly fading. Sure, I could adjust to the task, but do I want small ones? Do I want that constant responsibility? Worry? Insecurity?

Socially, I feel like I should be reaching out to people, but I don't know what that would do. Would I just feel more quartered? I want to integrate my life.

I want the malaise to lift.

Fall

The weather is turning. This week has been hard: storms and gray, but also the chaos of an unstructured life, and the crisis of the week my clients are facing. Its easy to start to get down on yourself, and then you look around and by comparison you're doing just fine.
Work is going well, but I am also falling behind already. I should be doing my paperwork more regularly. Reaching out to people. Getting a good sense of what is possible from the clients. People seem to like me, feel they can confide in me, but I also wonder who is lying or covering and why. The work is also a bit lonely. I like consultation on fridays, but it is also depressing to hear about families with such dire situations.
I feel like I see people in dreams. Like things are familiar. Like there is love and deep connection. Most of my social relationships have gotten a little shallow. Or a deep dive and then weeks without talking. I've had an attitude of why bother reaching out when I don't know what I can give. I've had an attitude of not wanting to invest when I am not sure the investment will pay off. But it is passive, not malignant. I think the more I find connection and fulfillment in my primary relationship, the less satisfying many of my friendships feel. And I need to find a better balance, because I can't depend entirely on one person, even if she is who I want to be talking to. I think my saying this, is just an acknowledgement of where I am right now, I am not sure it will last but I don't mind it being this way. Having a partner in that way feels really nice. I don't always trust it. This week amongst the hidden sun, and the wind, and the sprinkling in the air, I also experienced some strong moments of insecurity. Of worry.
I caught myself trying to figure out how satisfying life would be without her right now, and it was difficult. I know that I would continue working, but would it suck? Would I feel like I could reach out to coworkers, would I simply become more isolated again? I know that I would probably write more, but would I feel invested in life or just avoiding?  I know that I would prepare for a trip, probably next summer, and that I might put off those life things again in the meantime. Its hard for me to envision meeting someone else. More than likely I'd regress to that same old state,  the same way that the few years before meeting her, I was looking and not finding. But still there are promises and then there are promises. There are dreams and there are plans, but these things take time. There are friends and families and these things are important, and inevitably put off, and for good reason. Because they are important and my rushing doesn't help anything.
I am reading Trainspotting. More or less I simply imagine the actors who play the roles, so it isn't nearly as exciting as other books. Many of the scenes are a little more complete in the book form. I like it, but I also find it tedious at times. This is normally why I don't read books twice.
I've put off getting an apartment for another month. I think I need to focus on work, and M seems to be fine with me and my current situation for now. I was so embarrassed that for months we snuck around parking lots and stores, and parks. But we are still finding the balance.
Maybe next month things will seem more settled, maybe she'll be less interested, maybe I will be, who knows.

I didn't have enough caffeine today. I need to do paperwork, but I don't want to in public, but I also don't want to sit in my room all day. Maybe I will do some reading/editing.

Happy birthday to someone in the past.
I hope you're finding your days comforting or ecstatic. Feeling optimistic and creative, loving and engaged. And that any rough patches quickly reveal themselves to be learning opportunities. And that the people in your life celebrate and mourn with you. And that everyone is healthy.

My friend asks me about consumerism. How I keep getting fantasies of consumerism. Its hard to explain, and so I mumble some response about wanting a large open kitchen. I ramble about having book shelves, she drops some name of a fancy furniture store and I have to ask to clarify. She asks me about pillows, we are getting basic, I say I don't know, I like pillows, but I don't like the ones just for decoration on the bed.  It is some mix of aesthetics and functional need that I can't explain.

Aesthetics:
I tell her that sometimes when I am doodling, I let the lines go where they want, but at a certain point I look at the whole, and suddenly the lines, the colors, begin to desire a direction. They simply can't go that way, and if you force them they will ruin the whole. Sometimes you have to let the colors layer to build a texture worth making, and sometimes you have to let the empty space have its place.

When I walk into a space, I want to be comforted by it. I want it to charm me. I want it to fuse some of that aesthetic beauty energy through my eyes, and finger tips. I don't have the picture, until it asks me for direction. I don't know the names or value the objects in themselves, I am attracted to their shape, their shade, their feel. The same pillow that might call out to me at Target would not look good in my bedroom, I have the wrong color pallet, the wrong set of angles. The space gives direction, try to mesh your style with the wrong space and it will come out frustrated, I've always lived in frustration. I desire the comfort of a well crafted space.

I've been living functionally, with scraps and piles jutting every where. I want a space, where everything has a place, and if there is a messy room or closet where the scary things heap, then I'll know thats its story. I have a dozen tapestries, throw cloths, pictures and paintings to hang, and if they have their place to shine then I would like to display them. But if it isn't time. I'll continue to hide them away. But wouldn't it be nice to have a space.

Consumerism:
And then there is the drive, that little buzz in the back of the mind, your eyes drawn wide, and then narrowed, and then enlivened again with the next step. When I find myself in a market of any kind, (given the right mood) I scan and devour, take it all into the imagination, flare and hold back my grin. But again this is not knowledge of value, or craft, I'm simply consuming. Each item is it's own idol. Each thing, a world of possibilities. So I step down the wrong aisle and am smacked with a vision, a story. And some are dismal -the countless wall decorations at a thrift store that once adorned some elder's kitchen, unwanted by the children, or the grand children. Or cynical -what plastic molding machine cranked out a trillion of these, folding the oily toxic and poisoning our modernity. Or enthralling and imbued with a vision of timelessness, the indigenous craft in the market, reminiscent of the thing in a museum in Britain.
And in the mallshops of America, or the mallshops in India, there is a radiance to the lighting, and a stacking of trinkets, and I want to buy these meaningless things despite knowing full well I'll forget them. And its funny knowing that, because I can recognize it isn't alway their worth or beauty that calls me, but the desire to be part of their story -which says nothing but that they are an item of mass commercialism, to be bought by a person who looks and acts like me, will be carried home in plastic bags, pulled out and immediately recognize that I'll never treasure them as much as in that story -of purchase.

I am reading this book by a community organizer, its one part journal, one part reflective manual to inspire better organizing.

She has a section on interdependence, and her difficulty with it personally, but also how essential it is for community work. In the chapter, she talks about things like: learning from nature, the benefits and pitfalls of charismatic leaders, the difficulties of finding a balance between personal generosity and vulnerability - and how they are equally necessary for real connection.

            I watch this youtube channel called “AntsCanada” which is basically a very charismatic story teller creating little episodes about the dramatic world of ant keeping. The videos are educational, and surprisingly riveting at times. He keeps it pretty dramatic with little cliff hangers, and also draws out the tension through sharing how meaningful the hobby is for him, and how he is constantly learning lessons from watching the ants. He also lets his viewers vote on the names of everything in the ant communities, so they feel like they are part of it. The last few days I’ve been thinking about how some ants (maybe all?) have a personal stomach, and a social stomach. Because they are a big colony, they will send out workers to go gather food and fill their social stomachs and then they come back and redistribute it to the ants that were doing other things.

            Sometimes I like to take a step back and consider whether my particular traits and life are serving some other purpose than the one I’ve been told about. Like if humans are actually more collective than we think, maybe (as some researchers have proposed) homosexuality is an adaptive communal trait that some humans have to maintain balance, and support the collective –like helping to raise children, without requiring as many personal needs. I was thinking that maybe our society does this anyway without the genetics, things like taboos, productivity, attractiveness, prestige, work, war/military and prison all serve to potentially broaden or narrow the pool of eligibility. But on the flipside we are also living in a time when people have so little support – for instance, a friend of mine just had a baby, she lives in England with her husband. He is going back to work soon. She is far from her family… and I’m worried that she is going to end up becoming super depressed and isolated. Where is her community? Who will bring her food in their social stomach while she does the very important work of raising a child? Yesterday when another friend was feeling frustrated, I didn’t know how to help. I was also kind of critical of the way we end up living… nuclear families don’t make sense. Sure, we can have them as a core component, but it sets parents up for feeling like failures, and it sets children up for feeling like they are alone in their pain.

            Maybe all my desires to help and my caretaking skills are just my role in helping the community, and maybe I am not supposed to have a personal family or feel individually fulfilled, because that would keep me from giving to the wider community. I don’t know that I actually believe this completely, but sometimes I wonder. And if I could just reconcile myself to that, rather than wanting all these individual things… would that be a better life? I can be the godparent, the uncle, the friend. Whats wrong with that. 

            Today I was walking around the lake and thinking I was superfly or whatever because I was listening to good music, and the sun was out, but there was enough of a breeze that it was pleasant and blowing my hair around, and I was just enjoying it…  Sometimes when I am listening to music, I start conducting or dancing. Sometimes I make faces while I sing or mouth the lyrics. People walking around the lake will sometimes stare or smile, and I start to think, yeah maybe I am attractive to some folks?  But on this particular day I was thinking about how aesthetics can be so magnetic and also so distracting.  Like you’re all in a good mental place, and then you see something or someone who is “attractive” and your mind goes somewhere else. Maybe not a bad place, but a distraction. At the same time, would you wish them to be “unattractive?” If they were, would you be as drawn? Would you want to be “unattractive?”

What are the benefits and drawbacks?

            This reminded me of the charismatic leadership thing, because it can be such a distraction, and lead people down such unhelpful roads. Our perception leads us to assume that people with charisma have better lives, are inherently worth more, that they know more, that everything they touch is honey. We start to cater to the people and things we find attractive, rearrange our lives for it. And measure our worth by them, questioning the absence of beauty or charisma as being less worthwhile... Suddenly then, the absence of this very surface level beauty means we are unfulfilled.

            If I walk around all day and see nothing beautiful, I believe my day was less exciting. But as an artist, I often find this particularly hard, because I am socialized the same as everyone else to see certain things as beautiful, and I crave beauty. However, if I am mindful, I can adjust the muscles of my eyes to recognize more color, let in more or less light, and see something “mundane” as “miraculous,” just by bringing awareness to it. Charm and aesthetics then seem like they must be a distraction, right? NO? How can one know?

            I think it’s especially weird, because we are socialized and perhaps genetically inclined towards seeing youth as beautiful. A friend of mine has been dating younger and younger guys, and though I can recognize that she is perhaps feeling developmentally similar to them, I am also aware that she is an artist who is drawn to pretty people. I think it’s funny. If she were a man, I would apply the same lens of judgment that I hold on myself. I am also attracted to people who look younger than they are. When I am being voyeuristic on dating profiles, I think that is a common feature of the people who I might swipe for –that they are my age but look younger. When I look in the mirror and see signs of aging, I am sometimes ok with it, and sometimes wish I could maintain my youthful glow. Maybe I just need to drink more water, or less fluoride and open up my third eye to seeing the reality.

            Lately we have been talking about how easy it is to feel burned by those we are generous with, but are we generously vulnerable? Do we ask for what we need and want?  Do we share our hopes and dreams openly? Do we acknowledge our feelings during, and not just after they can no longer hurt us?  I’ve been trying to do that more often with people, but it doesn’t come easily, especially when I am feeling vulnerable. And of course, that is just within individual relationships. Interdependence asks us not just to be interdependent in our one to ones, but explore and expand our joy in community. I have dozens of folks who I check in with one on one, but when do I ask them to get to know each other? How do I promote that type of generosity and vulnerability? And in myself, how often do I turn down the opportunity to get to know someone else’s world of relationships –despite knowing it is essential for true connection.  Is it just the limited capacity? Or is it a fear that I would be held accountable for that deeper relationship?

Sometimes I want to read into the words of the story, want to paint them upon my experience. That’s how the vampires in each story become my friends, that’s why I miss them when the book ends. It’s harder when the sentiment resonates, like when the activist writes her poem of inner requests, and each line presents a thought I’ve kept hidden, and she ends it with a question; “can you listen while I feel this? Again? Again?”

And I’m wondering what you are doing tonight, in your human bed, tossing and turning to the day’s inner consciousness, wrestling and rolling with the unspoken, the mistaken, the fear of needing, and also the desire of it. And I’m wondering if you’re lonely, when you awake to a startle, or if the emptiness beside you is just a new opportunity for tomorrow. And I’m wondering how I could safely worm my way inside your sheets, press my skin to your skin, and feel the beat of your heart so that I’d know just when to react, and tighten the muscle of my own, squeeze out the joy and longing before you steal them from me.

Because I’m finding it harder each day, to pull back. Despite my attempts to fortify with bricks of angst, with spears of cynicism, with that moat of realism full of crocodiles swimming by. But they look so beautiful atop this vaporous fantasy, and your stories are lulling, your smile enticing, your hand so warm when you offer it to mine. And sometimes it feels like torture to deny your offering to dance, even when I know it’s just a dream.

shHGEVnsbaafhgKB

I was cleaning my room, or trying to. I was doing laundry, or intending to. I was exercising, or at least my version. I hadn't eaten enough and suddenly I was very critical, of others, of myself. I was lonely. I was irritated. I felt like there would never be enough. Like I would never be enough. Like no one else would ever be enough.

I find myself using a certain relationship as a reminder. As a place of learning. But the things I am learning aren't all pleasant. And sometimes the more I try to find the positives, the silver lining, the light at the end of the tunnel, the more I know I'm fooling myself into the type of pain I've experienced before. Same old patterns. So what was really learned?

I dislike how my me-ness seems to raise this fuss, this alarm. I could turn off my mind, and know that everything is fine. This thought is not you, its not the reality of the moment. Nothing wagered. Nothing to lose. But my mind as my sugar level drops, my insecurity, reminds me that I haven't experienced anything else that draws me... and nothing is promised - but something is grieved.

I remember once being up all night worried -even though it was elementary school. It was not an uncommon thing in my childhood. I remember writing to Amanda, begging her for help. I didn't know her, not really. I just wanted my friend group to stay together. I just wanted to not be rejected. I wrote a letter, trying to appeal to her humanity, to her empathy, it would be nothing in the long run I assured her, just please interfere. Who else but the most popular girl could save my friendships from being dragged apart by the jealousy, manipulation, and desire of popularity. I never gave her that letter. Six months later, it wouldn't have mattered. Within a few years she was not the most popular girl anymore, a few years after that all my friendships had changed. It was painful. Sometimes it still is. I wonder what Amanda would think of that now. The idea of a 5th grader begging her to intercede. How completely ridiculous the whole thing would seem, and yet that night I was convinced that my world was falling apart, I had nothing else left but to beg.
How many times has that been the story I've told myself in the middle of the night, when things get the worst. In the middle of the 18 hour bus ride, when there is nothing but mystery beyond my uncomfortable seat. In the middle of a panic attack, when the world tightens like a vice. In the middle of a break up, in a goodbye...in the goodbyes that continue to haunt me. People wouldn't know how I carry those moments with me. They'd never guess how strongly I am dysregulated, and if I showed them they'd run.

Yesterday I felt like I was losing myself. I did some reading and found a light. Today again, I lost myself. Is this all there is?

Is my blue your blue?

Today I was reading about alexithymia, a condition where people seem to experience less feelings, and less ability to empathize with the feelings of others. Often it is associated with autism, those who experienced severe abuse as a child, those with PTSD or who have experienced a stroke or a traumatic brain injury. People with it, have a higher than average rate of substance abuse, eating disorders, self-harm, and a difficulty in romantic relationships. Some say it is a neurological issue. Some say it is a psychological response, a defense mechanism. They say about 10% of the population might have it to some degree.

Today I was reading a book about G-d, our concept of G-d, and what it means to believe in G-d in a world where everyone’s conception of G-d is different. Where a fifth of the world prays to one G-d (Allah), while another chunk claims to serve a different G-d using the same exact stories (Christianity). I wonder what it means to a person with alexithymia, to not know elation, elevation, revelation. To watch as “typicals” experience something so profound, and name it beyond their ability to comprehend, and in so doing match the person with alexithymia’s description –perhaps by accident, because they haven’t the words. And to what extent might the two assume they are experiencing the same thing. And to what extent might they be?

Having read many of the same texts as this author, I haven’t found much to be revelatory. But I like the examples, the stories, the quotes, the histories. They are wonderful reminders of these truths humanity has tried to understand. For instance, that perhaps our idea of trying to capture the truth of G-d and name it, is a form of materialism. That perhaps our jealousy and desire to control G-d, is the same set of natural human traits (and sins) as our desire to control each other, or the land, our implicit jealousy –that act of insecurity –an acknowledgment that our faith is too limited (in ourselves, in G-d, in each other).

As I am reading, I don’t struggle in the same way I once did with this concept that G-d is both bigger than my ability to comprehend, and also personal and knowable. I find it comforting and wish it no other way. But I do struggle every day with the material, personable parallels. I want to name a thing and have it be mine. I want to revel in a feeling and have it be known by others. I want to be acknowledged and admired for things, traits, potential. I want my gifts to go out into the world and in doing so, point back to me –my ego, my lifetime, my impermanent self -encapsulated in this name, this time, this round through. 

Today I was at PRIDE and saw a thousand beautiful faces. I cannot always distinguish between the good and the bad, especially when I am looking for G-d, and sometimes I look for G-d in those who are made in his image. Some people scoff and scorn the celebration of PRIDE. Some say it is good in theory, but too much commercialism, too much nudity, too much pageantry. Today I walked around in the heat, sweat dripping from my forehead, my moistened palms in prayer, humming mantras, reveling in G-d's sacred creation, in the millions of colors and sounds and faces of divinity. 

There is a Sufi explanation of the creation of us -humans. G-d wished to be known. Had he called into being only the stars, and the plants, and the bacteria, he’d have no mirror which saw and projected his omniscience. Had he called into being only humans, then they’d not know his greatness  which each of these other things projects. Lately I’ve been enjoying the idea that G-d created humans with problems so that they’d know themselves. They have to help each other through these problems, grow and adapt in order to know what they are capable of. They have to 'polish the mirror' just to reveal to themselves that they can, otherwise they’ll never know the extent of G-d's blessing. And if they do not know the extent of the blessing, then they cannot reveal the extent of G-d’s greatness. The all knowing all powerful needed you to suffer and overcome, and one day you will overcome, whether it be this round or the next, because G-d only makes perfect things.   

*The story in Christian mythology says that the angel of light pleaded with G-d that humans were unworthy and would inevitably disappoint, in his love of G-d the devil tries to prove it. In that story G-d says that the angel is wrong, that he has faith in humans.