Feminine Energy

Wow, have I neglected this forum.  I must ask forgiveness.  Two students faithfully posted responses to my questions about writing, for which I have boundless gratitude.  So much love goes unrecognized, unrequited...

So.  A recent realization about something that was causing me pain ended in my making an unpopular decision and (by the grace of God) delivering it gently.  And it occurred to me how important and underrepresented feminine energy is in the world.  I'm not talking about the "drop dead gorgeous" 25-year-old who has no idea what's going on in the world but looks flawless (it isn't her fault - time just hasn't gotten to her yet) who receives all the attention.  I'm talking about the women who are mountains - those you simply must admire, who inspire love in you no matter how they look because they embody true strength, true beauty, true fortitude.  My neighbor is like that - milk chocolate skin, constant white guile-less smile stretched across her face, who hugs me when I'm sweaty and asks me over for pie when she sees I'm stressed.  She always takes the blame for our distance, before I can say anything.  Her figure is ample and her love is even more generous.  She is the center of a group of people who revere her without question because her back is straight and her word, true.  Vanessa is larger than any problem they may have, life or death.  She is holy and beautiful beyond measure.  Our culture cannot sell anything through her, so they don't try.

I am reminded frequently of this power that has nothing to do with our cultural sense of control or the sexual role in which girls are cast from an early age.  I am humbled by the number of girls, who I affectionately call "my girls," who look to me as a role model (though I am unfit in many ways).  I do what I can for them in my small way, encouraging them to choose something besides the playing of the "pretty" card or the "controlling siren" card, both of which lead to emptiness for the player and pain for the victim.  Instead, I remember boys I knew who were slain when I was virtuous, unable to stand in the face of holiness - the kind of holiness only women possess and the whole world is in desperate search of.  I did not wield this power when it became manifest in my life, but I remember stepping aside so it could be perceived by those who needed to see it.   Acknowledging my own need of it helps me understand how I might make more room for it in my life.  How blessed each of us are in our own ways.

Shalom.

Things

I have recently scaled back my role as a consumer.  I think this is a general trend, given that the economy is definitely tightening and people are starting to really feel the pinch of using mainly plastic money.  I look at the stuff I have bought in the past, almost all of which I did not need, and am amazed at how easily I am hoodwinked into consuming.  How it is our job, as the Story of Stuff implies (see the link), it seems, to contribute to the system and how it is un-American not to have new stuff.  I always admired those wise souls who bought well the first time - cars and watches and clothes and homes and shoes that they would keep twenty years (literally), that did not have built in obsolescence, that still looked good (and even dignified) as they aged.  Yes, they paid a lot for those things, but in keeping them, were more conservative than those of us who keep buying every season.  Most of us now simply go for what is trendy, as we are instructed to on the Television - the Deity must not be denied.

I feel really good about dropping out.  I like not knowing what is going on in reality tv, not having the eighties look about me now (what a decade of fashion mistakes that was!), about not buying the large size because it costs less per ounce as I won't ever use that many ounces, about not getting online and shopping because it grants uber-instant gratification.  

I also want to say that many people who have money and don't spend it look down on those who don't have money and spend it - the poorer people who want to look like they can compete with those who have health care plans and savings accounts.  I see the nodding heads, the contempt for the unfortunate many who weren't bright enough to choose a major in college that ensured an income level that would provide a big house and investments.  The only problem with those people is that now they are in industries that are expendable - the computer and software and giant plasma/HD television companies, the countless car and high tech sales people, the real estate folks.  Many now have stock portfolios that are worthless.  If people aren't spending money anymore, plastic or otherwise, on things they don't need, many of those people will lose their jobs.  And then what will they do?  Go to work for the folks they formerly found so far beneath them? 

Humility

It has been a long time: a phrase that works in several areas of my life.  Since I've written here (which, at one point, seemed moot), since I worked on my novel, since I really settled down and talked to God, no holds barred.  Since my dad was sober all day, since I was nice or attempted to make eye contact with strangers regardless of my mood, since I felt happy consistently.  

None of this is because I have trouble in my life; in fact, God has so richly blessed me that I often don't understand it.  I think I'm in the habit of being serious, an affliction I've had since birth.  Nothing was ever funny.  Anyway, I must have accidently been willed or delivered someone else's gifts, someone better's job (and students), friends, relatives, co-workers, boyfriend, children (in no particular order).  I just don't get it; I think I forget to smile, forget that work is just work and that is ordinary for lots of people, that my friends will either understand or they won't, that it is not my job to police the universe, that missing someone is part of loving them, that respect is something that is earned and paid, like money but infinitely more valuable, that it is okay for me to age (a big issue for any woman in this country), that I can laugh and not worry if there is food in my teeth or if I look ugly, that the distance I feel between my sons and me when I first see them after being with their dad is a part of the suffering we all still experience because I broke up my family, that I'm a thousand times better a mom and person since I did, that I can have perfect confidence that things will always be okay because they always are (but that is the hardest thing to remember), that God has a plan for me and Todd and my boys and even their dad, even my brother the meth addict, that any time I'm willing to say "I don't know," I am opening myself to life, that I really don't have to be perfect in any way to be lovable, that attempting to live according to my true beliefs is a worthy and difficult goal, that worrying that I won't always be able to keep all the balls in the air keeps me humble and clear in my understanding that I cannot make it without lots of help from all the people God uses to reach me in my incredible stubbornness. 

All I can say is, in the words of Anne Lamott, "Thank You, thank You, thank You."  All is as it should be - shalom.

Simplicity

I am returning from the Painted Desert that covers the northeastern corner of Arizona, northwards into Utah, and east into southern Colorado and New Mexico.  My mom and I spent time in the Sedona/Flagstaff area, Grand Canyon, and in the Navajo Nation, considering the beauty and simplicity of a way of life that is thousands of years old and was more advanced than anything Americans can currently imagine.

In reading about and experiencing the architecture and habits of these ancient people, I felt something akin to shame about certain mindsets I have: indulgence, ambition, grubbing for things I think I deserve, part-time belief in something greater than myself.  The Navajo and Hopi were (and are) whole people.  I am sure at least some of them want nice homes and nice cars, but they are content with the modest things they do have.  No longer are they innovators in building and design.  There are tires on their roofs to keep the shingles from peeling away in the wind.  Their cars are old and often have body damage.  Their clothes are simple and their hospitals are mobile homes grouped together.  They are proud of who they are, helping each other, speaking respectfully to the tourists who come to see the remains of the architectural marvels built by their ancestors.  They speak Navajo between themselves, pronouncing beautiful, dignified words I get lost in.  They have faces that are both strong and resigned, and if you look into their eyes,  you can almost see the mountains that are their lives.  I feel blessed to have been allowed to witness a thumbnail sketch of the vastness that is the Navajo, a people the American government was determined to wipe out.  Though they eke out a living selling jewelry and playing flute music available on cd and working at gas stations and breaking horses, nothing can defeat them.  Their spirituality transcends anything life can deal them, and they live it all the time, not just for an hour on Sunday.

I don't really know what determines who is in and who is out; the gene pool, the financial markets, the presence or absence of addictions, the presence or absence of confidence and self-knowledge all contribute.  Respect is another matter, however, and is something that can be given, recognized, and returned regardless of any other barrier.  It is universally needed, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral.  The Navajo reminded me of its importance, and the ease with which it can be given, through nothing more than a smile.

"Our hero is home!!" was written on the back of the maroon ellipse of a minivan parked in the bike lane, with all the other shitty cars that take over the bike lane every morning for swim practice.  Like they own the world.  But it was written in yellow (both my fave color and that famous hue of remembrance of absent military personnel) and had smiley faces all around it.  He made it home.  Thank You.  Please help him, and his family, with what happens next.

How would I feel if my boys were taken from me and sent to fight a war I completely oppose in a place that was home to millions of people who want to eradicate America altogether against an enemy that was entrenched and guerrilla?  I would never get over it, never be able to stop thinking about it.  And if they came home physically safe, that would be a miracle.  And what if they weren't okay mentally or emotionally?  My guess is that they wouldn't be.  The randomness of the violence there would be too much to bear, and something inside them would break.  Children are so fragile anyway, such lovers, such givers, such beautiful souls.  I don't know how they would survive without being hollowed out completely.  If they still had any intact self left, they might try to end things for themselves by wading, arms spread, into the line of fire  so the pain would be over and they wouldn't have to bring it all home with them, to relive for the rest of their tenure on this mortal coil.  It is heartbreaking how wrong war is, and how as I type those words, they fall as a tiny drop in an ocean of tears already shed over it.  Thus is the collective mourning of the soul of humanity, a lament the stars can hear. 

The door is still open...

Being in the near occasion of children is a precarious business.  They are notoriously trusting and forgiving, yet they often see through even the cleverest of adult ruses...even if they say nothing about it.  In the past three weeks, I've been privileged (and taxed) with responsibility for the writing improvement of students from a wide range of economic and cultural backgrounds.  I am not a patient person; I sound harsh sometimes when I say "I don't take shit off them," even when referring to my own boys, whom I love with all my heart.  But I think that is a good thing; children don't really want us to "take their shit," but it isn't our job to give it back, either.  Our job is to see through it - in fact, they want us to - and help them make sense of a better way of doing things without embarrassment about their need to learn.  I am just now fully grasping this concept, so please forgive my firm grip on the obvious.  That grip keeps my feet on the ground.

Some kids never find a voice that can be heard and respected.  It is instead lumped into a cacophony of other voices that are labeled a certain way ("athlete," "airhead," "Jesus freak,") and dismissed.  The kids behind the labels stop talking.  They stop writing stories about how they are afraid of the guy on the other side of the door or the weird shadow they see outside their window at night.  They write suicide notes instead, or they beat the hell out of someone who just looked at them wrong, or they tackle someone on the football field and put them in the hospital, or they become "funny" and verbally assassinate any idea (and the attached thinker) that contrasts with their own, or they just fold up and seal themselves away from scrutiny...and each of these misfit voices finds something arbitrary they can hold onto that they trot out when asked for a real, original opinion (something they've been taught isn't worth the risk), a substitute for the thinking they were convinced was irrelevant...and ridiculously money-motivated consumers are the mutations that result.  A user doesn't need to think - she just needs sources and resources.

I see the bright eyes of the girl who wrote "Cold Steel," about a girl getting got by a bad guy when she was simply enjoying cheese crackers.  I see the dumbfounded look on the athlete's face when he knew I'd actually read his argument and wanted to know how he was going to work out its defense and the answer to the "why I wrote this" question.  I see the flaming redhead, hiding behind her glasses, wielder of medieval wars in secret, longing to solve the problem of the War of Lies (which exists presently in reality and in her ancient realm)...and I'm in awe.  I want them to tell me how they hate the fact that whole communities exist by scavenging at landfills, suggesting ways in which to help the situation.  I want them to tell me how they love the turn of a phrase that makes all the difference, forged by their own hands.  I want them to see through their words that there is a reason why we must tell our stories - all of them, the fiction and the truth - because they lead us to understanding ourselves and others.  To know me is to love me?  Isn't that one of Steinbeck's profound, existential explorations in The Grapes of Wrath?   Stories lead us to common ground, words that are nondescript in thought alone, but poetic and life-affirming in the doing.  

It begins, as usual, with respect.

Graduation 2008

It's over.  The screeching halt I know is coming, came today.  So many beloveds I saw in passing; so many I did not see.  People I didn't get to meet, like Beth H's friend, Michael T.  Congratulations to you all.  You have cleared an important hurdle in life.  Parties and conversations and surreality.  How wonderful to be caught up in it and how strange it is, the suddenness with which it ends and life continues, seemingly uninterrupted.

I looked out over the green sheen of gowns and mortarboards, the blackness that always hovers in the walls of the Erwin Center, the faux and real tropical plants, Paige A. wanting to join the choir but not seeing a segue to do so without interrupting, the administrators who have sat through their third graduation in as many days, the impersonal slide show that I wanted to ask them to stop because it was so canned...and I realize, graduation isn't for the students.  I suppose it is for your families, but it certainly isn't for you.  You've already checked out, looked beyond, been struck by the reality of the ending time as you know it.  You've already outgrown this whole scene, and it is simply a formality to "graduate."  But sometimes we need formality.  Sometimes you need to be disallowed chewing gum, flip flops, and your opinion.  Some times you just need to do something because it would help someone else process what is happening to you.  And that seems to be my translation of this experience.  

Thank you, one and all, for the abundant beauty and hope you've graciously given me.  I love each of you and hope for you all the love and peace in the world.  Go and do some good.

Godspeed you on your way.