I knew something was wrong with my body when I was twelve and starting bleeding. I told my mother once shortly after that I didn't want to be a girl, if that's what being a girl was. I never got used the idea, even today, many many many moons later. When I was 15 I dated Robert. He was a sweet enough guy, we worked together, but every time he'd try to kiss me, I'd flip out. I liked him, I liked him a lot, I just didn't want to kiss him. When I was a junior in high school, Nate announced to everyone in homeroom that anyone who wore yellow sweatshirts was gay - and not in the 'that's so gay' sense. At 17, I fell in love with my best friend, Kate. I told the librarian of my school that I wanted to cut myself to death because I couldn't take everything going on at school and everything in my head anymore.
This whole time, I maintained, even to myself, that I was straight and cis, even though I had no idea the concept of what cis/trans was.
After I successfully fought for my school to be allowed to partake in the Day of Silence protest, we were told that the fliers we wanted to distribute needed to make no mention to transgender or transsexual, because God had created us in his image, and we might have girls liking girls, and that was fine, but girls who wanted to change their parts and be boys were abominating their God-given bodies. Even as an atheist, I readily agreed.
I was teased mercilessly in high school, and some of it was attacks on my sexuality, which are cheap, and easy to make, and shouldn't have hurt as much as they did. I mean, I wasn't gay, so why would it hurt so much, right? I denied the concept to everyone else, and ran away from it myself, but I still threw out my favourite yellow sweatshirt and tried, desperately, to find a guy at my school to go out with. Falling in love with Kate, well, that didn't really help matters much. There was an explosion in my head of everything I wanted, everything I denied I was, and everything I didn't have.
I never felt emotionally safe enough to confront anything that had been rattling in my head in since the age of 12. My mother told me they made pills that would help make the bleeding stop, but that it would all be worth it when I had children of my own. The thought was anathema to me. Why the hell would I want anything growing inside of me, and then ... pop it out? It didn't make any sense, and it didn't make being a girl any easier - it wasn't exactly comforting words. Shiraz had been shoved out of the school for being gay - he was outed at a birthday party in front of more than a few of our classmates. The subsequent lack of support from his friends and school system left him to leave. I didn't want to be like Shiraz, I still hadn't even defined my own sexuality and gender, but I wanted my classmates to know what they had done was wrong on a basic, human level. For that I was told I must be gay, because no man would ever take me, but maybe a really ugly woman would. These kids weren't exactly full of originality. But standing up for someone clearly meant I was in the same boat as they were, so why didn't I just go find some bitch to go rub against?
The words weren't true - I wasn't gay, I did like boys, I wanted to have sex - all driving points I went home and told myself after I fought with my mother and went to sob upstairs. I couldn't figure out why it hurt so much. Until Kate. And then, rather than having everything suddenly make sense, it suddenly all made so much less sense. Because now I really did like Kate. And really wanted things to happen with Kate - but there was still a part of me that thought being gay was perfectly fine as long as it happened to other people. That was the lesson my parents taught me.
So I ran. From myself, from my sexuality, from any exploration of gender. I ran and ran and ran and didn't stop until I happened upon a particular part of the internet and a community that accepted everyone. At first, I stood on the edges, calling myself a straight-ally, until I figured out that it was okay to say 'hey, I don't know'. So I called myself asexual, and decided I wasn't going to do anything, with anyone, ever again. Having to testify against an ex-boyfriend and a separate rape helped fuel that idea. But with a lot of time and a lot of struggle, I learned to look at the pieces of myself and figure out which whole they made up.
Now? Now I'm genderqueer and don't care and if you don't like it, you can leave.
Showing posts with label rambling thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rambling thoughts. Show all posts
23 August 2010
echoes into the silence
trigger warning: rape
75% of all the rape cases worldwide that MSF deals with come from Eastern Congo. An entire generation has been irrevocably damaged. And there is silence. There is a cold haunting silence that the screams of an entire population cannot penetrate.
Sometimes being a political organiser gets to me. Sometimes I have to remind myself why I do this. Because sometimes it all seems so petty, talking to a voter about taxes and who we should raise them on. Sometimes I wish I could go to Africa and see what I see and then type until my fingers bled, trying to get someone to see with me. Because when the response I get here to the above statistic is 'doesn't surprise me' with a casual shrug of the shoulders, that's a problem. And it's not that the stat is surprising - it's the attitude behind it. Then again, if rape in the US is an accepted culture all its own, then perhaps the response shouldn't have been surprising. Perhaps the real surprise should be 'why is rape culture still an acceptable culture in the US'? No wonder it's so easy to wrapped up about Sudan and people dying, but rape is rape, and hey, if a woman in the US 'asks for it' by the clothing she wears, or the places she visits, or the men she looks at, then why should we talk about why women and girls in the Congo are being raped by the thousands? Because that's the real problem. We don't TALK about it.
It's a forbidden, taboo topic that we can't talk about, ever, except to quote stats about it. 1 in 3 college women, 1 in 4 women across the US in their lifetimes. We can't talk about it, so no-one ever corrects the myths about who does the raping and how they rape. We can’t handle rape as a culture so we put the blame where it’s easiest – on the woman who actually dared to speak out. We have to make it easier. We have to trust women more. But talking? And getting some things straight? That’s just as important.
There were two surveys* done of populations of men, asking them if they’d raped. In the first one, 6% of men admitted raping. That’s not the scary part. The scary part is that of that 6%, of the men who had raped more than once, the average number of rapes was nearly 6. SIX. That’s a ridiculously high recidivism rate. In this survey it breaks down to 4% of the men committing 28% of the rapes. In the second survey, 13% of men admitted raping. The average number of rapes was just over 6. AGAIN. SIX. In this survey, it breaks down to 8.4% of the men committing 95% of the rapes.
That is scary, but not in and of itself the most shocking part. No, that comes with "The stereotypical rape incident characterized by a man violently attacking a stranger was not reported by any of the respondents". But SOMEHOW, and this is where I get mad, SOMEHOW rape is only to be ‘believed’ if a woman is dragged from her car, screaming by some unknown man in a mask. Don't get me wrong: I AM SURE THIS DOES HAPPEN. But the fact that a woman who is date-raped faces her peers siding with 'the good guy who was just confused' infuriates me. I've been there and I can't get over how quickly friends of mine bought into the rape-myth. That because Timothy seemed like a good guy and we knew each other and people had seen us that night. So clearly he couldn’t have raped me. I wish I were making that up. I have written about rape. And again. And again. And too many other places to mention. And I still cannot even come close to comprehending our rape culture.
I really didn't mean to make this post about US and rape culture. I wanted to have it be about Africa and the women who live in its heart who live in darkness night after night after night. Who have nothing and no relief. But I cannot write about them without writing about us as well. We abandon our own women day after day after day and make it damn near impossible for her to be taken seriously about being raped. We strip away any of her innocence because it’s the only way we've figured out how to live with the realisation that we KNOW these men, so we need to justify knowing them. That is what we do to our women.
And what do we do to the women of Africa who are not 1 in 3 but every single one of them over and over and over again? What do we do to the generations that will be shattered by this, tortured by this hollowing of thousands upon thousands of souls? What do we do? We define ourselves by our silence. We don't talk about our own culture and our own women and we don't talk about the women buried by a face of war and rape and war crimes. We fill the silence with jokes and assumptions and myths and accusations. And we ignore the underlying helplessness. We ignore any cry thrown into the silence because we might recognise the sound of her voice.
I wish I could put the helplessness I feel into proper words. I wish I could mention the outrage in some other way. I wish talking to the silence got me back something other than an echo.
75% of all the rape cases worldwide that MSF deals with come from Eastern Congo. An entire generation has been irrevocably damaged. And there is silence. There is a cold haunting silence that the screams of an entire population cannot penetrate.
Sometimes being a political organiser gets to me. Sometimes I have to remind myself why I do this. Because sometimes it all seems so petty, talking to a voter about taxes and who we should raise them on. Sometimes I wish I could go to Africa and see what I see and then type until my fingers bled, trying to get someone to see with me. Because when the response I get here to the above statistic is 'doesn't surprise me' with a casual shrug of the shoulders, that's a problem. And it's not that the stat is surprising - it's the attitude behind it. Then again, if rape in the US is an accepted culture all its own, then perhaps the response shouldn't have been surprising. Perhaps the real surprise should be 'why is rape culture still an acceptable culture in the US'? No wonder it's so easy to wrapped up about Sudan and people dying, but rape is rape, and hey, if a woman in the US 'asks for it' by the clothing she wears, or the places she visits, or the men she looks at, then why should we talk about why women and girls in the Congo are being raped by the thousands? Because that's the real problem. We don't TALK about it.
It's a forbidden, taboo topic that we can't talk about, ever, except to quote stats about it. 1 in 3 college women, 1 in 4 women across the US in their lifetimes. We can't talk about it, so no-one ever corrects the myths about who does the raping and how they rape. We can’t handle rape as a culture so we put the blame where it’s easiest – on the woman who actually dared to speak out. We have to make it easier. We have to trust women more. But talking? And getting some things straight? That’s just as important.
There were two surveys* done of populations of men, asking them if they’d raped. In the first one, 6% of men admitted raping. That’s not the scary part. The scary part is that of that 6%, of the men who had raped more than once, the average number of rapes was nearly 6. SIX. That’s a ridiculously high recidivism rate. In this survey it breaks down to 4% of the men committing 28% of the rapes. In the second survey, 13% of men admitted raping. The average number of rapes was just over 6. AGAIN. SIX. In this survey, it breaks down to 8.4% of the men committing 95% of the rapes.
That is scary, but not in and of itself the most shocking part. No, that comes with "The stereotypical rape incident characterized by a man violently attacking a stranger was not reported by any of the respondents". But SOMEHOW, and this is where I get mad, SOMEHOW rape is only to be ‘believed’ if a woman is dragged from her car, screaming by some unknown man in a mask. Don't get me wrong: I AM SURE THIS DOES HAPPEN. But the fact that a woman who is date-raped faces her peers siding with 'the good guy who was just confused' infuriates me. I've been there and I can't get over how quickly friends of mine bought into the rape-myth. That because Timothy seemed like a good guy and we knew each other and people had seen us that night. So clearly he couldn’t have raped me. I wish I were making that up. I have written about rape. And again. And again. And too many other places to mention. And I still cannot even come close to comprehending our rape culture.
I really didn't mean to make this post about US and rape culture. I wanted to have it be about Africa and the women who live in its heart who live in darkness night after night after night. Who have nothing and no relief. But I cannot write about them without writing about us as well. We abandon our own women day after day after day and make it damn near impossible for her to be taken seriously about being raped. We strip away any of her innocence because it’s the only way we've figured out how to live with the realisation that we KNOW these men, so we need to justify knowing them. That is what we do to our women.
And what do we do to the women of Africa who are not 1 in 3 but every single one of them over and over and over again? What do we do to the generations that will be shattered by this, tortured by this hollowing of thousands upon thousands of souls? What do we do? We define ourselves by our silence. We don't talk about our own culture and our own women and we don't talk about the women buried by a face of war and rape and war crimes. We fill the silence with jokes and assumptions and myths and accusations. And we ignore the underlying helplessness. We ignore any cry thrown into the silence because we might recognise the sound of her voice.
I wish I could put the helplessness I feel into proper words. I wish I could mention the outrage in some other way. I wish talking to the silence got me back something other than an echo.
25 February 2010
I want you to understand ...
I want political campaigns to understand that my sexual and gender identities are not the sole source of my identity and certainly not the sole source of my backing of a political canditate. So, yes, your canditate might be phenomenal on trans* issues, when none of the other canditates really have much of anything at all to say, but if you canditate doesn't have much to say about the health care issue other than the slogan 'medicare for all', then I start to get suspicious. When I try to discuss with you how what's really needed is a comprehensive overhaul of the way that medicine is practiced in this country, and you hurry up and get off the phone with me, I'm not going to back your candidate. Period. I don't care how fabulous he is on trans* issues, I trust some of the other candidates to rise to the occassion when given a chance.
I want political volunteers to understand what when you think touting glbT issues should be the main point of our conversation, when I've already moved past ... I'm not going to vote for you candidate. I'm not a single issues voter. I never have been. I'm not about to start now. I'm not about to take everything else that defines me and toss it to the wayside for one thing about me. Is it important? Yes, it's very important. It's why I stopped voting Republican, right after they told me I wasn't a real person. I'm not going to get into the delicacies of what is/isn't a trans*American, except to say that yes, I see myself myself in that group, and yes, Rien IS my name, even if it's not legally so, and yes, I like zie/hir when describing me, but if you absolutely have to gender me, most of the time I prefer male genderisms. But that's not the point.
The point is, I also care about schools. I care about health care a lot more than that. Gay marriage doesn't really apply to me right now. Yes, I'd love for everyone to get married, but I'd also like there to be discussion on genderqueer and trans*Americans and how they matter too. And how the 14th Amendment just as equally applies to them as anyone else. Religion and personal squicks should not come into the discussion. If you defend free speech, you should be defending trans* rights.
I want campaigns (a very specific one) to understand that Medicare For All is a great slogan, but what about the fact that I was under my father's private insurance, but it just stopped at the St. Croix river because of arbitrary boundary lines? Why can't we discuss erradicating those lines and make insurance provide full coverage across the United States? Why can't we discuss tort reform? How doctors are billed? How patients are seen? Why if you go to Abbott Hospital with psychiatric issues you can wait up to 12 hours for a bed? Why aren't we discussing the personal stories, ways in which people have gotten screwed? Why can't we discuss the silent majority, the ones who have too high of premiums, but haven't had a medical tragedy yet? And ... how are we going to pay for it? Let's dicuss how to pay for these changes your canditate wants to make.
Let's discuss schools too - especially here in MN. Let's discuss national graduation rates versus MN graduation rates. Let's discuss funding for higher education - let's discuss the way that the future of America are consistently getting screwed by student loans. Let's discuss the economy and deficits and why why cutting GAMC is bad, and what to do about it instead.
Let's not assume, when I answer the phone and tell you that I am Rien and that I prefer sir, that GLBT is the core of my political existence.
I want everyone - and not just political campaigns - to understand being genderqueer and trans* is who I am. But there's so much more to me than that.
I want political volunteers to understand what when you think touting glbT issues should be the main point of our conversation, when I've already moved past ... I'm not going to vote for you candidate. I'm not a single issues voter. I never have been. I'm not about to start now. I'm not about to take everything else that defines me and toss it to the wayside for one thing about me. Is it important? Yes, it's very important. It's why I stopped voting Republican, right after they told me I wasn't a real person. I'm not going to get into the delicacies of what is/isn't a trans*American, except to say that yes, I see myself myself in that group, and yes, Rien IS my name, even if it's not legally so, and yes, I like zie/hir when describing me, but if you absolutely have to gender me, most of the time I prefer male genderisms. But that's not the point.
The point is, I also care about schools. I care about health care a lot more than that. Gay marriage doesn't really apply to me right now. Yes, I'd love for everyone to get married, but I'd also like there to be discussion on genderqueer and trans*Americans and how they matter too. And how the 14th Amendment just as equally applies to them as anyone else. Religion and personal squicks should not come into the discussion. If you defend free speech, you should be defending trans* rights.
I want campaigns (a very specific one) to understand that Medicare For All is a great slogan, but what about the fact that I was under my father's private insurance, but it just stopped at the St. Croix river because of arbitrary boundary lines? Why can't we discuss erradicating those lines and make insurance provide full coverage across the United States? Why can't we discuss tort reform? How doctors are billed? How patients are seen? Why if you go to Abbott Hospital with psychiatric issues you can wait up to 12 hours for a bed? Why aren't we discussing the personal stories, ways in which people have gotten screwed? Why can't we discuss the silent majority, the ones who have too high of premiums, but haven't had a medical tragedy yet? And ... how are we going to pay for it? Let's dicuss how to pay for these changes your canditate wants to make.
Let's discuss schools too - especially here in MN. Let's discuss national graduation rates versus MN graduation rates. Let's discuss funding for higher education - let's discuss the way that the future of America are consistently getting screwed by student loans. Let's discuss the economy and deficits and why why cutting GAMC is bad, and what to do about it instead.
Let's not assume, when I answer the phone and tell you that I am Rien and that I prefer sir, that GLBT is the core of my political existence.
I want everyone - and not just political campaigns - to understand being genderqueer and trans* is who I am. But there's so much more to me than that.
15 February 2010
rape and blame (again. and again. and again.)
trigger warning: rape
Must we go over this again? Must we? Dear humanity, you fucking suck. No love, me.
Let's break it down, as it were.
"A majority of women believe some rape victims should take responsibility for what happened"
I just ... what? WHAT? WHAT THE EVERLOVINGFUCK?
Let me tell you something. It is NEVER a woman's fault when someone else lays claim to her body. EVER. Does not matter how drunk she is, what she was wearing, what she said two hours ago. NO IS NO. Period. No-one has the right to her body, and we shouldn't be okay with the fact that we live in a society that clearly seems to perpetuate this idea that there are times when a woman doesn't have a right to her own body, that victim blaming is okay, that women are somehow 'at fault' for their rapes.
I'm too tired, and too angry, and too sick of dealing with this to offer up my rapes again. I can't emotionally do it again, break them down, spit out all the pieces for the world to see. I just can't do it. But I've struggled over and over again with the idea that it wasn't my fault, that I didn't deserve it, and that no-one but me has the right to my body and what happens to it. This? This makes it harder. A majority of women in the UK, according to that survey, would blame me, in some part, for what happened.
I'm not going to sit here and defend those nights and my choices in them. Because you know what? IT WASN'T MY FAULT, NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT. I didn't consent and there is where it all ends. I didn't consent, game over. Period. End of conversation. There's no bloody fucking need to dig down and analyse what I was wearing, or what I said, or how I fucking existed inside of a space at any given time. Because to do that is to suggest that there exist circumstances in which I forfeit my body. And I refuse to accept that. Absolutely refuse to accept that. No matter what, I still retain the rights to my body.
There is no 'responsibility' to be had on me. Let's do this society, and a future society all a favour and start placing the blame SOLELY where it belongs. And that's on the men who did this to me, the men who do this, the perpetrators, and not the women. Not the ones who have had something stolen from them, but the stealers. I won't get into what was taken. I won't get into the devastation of my soul, the way I don't get to be made whole again. I won't, because I've done that, and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of defending myself. I'm sick of the fact that it's with people that I love, and yes, some of them are women. I'm sick of constantly living in a world where it is my fault. BECAUSE IT'S NOT AND IT NEVER WAS! [Maybe if I scream it loud enough, people will wake the fuck up.]
I'm sick and sick and sick and sick. And the saddest part? I don't know how to change a thing. I don't know how to make the world see that someone who doesn't consent isn't at fault. I don't know how to end the cycle of victim blaming. I don't know how to stop men and women from perpetuating that how a woman dresses or acts is groundwork for what might happen to her. I'm sick of thanking men for acting like decent human beings, because to do so is to increase their power over me. I'm sick of how defining this is, of how it doesn't go away. I'm sick of all the little times I feel guilted into thinking something must have been my fault. I'm sick of screaming IT'S NOT MY FAULT, because that should be a given.
I don't even know what to say anymore, I don't know how to start. I don't know how to say Lara took Timothy's 'side' and my mother just blamed me without seeing red and wanting to punch walls and throw up. I don't know how to tell of how many people yelled at me after the rape at 18 to go to the police. And the number who blamed me, somehow, for being a scared 18 year old, who didn't go to the police, who kept it hidden for two years. I don't know how to fully understand the fact that there is no justice for that. Because there wasn't, and even with Timothy there wasn't justice, not really.
And every day that a woman thinks that I need to bear some responsibility for what happened is a day that justice continues to cease to exist. It's so terribly unfair, over and over and over again.
crossposted in as many places as I fucking feel like putting it
Must we go over this again? Must we? Dear humanity, you fucking suck. No love, me.
Let's break it down, as it were.
"A majority of women believe some rape victims should take responsibility for what happened"
I just ... what? WHAT? WHAT THE EVERLOVINGFUCK?
Let me tell you something. It is NEVER a woman's fault when someone else lays claim to her body. EVER. Does not matter how drunk she is, what she was wearing, what she said two hours ago. NO IS NO. Period. No-one has the right to her body, and we shouldn't be okay with the fact that we live in a society that clearly seems to perpetuate this idea that there are times when a woman doesn't have a right to her own body, that victim blaming is okay, that women are somehow 'at fault' for their rapes.
I'm too tired, and too angry, and too sick of dealing with this to offer up my rapes again. I can't emotionally do it again, break them down, spit out all the pieces for the world to see. I just can't do it. But I've struggled over and over again with the idea that it wasn't my fault, that I didn't deserve it, and that no-one but me has the right to my body and what happens to it. This? This makes it harder. A majority of women in the UK, according to that survey, would blame me, in some part, for what happened.
I'm not going to sit here and defend those nights and my choices in them. Because you know what? IT WASN'T MY FAULT, NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT. I didn't consent and there is where it all ends. I didn't consent, game over. Period. End of conversation. There's no bloody fucking need to dig down and analyse what I was wearing, or what I said, or how I fucking existed inside of a space at any given time. Because to do that is to suggest that there exist circumstances in which I forfeit my body. And I refuse to accept that. Absolutely refuse to accept that. No matter what, I still retain the rights to my body.
There is no 'responsibility' to be had on me. Let's do this society, and a future society all a favour and start placing the blame SOLELY where it belongs. And that's on the men who did this to me, the men who do this, the perpetrators, and not the women. Not the ones who have had something stolen from them, but the stealers. I won't get into what was taken. I won't get into the devastation of my soul, the way I don't get to be made whole again. I won't, because I've done that, and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of defending myself. I'm sick of the fact that it's with people that I love, and yes, some of them are women. I'm sick of constantly living in a world where it is my fault. BECAUSE IT'S NOT AND IT NEVER WAS! [Maybe if I scream it loud enough, people will wake the fuck up.]
I'm sick and sick and sick and sick. And the saddest part? I don't know how to change a thing. I don't know how to make the world see that someone who doesn't consent isn't at fault. I don't know how to end the cycle of victim blaming. I don't know how to stop men and women from perpetuating that how a woman dresses or acts is groundwork for what might happen to her. I'm sick of thanking men for acting like decent human beings, because to do so is to increase their power over me. I'm sick of how defining this is, of how it doesn't go away. I'm sick of all the little times I feel guilted into thinking something must have been my fault. I'm sick of screaming IT'S NOT MY FAULT, because that should be a given.
I don't even know what to say anymore, I don't know how to start. I don't know how to say Lara took Timothy's 'side' and my mother just blamed me without seeing red and wanting to punch walls and throw up. I don't know how to tell of how many people yelled at me after the rape at 18 to go to the police. And the number who blamed me, somehow, for being a scared 18 year old, who didn't go to the police, who kept it hidden for two years. I don't know how to fully understand the fact that there is no justice for that. Because there wasn't, and even with Timothy there wasn't justice, not really.
And every day that a woman thinks that I need to bear some responsibility for what happened is a day that justice continues to cease to exist. It's so terribly unfair, over and over and over again.
crossposted in as many places as I fucking feel like putting it
05 February 2010
disjointed. and visceral gets used twice.
There are little pieces, and there are big movements and moments. And there's everything in the middle, all the stories untold, puzzles never finished. It's how we build identity, of both who we are and who we want to be. Like the way I know my mother really does care, even on some selfish level, about what happens to her grandmother, despite her assurances that she isn't upset about it. Like the way my uncle is deeply angry about what happened to his sister. Like the instances I let myself cry. There are little defining moments built into the massive movements; Tucked underneath a death, a wedding, and a tragedy are the caring, the anger, the crying.
I really need to work on that piece of non-fiction I wrote five years ago about the night my grandfather died. I was nine years old, and I didn't know him very well- he was old and too sick by the time I was old enough to want to know him. But I still sobbed and sobbed and sobbed when I heard he was going to die. I can remember looking out the window and seeing our reflections (my father was holding me as I sobbed) and seeing red – one of us was wearing it – and just crying my heart out. What does that little piece say? Today, I don't get worked up over his death, but sometimes, when I think hard enough about Bill's, I do. I never imagined a decade and half later that it would still be so visceral. William Francis. Born 1 Feb 1945. He died of a heart attack in the summer of 1995. That death, the death of an uncle that I considered my favourite person in the world, hurt. I didn't cry when I was told. I didn't cry until the funeral, and even then, I did it without provocation, when the priest was giving a prayer.
Those are the little moments.
I cry at death, and at senseless tragedy. I consider the most defining moment for my generation to be Columbine and not, as many wish every generation needing a moment would have, the 9/11 attacks. Columbine was guns at schools and we were all kids. We were so little. Perhaps this is clouded by what came after, of the memorial service my school held for the victims. Everyone then knew I wrote poetry, and I think they all expected me to write something that would be picked for this. Columbine, friend of mine. I didn't write it, but it was my poem, and the poem of my classmates, and the children across the country; it was our mantra, it threaded us together into one group. Unified, but only we could belong to that unity. We were all shocked and mourning, and Columbine belonged to all of us. 9/11 was the Pentagon, and fields, and the twin towers. It was away from us, on the East coast. It was visceral, yes, but it wasn't the slaughter of us, by us. It wasn't kids killing kids, it was a collective across the country, it belonged to the entire nation, and thus could never define us.
Four little words. A big moment full of little moments. Pieces of character we only reveal when we think no-one's watching. It's better than the lies we tell ourselves when we think no-one is watching.
I really need to work on that piece of non-fiction I wrote five years ago about the night my grandfather died. I was nine years old, and I didn't know him very well- he was old and too sick by the time I was old enough to want to know him. But I still sobbed and sobbed and sobbed when I heard he was going to die. I can remember looking out the window and seeing our reflections (my father was holding me as I sobbed) and seeing red – one of us was wearing it – and just crying my heart out. What does that little piece say? Today, I don't get worked up over his death, but sometimes, when I think hard enough about Bill's, I do. I never imagined a decade and half later that it would still be so visceral. William Francis. Born 1 Feb 1945. He died of a heart attack in the summer of 1995. That death, the death of an uncle that I considered my favourite person in the world, hurt. I didn't cry when I was told. I didn't cry until the funeral, and even then, I did it without provocation, when the priest was giving a prayer.
Those are the little moments.
I cry at death, and at senseless tragedy. I consider the most defining moment for my generation to be Columbine and not, as many wish every generation needing a moment would have, the 9/11 attacks. Columbine was guns at schools and we were all kids. We were so little. Perhaps this is clouded by what came after, of the memorial service my school held for the victims. Everyone then knew I wrote poetry, and I think they all expected me to write something that would be picked for this. Columbine, friend of mine. I didn't write it, but it was my poem, and the poem of my classmates, and the children across the country; it was our mantra, it threaded us together into one group. Unified, but only we could belong to that unity. We were all shocked and mourning, and Columbine belonged to all of us. 9/11 was the Pentagon, and fields, and the twin towers. It was away from us, on the East coast. It was visceral, yes, but it wasn't the slaughter of us, by us. It wasn't kids killing kids, it was a collective across the country, it belonged to the entire nation, and thus could never define us.
Four little words. A big moment full of little moments. Pieces of character we only reveal when we think no-one's watching. It's better than the lies we tell ourselves when we think no-one is watching.
28 December 2009
identity crisis
trigger warning: suicide
There are words, dancing and slipping and twirling in my head. And they don't come out. They stay there, time and time again. Whether it is emails to Liv, or the Christmas card for Ben, or the letters to Jay, or the rainbows- the dancing glittering rainbows that don't really require words, but contain them anyway- for Cassie.
And then they are gone, and I try to recreate them, and I cannot.
Sometimes they are stories that will never get told and exist in something that was once my memory, but is now worse than Limbo, for it doesn't exist at all. Some of them are stories of my life, and some of them are just stories. And none of them exist any more.
I can feel the jumble of 26 characters drifting away, the passion, the love ebbing down and away, and it's not like the tide because I cannot feel it coming back at all. There is no nipping in the middle of the night of words that get pressed to paper, or pixels to screen. They stay, circling in my head until they are gone.
I am losing my words and I do not know how to find them.
If you asked me six months ago, I would have killed myself and left no words why. And now, now I don't want to die, but still there are no words. There is nothing like comfort, yet there is so much to say. There is the blank screen, and the empty page, and the pens scattered across the room, and a blinking cursor.
I have written my whole life- it is what I am and who I am. I wrote them when I was broken and they were a comfort. I called out to the empty universe and sometimes it wrote back. And now? Now am I not quite so broken in that same way, but the words have gone with the broken. It's a different sort of broken, and I don't know how to fix it.
I am losing my words and I do not know how to get them back.
Once, I thought if I only stopped taking the pills, maybe I would be terribly miserable and depressed, but I could have my words. It wasn't to be. I stopped cold turkey and had vertigo and headshocks and dug up that old razor blade that I sneaked back out of Liv's room after he took it from me. And it was then, when I had rivers of red and I realised what I was doing to myself, I went back on the pills, and the vertigo stopped, and my head stopped shocking, and I lost the desire to dance lines across my skin in some attempt to feel, to breathe, to love, to create. I always said I would trade anything to get my words back if I lost them. But not this. Turns out there was too high a price to pay- who knew?
And the words stayed dancing and twirling and skipping and slipping in my head. Nothing came to pass.
Maybe this is growing up. Maybe the fact that I've been far better at getting out and DOING things is the point.
I think of Andy and of Garrett and of standing up and using action, and it's wonderful, and a rush, but then I think 'wouldn't it be nice if all the words in my head could join it?' and they never can. And maybe that's growing up, and maybe that's how it's supposed to go. I don't know.
I use/d words as my escape, as my outlet, as my screaming at an unfair world. I took all the unfairness of Timothy's assault and made them beautiful words, dancing a story of two unlikely male lovers across the pages. They, those two fictional men that Jay got me to fall in love with, got me through the worst of it- they kept my sanity. And in high school, when I thought I couldn't bear to live any more, the words skittered across the pages in some sort of cliched, tragic, suburbian poetry that Jason could probably recognise if he saw it. But they kept my sanity.
Now, now something else doesn't keep my sanity- it regulates it so I don't feel as if I am losing it. There is nothing to calm from, there is nothing to keep, for I already have kept it, if that makes any sense at all.
My words have defined me for so long, and now I activist around the place, and I volunteer for politics and believe that my actions make a difference. My words saved me, but my actions are bigger than me. And maybe that's how it's supposed to be, phone calls to people sick of politics, trying to get them to care [oh, how I love the crotchety people- they make this humanity seem real. It's what my words used to do], or protests, or actions, or organising groups of people in a united effort. Maybe it's trying to end a war, or speaking out about why 17-year old girls are NOT like Hitler, not even a little bit. Maybe that's what this is, this life, and that's how this is supposed to go.
So words, whatever you were, and whatever you are, and whatever you will be. Maybe this is goodbye, and maybe this isn't.
Maybe I am just lonely and missing people and missing actions and phone calls and ending wars and tagboard with handwritten signs. Maybe I am missing them instead of words and they are the pieces of my identity now. I don't know.
And you know what?
There's something terrifying, yet brilliant about that.
There are words, dancing and slipping and twirling in my head. And they don't come out. They stay there, time and time again. Whether it is emails to Liv, or the Christmas card for Ben, or the letters to Jay, or the rainbows- the dancing glittering rainbows that don't really require words, but contain them anyway- for Cassie.
And then they are gone, and I try to recreate them, and I cannot.
Sometimes they are stories that will never get told and exist in something that was once my memory, but is now worse than Limbo, for it doesn't exist at all. Some of them are stories of my life, and some of them are just stories. And none of them exist any more.
I can feel the jumble of 26 characters drifting away, the passion, the love ebbing down and away, and it's not like the tide because I cannot feel it coming back at all. There is no nipping in the middle of the night of words that get pressed to paper, or pixels to screen. They stay, circling in my head until they are gone.
I am losing my words and I do not know how to find them.
If you asked me six months ago, I would have killed myself and left no words why. And now, now I don't want to die, but still there are no words. There is nothing like comfort, yet there is so much to say. There is the blank screen, and the empty page, and the pens scattered across the room, and a blinking cursor.
I have written my whole life- it is what I am and who I am. I wrote them when I was broken and they were a comfort. I called out to the empty universe and sometimes it wrote back. And now? Now am I not quite so broken in that same way, but the words have gone with the broken. It's a different sort of broken, and I don't know how to fix it.
I am losing my words and I do not know how to get them back.
Once, I thought if I only stopped taking the pills, maybe I would be terribly miserable and depressed, but I could have my words. It wasn't to be. I stopped cold turkey and had vertigo and headshocks and dug up that old razor blade that I sneaked back out of Liv's room after he took it from me. And it was then, when I had rivers of red and I realised what I was doing to myself, I went back on the pills, and the vertigo stopped, and my head stopped shocking, and I lost the desire to dance lines across my skin in some attempt to feel, to breathe, to love, to create. I always said I would trade anything to get my words back if I lost them. But not this. Turns out there was too high a price to pay- who knew?
And the words stayed dancing and twirling and skipping and slipping in my head. Nothing came to pass.
Maybe this is growing up. Maybe the fact that I've been far better at getting out and DOING things is the point.
I think of Andy and of Garrett and of standing up and using action, and it's wonderful, and a rush, but then I think 'wouldn't it be nice if all the words in my head could join it?' and they never can. And maybe that's growing up, and maybe that's how it's supposed to go. I don't know.
I use/d words as my escape, as my outlet, as my screaming at an unfair world. I took all the unfairness of Timothy's assault and made them beautiful words, dancing a story of two unlikely male lovers across the pages. They, those two fictional men that Jay got me to fall in love with, got me through the worst of it- they kept my sanity. And in high school, when I thought I couldn't bear to live any more, the words skittered across the pages in some sort of cliched, tragic, suburbian poetry that Jason could probably recognise if he saw it. But they kept my sanity.
Now, now something else doesn't keep my sanity- it regulates it so I don't feel as if I am losing it. There is nothing to calm from, there is nothing to keep, for I already have kept it, if that makes any sense at all.
My words have defined me for so long, and now I activist around the place, and I volunteer for politics and believe that my actions make a difference. My words saved me, but my actions are bigger than me. And maybe that's how it's supposed to be, phone calls to people sick of politics, trying to get them to care [oh, how I love the crotchety people- they make this humanity seem real. It's what my words used to do], or protests, or actions, or organising groups of people in a united effort. Maybe it's trying to end a war, or speaking out about why 17-year old girls are NOT like Hitler, not even a little bit. Maybe that's what this is, this life, and that's how this is supposed to go.
So words, whatever you were, and whatever you are, and whatever you will be. Maybe this is goodbye, and maybe this isn't.
Maybe I am just lonely and missing people and missing actions and phone calls and ending wars and tagboard with handwritten signs. Maybe I am missing them instead of words and they are the pieces of my identity now. I don't know.
And you know what?
There's something terrifying, yet brilliant about that.
19 October 2009
Laughter is so healing.
I love laughter. I love how good it feels to laugh. I love how infectious it is. I love that people who laugh are happy. I love how pure, and simple, and beautiful it is. Not laughter at a television show, or a funny joke, but pure, happiness. That sort of laughter. I love that you can laugh about nothing, about everything, about life and the simple moments. About tiny pieces of humanity that are, in that moment, whole.
I never thought I'd be saying this Saturday night. Saturday night when I curled up and sobbed and wondered why I didn't have anything to help me fall asleep.
I think I dwell too much, sometimes, on what happened; it's so easy to have happen, and then I'm back there and it's real all over again. Sometimes it's incredibly way too easy to get so lost. And Saturday night, I was lost. I was so lost. And I hadn't slept, and I didn't know how to make it from point A to point B, I didn't even know where points A and B were. And so I did what I usually do, and pretended that it was all okay, and that there was nothing wrong, and that I was fine. And usually, that works. [The nights, like Saturday night, and right now, that I sleep on the couch, I think it doesn't work so well, and my room-mates can totally tell and are judging me for it- hey- it's not paranoia if they're really after you.] Usually, I do something like bake, or go shopping, or get out of the damned house and go to a party and drink away.
But something was different about Sunday. I asked a room-mate to 'hang-out' with me [and he, darling that he is, agreed even after we both acknowledged that we fail utterly at the concept of 'hanging out']. And I don't know how to explain it ... but I found the ability to laugh. To really laugh. To get go and stop thinking so much. And it was beautiful. I'm not sure if my room-mate wants to take credit, but if he does, it's all his [And the Recount Story of the Day™ posts with comments from the Kare11 boards. Oh, the goddamn insanity of that election]. I could go on about how surprised I was that it was a him, given the anniversaries and circumstances, but maybe ... maybe that's how it was supposed to happen. I'm not a karmic person. I don't believe in fate. But I do know that if I don't open up and trust, even on tiny friendship levels, I'll never be able to do it- I'll always be walled off. I had another friend send me a really moving, wonderful email after my room-mate went to bed- after I'd sent him a really emotionally email on Saturday night. And it was so relieving to read it, and maybe that's because of the healing laughter with my room-mate from earlier.
But it was love and happy and some degree of peace- and trust. All in tiny steps.
And as long as I've got that love, that trust in tiny steps, and as long as I have healing laughter, I think I'll be okay. I think I'll be able to get through the rest of today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.
I never thought I'd be saying this Saturday night. Saturday night when I curled up and sobbed and wondered why I didn't have anything to help me fall asleep.
I think I dwell too much, sometimes, on what happened; it's so easy to have happen, and then I'm back there and it's real all over again. Sometimes it's incredibly way too easy to get so lost. And Saturday night, I was lost. I was so lost. And I hadn't slept, and I didn't know how to make it from point A to point B, I didn't even know where points A and B were. And so I did what I usually do, and pretended that it was all okay, and that there was nothing wrong, and that I was fine. And usually, that works. [The nights, like Saturday night, and right now, that I sleep on the couch, I think it doesn't work so well, and my room-mates can totally tell and are judging me for it- hey- it's not paranoia if they're really after you.] Usually, I do something like bake, or go shopping, or get out of the damned house and go to a party and drink away.
But something was different about Sunday. I asked a room-mate to 'hang-out' with me [and he, darling that he is, agreed even after we both acknowledged that we fail utterly at the concept of 'hanging out']. And I don't know how to explain it ... but I found the ability to laugh. To really laugh. To get go and stop thinking so much. And it was beautiful. I'm not sure if my room-mate wants to take credit, but if he does, it's all his [And the Recount Story of the Day™ posts with comments from the Kare11 boards. Oh, the goddamn insanity of that election]. I could go on about how surprised I was that it was a him, given the anniversaries and circumstances, but maybe ... maybe that's how it was supposed to happen. I'm not a karmic person. I don't believe in fate. But I do know that if I don't open up and trust, even on tiny friendship levels, I'll never be able to do it- I'll always be walled off. I had another friend send me a really moving, wonderful email after my room-mate went to bed- after I'd sent him a really emotionally email on Saturday night. And it was so relieving to read it, and maybe that's because of the healing laughter with my room-mate from earlier.
But it was love and happy and some degree of peace- and trust. All in tiny steps.
And as long as I've got that love, that trust in tiny steps, and as long as I have healing laughter, I think I'll be okay. I think I'll be able to get through the rest of today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.
11 September 2009
on the callousness of humanity
We live in an era of instant news. We live in an area where no matter the privacy or legal concerns, information can be obtained at a price. The IAAF has conducted a humiliating 'gender' test on a young South African athlete named Caster Semenya. [And I could go into how the terminology is all wrong, and how it shouldn't be called a gender or a test at all, but that's an entry for another time.] News that this test was being conducted was made public just before a World championship race the young woman was running in. News of her test, possible results, and questions about her 'gender' have been shouted from around the world. South Africa is protecting and defending one of their own in the best ways they know how.
I cannot imagine being Caster Semenya right now. I cannot imagine my entire life being torn up, and the topic of my body seen as something the entire world has some sort of right to know. I cannot imagine the private shame behind her public face. I cannot imagine what it must be like to not only lose the chance to live my dreams, but to also face the possibility I might 'fail' a 'gender' test [wtf? I didn't even think that was possible. How can you fail a test like this?]. I cannot imagine any of that.
But my heart aches for Caster Semenya tonight. Because the results of her humiliating and degrading test are back. And she has not yet been notified of the results- as I said, South Africa is protecting one of their own. But this information was obtained (and likely for a large sum) and is being spread across instant news channels.
THIS IS AN 18-YEAR OLD GIRL. Who was not famous before her Berlin run. Who is ONLY famous because of this test being conducted. And the media show no mercy. And really, why should anyone expect them to have any compassion for Caster Semenya? Reporting about her brings news- people buy papers, click on news stories, turn into the special report on the evening news. It's sickening. Absolutely sickening.
Her entire life is in the spotlight, and she and her family have not been properly notified. And everyone is eating up this news- and I can't blame media entirely for it, because it's the people too, who demand the news, who read it, who think they have a right to publicly discuss someone else's body. I can't even wrap my head around how angry I am about this. Why? Why do we fall prey so easily to the idea of instant news? Why do we accept that this is somehow okay? That personal, private, medical tests are somehow our right to have knowledge of? Why has no-one at the IAAF considered what this whole ordeal, 'pass' or 'fail' on this test, might do to Caster Semenya? Why has the media not considered this, entertained their own humanity just this once, and left this affair private?
Why have scores upon scores of people failed Caster Semenya?
My heart aches for her, tonight.
I cannot imagine being Caster Semenya right now. I cannot imagine my entire life being torn up, and the topic of my body seen as something the entire world has some sort of right to know. I cannot imagine the private shame behind her public face. I cannot imagine what it must be like to not only lose the chance to live my dreams, but to also face the possibility I might 'fail' a 'gender' test [wtf? I didn't even think that was possible. How can you fail a test like this?]. I cannot imagine any of that.
But my heart aches for Caster Semenya tonight. Because the results of her humiliating and degrading test are back. And she has not yet been notified of the results- as I said, South Africa is protecting one of their own. But this information was obtained (and likely for a large sum) and is being spread across instant news channels.
THIS IS AN 18-YEAR OLD GIRL. Who was not famous before her Berlin run. Who is ONLY famous because of this test being conducted. And the media show no mercy. And really, why should anyone expect them to have any compassion for Caster Semenya? Reporting about her brings news- people buy papers, click on news stories, turn into the special report on the evening news. It's sickening. Absolutely sickening.
Her entire life is in the spotlight, and she and her family have not been properly notified. And everyone is eating up this news- and I can't blame media entirely for it, because it's the people too, who demand the news, who read it, who think they have a right to publicly discuss someone else's body. I can't even wrap my head around how angry I am about this. Why? Why do we fall prey so easily to the idea of instant news? Why do we accept that this is somehow okay? That personal, private, medical tests are somehow our right to have knowledge of? Why has no-one at the IAAF considered what this whole ordeal, 'pass' or 'fail' on this test, might do to Caster Semenya? Why has the media not considered this, entertained their own humanity just this once, and left this affair private?
Why have scores upon scores of people failed Caster Semenya?
My heart aches for her, tonight.
21 August 2009
words on a page, pixels on a screen.
I write this entry every year, about my father. I do it on his birthday. He's never seen any of them, and I doubt he ever will. I could share them, but he's not sentimental like that, and I'm a little too shy about them to show him them. I shouldn't be, but then again, my father and I have an unusual relationship. It's how I come to write these blog posts about him- fill in the blanks in our relationship, if only just a little. Some would even argue we don't have a relationship at all.
And yet.
He's influenced a lot more of my life than I realise. Though I guess I do realise since I'm writing it all down. My love of the stars comes from him. My grammatical sense comes from him. My belief and commitment to self-expression comes from him. There are stories behind all of these, things from growing up that have stuck with me, nestled under my skin and stayed there.
He showed me the moon through a telescope, and planets, and stars. And once, when I was little, he drove all of us North so we could all see Aurora Borealis. When I was in Hilo, and Ipo and I drove up Mauna Kea and broke cloud cover and saw the stars- all of Orion and the Big/Little Dippers too low on the horizon to be seen, and Mars at its brightest, I cried on the way back down because I missed my father so terribly much. Astronomy translates to 'law of the stars' which is not only the title of a blog, it's also my screen name. It's not only a tribute to something I've fallen deeply in love with- even if I fail at the maths involved to do it properly- but also a tribute to the person who made that love possible. I fell in love with space because of him. I've even stolen his book Lost Moon, about Apollo 13, and that movie still makes me cry. I joke about man never landing on the moon (thank you, Mr. Spriggs and Earth Science class debates. Appreciate that one), but really I find it fascinating and beautiful. The flight, journey, and experiences of Apollo 8 make my heart sing. I wish I could have been alive for that. I wish we could go back and instill in the next generation a love of the stars. I wish I understood the mathematics behind astronomy, because I know he does, and I would love to have something more in the stars to share with my father than just the stars themselves.
One time, I was printing something off in his office, and he took it upon himself, before printing, to point out to me that the shortened form of "until" is 'til and not till. So I changed it, and I've used 'til to this day. And I judge you for poor grammar. Their/there, your/you're, its/it's, 'til/till, than/then etc. Sometimes I judge less harshly than other times. Sometimes I mess up myself. But I do judge. I judge myself too, if that helps. And anyone who knows me well enough, knows that I love the comma. I love it to death. I am comma happy and proud. I once had a beta who went through and corrected every little comma "error". I never had her beta for me again. Because, really, it's a damn comma. It's not like, I'm using it, badly, or, anything [ow, that hurt to type. I'm sorry for your eyes]. I just toss it in where I take a breath, or pause my train of thought. I don't get marked down on papers for it, that's all I'm saying. But I remember being so attached to my father, so desperately wanting him to like what I'd written, so shy about it, that when he corrected the grammar instead of commenting on anything else about it, an intense desire to never mess up grammatically like that again was born. And I do mess up. But at least now I hope if my father ever reads things that I write, he'll have more to say about what's actually written. Not all influences are happy influences, but at least this influence isn't terrible. I don't think it's terrible. I think it's more about how tiny moments shape us, most of the time when we're not even paying attention. And it's why I have a love of father/daughter relationships in my writing, when I actually write. Because little moments matter.
Sometimes those moments are tiny, and unrecorded, and it's only after a series of them that you realise they're there at all. My father is the quiet sort of man. He doesn't speak very much about things; he generally tends to let my mother be the voice about things. But I like to think that despite my hair changing colour, and the crazy protests I organise, my atheism, and all the massive ways in which I've managed to screw up, he's proud of the fact that he has a daughter who isn't afraid of herself (okay: secret time. I'm terrified of myself. Don't tell him I said that). Because I change my hair colour in some strange defiance of what I'm 'supposed' to be. Because I pick the things that matter and go after them with a ferocity that cannot be tamed. Because I believe what I believe and refuse to back down. Sure, he makes jokes about my hair, and tells me not to let it be so short; and he never really says anything about what I get involved with, except sometimes to ask clarifying questions; and true, we've never spoken about the fact that I decided to stop going to church and am very openly an atheist, but there's also that quietness about him, that way he speaks without uttering a word. Then again, it's the silence that gets to me, the words not spoken, the fact that I can't decipher his jumbled strand of 26 characters that somehow spell out 'I love you'. I don't know for certain, but I like to think he's proud. If only because entertaining the adverse makes my heart break up into tiny pieces that can't be properly glued back together.
We have an unusual relationship, based off interpretations of silences and blown up images of the moon. We're an interesting dichotomy- I'm an exceptionally open person with my emotions- especially love. I tend to give it all away the first chance I get. On the other end, my father holds those pieces close to himself, guards them, and will only break them free under the rarest of circumstances. I've seen my father cry twice, and one time made it into a (very) short piece of non-fiction, about the night my grandfather- his father- died. The other time was at the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial, when we were walking the footprint. I don't know if he was crying then, I wasn't brave enough to turn around, but his voice was thick with emotion. I have to sift carefully through his alphabet for the ways he says 'I love you'. Sometimes I find it easily. Sometimes I can't find it. But I know it's there.
I write this entry every year, about my father. I do it on his birthday. He's never seen any of them, and I doubt he ever will. But I'll write them, every year, as a testament and a tribute to him.
He is my father, and I know he loves me.
And yet.
He's influenced a lot more of my life than I realise. Though I guess I do realise since I'm writing it all down. My love of the stars comes from him. My grammatical sense comes from him. My belief and commitment to self-expression comes from him. There are stories behind all of these, things from growing up that have stuck with me, nestled under my skin and stayed there.
He showed me the moon through a telescope, and planets, and stars. And once, when I was little, he drove all of us North so we could all see Aurora Borealis. When I was in Hilo, and Ipo and I drove up Mauna Kea and broke cloud cover and saw the stars- all of Orion and the Big/Little Dippers too low on the horizon to be seen, and Mars at its brightest, I cried on the way back down because I missed my father so terribly much. Astronomy translates to 'law of the stars' which is not only the title of a blog, it's also my screen name. It's not only a tribute to something I've fallen deeply in love with- even if I fail at the maths involved to do it properly- but also a tribute to the person who made that love possible. I fell in love with space because of him. I've even stolen his book Lost Moon, about Apollo 13, and that movie still makes me cry. I joke about man never landing on the moon (thank you, Mr. Spriggs and Earth Science class debates. Appreciate that one), but really I find it fascinating and beautiful. The flight, journey, and experiences of Apollo 8 make my heart sing. I wish I could have been alive for that. I wish we could go back and instill in the next generation a love of the stars. I wish I understood the mathematics behind astronomy, because I know he does, and I would love to have something more in the stars to share with my father than just the stars themselves.
One time, I was printing something off in his office, and he took it upon himself, before printing, to point out to me that the shortened form of "until" is 'til and not till. So I changed it, and I've used 'til to this day. And I judge you for poor grammar. Their/there, your/you're, its/it's, 'til/till, than/then etc. Sometimes I judge less harshly than other times. Sometimes I mess up myself. But I do judge. I judge myself too, if that helps. And anyone who knows me well enough, knows that I love the comma. I love it to death. I am comma happy and proud. I once had a beta who went through and corrected every little comma "error". I never had her beta for me again. Because, really, it's a damn comma. It's not like, I'm using it, badly, or, anything [ow, that hurt to type. I'm sorry for your eyes]. I just toss it in where I take a breath, or pause my train of thought. I don't get marked down on papers for it, that's all I'm saying. But I remember being so attached to my father, so desperately wanting him to like what I'd written, so shy about it, that when he corrected the grammar instead of commenting on anything else about it, an intense desire to never mess up grammatically like that again was born. And I do mess up. But at least now I hope if my father ever reads things that I write, he'll have more to say about what's actually written. Not all influences are happy influences, but at least this influence isn't terrible. I don't think it's terrible. I think it's more about how tiny moments shape us, most of the time when we're not even paying attention. And it's why I have a love of father/daughter relationships in my writing, when I actually write. Because little moments matter.
Sometimes those moments are tiny, and unrecorded, and it's only after a series of them that you realise they're there at all. My father is the quiet sort of man. He doesn't speak very much about things; he generally tends to let my mother be the voice about things. But I like to think that despite my hair changing colour, and the crazy protests I organise, my atheism, and all the massive ways in which I've managed to screw up, he's proud of the fact that he has a daughter who isn't afraid of herself (okay: secret time. I'm terrified of myself. Don't tell him I said that). Because I change my hair colour in some strange defiance of what I'm 'supposed' to be. Because I pick the things that matter and go after them with a ferocity that cannot be tamed. Because I believe what I believe and refuse to back down. Sure, he makes jokes about my hair, and tells me not to let it be so short; and he never really says anything about what I get involved with, except sometimes to ask clarifying questions; and true, we've never spoken about the fact that I decided to stop going to church and am very openly an atheist, but there's also that quietness about him, that way he speaks without uttering a word. Then again, it's the silence that gets to me, the words not spoken, the fact that I can't decipher his jumbled strand of 26 characters that somehow spell out 'I love you'. I don't know for certain, but I like to think he's proud. If only because entertaining the adverse makes my heart break up into tiny pieces that can't be properly glued back together.
We have an unusual relationship, based off interpretations of silences and blown up images of the moon. We're an interesting dichotomy- I'm an exceptionally open person with my emotions- especially love. I tend to give it all away the first chance I get. On the other end, my father holds those pieces close to himself, guards them, and will only break them free under the rarest of circumstances. I've seen my father cry twice, and one time made it into a (very) short piece of non-fiction, about the night my grandfather- his father- died. The other time was at the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial, when we were walking the footprint. I don't know if he was crying then, I wasn't brave enough to turn around, but his voice was thick with emotion. I have to sift carefully through his alphabet for the ways he says 'I love you'. Sometimes I find it easily. Sometimes I can't find it. But I know it's there.
I write this entry every year, about my father. I do it on his birthday. He's never seen any of them, and I doubt he ever will. But I'll write them, every year, as a testament and a tribute to him.
He is my father, and I know he loves me.
06 August 2009
Not of the colour of wheatfields.
There was something Kate said once, a long time ago, back when we both had some innocence to spare, that I have been searching the internets for, and cannot find. I suppose that is how it goes, sometimes words disappear from the internet. Today has been a long enough, bad enough day, and not even friends could make it better. And the words from Kate that might have offered some comfort have gone and cannot be found. Today is a dark day, and a good day to be missing Kate.
I don't think some of you know the story of Kate, and it would take too much time to tell, but she was the first person I loved unconditionally. She broke my heart.
She still makes my heart ache and yearn and want. Want so badly. She is the colour of raven, the blackness, the void. She is found in the tinniest of corners, corners left black and dark, lonely and forgotten. She is everything that makes my heart race with desire, everything that it means to have the Earth crack and threaten to swallow you whole.
She was mine, a long time ago. And now she is off in the world, belonging to someone or something else. But she is always in the corners, always the colour raven, always the depths of my desire, always always always. Somewhere, deep inside, pieces of her still belong to me. Our adventures and that slow, painful, different sort of coming of age ... those, those are mine.
Say hello, and say goodbye. Tell her something for me, when you find her in that blackness, that void. Tell her I love her, ask her if she loves me, still. When you stumble upon the right sort of colour raven, tell her I am the not quite the fox, I cannot be so brave, but always always always shall I hope.
I don't think some of you know the story of Kate, and it would take too much time to tell, but she was the first person I loved unconditionally. She broke my heart.
She still makes my heart ache and yearn and want. Want so badly. She is the colour of raven, the blackness, the void. She is found in the tinniest of corners, corners left black and dark, lonely and forgotten. She is everything that makes my heart race with desire, everything that it means to have the Earth crack and threaten to swallow you whole.
She was mine, a long time ago. And now she is off in the world, belonging to someone or something else. But she is always in the corners, always the colour raven, always the depths of my desire, always always always. Somewhere, deep inside, pieces of her still belong to me. Our adventures and that slow, painful, different sort of coming of age ... those, those are mine.
Say hello, and say goodbye. Tell her something for me, when you find her in that blackness, that void. Tell her I love her, ask her if she loves me, still. When you stumble upon the right sort of colour raven, tell her I am the not quite the fox, I cannot be so brave, but always always always shall I hope.
13 June 2009
snapshots
I watched the sun rise this morning over the city from my window. And I thought ... I could go outside with my camera and take a picture of how misty the skyline looks in the fading cold blue ... but I didn't. I stayed put. And y'know, then I got to thinking about all the pictures I've never taken. Of places, of events, of people. Of myself. There exists one picture of me with my turquoise and pink hair, and that's the picture that heads this blog. That's it. My hair was turquoise and pink for months, and I never bothered to sit and take a picture of it. In fact, in the chronology of my hair, very few pictures exist of it in the many many many different styles and colours I've had it in. Pictures don't exist of beautiful clouds, or parties, or the way my room looked before I rearranged it. Or for that matter, how the room looks now that I HAVE rearranged it.
I joke about the fact that during the year I lived in Hilo, I only took 23 pictures (ok, I just looked- there's 41- and that doesn't include the storm surf ones since I didn't actually take those). And there were some I could have taken, had I known the mountain was clear, but that's a different can of worms (she knows who she is and what she did). There's so much beauty in this world, in this life, that exists only in my head ... in fading memories, and in some memories so vivid I doubt I'll ever let them go. There is the sunrise over the badlands, at five in the morning- we were up at 4:30 to hike out and watch the land turn from black to pink and gold. I had my camera. I stood there with it, snapped a few obligatory shots, but then I drifted off from the group and sat on this little outcropping of rock and just ... watched. And it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Nothing in a picture can describe the way the light crept across the dark bluffs like hope. Nothing. Light and airy and beautiful. There was the time in Hilo, on the mountain, thousands of feet up- breaking the cloud cover and looking at the stars. Really looking at the stars. Seeing the Milky Way and Mars and probably a few of the other planets. Seeing the whole of constellations. Wishing and wishing and wishing that we weren't on the 19th parallel, but 30 parallels up, so that we might see Aurora Borealis. That too, even without bands of colour dancing across the sky, is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
I saw my city glow this morning, at 5:04, and there's nothing to prove that it ever happened. But it was there, a snapshot now, and it was beautiful.
I joke about the fact that during the year I lived in Hilo, I only took 23 pictures (ok, I just looked- there's 41- and that doesn't include the storm surf ones since I didn't actually take those). And there were some I could have taken, had I known the mountain was clear, but that's a different can of worms (she knows who she is and what she did). There's so much beauty in this world, in this life, that exists only in my head ... in fading memories, and in some memories so vivid I doubt I'll ever let them go. There is the sunrise over the badlands, at five in the morning- we were up at 4:30 to hike out and watch the land turn from black to pink and gold. I had my camera. I stood there with it, snapped a few obligatory shots, but then I drifted off from the group and sat on this little outcropping of rock and just ... watched. And it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Nothing in a picture can describe the way the light crept across the dark bluffs like hope. Nothing. Light and airy and beautiful. There was the time in Hilo, on the mountain, thousands of feet up- breaking the cloud cover and looking at the stars. Really looking at the stars. Seeing the Milky Way and Mars and probably a few of the other planets. Seeing the whole of constellations. Wishing and wishing and wishing that we weren't on the 19th parallel, but 30 parallels up, so that we might see Aurora Borealis. That too, even without bands of colour dancing across the sky, is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
I saw my city glow this morning, at 5:04, and there's nothing to prove that it ever happened. But it was there, a snapshot now, and it was beautiful.
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