Good morning NASPA13 and #SAchat colleagues!
I work with students experiencing hunger, homelessness, food insecurity, and poverty. I love what I do because I enable low-income students in their ability to stay in school. You can check out my office at www.oregonstate.edu/hsrc
I wanted to share briefly my own story of situational poverty. I took a break from Student Affairs after completing my MA in Educational Leadership at Washington State University (Go Cougs!). I went to work at a wilderness therapy program for troubled teens. I enjoyed the work, and did it for several years, and even was promoted to the Field Director Team.
We were encouraged to take leaves of absence in the winter time because numbers went down. I took 3 months off to go to New Zealand, and while I was gone our corporate owner asked the question "if this person is taking this much time off, is she needed at all?" My position was eliminated just before I returned stateside. The program did not have any other positions for me until the summer, and because I had been on vacation I had used a lot of my savings.
I never imagined I would be unemployed.
I had been thinking about going back to Student Affairs for a couple of years, so I decided to start a job search. While I was doing that, I worked at a couple of nonprofit organizations in Moab, UT. I made very little money, and rent was hard to make every month. I was losing money before I even bought groceries.
I decided that the best move I could make financially was to move out of my place. I was in a relationship at the time, and we borrowed his parents' RV. A month or so later we broke up, and I moved into my car full time. I couch surfed, camped, and freelanced at the area wilderness programs. Eventually I went home to NY to stay a while with family.
All the while I was applying for jobs in Higher Ed. I interviewed over and over and over, but the market was tough, and I had been out of the field for a while. My friend sent me the PD for the position at Oregon State - Human Services Resource Center Coordinator - the position I now hold. I never imagined that having applied for food stamps or living in a car would be helpful to me in an interview! I started working at OSU in January 2011 - about one year from the time I lost my job.
I feel like I was the luckiest homeless person in the world. I might have been in situational poverty, but I had a nice car to live in, good credit, and a Masters degree. I KNEW I would be OK - just not when. I had the privilege of looking like someone who "belonged," and who could do things like network and interview within the dominant culture. I had a resume that would get my foot in the door, and I could write a mean cover letter. I had a family who could take me in. I had a best friend in my dog, who lived with me in the car.
We need to remember that anyone can be homeless, anyone can experience poverty, anyone can have a life shock. We also need to remember that our students can be experiencing poverty, hunger, and homelessness. Class and SES are not often talked about in our diversity and social justice dialogues. That needs to change. Poverty is cross-cutting, critical, and pervasive.
If you have interest, please email me at clare.cady@oregonstate.edu to learn more, and to join a mailing list for a new NASPA KC I want to start.
In service to students...
19.3.13
25.2.13
Looking for a 360 View on Tuition Increases
I imagine that mine is not the only campus in the country where students and administrators are embroiled in a battle over tuition. Our student government did what I would say is a beautiful job of organizing this year to make it clear that they wanted a tuition freeze, including websites, public demonstrations, and letters to the President. I felt proud of their efforts...and I knew that they would not get what they wanted.
Really they should not (they would kill me if they read this - if that is your knee-jerk reaction please bear with me). In an eloquent letter to our community the Provost and Executive Vice President explained the tuition increase, discussing it in a near-360 manner (I will share what I mean by that in a moment). The letter talked about the political climate, the economic climate, the decrease in state funding, and the monies raised for scholarships to help students attend. The most salient part of the letter for me was the concept that the revenue gleaned from a tuition increase can be linked to helping students graduate faster.
If that is true (and I can't know if it is standing here in this moment), then I can understand it fully. If the increase is, for instance $150 per term, and a student has one more year, then the most they will pay extra would be $600. This is WAY below the cost of another year - IF the money from the tuition is used to increase course offerings, hiring more instructors, improving infrastructure, and the myriad of other factors that can lead to a student graduating more quickly. Students graduating faster? Hey, if we can pull that off, I am OK with the increase.
Some of the students in my office did not really see this logic. For them spending more money now = BAD, and the idea of spending less over time did not cross their minds. Of course, my office serves the approximate 10% of our campus population who are experiencing poverty, hunger, homelessness, food insecurity...and several of my staff members are right there in the boat with the students we serve. When we talked about it further I reminded them that there were a great number of students on our campus who would not bat an eye at the increase in tuition, or for whom this would be an annoyance, but could easily shoulder the cost. The reality is that on all college campuses there are people who can cover these costs - they just end up falling through the cracks in these conversations because they are not the focal point of economic hardship. On some campuses this is a high percentage, on others - public schools, land-grant institutions, community colleges - it is much lower.
My students were initially upset to hear me talk about tuition increases in this way. Why was I not with them!?!?!?! Why was I talking about the students who could afford this injustice?!?! Where was their social justice minded supervisor who championed the cause of the truly poor college student?!?!
Here is where my statement about the Provost's message not being fully 360 comes into play. The thing is, the Provost is right, AND the students are right. The trouble, in my opinion, is that neither is giving it a full look (and, I imagine I have my own blind spot in this as well). What was missing from the equation is that the students who use the services in my office may not benefit from the measures put forward by increasing course offerings, hiring more instructors, and improving infrastructure. That is because these are tactics well in line with mainstream approaches to higher education. The students I serve - mostly first-generation, coming from working or generational poverty, are not as equipped to benefit from the current way of doing business. They are more likely to take longer to graduate BECAUSE the system is not set up for them. Increases in the status quo may not provide them the same outcome as other students.
So what to do? Here is where I drive home the importance of three things:
Does this mean that I don't advocate for decreasing the cost of college? No. I am also putting my mind to that complex issue. But, in the meantime, I think that working on these things could continue to create access for students I see every day who are literally starving for knowledge.
Really they should not (they would kill me if they read this - if that is your knee-jerk reaction please bear with me). In an eloquent letter to our community the Provost and Executive Vice President explained the tuition increase, discussing it in a near-360 manner (I will share what I mean by that in a moment). The letter talked about the political climate, the economic climate, the decrease in state funding, and the monies raised for scholarships to help students attend. The most salient part of the letter for me was the concept that the revenue gleaned from a tuition increase can be linked to helping students graduate faster.
If that is true (and I can't know if it is standing here in this moment), then I can understand it fully. If the increase is, for instance $150 per term, and a student has one more year, then the most they will pay extra would be $600. This is WAY below the cost of another year - IF the money from the tuition is used to increase course offerings, hiring more instructors, improving infrastructure, and the myriad of other factors that can lead to a student graduating more quickly. Students graduating faster? Hey, if we can pull that off, I am OK with the increase.
Some of the students in my office did not really see this logic. For them spending more money now = BAD, and the idea of spending less over time did not cross their minds. Of course, my office serves the approximate 10% of our campus population who are experiencing poverty, hunger, homelessness, food insecurity...and several of my staff members are right there in the boat with the students we serve. When we talked about it further I reminded them that there were a great number of students on our campus who would not bat an eye at the increase in tuition, or for whom this would be an annoyance, but could easily shoulder the cost. The reality is that on all college campuses there are people who can cover these costs - they just end up falling through the cracks in these conversations because they are not the focal point of economic hardship. On some campuses this is a high percentage, on others - public schools, land-grant institutions, community colleges - it is much lower.
My students were initially upset to hear me talk about tuition increases in this way. Why was I not with them!?!?!?! Why was I talking about the students who could afford this injustice?!?! Where was their social justice minded supervisor who championed the cause of the truly poor college student?!?!
Here is where my statement about the Provost's message not being fully 360 comes into play. The thing is, the Provost is right, AND the students are right. The trouble, in my opinion, is that neither is giving it a full look (and, I imagine I have my own blind spot in this as well). What was missing from the equation is that the students who use the services in my office may not benefit from the measures put forward by increasing course offerings, hiring more instructors, and improving infrastructure. That is because these are tactics well in line with mainstream approaches to higher education. The students I serve - mostly first-generation, coming from working or generational poverty, are not as equipped to benefit from the current way of doing business. They are more likely to take longer to graduate BECAUSE the system is not set up for them. Increases in the status quo may not provide them the same outcome as other students.
So what to do? Here is where I drive home the importance of three things:
- Support programs focused on low-income, first generation, and other underrepresented populations. These programs need to grow in direct proportion to the increase in classes, instructors, and infrastructure - and if that means an increase that is higher in proportion to the number of students who need these services...all the better. Take the additional resources and put them toward training your new instructors and staff on ways to serve these students, and infuse an understanding of class, SES, and social capital into the curriculum.
- Increased need-based aid. I don't just mean financial aid. I mean scholarships, grants, subsidies, stipends, free or subsidized housing, and other ways to lower the cost for students who are most affected by tuition increases.
- Safety-net services for students. Either find a way to effectively link your students into services in your community, create a services office on your campus (call me if you want to learn about the one I run), or do some kind of hybrid between the two.
Does this mean that I don't advocate for decreasing the cost of college? No. I am also putting my mind to that complex issue. But, in the meantime, I think that working on these things could continue to create access for students I see every day who are literally starving for knowledge.
4.2.13
Convergent Student Needs
It's been a while since I posted. I wanted to share this Venn diagram we created to demonstrate the overlapping needs of student-parents, student veterans, and students experiencing poverty. My colleagues, Gus, Amy, and I are presenting on our work to address both the unique and overlapping needs at the 2013 NASPA National Conference.
If this diagram piques your interest shoot me an email! clare.cady@oregonstate.edu
If this diagram piques your interest shoot me an email! clare.cady@oregonstate.edu
26.12.12
online boundaries: "friends," "followers," and "connections"
what did i do for christmas? well, besides the present-opening and time with friends and family, i took some time to do something that seems almost counter to the spirit of the holidays...
i eliminated over 150 people from my facebook "friends."
i have written a few times about the fact that there are not enough words to describe the "friend" relationship. we use the same word to describe someone we met last week as we do with someone we have known 15 years, someone we work with as we do with someone with whom we live. we have to modify the word with things like "best" or "girl" in order to get closer to what the friendship really is.
the use of the word "friend" as a marker for people we are connected to on facebook confounds the word even further. it makes the relationship seem like more than it is. even when people don't know one another they can be "friends." this makes it harder for people to remove others from their facebook account. in order to do that they need to "unfriend" them, thus placing an overly significant amount of value on the click of a mouse button.
i am not saying that the people i have connected with on facebook are people i do not care about. especially now that i have removed some of the people from my list, i have a much stronger relationship to them overall. the people in my news feed are people i know. i want to see their lives and know what they are up to. i like having that window they open into their lives, and i am willing to share my open window with them as well.
with the increase of social media sites and interfaces i am able to keep up on others with whom i prefer to have a greater level of social distance. twitter and linkedin are sites where i can share with others a more professional side. on these sites i am more limited in what i show to the world. even the language and action of these sites is less personal. on twitter you have "followers," and on linkedin you have "connections." on twitter you do not share full albums of your photos, but one at a time. on linkedin you rarely engage in "status updates" of any kind. for me these 3 sites in concert make it possible for me to have some kind of online connection with people in a way that keeps my boundaries appropriate and comfortable. there are circles emanating outward from my digital core that get progressively larger and more impersonal the farther away they get. my facebook "friends" are the smallest in number, and get the most personal information. twitter is next, getting some personal thoughts as well as my professional musings, and linkedin is on the outside. here i keep colleagues, former students, and others who i want to be able to contact, but don't really care to connect with regularly. there are people in all 3, and others in just 1 or 2.
this practice is not at all separate from how we live our lives in the virtual world. we have those who we share with intimately, others we share with professionally, and those who know who we are, but do not know us well. it makes sense to me. it helps me to feel safer in my online identity. it sets things up cleanly with well-defined boundaries.
interestingly i imagine that there might be someone who reads this that is offended by being set into one of these categories. if they are only part of my twitter "followers," rather than my facebook "friends," they might see this as a slight. because social media developed from the inside out, it is a norm to have facebook "friends" we would never be intimate with in real life. "unfriending" someone is seen as an affront - rude. i even saw that in myself when i was doing it - i almost felt guilty. in the end i was able to think about it from this multi-layered perspective, which helped me to know who should fall where.
i think boundaries are helpful - even online.
i eliminated over 150 people from my facebook "friends."
i have written a few times about the fact that there are not enough words to describe the "friend" relationship. we use the same word to describe someone we met last week as we do with someone we have known 15 years, someone we work with as we do with someone with whom we live. we have to modify the word with things like "best" or "girl" in order to get closer to what the friendship really is.
the use of the word "friend" as a marker for people we are connected to on facebook confounds the word even further. it makes the relationship seem like more than it is. even when people don't know one another they can be "friends." this makes it harder for people to remove others from their facebook account. in order to do that they need to "unfriend" them, thus placing an overly significant amount of value on the click of a mouse button.
i am not saying that the people i have connected with on facebook are people i do not care about. especially now that i have removed some of the people from my list, i have a much stronger relationship to them overall. the people in my news feed are people i know. i want to see their lives and know what they are up to. i like having that window they open into their lives, and i am willing to share my open window with them as well.
with the increase of social media sites and interfaces i am able to keep up on others with whom i prefer to have a greater level of social distance. twitter and linkedin are sites where i can share with others a more professional side. on these sites i am more limited in what i show to the world. even the language and action of these sites is less personal. on twitter you have "followers," and on linkedin you have "connections." on twitter you do not share full albums of your photos, but one at a time. on linkedin you rarely engage in "status updates" of any kind. for me these 3 sites in concert make it possible for me to have some kind of online connection with people in a way that keeps my boundaries appropriate and comfortable. there are circles emanating outward from my digital core that get progressively larger and more impersonal the farther away they get. my facebook "friends" are the smallest in number, and get the most personal information. twitter is next, getting some personal thoughts as well as my professional musings, and linkedin is on the outside. here i keep colleagues, former students, and others who i want to be able to contact, but don't really care to connect with regularly. there are people in all 3, and others in just 1 or 2.
this practice is not at all separate from how we live our lives in the virtual world. we have those who we share with intimately, others we share with professionally, and those who know who we are, but do not know us well. it makes sense to me. it helps me to feel safer in my online identity. it sets things up cleanly with well-defined boundaries.
interestingly i imagine that there might be someone who reads this that is offended by being set into one of these categories. if they are only part of my twitter "followers," rather than my facebook "friends," they might see this as a slight. because social media developed from the inside out, it is a norm to have facebook "friends" we would never be intimate with in real life. "unfriending" someone is seen as an affront - rude. i even saw that in myself when i was doing it - i almost felt guilty. in the end i was able to think about it from this multi-layered perspective, which helped me to know who should fall where.
i think boundaries are helpful - even online.
17.12.12
grateful for nothing...
today i am grateful for nothing.
no, that does not mean i am ungrateful. it means that i am looking at the world and seeing the things that could be in my life, but are not in my life, and for that, i am grateful.
still confused? think about this.
i remember when i was in middle school we were asked to do drawings of negative space. we set up still life arrangements to draw, but instead of drawing the fruit in the bowl, we drew the space around it. these ended up being some of the prettiest drawings i ever did - once i got the point of the assignment - that the lack of something is not to be ignored, but celebrated.
so what am i celebrating the lack of? well for one thing, i just had my annual physical and i am disease-free, lacking in high cholesterol, lacking in high blood pressure, and did not have to hear my doctor tell me to lose weight or change my diet. though i had fun last night when our power went out, i am grateful it is on again, and tonight i will be lacking in darkness until i choose to welcome it into my life. over break i am grateful for the lack of students experiencing homelessness, and for the lack of crises coming through my door. this leads to a lack of stress, which i am also happy about.
it is funny. i think about this way of seeing things only when something bad happens, and then subsides. the end of my relationship and the death of my dog brought emotional pain into my life. i am grateful that this has subsided. right now i get reminders to be grateful for that because i still have twinges of grief that come in waves. i feel grateful for the calm that comes after that. i feel grateful for the absence of negative thoughts about my personal adequacy, or the question of whether or not i will fall in love again. i feel grateful for the lack of pain when i walk in the door of my house and am not greeted by wagging tail and wiggly kisses. i am not grateful that those are missing from my life, but i am grateful that the dread of going home to those not being there has subsided.
this week, i am grateful to go home at the end of a work day with the absence of terror, shooting, and death.
it seems i should be thinking about these things even if nothing bad has happened - that is hard to do. that said, as i sit here i am grateful that my head does not hurt as it did when i got up this morning. i am grateful i am not hungry, and i am happy for the lack of tiredness which usually hits me near the end of the day. i could go on, and on, and on, with these things that are not there. i think it is important to think about the absence of things.
the negative space around us that could be filled with negative things.
so, again, i am grateful for nothing.
no, that does not mean i am ungrateful. it means that i am looking at the world and seeing the things that could be in my life, but are not in my life, and for that, i am grateful.
still confused? think about this.
i remember when i was in middle school we were asked to do drawings of negative space. we set up still life arrangements to draw, but instead of drawing the fruit in the bowl, we drew the space around it. these ended up being some of the prettiest drawings i ever did - once i got the point of the assignment - that the lack of something is not to be ignored, but celebrated.
so what am i celebrating the lack of? well for one thing, i just had my annual physical and i am disease-free, lacking in high cholesterol, lacking in high blood pressure, and did not have to hear my doctor tell me to lose weight or change my diet. though i had fun last night when our power went out, i am grateful it is on again, and tonight i will be lacking in darkness until i choose to welcome it into my life. over break i am grateful for the lack of students experiencing homelessness, and for the lack of crises coming through my door. this leads to a lack of stress, which i am also happy about.
it is funny. i think about this way of seeing things only when something bad happens, and then subsides. the end of my relationship and the death of my dog brought emotional pain into my life. i am grateful that this has subsided. right now i get reminders to be grateful for that because i still have twinges of grief that come in waves. i feel grateful for the calm that comes after that. i feel grateful for the absence of negative thoughts about my personal adequacy, or the question of whether or not i will fall in love again. i feel grateful for the lack of pain when i walk in the door of my house and am not greeted by wagging tail and wiggly kisses. i am not grateful that those are missing from my life, but i am grateful that the dread of going home to those not being there has subsided.
this week, i am grateful to go home at the end of a work day with the absence of terror, shooting, and death.
it seems i should be thinking about these things even if nothing bad has happened - that is hard to do. that said, as i sit here i am grateful that my head does not hurt as it did when i got up this morning. i am grateful i am not hungry, and i am happy for the lack of tiredness which usually hits me near the end of the day. i could go on, and on, and on, with these things that are not there. i think it is important to think about the absence of things.
the negative space around us that could be filled with negative things.
so, again, i am grateful for nothing.
19.11.12
i can relate to that
i don't post my relationship status on facebook anymore. i used to, but the older i got the more i felt that i wanted my relationships to be deeper personally, and shallower publicly. i know that one can see through my photos that i am seeing someone, but i don't think the little pink heart will ever again grace my news feed - at least not with my name attached.
i recently ended a relationship with a man i met nearly a year ago. we were together very seriously for a while, and i thought there was potential for future growth. what i ended up learning is that the level of intentionality i bring to the things in my life is rare and unique, and that many people don't understand it, let alone share it. now, i did not come to this conclusion solely as a a result of this failed relationship - it was just the capstone to something that i had been thinking about for a while.
ten years ago i jumped into relationships without doing any kind of thinking. who cared really? it was fun, i was young, and if i stumbled sideways into something really long term then i got to be really really lucky. some painful experiences while i was in utah led me to start thinking about how i choose the people i devote myself to. i began to compile a list of things that are important to me, and when i met someone who was outside of these, i focused on friendship rather than cultivating a romantic relationship. of course, you don't know what you don't know, and i ended up finding involvement with some people who fit current criterion, but who taught me other things that i value. absence is such a powerful teacher - cruel, but powerful.
how does anyone find someone? i don't ask that in a pathetic or hopeless way. i just wonder with all of the people in this world, and all of the possibilities for matches, how do folks settle in on one person? i know it is not at all a science, and, because we are biologically meant not to be monogamous, we will be attracted to many. i also know that beyond physical attraction, our environment, emotions, and intentions play a large role. these days i think we have to add the internet in there too, which is just as strange as all the other factors.
i think about it because i'd very much like to meet someone. i think about it not too often, but it does exist there in my conscious mind as a frame on my interactions and my decisions. i used to feel like that was a silly and unnecessary (i dare say, unfeminist) goal. perhaps my 32 year old hormones are kicking in, or i can see the value-added of a partner, or i just want that kind of adventure...no matter the reason i have let go of my biases. when i meet people i am interested in i start thinking about whether or not this person would be someone i could at least fathom being with long term. if the answer is no, as i said before, i shift tack and cultivate a platonic relationship. if the answer is yes, i proceed with intention.
when it comes to things that are really outside my circle of control, like the actions and emotions of others, it seems ridiculous to imagine that intentionality is possible. despite my doubts i know that at least anecdotally it rings true. i have seen friends make decisions about what they want in potential mates, and it informs their choices. one of my friends decided that because she did not want to have children of her own, she would look for men who already had had that experience. she could be involved in children's lives without having to do the things she did not want to do. it worked out for her quite well. when i start to apply those things to my life i can see a string of needs and wants that create a frame for the person i want in my life.
then i start to think...what about the x factor? if i come up with so many ideals and stick to them will i ever find someone? what things are negotiable, and what are deal breakers? how do i decide when my body is awash with oxytocin and dopamine, and i am high off the feeling of having someone new with me? i have no answers to this. i really don't know how to manage it. i think that the intentional part has its own limitations - hence the level of confusion and uncertainty with which i enter into this in the first place.
in the end i suppose it takes measures of intention, luck, biology, time, pain, joy, and risk to get there. i am sure there are still things i don't know i don't know as well. sitting with a partially broken heart the whole thing seems scary right now, but i know it will eventually become neutral, and then interesting, and then exciting once more.
can you relate to that?
i recently ended a relationship with a man i met nearly a year ago. we were together very seriously for a while, and i thought there was potential for future growth. what i ended up learning is that the level of intentionality i bring to the things in my life is rare and unique, and that many people don't understand it, let alone share it. now, i did not come to this conclusion solely as a a result of this failed relationship - it was just the capstone to something that i had been thinking about for a while.
ten years ago i jumped into relationships without doing any kind of thinking. who cared really? it was fun, i was young, and if i stumbled sideways into something really long term then i got to be really really lucky. some painful experiences while i was in utah led me to start thinking about how i choose the people i devote myself to. i began to compile a list of things that are important to me, and when i met someone who was outside of these, i focused on friendship rather than cultivating a romantic relationship. of course, you don't know what you don't know, and i ended up finding involvement with some people who fit current criterion, but who taught me other things that i value. absence is such a powerful teacher - cruel, but powerful.
how does anyone find someone? i don't ask that in a pathetic or hopeless way. i just wonder with all of the people in this world, and all of the possibilities for matches, how do folks settle in on one person? i know it is not at all a science, and, because we are biologically meant not to be monogamous, we will be attracted to many. i also know that beyond physical attraction, our environment, emotions, and intentions play a large role. these days i think we have to add the internet in there too, which is just as strange as all the other factors.
i think about it because i'd very much like to meet someone. i think about it not too often, but it does exist there in my conscious mind as a frame on my interactions and my decisions. i used to feel like that was a silly and unnecessary (i dare say, unfeminist) goal. perhaps my 32 year old hormones are kicking in, or i can see the value-added of a partner, or i just want that kind of adventure...no matter the reason i have let go of my biases. when i meet people i am interested in i start thinking about whether or not this person would be someone i could at least fathom being with long term. if the answer is no, as i said before, i shift tack and cultivate a platonic relationship. if the answer is yes, i proceed with intention.
when it comes to things that are really outside my circle of control, like the actions and emotions of others, it seems ridiculous to imagine that intentionality is possible. despite my doubts i know that at least anecdotally it rings true. i have seen friends make decisions about what they want in potential mates, and it informs their choices. one of my friends decided that because she did not want to have children of her own, she would look for men who already had had that experience. she could be involved in children's lives without having to do the things she did not want to do. it worked out for her quite well. when i start to apply those things to my life i can see a string of needs and wants that create a frame for the person i want in my life.
then i start to think...what about the x factor? if i come up with so many ideals and stick to them will i ever find someone? what things are negotiable, and what are deal breakers? how do i decide when my body is awash with oxytocin and dopamine, and i am high off the feeling of having someone new with me? i have no answers to this. i really don't know how to manage it. i think that the intentional part has its own limitations - hence the level of confusion and uncertainty with which i enter into this in the first place.
in the end i suppose it takes measures of intention, luck, biology, time, pain, joy, and risk to get there. i am sure there are still things i don't know i don't know as well. sitting with a partially broken heart the whole thing seems scary right now, but i know it will eventually become neutral, and then interesting, and then exciting once more.
can you relate to that?
27.10.12
I Wish That You Were Mine
This song is called "I Wish That You Were Mine," and is copyrighted to me.
22.10.12
21.10.12
Safe Here
this is a song called "safe here" that i wrote in 2011 and just recorded today with my phone. not the best sound quality - but fun. the song is copyrighted to me.
click the box to listen :)
18.1.12
good for a...
'wow - you are so good!'
yes, yes, i am totally ok with having my ego stroked, but there are times when this statement kind of irks me. prime example - this past weekend whilst i was in bend, or. i am doing a 60 day bikram's yoga challenge, and thus went to classes at the studio there. i like going to other studios - see how they look, run, feel. it's nice to walk into a place and feel like i already have some semblance of what is going on.
but back to my ire.
the issue i take here is one that i experience myself, and also see it happen to other people - especially women. remember i wrote a while back about the yoga all-stars? well the bend studio is PACKED with them. i was by far the person in the room who looked the least fit. this led to said compliments. 'wow - you are so good,' is tinged with a hint of surprise, and should be followed by 'for someone who looks like you.'
the implication being that someone who does not have the perfect yoga body is not expected to be able to put forehead to knee in dandyamana - janushirasina (i can often), see their knee (not foot, but knee) over the top of their head in dandyamana - danurasana (on the right side at least), or do a back bend in which their arms have gone below parallel to the floor (yep - do that too). i have been practicing hard for a year, and am generally strong and coordinated. it follows that i'd be able to do some of these things. now i am not saying that i am perfect in there. i struggle with many poses, and my incessant soccer playing (and soccer injuring) keeps me from getting as far along as i'd like. but yes, people, the 'fat girl' in class...she's got game.
i put quotes around the words 'fat girl' because i am quite literally quoting a statement made about me a while back. a group of women covered in letters from one of the local sororities (i will spare them the embarrassment of sharing it here) came in for a first class. there were only three other students in the class, and we were asked to stand in front of them so our practice would demonstrate the postures. when i leaned back for my first back bend i was looking the gal two lines behind me squarely in the eye. at the end of the night these women were standing in the parking lot talking while i walked to my car. this is the exchange i overheard:
'oh my god. the fat girl in the front row was soooo good.'
'you mean the cute one with the pigtails and the nose ring? yeah she was awesome.'
that night the other two practitioners with me were a tall blond woman with a pixie cut, and an elderly gentleman. clearly they were talking about me.
this attitude does not stop at the edges of the yoga studio. i was talking with one of my students the other day about cycling. i mentioned that i used to race, and his response seemed curious. he said, 'oh...i would not have thought that from looking at you.' when i asked him what he meant by that, he got very quiet and just apologized for the statement. the truth is that we don't think of people who are heavier than the sexualized, idealized, media-created body as active, athletic, or able. when i do perform well athletically, or talk to someone about things i have done in the past, their overenthusiastic statements often end up sounding more like a condescending pat on the head rather than kindness.
also, i am not fat. i am even below average for women in america. i am in some of the best shape of my adult life. i think the only time i have been more physically fit is when i was cycle touring new zealand (riding a bike nearly 2000 miles will do that to you). so sure, i don't walk into the yoga studio in a sports bra and tiny shorts, but my blood pressure is low, i can run 6 miles easily, i can touch my palms to the ground and bend my elbows with my legs straight. i am an athlete. i am in shape. these subtle (or not so subtle) hints that i should not be able to do these things, or that it is surprising that i can, make me angry.
i am sure that the people who gave me these compliments this past weekend meant well. i am sure they wanted to be encouraging and kind. i am sure they thought it would make me feel good to have someone praise my postures. i am sure they did not mean to send me this message.
intent and impact can be so different sometimes.
yes, yes, i am totally ok with having my ego stroked, but there are times when this statement kind of irks me. prime example - this past weekend whilst i was in bend, or. i am doing a 60 day bikram's yoga challenge, and thus went to classes at the studio there. i like going to other studios - see how they look, run, feel. it's nice to walk into a place and feel like i already have some semblance of what is going on.
but back to my ire.
the issue i take here is one that i experience myself, and also see it happen to other people - especially women. remember i wrote a while back about the yoga all-stars? well the bend studio is PACKED with them. i was by far the person in the room who looked the least fit. this led to said compliments. 'wow - you are so good,' is tinged with a hint of surprise, and should be followed by 'for someone who looks like you.'
the implication being that someone who does not have the perfect yoga body is not expected to be able to put forehead to knee in dandyamana - janushirasina (i can often), see their knee (not foot, but knee) over the top of their head in dandyamana - danurasana (on the right side at least), or do a back bend in which their arms have gone below parallel to the floor (yep - do that too). i have been practicing hard for a year, and am generally strong and coordinated. it follows that i'd be able to do some of these things. now i am not saying that i am perfect in there. i struggle with many poses, and my incessant soccer playing (and soccer injuring) keeps me from getting as far along as i'd like. but yes, people, the 'fat girl' in class...she's got game.
i put quotes around the words 'fat girl' because i am quite literally quoting a statement made about me a while back. a group of women covered in letters from one of the local sororities (i will spare them the embarrassment of sharing it here) came in for a first class. there were only three other students in the class, and we were asked to stand in front of them so our practice would demonstrate the postures. when i leaned back for my first back bend i was looking the gal two lines behind me squarely in the eye. at the end of the night these women were standing in the parking lot talking while i walked to my car. this is the exchange i overheard:
'oh my god. the fat girl in the front row was soooo good.'
'you mean the cute one with the pigtails and the nose ring? yeah she was awesome.'
that night the other two practitioners with me were a tall blond woman with a pixie cut, and an elderly gentleman. clearly they were talking about me.
this attitude does not stop at the edges of the yoga studio. i was talking with one of my students the other day about cycling. i mentioned that i used to race, and his response seemed curious. he said, 'oh...i would not have thought that from looking at you.' when i asked him what he meant by that, he got very quiet and just apologized for the statement. the truth is that we don't think of people who are heavier than the sexualized, idealized, media-created body as active, athletic, or able. when i do perform well athletically, or talk to someone about things i have done in the past, their overenthusiastic statements often end up sounding more like a condescending pat on the head rather than kindness.
also, i am not fat. i am even below average for women in america. i am in some of the best shape of my adult life. i think the only time i have been more physically fit is when i was cycle touring new zealand (riding a bike nearly 2000 miles will do that to you). so sure, i don't walk into the yoga studio in a sports bra and tiny shorts, but my blood pressure is low, i can run 6 miles easily, i can touch my palms to the ground and bend my elbows with my legs straight. i am an athlete. i am in shape. these subtle (or not so subtle) hints that i should not be able to do these things, or that it is surprising that i can, make me angry.
i am sure that the people who gave me these compliments this past weekend meant well. i am sure they wanted to be encouraging and kind. i am sure they thought it would make me feel good to have someone praise my postures. i am sure they did not mean to send me this message.
intent and impact can be so different sometimes.
10.1.12
so not a new years resolution
it was december 20-something (post christmas), and i was walking home from the coop with summdogs, carting solid poundage as quickly as i could to stay warm. i really enjoy backpacking trips to get groceries. besides my one excursion with my cousin, they have been the only times i've strapped a loaded pack to my back since i trekked out of the utah desert. i enjoy the pressure of the belt on my hips, and the way that my back heats up where the pack touches it. i like feeling the weight in my legs and on my shoulders.
i suppose you could call me a backpacker - that would be fair.
i am a goal setter...i think professionally at this point. at least if i were to get paid for each goal that i set, even pocket change, i think i would be able to retire by the time i turned 40 (of course, when i think about that i realize it's a good thing that i don't get paid for setting goals...i think i would get bored pretty quickly were i to retire). small, medium, large - it matters not at all to me. i set goals about cleaning my house, and walking my dog, and doing my job, and writing my blog. of course, i also set bigger, broader goals that encompass living intentionally, being healthier, and being more open. i like goals. they help me to move forward and to chart my progress. goals work for me.
so of course one would think that if i were such a fan of goals that i would be a fan of the new years resolution. this tradition is just that - setting a goal for the year. combine that with the symbolism of starting a fresh new year (i love symbols AND fresh starts), and you'd think i would be all over that resolution thing.
so this takes me back to the sidewalk along highway 99 as i trekked home with my big bag full of kombucha and kale. i had been looking for a plan for ringing in the new year. i'd missed the boat on winter solstice (which is think is WAY cooler than new years by the way), and i wanted to plan something that would be interesting and meaningful to me as 2012 started up. i had been invited to a couple of parties, and i also had half a mind to stay home and drink tea. that said, none of these options seemed exactly what i wanted. i thought back to other new years i'd had, and i realized that the best ones were those in which i was doing just what i was doing at that moment - backpacking. whether in the field at aspen, or doing a hut to hut in glacier park, i have to say that the best new years were less about when midnight struck, and more about being where i felt alive and ready for new beginnings.
of course i had to go to the backcountry.
so i had my goal. plan a wilderness trip for new years. i knew i could get my friend jesse in on it for sure - he's always looking for some time in the woods. i imagined sitting by the fire in the snow, sipping some whiskey and perhaps burning some sage. the thought of sage of course took me to the idea that perhaps i should engage in some kind of ceremony while i was out there. perhaps i would write all of the things i wanted to leave behind on pieces of paper and burn them, or smudge and imagine the things i want coming to me.
i thought about the things that had happened in the past year. one year ago i had been driving my car from new york to utah to spend new years with jason in salt lake city. i was so sick at the time that i could not sit up in the car for longer than 6 hours. my voice was gone, and because i had no health insurance, i'd not gotten antibiotics for the pulmonary infection i had until my aunt's doctor friend in chicago graciously wrote me a prescription. even a year later i can feel the scar tissue on my vocal cords - not what one likes as a singer. that said, i had just been offered a job at oregon state university running a program that helped students in poverty. after a hard year that included underemployment, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, sickness, and heartbreak, bronchitis seemed to be a small bump in the road.
the year that followed was intense with both joy and sorrow (they are lovers after all). walking down the street in corvallis 365 days later, i felt poised to start the time ahead of me with hope and intention. i thought that perhaps if i were to spend ceremonial time at my new years fire that it would be best to look forward, and leave the past behind.
so goals...
as i ruminated on the goals i might want to set for myself, i realized that i could not remember a single time where i had made a new years resolution. i thought back as far as i could remember, wondering how i could have made it through 31 years without a memory of setting such a goal. i am not sure why, but either i made resolutions that were forgettable or lacking in impact, OR i did not make any at all. my inclination is to say that this probably had to do with my unwillingness to do things because they are traditional or 'what people do,' but i do not think that my oppositionally defiant ways are to blame. i think it is because i already set so many goals that the idea of a new years resolution seems moot. i decided that perhaps i would keep with my tradition of being irresolute.
maybe that was my resolution...who knows?
my time in the backcountry over new years was truly amazing. i got my fire in the snow with a good friend and some whiskey. i threw in some dark chocolate with blueberries, hazelnut rice crackers, and smoky bleu cheese as well. we had no watches, no cell reception - we sat and talked and watched the stars until we felt tired and decided that the new year was rung. after that, this insomniac curled up in a pair of cozy sleeping bags and slept all night long without waking or dreaming. the next two days included more of the same.
i did make some goals going into 2012 (how could i not really?). they are broad, and include things like increasing my wellness, deepening relationships, and making choices that serve me and those i love. i breathed them out with clouds of steamy breath into the chilly air along the deschutes. i whispered them to the waterfalls, and drank them in with hot coffee. i closed my eyes to the sunshine and let them penetrate my eyelids with warmth. i saw them in the smiling face of my dog.
since my new years experience there has been tremendous movement in my life on so many levels. but, that's a whole other post don't you think?
i suppose you could call me a backpacker - that would be fair.
i am a goal setter...i think professionally at this point. at least if i were to get paid for each goal that i set, even pocket change, i think i would be able to retire by the time i turned 40 (of course, when i think about that i realize it's a good thing that i don't get paid for setting goals...i think i would get bored pretty quickly were i to retire). small, medium, large - it matters not at all to me. i set goals about cleaning my house, and walking my dog, and doing my job, and writing my blog. of course, i also set bigger, broader goals that encompass living intentionally, being healthier, and being more open. i like goals. they help me to move forward and to chart my progress. goals work for me.
so of course one would think that if i were such a fan of goals that i would be a fan of the new years resolution. this tradition is just that - setting a goal for the year. combine that with the symbolism of starting a fresh new year (i love symbols AND fresh starts), and you'd think i would be all over that resolution thing.
so this takes me back to the sidewalk along highway 99 as i trekked home with my big bag full of kombucha and kale. i had been looking for a plan for ringing in the new year. i'd missed the boat on winter solstice (which is think is WAY cooler than new years by the way), and i wanted to plan something that would be interesting and meaningful to me as 2012 started up. i had been invited to a couple of parties, and i also had half a mind to stay home and drink tea. that said, none of these options seemed exactly what i wanted. i thought back to other new years i'd had, and i realized that the best ones were those in which i was doing just what i was doing at that moment - backpacking. whether in the field at aspen, or doing a hut to hut in glacier park, i have to say that the best new years were less about when midnight struck, and more about being where i felt alive and ready for new beginnings.
of course i had to go to the backcountry.
so i had my goal. plan a wilderness trip for new years. i knew i could get my friend jesse in on it for sure - he's always looking for some time in the woods. i imagined sitting by the fire in the snow, sipping some whiskey and perhaps burning some sage. the thought of sage of course took me to the idea that perhaps i should engage in some kind of ceremony while i was out there. perhaps i would write all of the things i wanted to leave behind on pieces of paper and burn them, or smudge and imagine the things i want coming to me.
i thought about the things that had happened in the past year. one year ago i had been driving my car from new york to utah to spend new years with jason in salt lake city. i was so sick at the time that i could not sit up in the car for longer than 6 hours. my voice was gone, and because i had no health insurance, i'd not gotten antibiotics for the pulmonary infection i had until my aunt's doctor friend in chicago graciously wrote me a prescription. even a year later i can feel the scar tissue on my vocal cords - not what one likes as a singer. that said, i had just been offered a job at oregon state university running a program that helped students in poverty. after a hard year that included underemployment, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, sickness, and heartbreak, bronchitis seemed to be a small bump in the road.
the year that followed was intense with both joy and sorrow (they are lovers after all). walking down the street in corvallis 365 days later, i felt poised to start the time ahead of me with hope and intention. i thought that perhaps if i were to spend ceremonial time at my new years fire that it would be best to look forward, and leave the past behind.
so goals...
as i ruminated on the goals i might want to set for myself, i realized that i could not remember a single time where i had made a new years resolution. i thought back as far as i could remember, wondering how i could have made it through 31 years without a memory of setting such a goal. i am not sure why, but either i made resolutions that were forgettable or lacking in impact, OR i did not make any at all. my inclination is to say that this probably had to do with my unwillingness to do things because they are traditional or 'what people do,' but i do not think that my oppositionally defiant ways are to blame. i think it is because i already set so many goals that the idea of a new years resolution seems moot. i decided that perhaps i would keep with my tradition of being irresolute.
maybe that was my resolution...who knows?
my time in the backcountry over new years was truly amazing. i got my fire in the snow with a good friend and some whiskey. i threw in some dark chocolate with blueberries, hazelnut rice crackers, and smoky bleu cheese as well. we had no watches, no cell reception - we sat and talked and watched the stars until we felt tired and decided that the new year was rung. after that, this insomniac curled up in a pair of cozy sleeping bags and slept all night long without waking or dreaming. the next two days included more of the same.
i did make some goals going into 2012 (how could i not really?). they are broad, and include things like increasing my wellness, deepening relationships, and making choices that serve me and those i love. i breathed them out with clouds of steamy breath into the chilly air along the deschutes. i whispered them to the waterfalls, and drank them in with hot coffee. i closed my eyes to the sunshine and let them penetrate my eyelids with warmth. i saw them in the smiling face of my dog.
since my new years experience there has been tremendous movement in my life on so many levels. but, that's a whole other post don't you think?
11.12.11
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.
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.
30.11.11
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.
"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.
21.11.11
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.
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.
11.11.11
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.
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.
6.11.11
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.
'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.
29.10.11
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.
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.
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.
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