July 2004 I've given up on my brain. Rumi -(via Whiskey River) I watched Thirteen and then I read some Joyce. I may have done permanent brain damage. Heh. Thirteen is stark and tragic. But there are filters on the film so that sometimes it looks almost black and white and sometimes it looks very blue, or grey. When the color shifts you wonder about the meaning. In some ways, and this is an oblique way to say it, there are times when things look more real than others. Things look very stripped. I might watch the director commentary to see what they had in mind. Which isn't to say that it isn't clear. But there was the feeling of layers. Joyce? Well. There are layers. Most of the day I did laundry and struggled with my perspective. I really do feel better than I have in awhile. But sometimes these pockets of steam release. I made a promise to someone. Someone who made declarations of care for me. I made a promise to keep my heart open and was left sitting in the middle of the highway. Waiting. Sooner or later you realize that you're waiting for someone who isn't going to show up. And then you wonder why you were so quick to give your heart. Most of the day I sat on the edge of my bed folding underwear, walked around the kitchen taking dishes from the rack and putting them on the shelf, pulling the last of the meat off the roasted chicken. All the while trying to negotiate an internal minefield. And then I watched a movie. And then I read some. And then I went to bed. And then I woke up. Ta da. Someone paid me the compliment of telling me I was honest. It's a compliment that I take to heart and treasure. At the same time when I read it I thought about truth I wish I'd never told. A time I wish I'd kept myself to myself. And not believed what I was told. And when I woke up this morning I didn't want to wake up. I kept pushing my face back into my pillow and trying to get back to dream space. But I was awake. I sat up and took a deep breath. And then another. Sigh. The moon right this minute is 99.9 percent full. There's something about that that simultaneously charms me and makes my teeth chatter with fear. Yesterday I was trying to come up with something else to write about. Something other than the yammer of my own inner process. I get tired of listening to it myself. And given my penchant for extremes I kept thinking about the Sudan. Comparisons between the suffering of my little heart and the suffering there are not useful. It would be disingenuous, more solipsistic than I normally am, just wrong. It's not about comparison. It's about the times when I'm learning about what's going on there and everything in my own heart and mind stops short. I don't feel competent with political analysis. I feel overwhelmed. Move On sent an e-mail suggesting that I call and or send e-mail to Colin Powell (also Fienstein, Boxer and Pelosi) and urge him (them) to declare what's happening there a genocide. The idea that stating the obvious will make a difference kinda makes my head hurt but I sent the e-mail. It felt like nothing. Showing up with food and medicine would feel like something. Mike has some useful links. And there is a blog. Caroline is interviewing Naomi Shihab Nye.
Yes. Craig!!!
One of the things I like about this series is that when you first look at them you see the cartoon quality and you walk right in. And then it hits you. Words are not flowing outta me. I type. And then I look at the page and there are letters missing. Sentences that don't make sense. Wasn't it Alice who said it takes all the running you can do to stay in one place? Yes. Well. It does feel like that. Craig's art is so interesting to me. We live in an icon culture. He has created icons that look familiar. They seem initially welcoming and playful. And then you realize that there is something too real and too uncomfortable. I don't think it's his intention to trick anyone. I think he's subverting the use of the icon. The easy image. Art that is suppose to make us dreamy and distract us from what's going on. I think art that makes us dreamy is also important. I think we need to relax and space out and drift. But sometimes we cling to that space. I do. Morning is so odd for me lately. I really try to stay asleep. I don't want to be awake. I've never been that good at sleeping. I used to run to the computer, anxious for my on line community. And I still am in love with most of my on line community. I was thrilled to see a post from Susan after too many days gone. But. Some stuff has gone wrong. So now I sit in front of the computer and feel the need to control my desire. What a drag. And yet... Amber sends word about a campaign at Working For a Change.
Amber's world has been a source of healing for me lately. First there is the mighty Trinity Doughnuts Tarot and then there are the tales of purple yarn and spruce and pine trees. It's so alive. I dreamed about the TD last night. I dreamed about a king and there were olives on the card. I dunno what it means. But it was fun. And while at Working For a Change I saw a campaign there about the Sudan. It's the same intent of the one I mentioned yesterday. Oh I hope these words get through. The Fiore is good.
Yeah. Other peoples words are in my head these days. Saying everything better than I can. Mom sent an article about a guy who drove truck all his life and then, in his forties, went to college, got his BA and then his MFA. Sound familiar? A week after he graduated he got a job teaching and is living happily ever after. Uh huh. I'm not sure why she sent it. I guess she was just thinking it would give me hope. And I guess it should. I guess. Because things do work out for some people. So. You know. What? Things work out for other people. What does that have to do with me? I was listening to her on the phone last night and I had the TV on with the sound off. I was mindless flipping through the channels and came upon a free preview of a movie channel on which was Eight Mile. And there was some stand up mad sex goin on. Know what I'm sayin? So I'm watching this while Mom is talking about making muffins with the sour dough starter. And my brain feels like it's splitting. Like I can't contain all the things that are going on the world and hear about muffins. What would Freud say? Oh, it's a joke. A friend and I used to say that to each other all the time. What would Freud say? But it was a moment that could be analyzed. I would think. Probably wouldn't take much. Not much at all. In the last half of the first Anais journal she writes a lot about meeting her father and the relationships she has with men. It's so resonant for me. Romance and bad faith. Yeah. I hadn't read anything so full of psychological thought in awhile. Or maybe just not that kind of way of thinking. Ah, parents. By the time you're fifty-one you hope you won't be processing stuff about your parents. And here I am. Idiot-savant of the self.
Deb and went to see The Corporation. Half way through it if you had handed me a suicide pill I woulda swallowed fast. Things just seemed so grim. But by the end I was feeling ... oh ...I don't know. Still scared and angry but hopeful. There is good work being done. There is resistance. It wasn't new information for me. And still it freaked me out.
In the evening, the grrrl gang showed up with BBQ and pie. Flinstones food. The biggest plate of ribs and chicken ever. And little bowl of potato salad. The pie was strawberry rhubarb that they had baked. Very good. Ala mode. Of course. Chocolate rum and orchid vanilla ice cream. Ooooo.
The fog was thick. We went up on the roof to watch the fireworks but they were muted and eerie. Instead of dandelion puffs in different colors it was just fog with a red hue and sparks. Sometimes it looked like the aurora borealis. Kate said she kept thinking about the bombing of Baghdad. Smart grrrls in my gang. After we were all a little creeped out. Renee and I said we like the gathering together for food but not the jingoism and feeling of war zone.
I think everybody I've ever known was in my dream. We are as forlorn as children lost in the wood. When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the grief's that are in me and what do I know of yours. And if I were to cast myself down before you and tell you, what more would you know about me that you know about Hell when someone tells you it is hot and dreadful? For that reason alone we human beings ought to stand before one another as reverently, as reflectively, as lovingly, as we would before the entrance to Hell. - Kafka (via Wood_s Lot) I was thinking of changing my tag line to blogging the breakdown. I almost did. But that was when I was in the worst of the free fall and feeling like I wasn't going to survive.
I have. Survived.
I get such wonderful support for people. I got e-mail from someone the other day that brought the blush back to my cheeks. It's really just too wrong to stay in free fall mode. I wrote about needing to learn to walk on my birthday. More than a week later I was talking about being on my knees and it seemed like progress.
A friend adopted a Korean child years ago. The adoption people told her not have too many people in the child's life at first. Something about bonding. But the mom and dad were in the beginning of what would be the end of their marriage and they were in therapy trying to work things out. I got to baby sit when they were gone. The little girl would crawl into the bathroom where her mother's robe was hanging on a hook. She would press her face into the robe and cry such a heart wrenching cry and look at me as if to say, "You are not the one I want. I want her. Where is she?"
I would talk in my best soothing voice but to no avail. I was not the one. Finally I came up with a new idea. I sat a few feet away from the bathroom door playing with her toys. I didn't look at her. Eventually she came out to see what I was doing. If I looked at her she went back to the robe. Slowly she came out and began to play with the toys. Slowly we began to play together. We got through therapy night every week but first she had to let me know that I was not the one. Love like that is amazing.
In some ways I've had my face buried in someone's robe and weeping and no one is the one I want and I want everyone to know that. But I have very smart friends. They just keep playing, close enough to me that I am tempted to join them. They let me know they are there. They witness my weeping. And they wait. Love like that is amazing.
Sadness is just a part of the deal. I was sad all day. But it didn't feel terrible. It just felt real. I wasn't struggling with it. It wasn't pulling at me. It was just sadness. Having a day. The quality was different from the way I've been feeling. Depression is rather more insipid. Depression is global and full of generalization. Sadness was just what it was.
It seems to me I've said enough is enough about twenty times a day for about a month. Funny, the heart. The heart must listen to the efforts of the mind the same way a thirteen year old listens to her parents. Enough is enough. Yadda yadda. What ever. Leave me alone with my face pressed into this robe. Leave me to breath in the scent of loss and sorrow. There is only one thing I want.
Well.
I bought myself one of those mini artist model things and spent some time trying to remember how to draw. It was a good idea. Pulled my head out of the robe for awhile. The place where the grrrl gang got the BBQ gave them bags full of wheat bread to soak up the sauce. It's more like brown white bread. We didn't use it but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away. I toasted it. It's like eating cardboard. It's not terrible but it lacks substance. The wheat bread that I normally eat has substance.
I'm thinking about it in part because I'm eating the not that great toasted wheat bread and because I got the news from Susan. I'd like to be more excited. I'm just not. But OK. Now I know who I'll be voting for. I'm still keeping my Kucinich button up. Just to be ornery.
Kate showed me how to knit. While she was here I felt like I had the hang of it. Last night I went back to try again and it was comic. I just don't have it.
I watched All The Real Girls. It is such a wonderful movie.
It feels like Monday. Knitting and tarot. Yours for the wearing. Is that the coolest? I swear. My vocabulary reduces to three words. That's so cool. And you have to count the contraction as one. When I first began to watch DVDs I was fascinated with the expanded features. I even watched an actor commentary for Steal This Movie. I wasn't interested in sitting through a film twice to hear commentary again until my Egoyan festival. I'd like to have dinner with him. And his wife. I like the way they think. Yesterday I listened to David Gordon Green and Paul Schneider talk about All the Real Girls. I put George Washington in the queue. Again. I like the way they think. In all of those films it was about the sentience. It's hard to say what the films are about. There are stories. But the stories aren't the most important part. The feelings. The moments. The images that grab your eye and take you somewhere.
Joerg Colberg linked these photos. I've always loved the way a wall can look. Something you might walk by everyday and then one day the light hits it in just such a way and you feel like your eyes are opened.
When I was a kid, in my high school years and even in my early adult life, I spent a lot of time writing in journals and drawing. The writing came and went but the drawing really fell off. When I was at NCOC I took a couple drawing classes. I noticed that I became giddy after three hours of drawing. It shifts me into a very blissed out place. That's part of why I'm trying to draw. I need that out of my thinking brain place.
There's something about seeing. Really seeing. My best moments have not been about anything. They've been a moment of being aware. Often stimulated by a shift of light on a wall.
Of course one of my best moments was hanging out in the park with George. Happy birthday, George. More than once I've been told to do some kind of food writing. I've been trying to come up with something. The problem is that when I'm depressed I lose my appetite. I know fat people are supposed to eat more when they're depressed but I just get the fat-people-are-supposed-to stuff wrong. Which is not to say that I don't comfort myself with food. I absolutely do. But at a certain level of depression food doesn't get it done.
There will be a point in the middle of the day when I realize that I feel terrible and even my body feels terrible and then I think about if I've eaten and I realize I haven't. It's really hard to think of what to eat at that point. Because I am hungry but nothing sounds good.
Planet O brought some white peaches and nectarines. They are giving off a perfume from the big purple bowl in the kitchen. I find that comforting. A white peach is a reason to live. I am, in fact, eating one in a bowl with some blueberries and two strawberries and some yoghurt. I have some rye toast and green tea. it's a good way to start the day. My bout of anhedonia may be letting up.
Which brings me back to the problem of writing. Food writing. I guess I could start with the purple bowl full of white peaches and nectarines. Although, I was thinking about a piece about my childhood love of baloney. My grandmom would give me two slices of baloney cut into fours and eight saltines. And I sat at the dining room table matching the perfect corner of the baloney with the perfect corner of the saltine. and eating each one as if it were pate on toast points. Every once in awhile I get a craving for baloney. But now I eat it on a baquette with heirloom tomato and watercress. This just in.
Signed: Another person in the world who thinks you're very cool but just doesn't feel that way about you. I keep trying to post. I'm just a little bit blank. It's not just the rejection. It's a build up. I'm OK. I'm just in a zone. People, in other parts of the country, keep telling me that it's hot. True to form, SF is not hot at all. It is, in fact, a bit chill. I noticed the other evening when I opened the back door to put some things in the recycling box and the gray, damp air hit my skin in a poof. The days aren't too cold but the evenings are bury under the covers time, which suits my mood. For the past few days I've been under the covers. Sometimes actually under them and other times metaphorically.
Yesterday Ari took me out for lunch at Samovar. I had a grilled gouda and tomato sandwich and some veggie samosas. Everything is done in a tea shop manner. Small. Delicate. Very beautiful. The sandwich was sliced baguette and there were four little parts with crunchy outsides and oozing smoky, tangy insides. Mmmm. I also had Monkey Pickled Iron Goddess of Mercy tea. Because the name was so intriguing. All served by beautiful, fey boys with break your heart wide open smiles.
And then we went swimming at the JCC. We did an aerobics class. I thought I might be sore today but I'm not really. Which, I suppose is a testimony to how good yoga is for the muscles. And I've been doing a little routine with hand weights lately. So when we did arm things my arms were strong. We did lunges and squats and kicks. Things I couldn't do on dry land. The water makes all things possible.
Ari is one of those fat woman who I imagine people think eats junk food and never moves. She's a vegetarian with a great sense of good food and no love of junk. She does yoga and swims regularly. I dunno. I guess when you really take the time to know fat people you realize that there is no one type. I certainly have met fat people who don't eat vegetables and don't really do much. I've met thin people with the same profile. And let me be clear about how I feel about those people. I don't care what they eat or how much they move. It's none of my business. I will say that when people tell me they don't like vegetables I want to cook for them right away. It is hard for me to accept that people don't like vegetables.
Watching Ari in the pool made me smile. She's a cutie.
With all that Zen calm and water and good talk with Ari I find it easier to breath today. But I still feel the heaviness in my eyes. The storm that's been living there for what feels like forever. It really hasn't been forever. And I can still smile and giggle when I'm in a pool with a group of women doing run in place like a football player exercise. It's just so cute.
A friend who is a teacher told me about the notion of a shit sandwich. First you tell them the good things. Then you tell them the criticism. Then you praise them. It made me laugh because I think I do something like that when I'm trying to tell someone something difficult.
The thing about the letter that got me was they way in which it complimented the book and then said but I don't wanna help you get it published. It seems so arbitrary. It seems like something that is said in such a way that implies it's no big deal. It's no big deal that I know how to navigate the waters of the publishing industry and you don't but I won't help you. It's no big deal that your book is readable and maybe even good but may never get attention. I mean, I know I'm running all these things out in my own head but it's hard not to. I'm still waiting to hear from another small press. And there are other agents. And self publication is looking something that I ought to think more about. I mean, sometimes if you wanna get something done you just gotta do it yourself.
That's certainly the corner stone of my sex life.
Heh.
See? I can sill crack wise. I'm OK.
I need to do a long blog crawl. I'm outta touch. I did check Wood_s Lot out to see if Mark was linking Neruda. He was. Of course. Lots there to read. Including a link to one of my favorites.
Looking around the desk I see the detritus of days spent in a zone. Stacks of mail. Dental floss and hairbrush and kitchen towel sitting on the desk where they were dropped rather than put back where they live. Tarot deck with the card of the day from a week ago on top. The bed is unmade. There are dishes in the sink. The day is almost over.
And there ya have it. I'm making it sound worse than it is. But I am moving in slo mo. The covers are calling. And the urge in me is to get back under. I guess I'll do the dishes before I do. and maybe go through the mail. And maybe little actions will move me to the next thing. And the next thing. You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs? I had a long talk yesterday with a friend who no longer watches the news because it brings up negative thoughts. She talked about choosing to be positive. I thought about her this morning when I turned on the radio and heard about the car bombing. There are two things you almost expect to hear every morning. There was a car a bombing and/or someone was kidnapped. I often wonder how it's possible to hear those words and not be upset. I'm not always upset when I hear them. I have the detachment of the safe at home. Imagine if there was a car bomb in an American city. Then we'd be upset.
It's not so much that I am advocating for being upset. It's just that there is a part of me that wants to be mindful of the problems of others. Participation in the sorrows of life with awareness. I also know that there are days when I can't hear it. There are days when I can't hold it.
Depression has a physiological attribute. The brain is trainable. Certainly I think the best thing is to have a generally positive outlook and be aware that there are things I can't do much about. I have been making efforts to work with my brain. But it isn't my intention to become less aware. I think a deeply integrated balance can hold the sorrows and the joys. And I don't think I'm doing a great job of maintaining perspective. It's been a rough year.
The first noble truth. Life is suffering. I remember being somewhat horrified by that thought when I first heard it. I remember the face of the woman who said it to me. She had such a dour look on her face. Such a hang dog look. And my reaction was to pull away from her and her idea of how life was and seek a more joyful approach. I hear the first noble truth differently now. I hear it as a matter of fact kind of thing. Just a truth. Very simple.
When I was in the pool the other day looking at the earnest faces of the women, most of them older and not particularly fit, concentrating so hard on right foot/left arm lunges, I felt joy. They were all so intent. So committed. And it was also kinda silly. Right foot/left hand? It made me giggle. I caught the eye of one of the women and we burst into big smiles and giggles.
There are floods and bigger floods. There are wars. And rumors of war. And for me there is a lost uncertain feeling. What do I do? What can I do?
But there are also moments of grace.
It's interesting. After I talked to my friend I wasn't particularly interested in thinking only positive thoughts. I certainly wasn't going to never listen to the news again. But I did feel recommitted to strengthening myself internally. Which today means doing laundry. It's the chop wood carry water approach to enlightenment.
Heh. The mighty Paul Campos wrote an article about Anamarie. Paul blogged it. Nothing like a little outrage to snap a person out of lethargy.
There is a page with links to updates about Anamarie. She seems to be fine, although I read somewhere that she was afraid of being taken out of her home again. It's stories like this that bring home the problematic nature of the way we view fatness culturally. To say the least. On the same web site there is another story about a three year old who died and how her death was wrongly used to sell the idea that kids are eating themselves to bad heath. It's just too simplistic. It doesn't take into consideration the whole range of possibilities in terms of why an individual is fat. There is no one fat body.
It was interesting for me to read Mindy's comment the other day. I thought it was nice that she took the time to tell me that she liked my writing despite the fact that she doesn't like my politics and finds my "size acceptance ideas to possess a narrowness that belies your apparent intellect". I wasn't sure how to take that last bit. Someone once left a comment that was something like - you're too smart to think like this. Huh? I was also confused because Mindy is associated with Abundance magazine. I guess I could write and ask her which of my ideas are the narrow ones. But I haven't felt up to any big discussions and I really did think it was kind for her to be so supportive of my writing. She is a fine writer herself.
My ideas are narrow I suppose. I NEVER think it's OK for a fat person to experience discrimination in employment, housing, medical care, access to public facilities, and, and, and ... and I don't think the thin and average size people of the world get the extent to which fat people experience discrimination. I think it is true that people eat crap fast food and spend too much time in front of screens. But some of those people are thin. So let's talk about those bad habits but let's be fair when we're having the conversation. Let's leave the fat phobia out of it.
Anamarie was TAKEN OUT OF HER HOME..
I remember when it was happening. The family was on some morning talk show looking terrified. And where is that talk show now? Why aren't they telling the rest of the story? She's still fat. She's healthy, active and relatively happy except for the bad dreams about being TAKEN OUT OF HER HOME again. It just makes me wanna scream and yell. Strange day. I got the laundry done. And the dishes. And this. And that. Everything seemed to take a very long time. I'm still in a fog. Not really with myself in some fundamental way. Every once in a while I notice that I'm moving. But I can't remember why. I just watched Camp. It's not a great movie. But there are things about it that make it worth watching. Especially if you were one of those kids in high school who was in the musicals.
Uh hem.
You know.
Like me.
The singing is fantastic. Some of the dancing is pretty great. Some of the plot lines are sweet. There was one character. She's a fat girl who is at the camp despite the fact that her father wants her to be at diet camp. The compromise they have is that she has her jaws wired shut. Through most of the movie she's talking through her clenched teeth. And then they have her sing a song. The camp counselors take of her braces because she is the only one who can take over when two other girls can't perform. Of course those kind of braces wouldn't come off that easily. But what ever. The song is about taking a stand. She's singing to her dad. She's a wonderful singer. Despite the cliche quality of it all I was weeping. She was so beautiful and she was saying this is who I am. Deal with it. A fat girl singing - here I am. I loved it.
I was in both my high school musicals. I played the queen in Once Upon A Mattress. Heh.
Watching the movie took me back to a time when everything was possible and if the odds were against you then all the better. Yesterday I went down to Market street for coffee with Sonia. We were on a part of Market that I don't usually go to. Very business. I kept thinking about how years ago I used the word straight to mean someone who was stuck in a conservative way of thinking. The word still comes to mind when I'm watching herds of people walk by, many of them in suits. But the codes aren't really clear any more. The guy with the suit and brief case and cell phone has a Thursday afternoon session with a dom in Soma. The guy with the long hair has a portfolio full of oil stock. It's the guys with long hair who really break my heart. If I have one physical quality that I am almost always attracted to it's long hair on men. But it doesn't mean what it used to mean. It's not an automatic signal of counter culture. What's an aging hippie chick suppose to think?
Even knowing the codes are all mixed up I feel out of place in the business world. I worked in a restaurant in the World Financial Center years ago. I always felt like serving class. I was. I was happy to be.
On the bus there were two other people. We all ended up clustered in the middle. In part that was because the two single seats were there. But somehow it felt as if we should know each other. We were in that close but invisible relationship you experience in the city. I looked out the window at the lines of folks at bus stops and at tables on patios and on steps of buildings and walking so fast with somewhere they needed to be. So many people. And me. Drifting. Watching. |
