raw

it's day two of my semi-annual raw foods fast - the hardest day by far if you ask me.  the first day is mentally, emotionally, and physically kind of fun.  i go out and buy lots and lots of fun foods, plan out some interesting meals to make, and begin the process of sprouting, soaking, fermenting, and marinating.  i eat all of my favorite raw meals, and congratulate myself on setting on a path of detox, resetting the system, and wellness.  i meditate.  i smudge.  there is ceremony and familiarity in it.  i rejoice.

the detox starts on day two.

i awoke today with a headache so bad that i could not see out of my right eye.  thinking perhaps this was due to dehydration, i ran through the amounts of water and exercise i'd gotten the day before.  yesterday i drank 1.5 gallons of water, did one session of bikram yoga, and played a 40 minute rec soccer game.  perhaps i overdid it - but it does not seem likely.  when i worked outdoors i did more on less water some days and did not wake up half blinded.  a combination of food, water, and a little caffeine (i try to limit this when i do raw foods, but i don't abstain completely) has helped tremendously and through there is still a little throbbing, i am feeling better.

of course that leads me to wonder what the hell i have been putting into my body that is taking that kind of toll on me as it leaves.  since i arrived in oregon i know i have been drinking a lot more alcohol.  living in the land of 3.2 beer and limited wineries (no distilleries) definitely kept my consumption down.  being in the pacific northwest has certainly made the options broader.  they love their beverages here - wine, beer, spirits, coffee, tea.  i have appreciated completely the level of craft, flavor, and complexity of each of these genres of liquid consumption.  perhaps i am dealing with an angry liver.

i also have taken great pains to eliminate wheat from my diet in the last 6 months.  i recognize that when i eat it i deal with all kinds of ailments from breakouts to gas, cramps to aches in the joints.  i also experience lethargy, mood swings, and an increased level of insomnia.  when i was back east for thanksgiving i tested whether or not it was wheat that was doing this - going back to eating it for a week.  after 3 days i decided to give up on that and returned to a wheatless diet.  this being the first time i've done the raw foods fast while being wheatless, i wonder if my body is reacting to released toxins from wheat i've eaten in the past.

regardless of what is going on, day two always sucks.  i try to moderate the challenge of the detox.  i don't take any supplements/teas/herbs that encourage detox until day 3 or 4.  my body does a good enough job with that on its own.  i follow up with these to continue the cleansing once the first rush is over.  at this point i have been doing raw foods fasts for four years.  i've come to know my body and see what it can take.  that's actually why i do the detox while eating raw foods.  when i lived in bicknell at the post office house (yea poho!) i had a roommate who would do the two week lemon juice/maple syrup/cayenne detox.  after watching him go through it, and reading all i could about it, i decided to give it a try.  day one was hard - i mean, you don't eat anything.  you just drink the sweetened and spiced lemonade that is meant to draw out the toxins quickly and aggressively.  day two i started to feel dizzy, nauseous, and HUNGRY.  at the end of day three i was out at the movies with friends and i had my first bout of tachycardia in 6 years.  i went home and fixed myself a big meal.  no more of that for me.

doing the detox with raw foods is less stressful on my body.  i find that i am able to clean out, reset, and feel rejuvenated without having to push too hard.  also every time i do it i come up with a couple of new recipes that are really rad, like raw key lime pie, or raw red pepper sundried tomato pesto.  that said, it still is not the most comfortable thing on the planet.  this headache is a prime example.

so why the hell do it in the first place?

i think about all i've eaten, all the chemicals i've been exposed to, all of the medicines i've taken, all of the detergents and soaps, all the metals...i know that my body has some of these inside.  i also know that as i work to eliminate these from my current diet and life, that regular detoxing can leech out the ones that have been in there longer.  if i am not layering too much on top of old toxins, i can dig deeper.  i wonder whether this extreme experience is part of that, or if there is something new i introduced that i am not thinking of.  when i complete a fast i feel so clean and strong and solid.  the challenge of it seems like a small price to pay in order to feel healthy.  it is reminiscent of the glowy feeling i have when i get done with a run.  often my body screams at me to stop while i am going.  i have to push through.  when i get to the end i know mentally and emotionally that i did something good for myself, and physically i feel better.  the effects of this last into the future.

so i sit here putting up with my headache, which is nearly gone now.  i can see again, which is good, because the jar of tasty raw macadamia nuts i am snacking on is to my right next to my nutritonic kombucha.  i have big slices of eggplant marinating in red wine vinegar, freshly soaked almonds to make milk, and chickpeas sprouting to mix with raw tahini to make hummus.  tomorrow i am going to make the biggest batch of guacamole ever, along with cacao-pecan cookies.  at the end of the week i'll be feeling fresh, strong, and clean.

you have to walk the rocks to see the mountain view, raw and fresh through clear eyes.

raw key lime pie
this is an awesome recipe i've adapted from a number of ones i found online.  it works best as a frozen dessert, and if you wanted to, you could forgo the crust all together, and just serve the filling at a raw sorbet.

2c raw nuts (i like hazelnuts, but really anything works except peanuts)
1/2c. dates, soaked and pressed
6-8 avocadoes
3 large limes OR 1/3c lime juice
1c. raw agave nectar
1.5c. melted coconut oil
1/4t salt

crust
dates for 2-3 hours in warm water, then press to get out any excess liquid
chop the nuts finely in a food processor, then add the dates and the salt and blend them in.  it should become a thick, dry, paste.
taste the mixture.  if it is sweet enough for you, leave it as is.  if not, add agave nectar to taste. 
press into a pie pan and put into the fridge to set.

filling
blend the avocadoes and the agave nectar together with the lime juice until smooth.
add in the coconut oil and blend.
pour into the crust and let set in the freezer.

competition

i live about a 10 minute walk from a beautiful and interesting disc golf course, and have been out and about on it several times in the past couple of months.  on my most recent jaunt i headed out with a friend who, after we had bombed the first hole, asked me how i kept score.  his face looked kind of confused when i stated that i did not actually keep track of score when i played, but just went out for the chance to play, be outside, exercise my dog, and do something that challenges me.

"but, how do you know who wins?"  he asked.  "what's the point?"

i was concerned in that moment that this first hole might be the only one we played.  i had no interest in competing with my friend, and he believed that in order to play a game there must be a winner and a loser.  i asked him whether or not he knew his best score from the course (he did), and suggested that perhaps he compete with himself rather than with me.  we were able to continue on after that, both of us getting what we started out to do...kind of.  i could tell that regardless of my not keeping score, that my friend was doing the tally in his head.  i doubt that we will go out on the course together again. 

i thought about it afterward - why did i not just roll with his need for it to be a competition?  i used to keep track of score when i went to the course in utah. what had changed. the first time i'd been out to the course here in corvallis i was with a different friend who did not keep score. i'd not kept score since then.  maybe i was simply following the norm that friend set?  but, then again, i just joined an indoor soccer team here in town, and we got creamed my first game out.  i walked away fully satisfied regardless - all i wanted to do was play.  i did not really care who won or lost.

i used to be so competitive - what happened?

i used to hate losing.  i made everything into a competition - and i mean everything.  cooking, driving, hiking, school, talking, intelligence, being funny - my daily life was laid out as a landscape of things at which i could beat people.  if i did not have others to compete with, i created little games in my head where i could compete with myself.  it was fun.  it made me more productive.  it passed the time.

plus it could mean i was better than you - and this helped my flagging self confidence.

but now...not so much.  i used to get such pleasure in rising above the rest, being the best - winning - at whatever i was doing.  these days my focus is different.  i spend more time doing things that are collaborative.  i prefer to have team harmony and cooperation rather than being the standout individual.  i want everyone to grow, play, learn, have fun.  when i have some means to compare my current self to my past self i am looking for self-improvement as celebration rather than beating a personal best.

so i wonder - where does competition come from?  my mind first goes to biology and the need to meet basic needs and procreate.  humans do that - we amass wealth and resources to ensure our physical survival, and strive to groom ourselves to be the most beautiful so we can find a mate.  instinct is a powerful thing.  i often see the ways in which it affects humans most when i look at children, who have had less time to be socialized to behave in certain ways.  when children are left to their own devices they also create competitive situations.  children compete with one another without even knowing why.  just watch a group of them on the playground create a pecking order, or play a game, and you can see this happening.  recently i was in the park and watched a young girl pick up a bunch of fall leaves.  she picked up more than her sister, and proclaimed to her mother, "i won!'  'what does that mean?' her mother asked.  the look on the little girl's silent face told me she had no clue. 

now i am not saying that competition is not also something we learn.  i think that the urge to compete has been transformed in the human world into something different than just feeding, protecting, and having sex.  sports and games are prime examples.  although some might beg to differ, the eagles/pats game that is on the tv next to me right now is not a matter of survival.  that said, people develop an emotional connection to competition that is deep enough that for some, it feels like it.  i remember feeling like someone had died after losing a state semifinals game in high school.  the sense and quality of the emotion was so much deeper than even i could explain.

i wonder then, what it means that i no longer feel as competitive?  i would say that perhaps this is linked to feeling secure and therefore not having the instinctual need to compete, but my life seems contrary to that.  even when i was struggling last year with unemployment and homelessness i did not feel a competitive nature arise.  i'm single, and though i have interest in finding a mate, i don't really feel that it is something i need to compete for.  the more time that passes in my life the less competition is important to me.  i am not the only one to express this.  so many people i know have stated that they have become less and less competitive as they aged.  i've heard it in the climbing community and in team sports particularly, which makes sense considering these are competitive areas to begin with.

so i wonder - if competition is part of primitive instinct, and over time people tend to be less competitive (my own observations of course - no data), does this mean that maturation eliminates competition?  i do see a great amount of immaturity within competitive arenas -football victory dances and political mudslinging immediately come to mind.  and if that's so, is there such a thing as competition that is completely adult?

yeah...so that's what i have been thinking about...and now that i have taken you with me to the brink, i'm done.

on healing...

after 10 months of stalking people and a fair amount of begging, i've finally landed a spot on a soccer team at the sports park here in corvallis.  i've not played soccer since i slogged around the pitch during college, so i was really excited when i had my first game this weekend.  i only knew 2 people on the team, and we got our asses handed to us, but it was just so good to be playing again that i could have cared less.  i am unsure why i let that part of me (yep, the soccer part of me) fall by the wayside so easily.  initially i think it was all the weight i put on in college, and then later, living in utah, the lack of availability of a league to join.  regardless, when i stepped onto the pitch yesterday it was my first game in 10 years - totally rad.

of course every action has an equal and opposite reaction (or so they say and i am generally inclined to agree), and i today i woke up feeling very much like i'd been rolled over by some kind of large vehicle.  everything - and i do mean everything - hurt.  my body is most definitely not accustomed to high impact exercise.

now i am not saying this to complain.  quite the opposite actually.  the lactic acid buildup in my muscles, the stiffness in my joints - these are things that remind me that: a) i am alive; and b) i get to participate in activities that i love.  there is no bad there.  even the turf burns that are swollen on my knees like wobbly golf balls indicate that: a) i am still a klutz, and thus continue to be able to laugh at myself; and b) i played as hard as i could. 

the one thing that did however toss me for a loop (or more realistically, got my attention a bit more than the soreness), was that two old injuries reared their ugly heads, causing swelling and stiffness that i did not anticipate.  ok, i did anticipate that my ankle would be stiff after being jostled around on the turf and subjected to my instep drive, but i did not think that my torn rotator cuff would be angry as well.  both were cranky and lacked in range of motion despite years and years of rest, yoga, and physical therapy. 

the shoulder was very surprising.  it has been five and a half years since i, like a dumbass, rode my bicycle into a tree jed bartlet style and tore the whole thing open.  despite not having health insurance, i was able to work with my dad on physical therapy, and beyond occasionally tweaking it in a climbing shock-load, it's been pretty silent.  the ankle, a backcountry mishap while at work at aspen, happened a little over three years ago.  the doctor was shocked when he discovered that it was not broken.  it was close to black from bruising, and the swelling was so bad that my leg was one diameter from mid-calf through the top of my foot.  i suppose that with all of that scar tissue it makes sense that i'll be feeling that baby for some time to come.

as i altered poses in my yoga class in order to accommodate my cantankerous joints, i thought about what it takes to fully heal from something.  healing is hard.  when something breaks in the body - goes the way it should not, fractures, bends, tears - one can be pretty sure that a 100% recovery is impossible.  even the smallest of cuts leave scars.  doctors can see where bones have healed, scar tissue limits range of motion, people lose hearing, eyesight, the use of limbs...damage to the body leaves a lasting impact. 

the day after i was evacuated from the field with what we were sure was a broken ankle, the man i had been involved with for years told me he'd met someone else, and left me in an incredibly cruel way.  sitting in therapy a week later, unable to walk and heartbroken, i was able to see that the healing of my body would mirror the healing of my heart.  i'm really good at healing the body (well apparently not considering my stiff joints), or at least i know what goes into healing.  as a lifelong athlete i've had my fair share of sprains, strains, and dislocations.  i understood that time, rest, patience, and care would eventually lead me to be well again.  i decided i would apply this kind of healing to the pain of what had just happened to me. 

as metaphors go, this one is pretty damn good if you ask me.  not only can we heal our emotional wounds by applying the same methods as we do to physical ones, they also resurface at times when we least expect it.  not unlike my stiff ankle and shoulder, some of the hurts and pains of my life have come up recently.  a year after being offered the job here at oregon state, i am starting to work through some of the things that happened during 2010, and even some of the start of 2011.  i am remembering the pain and shame of experiences i had while trying to pay bills, make ends meet, and survive living in my car in the cold.  recently i've been waking up not knowing where i am, or being surprised i am in a bed.  when i drove to idaho i felt paranoid about traveling without water, food, and a sleeping bag in my car.  these things, just like the soreness of old injuries, came up when i did not expect them. 

so what to do?  well with the ankle and shoulder i am gonna r.i.c.e. that shit, change up my yoga routine, and probably tape the ankle before the next game.  but the rest...well i suppose these things will start to settle out with time.  i know that talking at the faces of homelessness panel helped me to put words to feelings and events that i'd kept in for the most part.  having those honored in a public forum helped.  i also have spent a good amount of time meditating.  in meditation one can start to untie the knots that are formed in one's psyche.  the problem is that, just like physical therapy, it hurts.  also the act of opening oneself up to the untying only surfaces more knots.  this can be exhausting, and i am often tempted to just stop and block it all up again.  sometimes there is just too much.  i noted to a friend tonight that there are times when it seems that living life is synonymous with getting hurt.

of course i don't actually believe that. 

today i wrote a new song.  i am very proud of it both because the guitar part is beautiful and i am very excited that i am able to play it, and because it represents another form of healing.  i spent a great amount of time looking at my most recent relationship - what was good, what went wrong, and what i'd like it to become - and i put it into music.  writing it was beautiful and painful.  when it was done i played it through a number of times as if the singing of the song would somehow draw out the pain and leave me without the stiffness of emotional scar tissue.  after running through it more times than i can count, i realized that though the song is for one person in particular, it applies to the lot of my relationships.  music - another way to untie the knots.

i will say though that despite all of these attempts to heal, there will always be a part of me that is altered by my experiences.  just like the scar on my thumb from when i took a knife through it to the bone, the creaking in my knee from the torn meniscus, or the stiffness in my joints after a soccer game, the emotional injuries will push me to be a slightly different person.  i don't think that this is necessarily a bad thing.  having reminders of past injuries can help us to avoid new ones.  the trick is not to let them box us in.  just because i almost broke my ankle does not mean i should not play soccer now, just as having been through a bad breakup does not mean i should not look for someone to love.  that said, the scars can serve as reminders of things we don't want to relive.  they make us wiser.  if we honor these experiences we learn from them and become stronger people.

i guess this means i have to honor my cranky shoulder - shit.

activism

there was a short time where i thought i might take a stab at writing about the occupy movement - come up with witty sociopolitical commentary and seem so astute and current.  i've spent a lot of time reading about occupy, spoken to friends who have been at wall street, and have been to some of the events here in corvallis and on campus.  what i have decided (at least where this post is involved), is that there are far more brilliant and well-read people out there discussing the finer points of the occupy movement, and my ideas would just clutter the stage.  philosopher and political commentator i am not.

i used to consider myself an activist.  i did all kinds of things to make my political or social point.  i held signs, chanted, wore t-shirts over my work clothes on campus...no homelessness! animal rights! no war in iraq!  it was not until i was being tossed, covered in ketchup, into the back of a cop car to be held as a scare tactic (illegally i might add) that i started thinking about my time as an activist to see whether or not it was working out for me.  with high fructose corn syrup and vinegar burning my eyes i started to see that perhaps, for me, activism was not the way to go.

now, there are those in my life who tell me that i have no thing resembling a light touch.  they might be right.  once i decided that i was not going to be an activist, or at least the incarnation of that identity that i had created, i denounced it top to bottom.  hell no i'm not one of THEM!  those people are wasting every one's time.

what i've realized since then is that there are so many ways to enact activism.  one does not have to be a part of a die-in at the center of an intersection in order to influence people based on the cause one believes in.  i woke to this concept my second year at washington state university.  a strict vegan and environmentalist (i never stopped caring about the causes), i learned that my students paid close attention to what i was up to.  when we went out to meals they saw what i ate.  they looked at the clothes i wore, and when they were at my apartment they learned that i did not flush the toilet every time i used it.  they saw me ride my bike to the main office rather than drive.  they saw the books on my shelves.  it did not take long for a) the less curious to label me a hippie and move on, and b) the more curious to start asking my all-time favorite question...why?

when people ask why it is such an amazing gift.  it means you get to TELL THEM.  they want to hear it - they asked.  you have the ability to stand on a soapbox and have your words fall on open ears.  the first time a student asked me why i was vegan the conversation ended over an hour later.  the student thought my reasons were compelling, and asked me if i could do a program for her floor where we all cooked a fully vegan meal to demonstrate that vegan food was accessible to all.  it was a lot of fun!  this opened up conversation among the staff about food and culture and health and environment and economics.  once the students realized i was game for questions the flood gates were open...and i started to ask them questions too...and they started asking one another.  since then i have to the best of my ability encouraged and supported people in my life whenever they ask me that lovely question. WHY?

going back to the vegan thing.  once my students' consciousnesses were raised they started telling me things they did and saw.  one student loved to report to me when he'd eaten a vegan meal.  another would let me know whether or not foods in the dining center were ok for me to eat.  all of my staff started asking their students whether there were any specific dietary needs before buying food for the floor.  with 'why' as our start we had opened up a world of information, advocacy, and shifted perspectives.  as i watched this happen i realized that i don't need to hold signs or chant to change minds.  i shifted how i saw myself to that of an educator-activist.  i chose to live my life by my ideals out where people could see it.  when they inquired i would use that as an opportunity to teach.

in the past two years though i have shifted this view a bit farther.  i spent some time struggling to make ends meet - in poverty, unable to pay my bills, living in a car.  i wanted so badly for people to just see that what was happening was not ok, and that the system and the world around me were flawed and hurting people.  it was at this point that i realized how privileged my view had been with regards to enacting change.  living my life by my ideals implied that a) i had the access and resources to do so, b) there were not other things that took up my energy (like getting food or staying warm) that kept me from educating others, and c) that people would listen.  the first two made a lot of sense - clearly money, time, and energy are resources that one must have in order to sit back and wait for the world to notice and listen.  the third thing, that people might not listen regardless, was foreign to me.  being homeless or not having enough food or money is to be invisible to others.  in my case people could not look at me and see that i was struggling.  i had a nice car, and clothes, and appeared to be doing just fine.  for others who appear to be struggling or homeless it's even worse.  people don't look at them.  they blame them for their situation, and largely ignore them.  it is rare that a person experiencing homelessness gets asked 'why?'  if they are asked, it is rare that people who hear what they have to say believe it.

so what does that mean for me now?  well i am grateful to be back in a place where people do listen, and i still often wait to have the lovely 'why' thrown my way.  that said, i strive to speak out more about my own experiences and the experiences of others rather than waiting for peoples' curiosities to lead them there.  i recently went out to the quad to join up with the walk-out that was part of the occupy osu movement.  it felt strange and awkward for me to stand among the sign holders again.  i wondered if i should even be there, and had this sense that perhaps i was an impostor in that world.  when the time came for people to speak at the human mic, i stepped up and said a piece about students experiencing homelessness.  i felt excited to advocate for others, and saddened that often my students who struggle need me to be their voice because people are more likely to listen.  that leads me to another thing i try to do - be an ally and advocate for those who are not a privileged as i. 

the last thing i do is i refuse to keep quiet about things that are shamed in society.  i spoke today to a group of people from the corvallis community who are engaged in a professional and leadership development series.  while speaking about some of the challenges my students faced, i shared a bit about my story.  my hope is that when a person in business casual, with cards that are emblazoned with the letters MA, steps up and talks about living in a car that this will change peoples ideas about being homeless.  i also hope that in simply putting words to my story that i can show that these are issues we need to talk about - not just sweep them under the carpet.  recently i was speaking with a group of students and mentioned that i deal with anxiety - mental illness, another stigma - and when the conversation was over one of the students came to me and thanked me for sharing.  she too dealt with anxiety, and my 'outing' myself made her feel safer to talk about her experience.  if shame and stigma keep these issues silent and invisible people will not get what they need.  if in putting my own stuff out there helps others and disrupts the silence...i'm on it.

so am i an activist?  i suppose i am.  i suppose i've never not been one despite my strong need to denounce activism.  activists seek change - they disrupt - they don't just go with the flow.  seems like good company to be in if you ask me.

labels

i was conversing with a friend the other day about gender and sexuality and self-identification, and he, bold as usual, asked me how i identified.

'i don't,' was my reply.

the words actually came out of my mouth before i had thought about it.  i had a similar experience a few days later while discussing politics and communities.  a different friend, after hearing me rant for about 30 minutes, stated 'i never pegged you to be an anarchist,' to which, i replied, 'i'm not.'

i used to really like defining myself in a set of identifiers, neatly stacked, with squared-off, clean edges.  liberal, feminist, environmental, bisexual, locavore, foodie, woman - yes, that's me.  but, um, no...it's not.

at this point i am finding that the way in which i place myself onto the identity landscape is not to create for myself a title, but to tell people what i think about things.  what followed the 'i don't' regarding my sexuality was a statement about how i am attracted to the energy of a person rather than their gender or sex.  what followed the statement 'i'm not' regarding my political views was a statement about how i am convinced that grassroots and community efforts make greater change than widespread policy, and that i prefer when i can to opt out of the mainstream.

we spend a lot of time creating labels for ourselves and others.  we base it on ideals, thoughts, beliefs, actions, phenotypes...the things that make up who we are as individuals are packaged and stamped with a brand that puts us among others in a group.  it's comforting - for the individual it creates a sense of personal meaning, and places them within a group to which they get to belong.  for others it gives some kind of indication of how this person might behave - it creates predictability, and it helps people to make connections to those like them.  it makes a lot of sense when i think about it.

but there is something for me that has not been jiving of late.  maybe it's a desire to avoid being stereotyped.  maybe it's an attempt to feed my inner ODD teenager's defiance.  maybe it's simply because i don't know what to call myself.  i think about all of the nuance and spectra within identity, compound that with fluidity and cross-sectionality, and simply start to feel overwhelmed.  if i call myself bisexual it feels like i start to lose something.  i could modify it by pairing the label with a kinsey scale number, but that even seems too simple.  it does not strike at the center of understanding that includes the kinds of attraction i have, the time of my life i am in, how i have been in the past, what makes sense to me in the moment, and how i don't want to be seen.  i could go through this process with every identity that may or may not be placed upon me.  in the end i think i'd just rather make statements of thought, belief, and action, and leave it at that.

i am fortunate enough at this point in my life to have friends who are willing to stick with me through this.  that said, there are times when i am dealing with someone who is not close enough for me to share my beliefs.  in those moments i might choose to use a label that can stand between us.  they get to feel like they know me - i get to keep myself to myself.

label as barrier to the self...

i think that another reason i avoid labels is that they can so quickly dehumanize us.  useful tool for dealing with acquaintances aside, labels can readily turn people into groups, and groups into the masses that we 'other' in order to demonize, pathologize, or even kill.  i think about how race labels were created in rwanda, and how that 'othering' played a part in political strife, conflict, and eventually genocide.  i'm not saying that putting a label on someone is a sure way toward hacking them up with a machete, but it does place them one step either closer in to you and away from 'other,' or one step farther into 'otherness.'  it's like the 99%.  on one hand i love that claiming this label stands me in solidarity with others.  it creates a sense of power for people who feel they have none.  it also dehumanizes.  it makes the 1% into evil, faceless, greedmongers who are out to hurt us.  not everyone within this percentage fits that bill, and they are people too.  on the flip side it dissolves the individuality of the 99% while diluting the causes and stories that each one represents.  that's what the placards are for - people trying to assert both. 

i also wonder whether or not i am placing barriers around myself by not claiming a label.  i did say that labels help us to connect with others - and it does so with alacrity.  not being willing to label myself can potentially make connection harder with people i first meet.  if i don't claim a label initially, regardless of whether or not that dissolves my nuanced self, i may not be granted the time with that person to go more deeply.  labels are often the conversation starters - not the end result.

at this point though i am opting for a label alternative.  i come up with some kind of bumper-sticker statement that gives people enough information about me to understand and connect to without conceding to the branding.  perhaps i am disrupting the practice..perhaps i am colluding by simply creating new labels that include a few more words.

at the moment it's working for me.

redemption songs

not too long ago i decided it would be a good idea to put all of the songs i'd written in one place.  up until now they've existed in my head and on a ridiculous looking pile of crumbled and stained reclaimed papers that are taking up a lot of space.  some of them have changed since i've written them.  a couple of them are gone.

so i bought a really pretty notebook and started copying them down.  it was a really interesting experience.  every song has a story, and every story comes from a place of emotion, experience, and energy.  writing them all down brought these back to me as clearly as reliving them. 

i stood on the mesa where i watched the sunrise that inspired 'cowboy.' 

i saw the view from my fetal crouch on the futon in moab, feeling the pain of a terrible breakup in my chest and throat as the words for 'healing song' trickled through my brain. 

i sat halfway up the tuk looking out over the canyonlands belting out the chorus to 'i call your name.'

i listened to the elk and the rattling of the aspen leaves as i composed 'a better dream.'

i laughed with my single-serving hostel friends as i test drove verses for 'protest song.'

there are times when i feel like songwriting and performing are narcissistic exercises.  in order to share the music i write, i need to believe that people will actually want to hear it.  i need to know that what i do is good enough to put out into the audio universe with the conviction that others should listen and will enjoy.  this can be a hard one for me, especially when the songs sit close to my heart.  i wonder why someone would even care to know what i am thinking or feeling - especially when out for a beer or cup of coffee and conversation.  then again, when i think of the songs i like best, they are usually ones that have some kind of personal meaning to the artist.  i love music that conveys something lying close to the core of the person performing it. 

since moving to corvallis i've doubled the number of songs i've written.  actually, i've doubled them in the past 2.5 months.  i find this impressive considering that i've been writing songs for 4 years.  i am not sure what it is about the now that leaves me tapping out new tunes, but i am going with it.  i feel more confident than ever with the guitar, and i am eager to start working on a stage presence.  when i first starting singing with acoustic wave machine i was scared shitless to be on stage.  i knew i had the pipes, and i'd been performing since i was very young, but this was an entirely different animal.  there is a world between singing in the school musical and getting up behind the mic at a downtown bar.  it was SCARY to be up there.  i felt naked and exposed even when no one was looking up at us while we played.  garrett and bennett kept telling me i had to talk to the audience.  it took a year and a pre-show beer, but i got there eventually. 

now that i have the guitar in front of me i feel like i am starting back at square one.  my insecurity about screwing up while playing, along with the fact that i am still finding my voice, makes it tougher for me to get comfortable.  i played a 15 minute set at could 9 a week ago and though i worked hard to keep my eyes open, i did not actually look at the audience.  had i done so i don't think i would have been able to play.  it's not stage fright so much as anxiety.  if i let the anxiety in then i am going to flub the song and i will get even more nervous.  my goal is to work on that - to connect with the people i am playing for and share myself with them.  right now all i am sharing is the music.  i need to get to both in order to be the performer i want to be.

regardless of any struggles, i am really proud of where i have come as a musician.  when i moved to utah and left awm i thought that perhaps that was the end of my stint as a stage performer.  a year in i realized i missed it so badly that i starting working toward learning guitar.  i am so grateful to my friend jim for leaving his acoustic with me for the summer back in 2008.  i did not want to purchase a guitar unless i knew i was going to play it.  those three months i spent picking out the chords to phish's 'dirt' were tough and rewarding.  i still play that song from time to time as a point of nostalgia.  when i reunited with bennett at the string summit this year i told him that initially i regretted leaving idaho and the band, but now i realize that if i hadn't i would still only be a vocalist.  not that this is a bad thing, but i love being able to identify as a singer-songwriter.  i love the feel of the guitar strings under my fingers and i am proud of my callouses.  just another reminder that the things we think are no good often just have to be turned on their ear and they are exactly what we need.

the other day my roommate brian told me that he was putzing around the house singing a song over and over, and then realized that the song was one of mine.  i also was invited to play again at cloud 9 - this time for a 30 minute set.  though certainly i am nowhere near being some kind of accomplished musician (and i am not even sure that is my goal), i count myself lucky to be able to share myself and my music.  i am pleased that people enjoy it, and feel excited that i get positive feedback.  i am looking forward to where this journey takes me next.

remembering twiga

i had a moment last night that was touching and i wanted to share it. i was talking to a friend about house plants, and brought up the amazing staying power and propagation potential of pathos.  if you don't know what pathos are, most people mistakenly call them philodendron.

my pathos has been with me in WA, ID, UT and now OR - it's the big one in the window

anyway, i have a big pathos that has been with me for a long time.  in talking about my pathos i was reminded that it was gifted to me by a very special person - tara clarke. in takling about the pathos with my friend i remembered the day tara gave me the little guy, happily growing up out of a glass POM bottle, because she was heading home for the summer and did not think she wanted to keep it.  i am always interested in taking in strays that photosynthesize, so i made a home for the pathos in my apartment.  it's been with me ever since.

in 2006 we lost tara to cancer.  she'd fought it bravely for years, and was an activist, advocate, educator, and, in my opinion, spiritual guru.  she loved valentines day (i still have valentines she made me), country swing dancing, romantic comedies (we watched 'the truth about cats and dogs' together many many times), and giraffes (her nickname, twiga, means giraffe in swahili).  she was a beautiful person who gave to others, saw the good in every situation, and espoused gentleness and kindness always.  i was lucky enough to work with her in stephenson south hall, and though i was her supervisor i always more thought of myself as her friend.

such a beautiful and amazing person

it is amazing how little things can bring up memories - i love the reminders of life.  for years after tara moved on she would come to me in dreams and we would talk.  more recently she has not, and though i miss her, i imagine that perhaps at this time in life we are not in need of one another.  perhaps we will be again.  regardless, the pathos she gave me is alive and well in my house in oregon, and i regularly give out cuttings to people to start their own.  

twiga lives on in many ways.

joy and sorrow are lovers

was laid low this past week with a terrible cold that sapped me of energy, made it difficult to breathe, pounded in my head, and robbed me of my voice (that last one is miserable for me). i am a terrible sick person in that i either a) get terribly grouchy and whiny and hard to be around or b) i deny that i am sick and, as a result, get even sicker.  i went with option b this time around, and at one point it got bad enough that my students sent me home from work and i slept for 18 hours. 

i also did not get to my yoga for 8 days.  this was disappointing because i had managed to string up 7 days straight and i was feeling like i was getting to new places on all planes - physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.  the most prevalent of those being on the edge between physical and emotional - anxiety.  i struggle with this beast of a feeling every day - it wants to creep through my chest and into my throat and neck giving me jitters and leaving me feeling unable to manage myself. 

the kicker is that it is pretty much tied to feeling any kind of emotion - positive or negative.  i can get on board with anxiety being tied to negative emotion.  who wants to feel sad or mad or stressed?  of course that will trigger anxiety.  what i find challenging is that my positive emotions also breed this feeling - sometimes more than the negative.  one time in therapy i got very, very angry about this - part of a 'why me' reaction to life in general - and my therapist gregory just smiled (oh how mad i got at him when he did that!), and told me something beautiful.  'joy and sorrow are lovers, clare.  just like light and shadow.  you can't invite one of them into your heart without the other.'

as my life continues to get better and better (let's face it, things were a little bleak there for a while), i am becoming more and more aware of how my anxiety is rising up to join me. doing something good for yourself can often lead to negative effects in the short-term...stretching releases toxins that can lead to nausea, therapy can unearth repressed memories and feelings that cause unbearable pain.  for me, the release of the 'world, don't kick me any more' crouch has led to a flow of emotion that is drawing the negative out of me like poison.  unfortunately the net result has been intense insomnia and anxiety that has at least a couple of times this year, kept me from getting in to work.  the last time i was dealing with this heavy a dose of it i was a senior in college and it activated my tachycardia.  i have no interest in ending up in the emergency room.

cue yoga.

i have always understood that a yogic practice could be positive for me.  body work, particularly of the exercise variety has always helped me to deal with the challenges of life. that said, i did not imagine that practicing yoga regularly could bring my anxiety levels down almost to nil.  the first i noted it was during my worst week in corvallis - work had gotten out of control, i was processing the end of a relationship, and i had managed to stress myself into tension cramping in my neck where i could no longer turn my head.  i stood in that hot room feeling totally broken, listening to elizabeth run us through the dialogue.  somewhere in the back of my head i just-let-go.  the breathing became the only thing i cared about, and i smoothly moved through the poses without pain or stress.  by the end of the class i felt calm and the neck issues had disappeared.

tich nhat hanh talks about the transformation of emotion into something that can be integrated into the self rather than existing as an external entity that one ends up fighting.  i think that is what yoga is helping me to do.  the energy of emotion becomes dispersed into my breath and flows through me rather than pushing up against me.  just as i can breathe air into my body and use it to strengthen and nourish me, i can draw upon my emotions to strengthen and nourish my heart.  just as i breathe out the air carries away toxins, i can harness the emotion to draw my anxiety out and leave me calm.  when joy comes and sorry follows her across the threshold i can hear gregory's voice asking 'is it tolerable?'  so many times back then it was not.  now i am finding that i can welcome them both in at once, breathe them a smile, and sit for a while.

i was sooooo glad to get back to my practice today.  the week i've had off has been filled with lots of strong emotions of all kinds, and i was feeling my anxiety setting up shop back in my chest.  next goal - figuring out how to harness the power of emotional transformation at home.

come as you aren't - but think about it first

on my morning walk i discovered two new graveyards in my neighborhood.  before you, my wilderness awareness friends, get on my case for not noticing them, please know that when i say 'new' graveyard, that is exactly what i mean.  ghosts, skeletons, witches, blow-up giant spiders.  yes, we are talking about the wonderful world of Halloween decor.

i like halloween.  i always have.  when i was a kid i used to angst over what i wanted to be because the costume had to be - just - right.  i remember one year when it was supposed to snow during trick-or-treating that i pitched a fit when my mom made me add layers to my costume.  as an adult i don't take it nearly as seriously, but i do love being able to deck out in something creative and let loose.  this has led me to some interesting situations such as the one (and hopefully only) time that i punched someone, the time i spent my evening being stalked by bender, and the year that a gay man told me i had the best breasts he'd ever seen.  monsters and mischief.

another thing i like - google Images - though i like it not because of its fun-inducing potential...quite the contrary.  i have found that google images has become for me a window into what is wrong with people in the world - or at least a chance to produce some kind of evidence of it.  what i mean by this, is that in using the google images site i can see what other people think about certain things.  since the search engine works by looking at the words people put with pictures, one can quickly get a look at a large number of word associations and images that reflect a dominant view on whatever one types in.

i started thinking about this when i was working on a presentation on women and athletics for a conference on women's confidence.  all i wanted was to get some stock photos for my powerpoint presentation, but when i typed in 'female athlete' i started realizing the paradigm-revealing potential of google images.  sexualized and often not photographed doing their sports (instead in swimsuits or tight dresses), i was faced with a screen full of images that run right up against bettis' assertions about strength and beauty (love you pam!).  i shifted to a search of male athletes and i found a lot of the same.  i then started to play around a bit.  a search of the word 'leader' got me clip art, but 'leaders' became images of white men in power suits, 'bisexual' got me lots of girl-on-girl kissing as did 'lesbian.'  mind you, i am not saying that any of this surprised me - it was just interesting to see stereotypes and paradigms played out so visually for me.

yeah, so back to halloween.  one thing i don't really like about halloween is how it reenforces gender stereotypes.  just go to any place selling costumes and you will see what i mean - pink and blue aisles filled with kids costumes that tell little girls to be princesses and little boys to be superheroes or athletes.  the only time i have seen gender become fluid on halloween is when i lived in northampton, ma (home of smith college and lots and lots of gay people) and i went out to the local gay club for the night (cue story about the gay man and my breasts).  at one point i danced with a person who was biologically female dressed as eminem, and a person who was biologically male dressed as cleopatra.

when i have worn costumes that are gender-bending i have generally been met with mixed reactions.  one year in high school i threw together a last-minute costume for a party out of things around my house.  the only theme i could come up with that had enough congruent items was to dress in outdoors gear.  i decided to go full out with flannel shirt, boots, backpack, wooly hat, and axe.  my own perceptions of gender and this costume led me to commit to the idea that i was a 'mountain man' (apologies to my sister bmw's out there - i know better now) and went full out by tucking up my hair and painting on a beard.  no one at the party initially recognized me, and i think because of that i won the costume contest.  that said, people spent the whole time asking me why i chose my costume with a tone in their voices that indicated that there was something wrong with it.  i remember returning home afterward having decided my costume next year would be more girly.

so i put 'girl's halloween costumes' into a google images search.  go ahead, try it.  i'll wait.

yeah so here we go.  this page of images just backs any and all thoughts about gender and costumes i could come up with.  first off, what i see is not just girl's costumes - some of these are women.  my continual pet peeve around women being belittled by categorizing them as 'girls' comes into play right away.  the other thing i can't help but notice as that unless i am pulling up the full photos, i am seeing that i can't always tell if the pics are of women or of girls. just now i pulled up what i thought was a woman, but instead looks to be an 11 year old in a sexy mermaid costume.  i shudder at the extreme sexualiztaion of women and girls that runs rampant across the page.  tina fey and rosalind wiseman come to mind with their 'queen bees and wanna be's'/'mean girls' analysis that says, tongue in cheek, that halloween is the time that women and girls can dress like sluts and no one can say anything about it.  sexy nurse, sexy pirate, sexy doctor - the ridiculousness is rampant.  the creators of 'how i met your mother' hit it on the nose when they introduced the 'slutty pumpkin' costume into dialogue.  what shall we see this year - 'sexy wall st. occupier.' 'sexy terrorist,'?

of course, i too have worn some version of the 'sexy whatever' costume.  i can understand wanting to deck out and feel hot and wanted.  i like the joss whedon 'come as your aren't' conceptualization of halloween.  the year the gay man told me he liked my breasts it was because i had strapped them into a corset - a corset that has come out many many halloweens since.  i wonder sometimes whether consciousness is enough, and there are times when i say no, times i say yes, and times i say 'screw it' and do whatever the hell i feel like doing.  as i look at my calendar and see functions to attend in two weekends i am starting to think about my costume for this year.

slutty blogger perhaps?

make new friends

when i moved to corvallis i already knew people.  of course, three weeks after i got here my best friend left for seattle (damn you gana!!!), but i was able to get here and have some wonderful folks with whom i can hang out, get a beer, and invite to a party.  i've always moved to places where i had insta-friends (just add water...or booze), residence life jobs - wilderness, so when i came here i was grateful to at least have a jump start to living in a new place where one might expect me to put on my big girl pants and actually meet people. 

i don't think of myself as the person who has put painstaking hours into learning how to be social.  in my mind i am still the nervous girl who does not make eye contact and has completely no idea how to strike up a conversation.  in some ways i still am that girl.  i try to rely on others to drive the conversation, grasping at ideas for questions to keep things going.  i live in awe of my roommate emily who can literally keep anyone talking.  her innate curiosity and complete interest in what people have to say is remarkable to say the least.  i want to be that person.  right now i am just not. 

now i am not saying that i can't hang in there and be social.  i can.  i absolutely love hearing what people are passionate about, especially when it is something about which i know nothing.  i spent over an hour the other day listening to a guy tell me all about what it takes to manage a watershed.  coming to corvallis has been very good for me in taking the communication skills i learned working at aspen into the real world where i can use them outside the therapeutic realm.  when i left college i used to joke that i needed an orientation counselor for my life - someone who would do icebreakers and ask all the questions in hopes of connection.  nine years later i think perhaps i've integrated that person into who i am. 

here's the thing about making friends.  it is not just about being social.  as i was talking about in my last post, there are so many different levels of what we call 'friendship' that i am thinking about starting up my own language around the matter.  we call someone a 'friend' just because they clicked a button and started 'liking' our status updates.  we have no language that delineates the difference between my relationship with my friend amanda whom i have known for thirteen years and share everything, and the person i met down at block 15 over a beer and would say hi to if i saw them again on the street.  being social gets me the latter kind of friends - i have to do much much more in order to get the former.

now friends like amanda don't come along that often.  i'd say i only get one per place i've lived, with the exception of noho where i got none because spent most of my time in the bottle and on the dance floor at the club.  in this sense i am talking the say anything, complete trust, stand up at my wedding (were i to be lucky enough to have one), kind of friend.  perhaps one might call this a soul mate - but even that does not really explain what these people mean to me.  i count myself very fortunate to even have these people in my life - especially knowing how poor my friend-making skills have been in times when i met some of them. 

living in a new place makes me miss these connections.  i crave the space in which i can sit with a person, express myself the way i need, and feel totally safe and comfortable doing it.  this is not to say i am not willing to share personal things with others, but that when i do so i have a worry inside that what i am saying is making me vulnerable.  the hurt, bullied, teenage girl that generally sleeps quietly inside of me starts to panic when i go there with people who are new to me.  incidentally she also starts to freak out when i am about to publish serious personal thoughts on my blog - go figure.  i am not saying that i don't share personal things with people i don't know, just that it feels to me like taking a risk when i do so.  when i do share personal things with people where i feel uncomfortable it is because i feel the person will be kind to me and is trustworthy. 

that said, i have realized that going really deeply with someone really quickly does not lead to the automatic creation of the kind of safe relationship i am looking for.  it may be a step in that direction though.  if i take the risk and move beyond surface conversations, and the person i converse with takes care with the things i say, i will feel more comfortable with them in the future.  of course, i still think it best when i am getting to know someone to hold back some.  otherwise i get the mental/emotional friend equivalent of having sex on the first date.  needs might get met in the moment, but i've moved way too far out beyond the safety net.  in the end i will regret it.  there needs to be a balance - a place in between full exposure and total closure that allows one to connect and to grow something without doing harm.  balance...something i have never been good at!

so that leaves me here in corvallis still, learning how to be a person who connects in healthy ways that will fulfill myself and the person with whom i connect.  in the past weeks i have been having more and more experiences where i feel i am striking that balance.  for me that is heartening.  who knows if my time here will lead to an amanda or josh or jen, but i hope it does.  oh, and of course this inevitably leads me to think about dating - but that should probably be another post should it not?

if you are reading this, and you have gotten all the way to the end of my lengthy ramble, i say thank you for taking the time, and for taking care of my words and thoughts. 

on being a friend...

cue randy newman, pictures of cute puppy dogs snuggling, maybe a montage of people laughing and hugging and holding hands.

oh wait - that's not what i meant at all.

been thinking a lot recently about what it means to be a friend.  i realized i'd never really done any thinking about it for myself, and by that i mean that i've never decided what being a friend means to me in thought but also in action.  i spent years telling my kids in the backcountry what makes a good friend, but, per usual, i did not take the time to apply my spoken wisdom to my lived experience.

one of my students at aspen requested to me that he lead a group on friendship.  i was impressed that the kid had thought up a group idea and cared enough about it to lead it, and of course i found a good chunk of time to make it happen.  this young man had gone through incredible changes while in the program - he'd arrived an angry kid from a rural area whose drinking and challenging behaviors had led his mother to send him away.  i remember the first week i spent with him he only spoke when we asked him to.  weeks later i found myself sitting in a circle with him while he led the group in a moment of silence.  when we all opened the circle he pulled a letter out of his pocket and stared at it for a while.  he looked like he might cry.  we were all silent and rapt in our attention, our eyes on the top of his head as he bent low into his lap and started to tell us his story.

this kid had a friend - the kind of buddy you do everything with.  they were essentially brothers.  some years before our circle in the utah mountains my student and his friend went out with some others to drink and ride snowmobiles.  they were drunk and the night was amazing.  just before they had to be home for curfew his friend decided one more run across the field they were in was in order.  he zipped off and never returned.  when they found him he had crashed, his neck broken.

in the months that followed my student was by his friend's bedside as he struggled for his life, and later dealt with the intense reality of being paralyzed.  my student told me that in their conversations in the hospital that his friend had decided he would never drink again.  my student agreed that was a good idea, and entered into an agreement with his friend.  however, he found himself going out and getting wasted with other kids regularly, and began to feel guilty that he was lying to his pal.  his friend knew something was up and confronted him.  my student got angry, lied, and left.  he did not return after that.  he rationalized the situation by telling himself that his friend was a fool who deserved what happened to him.  he clearly could not handle things like drinking, and it was better that he did not.  my student told us that he blamed his friend rather than alcohol, and chose drinking over brotherhood.  the guilt became so intense that he could not think about his pal let alone see him.  the two had not spoken since that day.

then my student opened the letter in his lap and started to read.  the letter was from his friend.

when my student left for aspen his mother was alone and struggling with her own issues as well as the pain of what her son had become.  this was a last chance for my student - he'd been sent to aspen rather than juvenile detention, and if he did not do well there he would be sent to jail.  my student's friend, when he heard what had happened, called my student's mother on the phone and offered support.  she had spoken with my student's therapist and gotten permission to send my student a letter from his friend.

my student's friend shared that he still loved his friend, and that he wanted to help him because he knew that what had happened was about addiction.  my student's friend, wheelchair-bound, had moved into my student's house and was living with his mother so that she did not have to be alone.  my student's friend told my student that he was going to be there when my student got home, would support him in staying sober, and had forgiven him for choosing alcohol over friendship.  that said, he shared his hurt and disappointment in the situation, and told his friend that what he did was not OK.  the words in the letter were plain and direct - there was no romance in it.  this was the simplest declaration of brotherly love one could hear.  my student read us this letter with his head up, tears streaming down his face.  he did not care if this group of teenage boys saw him cry.

but then again - we were all crying too.

when the letter was over my student folded it back up and placed it in his pocket.  he looked at his peers and said 'that is a true friend.'  the silent nods of the group were more powerful than any words.

i share this story because it serves to me as a wonderful jumping off point for thoughts about friendship.  i have more friends than i do any other kind of relationship - more people than are in my family, more people than i've had lovers.  friendship is also cross-cutting.  i am friends with my family and my lovers.  i see it as such an important role - friend.  it means so many things.

it can get diluted.  we 'friend' people on facebook, and use the word as a placeholder to describe the person we are talking about or to ('let me tell you, friend!').  it is used to describe acquaintances as well as soul mates.  we tack on words or prefixes to modify it - boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend.  i see it in greeting cards, on picture frames, and in cut out block letters hanging in people's offices.  you know how if you say a word over and over again it loses its meaning?  sometimes i think that happens to 'friend.'

it's totally happening now.

what's hard about being a friend is that it is not all just happy songs and butterflies, laughter and chocolate cake.  being a friend means being a part of it all - the pain, the happiness, the love, and the harsh.  it means letting the relationship change as it needs to.  it means being willing to say the hard things rather than just what the other person wants you to say.  it means forgiving.  it means having boundaries.  it can be jealously or joy - hope or hurt.  one of the most profound people i worked with at aspen told me that sometimes the most compassionate thing a person can do is to tell you that you are full of shit.  the best friends i've ever had are willing to do that for me.

i think about this now as i live in a new town and am 'making friends' regularly.  i've met so many people in my life, and in the past 8 months there are so many new 'friends' that i am not sure i even can remember all of their names.  this is what i mean - what do i call someone i just met?  are they my friend?  am i theirs?  i wonder if it would not be a good idea for us to start creating new words to describe the relationships we have - kind of like how some native peoples have hundreds of words to describe different kinds of snow.  when you meet someone and like them you become 'friends,' but that is intensely different than the relationship i have with my friend whom i've known for 12 years and who is willing to tell me when i suck.  you don't tell new people you meet when they suck - that's not friendly then.

when do we cross the line into another level of friendship, and how can we create a language to describe it?

should we even do that, or is it better just to leave words out of it and let the feelings and actions dictate?

i want to be a good friend to those i've just met, and to those i have known forever.  whether or not i can describe it, i think friendship is immensely important.

what do you think my friends?

all hail the yoga all-stars

have been doing bikram yoga for the past 8 months.  i really enjoy it.  i like the heat and how it helped me to finally enjoy stretching.  i like the fact that my lungs feel stronger and i can hold a note longer when i sing.  i like that i can now feel into my body and have a greater understanding of what is happening inside of me.  i like that i am stronger and have better balance.  all in all my yoga experience has been pretty awesome.

i've done a number of other kinds of yoga.  i've done sun salutations, enjoyed deep long meditative poses, stood on my head, and done the low slow flow.  bikram has been a very different experience for me.  first, it is the only yoga i've done where i have felt i've advanced.  i think that the very athletic nature of the yoga appeals to me - that and the fact that we do the same poses every time.  i get to work hard and see my progress.  it's heartening.  second, the yoga crowd is different.  bikram is a very very american version of yoga.  the poses and postures are not, but it is inherently capitalist in nature.  it is franchised, automated, and monetized.  it is completely macdonaldized.  sometimes when i think about this it makes me want to walk out - to say to heck with it and find something more traditional.  other times i take a lot of comfort in the fact that when I go to another bikram studio elsewhere, the experience will be the same.  as a result of this balanced dichotomy, all kinds come to bikram.  college students, hippies, housewives, hipsters, body builders, runners, rich, poor, old, kids, people of all races - it is a cornucopia of people who all come for different reasons to get the same thing.  the other day i got to class to see a coach bag hanging right next to a homemade crocheted one.  some women in the locker room talk about how they love their bmw's - others talk about how they will only eat eggs from 'happy chickens' - priceless.

the one thing that i find the same across all yoga classes is one demographic - the yoga all stars.  if you have ever taken a yoga class you already know about whom i refer.  they are the perfect, the amazing, the strong, the beautiful.  they walk into class, tall and thin, washboard abs already tensed and toned.  they wear perfect yoga costumes that always match.  they walk in with perfect posture.  these are the people whose bodies seem to be made for yoga.  no matter what, they are flawless in their postures, amazingly strong, and ridiculously flexible - gods and goddesses, superheroes really. 

i try so hard not to hate them.

yeah, i know, i am in class for me.  i am not supposed to compare myself to others.  this is about my health and confidence and well-being.  however i grew up in a world where body image is distorted as a female and an athlete.  once when I was doing situps at the gym at clark another student called out to me, 'keep going, you need it.'  i'm self-conscious no matter how hard i try not to be.  i do my best to concentrate on my own figure in the mirror and remind myself that i am beautiful and strong and amazing too.

other times, i try so hard not to stare at them.

these are amazing people!  when i am able to manage my own self-consciousness i just think they are so incredible and beautiful that i catch myself starting.  they can bend lower, stretch higher, and do more than i can and i am in awe.  i am sure that this could be uncomfortable for these people.  who really wants to go to their class to better themselves and find someone staring up the back of their ass all night?  i could make the argument that hey, the way they look the should just expect it, but that would align me with people who say that a woman who dresses sexily deserves to be raped.  clearly not excusable behavior.

but then again, we are all yoga all stars in the end.  in a bikram class you go through 26 postures.  the odds are low that there is not at least one pose that you could do exceptionally well.  most of my teachers don't point out individuals for praise, but those who do often end up saying something kind to every person in the room over a class.  i myself am very proud of my standing bow pose and by half locust.  tonight one of the women in my class, who you would never pick out as an all-star, was asked to demonstrate her standing head to knee.  i marveled at her strength and balance as she stood up in front of class and showed us her perfect posture.  she beamed at the chance.

i can't say that i won't have that continual internal yoyo of emotion about the pretty pretty people who come into my class in cute clothes and make us all look like yutzes rather than yogis, but i do like that i can keep some perspective on it.

all hail the yoga all-stars!

there's rules in wilderness?!?!?!?!

went hiking today in the hills outside corvallis, or - where i now live.  green, lush, beautiful - even though we have not had rain in a very loooong time (thank god because it did nothing but rain for weeks when i got here).  

as i drove to the trailhead i saw the requisite fire warning signs.  we are at a yellow now.  do you ever wonder if we were to be at the same homeland security warning level as fire level would the terrorists spontaneously combust?  no? ok...fire warnings yes...so i passed those and on to the parking lot where i learned that to climb mary's peak from that angle requires a $5 day fee.  now, i have climbed mary's peak a great number of times from a couple of different directions, but this is the first i've seen the fee.  and $5 without even being able to have a fire?  as they say at the end of the world - wtf mate?

first, i did not have a $5 bill - just a $10 and a $20.  i'll be damned if i am going to pay $10 to walk 6 miles up a 4000' hill - you know i never really GOT the mountain snobbery until i moved away from the rockies.  mary's peak is beautiful, and i really really enjoy it - maybe a mountain - definitely not a peak. i decided to be a bit on the shady side.  put a $10 into the envelope and filled it out, stuck it on my windshield.  if i came back and it was still there i'd take it home with me and get them back later when i had the proper change (of course those of you who know me know that i will never go back to the lot where i have to pay $5 to hike rather than go to the free ones).  i suppose that makes me a bad person.  

i headed out on my way to the actual trail.  wanted to leave the newly paved lot, the construction site below it, and the rather large toilet house behind.  when i got to the trail there was yet another sign.  this one said i had to have my dog on a leash no longer than 6' at all times. i turned to ask summit if she knew where we'd put her leash to find her taking a shit just off the side of the trail.

yeah summit, i feel that way too.

rules in the wilderness...now i know, i know, hiking up mary's peak is MOST DEFINITELY not wilderness.  people can drive to within 10 minutes of the summit for pete's sake (also, who is this pete we refer to all the time?).  but really - rules.  have you seen the honey badger on youtube?  i think you should because i am telling you honey badger don't care about rules and little bear don't care either.

check out this badass salamander i found on the trail recently.  do you think salamander cares about rules?  salamander don't care!  yeah yeah, fire rules are there for safety.  i don't want to burn down mary's peak.  i don't even actually want to go up there and have a fire, but le sigh to the max - i know how to not burn it down.  i also hiked through the ghost fields in and around yellowstone - no trees yet after 23 years. i know what fire can do AND i know that the fire there burned so badly because fire had been removed from the ecosystem for way too long.  when you remove something from an ecosystem it throws off the balance.  fire is a predator just like hawks and wolves and honey badgers.  you take it out and you can get trouble.  

i am not proposing we remove the fire rule.  it just makes me sad that we need to have it.  i know not everyone is skilled or aware or remotely uncareless (hehe made up a word).  i suppose little bear do care, but little bear don't like it.

and the $5 fee?  see this tree?  what this tree gonna do with $5?  tree don't care.  yeah i get that there is maintenance and work and all kinds of things that are done that these dollars cover.  in this bent though i have to say that i side with good ol' uncle ed in his desert solitaire diatribe about national parks.  let's get the roads out of it!  let's save the roads for people who can't walk to the top (sorry ed - i differ from you on that point)!  let the people who can, do so - if they do DON'T CHARGE THEM FOR IT.  i appreciate that people want to enjoy the outdoors, but this has led to the creation of all this infrastructure, and then infrastructure to maintain the infrastructure.  that leads to having to pay to walk 6 miles up a big hill.  little bear don't care.

see this puppy dog? ok, i suppose this is the shadow of the puppy dog.  puppy dog don't care for leashes, muzzles, harnesses or any other kinds of doggy s&m accoutrement.  puppy dog would not even wear a collar except mommy wants her phone number on puppy in the event of separation.  i get that some people don't train their dogs.  put those dogs on leashes!  i went to the rogue brewer's memorial beer festival - dogs and beer, beer and dogs.  it was fun but there were a lot of misbehaving puppies not being restrained by their drunk owners.  this one should have a leash rule, but outdoors?  my dog likes to run and play and enjoy the space.  i trained her well.  she does not bite, jump, nip or bark.  i dislike heartily the idea that because some people can't take care of their pets that mine needs to be tied up.  little bear don't care.

i think what i am really saying is a) if you don't want rules avoid hiking up the east ridge of mary's peak, and b) i miss my wide open, wild and wooly, camp where you want, have a nice fire, and don't gotta pay shit honest to goodness wilderness.  gots to get me outta dodge for some of that soon!