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.
29.10.11
21.10.11
remembering twiga
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.
16.10.11
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.
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.
15.10.11
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?
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?
9.10.11
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.
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.
2.10.11
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?
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?
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