setting our minds

It's so strange to hear Americans buzzing with joy, proudly passing along the news that we have murdered Osama bin Laden. It's so odd to hear the President state that he ordered another man be killed. No judge and jury in this case. But it is okay, just because of who this man is. Surely we all agree. He must be murdered.
I'm an Obama supporter. I always have been.
"His demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity." I believe in peace. I feel quite strongly about human dignity. Yet I have mixed emotions about this.
By no means am I an Al Quaeda supporter or a Bin Laden fan. It seems he was quite a terrible man. I was horrified by the events of 9/11. But I was also horrified by our actions that followed. I was horrified by the murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women and children who had no part of 9/11 or terrorism of any sort. We committed those murders. All of us did.
"America can do whatever it sets it's mind to."

Osama was clearly a man who believed viciously in what he thought to be true. So much so that he was willing to kill for it, willing to die for it. And no educated person can argue that there aren't abundant, legitimate reasons to hate Americans.
He fought and killed for his own beliefs, for his extremist faction. In that way, he was just like us. We too fight and kill for what we believe. And our beliefs are held just as fiercely as his.
There is no "right and wrong" in extremism. We are not right, and they are not wrong. We are all just believers, holding fast to morals that we can no more prove correct than our beliefs in adversary gods. His followers/sons/cousins/nephews will be incensed by his death, just as our parents/spouses/children/friends were enraged by the Trade Center attacks. And the killing will continue. Violence begets violence.

After the week I've spent being utterly disheartened and dismayed with virtually all of humankind, I'm puzzled by the cheering. I flash back to my disgust in the late months of 2011. The ignorant Toby Keith songs encouraging a "boot in their ass," the Muslim fear and hatred, the vilification of all people brown and the American flag stuck to every gas-guzzling Hummer and pick-up truck. I hated being American.
As everyone's profile picture seems to change simultaneously, Facebook reminds me of why I'm having flashbacks:




Last week I followed a car that had a bumper sticker that read: "Nuke 'em. It worked once before." I was tempted to ram into him, if only so that we might get out of our cars and I could scream at him for his asinine beliefs, about the permanent effects of radiation... and how it will sooner or later be our turn.

Today at Walden Pond I sat and wrote about how difficult I find it. Coping with my own anger sometimes, that is. How hypocritical it is for me to believe in non-violence, and yet become so very enraged in the face of ignorance. How heavy-handed and judgmental I can be when faced with the views I so passionately loathe. How I certainly do not always manage to treat others as I want them to act. How violence, even emotional or verbal... begets violence.


I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

above the roar

I have been giving a lot of thought to a quote (see below) I recently encountered. I had heard the name, but didn't know much about Pearl Buck. I hadn't read The Good Earth, but after reading her biography on wikipedia I realized where I knew her from initially: my childhood stamp collection.

But this woman, who died a decade before I was born, clearly knew me quite well.
I'm in love with the quote. It so eloquently explains how I've felt for so long.
I began thinking about my own sensitive nature, and some of the writing I did as a teenager (when undoubtedly at the pinnacle of my hypersensitivity). I described things in a strikingly similar manner. It seemed cruel, how my emotions and experiences seemed to be amplified to an ear-splitting level. Everything pounding into my brain from every direction, all at once, all so LOUD. The noise and white deafening static, the commentary... the suffering, blitzing heartbreak, blinding me with such hard black hits it leaves stars swirling about my head... the raging red anger of nightmares and pulse-pounding terror... the heart-swelling white joy of clarity.
As a teenager I feared that something was very wrong with me. As, of course, all teenagers do. But there was something different about me. I absorbed the feelings and physical pains of those near me.
I recall sitting in the high school gymnasium watching a basketball game next to my friend Jennifer, feeling perfectly relaxed until a panic attack struck from out of no where. Having always been extraordinarily sensitive to anxiety, I was quite familiar with it's precursors and triggers. I looked around, confused and unable to identify why my heart was suddenly pounding and my chest was growing tighter. Until I looked at Jennifer, and saw her rocking and biting her nails. It was her panic attack, not mine.
Being someone who never gets headaches (I can count the times in my life on one hand), whenever I have felt a splitting in my temples I have soon learned that someone near me has a migraine. I absorb the feelings, the aches and pains of those around me.
I've always been an empath, but some people say this degree is called clairsentience.
But it doesn't happen to me so often any more.
When I realized this yesterday- how long it's been since I've experienced this- I breathed a sigh of relief... thankful to be rid of such a curse.
And I felt deeply saddened. Urgently mourning the loss of such a curse.

Why did it go away? I'm less sensitive than I used to be, I realized.
Life still brings me great pain. But it also brings me awesome joy. The less sad I am, the less sensitive I feel.
Why? I'm an adult now? Loss of creativity? Loss of romance? I'm just a happier person? Have I gotten so good at filtering emotions, by nature of my work, that I am better able to protect myself? Have I developed of a numb, callous skin? Or it is just the anti-depressants?
What turned down the volume, bringing it from a deafening cacophony to only a frenzied screaming?
My emotions have always felt too large for me. Art has provided the only moments of relief; the psychic blood-letting that relieves my engorged heart and focuses my seizing brain. I have often attempted to incorporate my physical/somatic experience of emotion into my art.
How frequently I feel as though my body has been severely beaten with blunt force... how, when feeling love being torn from me, I feel the claws pierce and dig into my skin, tearing my flesh into smoldering ribbons.
Everything. Just. Hurts. So. Much.
When the sensitivity was at it's pinnacle, I described myself as being without a skin. I pictured myself as one of those anatomy models, skin stripped away, leaving only shining bloody red muscles, stretched in patterns across the body and tethered with tough white tendons.



And the emotion I experienced was a metal cheese grater being rubbed across my already exposed raw flesh.

While I'm glad the volume has, for whatever reason, been turned down... I fear losing any more of my sensitivity. Art not only vents it, it keep me in touch with it. It keeps me able to define the fires inside and know my self. My sensitivity has saved me. It has kept me from becoming the abuser, it has given me a purpose and a career.
And when the sunlight streams in through the blinds the morning, falling in warm golden slats across my pillow... or when the dog wiggles his golden eyebrows above his warm, unassuming brown eyes... or when I head for outer control and a sweet wall of fragrance from the inmate's newly planted flowers overwhelms my senses... or when I breathe in the familiar scent of a lover, our lips gently melding together as our souls mingle for just a moment in the small space between our kiss... or when I smell the scent of a mowed lawn and bar-b-queing chicken... tiny golden fireworks erupt in my brain. The darkness implodes with light and life feels as though it could be no better...
I am so, so thankful for that deafening silence.

pulled int(w)o

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this:
A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create--so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off... They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating."

-Pearl Buck


more later

Dear God,

I'm sorry I haven't called or written in so long.
I would say I've been busy... but you would know that's a lie. You've seen me start this letter three times this week before running off to play Farmville or Mario Kart or call someone I didn't even want to talk to or do the dishes or just stare at the ceiling.
I wonder if you find it as hard to talk to me as I do you. I imagine you must.
I still always try to honor the promise that I made myself 11 years ago before I was baptized. Whenever I do pray, I try to say thank you more than I say please.
Thank you for allowing me to live this long, and for helping me to survive more than I ever thought I would. Thank you for giving me my intelligence and a mind that sometimes feels so much it borders on madness.
If you really are omniscient, if you're able to think the thoughts and feel the feelings of every tiny little being in the universe... I'm sorry. I can't imagine shouldering that kind of burden. Sometimes I can't bear to live within my own mind. Six billion more like me... I shudder to think.
My humblest apologies, for us.
Thank you for all the wealth you've given me, and all of us. I have a good home and food, I have clean running water and unnecessary amenities by the millions. I am very rich, and I know this... even though it's easy to forget when I get an overdraft alert or collections calls by the dozen. On the world scale of riches... these things in themselves signal luxury.
Thank you for my health. A body that always gets up out of bed, never fails me, and has yet to ever break down.
I won't talk about my wishes. The things I need help with, guidance on... you already know them. You see me sitting with these hurts weighing heavy on my heart, day in and day out. You hear my whimpers and complaints, you watch me crying and feeling sorry for myself. You see me struggle, sometimes feeling like a trout flopping about the shore. On nights like tonight, you see me sit for hours looking for the motivation to get up make myself food. Again I wonder if I frustrate you as much as I do myself. This time I'm going to venture to guess... no. You are much more patient than I am. Thankfully.
Thankfully.
I cling to the mantra hung around my neck and I pray that I do not get lost in my pain.
Sometimes I feel very lost.
Maybe we should talk about that some time....

me

for the Bible tells them so

These evening I went with my ex-girlfriend to a screening of For the Bible Tells Me So that she put together with the LGBT group at her Church (a United Church of Christ in Lexington).
I don't know where to start.

Most of the viewers were the teenage members of the church. And it was truly amazing to see their incredulous reactions to the film. Having grown up in the self-described "bubble" of liberal Lexington, the kids had no real concept of the sort of blind hatred and discrimination from "Christians" chronicled in the film. Their naivety was beautiful and refreshing. I hope that for everyone younger than me from this point in history on, this sort of reaction is the norm.

Having grown up in Colorado with a family from backwoods Missouri, the scenes in the movie felt like a painful personal memory. My own coming out - to myself - culminated in the beginning of my junior year at the University of Northern Colorado. It became an unavoidable truth that I could no long deny. For more than six months I grieved furiously, crying myself to sleep. The pain was intense. It led to two hospitalizations and months of suicidality. I would have done anything to change myself. I hated that this was me. I hated my fragile self even more than I did before.

It was at this opportune moment that my University was visited by the Westboro Baptist Church, led by hatemonger Fred Phelps and his "God-hates-fags" sign-toting followers. He came in full-force, as he always did to Northern Colorado in the fall (to protest the annual Wyoming/Colorado State homecoming game, reminding students each year of how many days "Matthew Shepard has been burning in hell").
And there it was. A hard slap to the face. Violently reminding me of what I had learned many years earlier when my parents divorced and my father lost his mind: The Bible is a weapon. And no one hates like Christians.

At this time in college, I wore around my neck a star of David imposed over a Christan cross. I had made it myself, as no readily available jewelry felt authentic to me. With my upbringing I couldn't honestly wear a cross, nor a star. But after the Westboro Church made their entrance... I vividly remember ripping it from my neck. To look at it made me sick. To look at any cross, made me sick.
And I realized this evening that this is the case even still.
I'm an intelligent person. It pains me and makes me ashamed that I have such a negative, visceral reaction to religious iconography.
It's not just because of a single instance. It's not because of Reverend Phelps or Jerry Falwell or Rush Limbaugh or any other right-wing nut-jobs. It's because of years and years of denigration. Hatred both brazen and covert. It's because of being told over, and over, and over again that I was an abomination. Told that, in the name of Christ, I am an abomination...

It pains me to admit that when I see a cross - whether atop a church or around someone's neck - I see a symbol of hate. Whenever I hear that someone is "a good Christian," what I really hear is "ignorant and hateful." To me, all of Christianity had become a hate group.
Intellectually I *know* the error of this. I know that the hateful, ignorant people splayed across the news represent only a fraction of a percentage of Christians. I know that hate is not a hallmark of Christianity. Certainly not of true Christianity. But the hatred that I have seen scares me. And it scares me even more how drawn people seem to be to it, and how they buy in so whole-heartedly. How they flock so hungrily to Pat Robertson and James Dobson and so many others like them. Their power scares me. Their influence scares me. Their ignorance and hatred scares me.

I can only keep in mind the reactions of the youth. The shock and incredulity they showed in response to this hatred. It was blissfully foreign to them.
I can only pray, to whatever God, that the naive, loving bubble protecting the youth of Hancock Church can expand enough to engulf us all.

I kidney you

One good/bad thing about training for the 60-mile is the ample time for thinking. It's less so on the treadmill, as most of my focus is on music or how much I hate treadmills, but today was nice enough to walk outside for a bit. Walking outside can be extremely therapeutic. When Francine Shapiro allegedly "invented" EMDR therapy, she did so after realizing how unburdened she felt after taking a walk and watching birds flitter by. I'm looking forward to spring, and warmer weather for the next 20 weeks of my training.
I digress as usual. While walking I began thinking about organ donation. Specifically, live donation and why more people don't do it. Why aren't there movements encouraging live donation? Commercials encouraging that like there are for everything else. Come to think of it, there aren't even campaigns encouraging post-mortem donation, or encouraging people to think about making provisions in the case of brain-death. Organ donation upon death can save up to eight lives. I understand there is a touchy religious component to all this. Is this the problem with live donation?
Obviously some tissues/organs can't be given from a live donor- heart, pancreas, etc.
But if I were asked, or the opportunity presented itself, I would donate an organ without hesitation. I admit, in my lower, most desperate, poverty-striken moments I definitely wished I could auction off any of my desired parts for cold hard cash. And had I found a market, I probably would have- but that black market is disappointingly difficult to locate.
I did try to sell my eggs a couple times, but apparently no one wants to have my babies. I'm going to try not to take this personally and instead chalk it up to a heredity riddled with cancer.
But this isn't what I'm talking about- I'm referring to altruistic donation without compensation- but I found these passages on Wikipedia interesting:

"Two books, Kidney for Sale By Owner by Mark Cherry (Georgetown University Press, 2005); and Stakes and Kidneys: Why markets in human body parts are morally imperative by James Stacey Taylor: (Ashgate Press, 2005); advocate using markets to increase the supply of organs available for transplantation. In a 2004 journal article Economist Alex Tabarrok argues that allowing organ sales, and elimination of organ donor lists will increase supply, lower costs and diminish social anxiety towards organ markets.

Iran has had a legal market for kidneys since 1988, and the market price is of the order of US $1,200 for the recipient. The Economist and the Ayn Rand Institute approve and advocate a legal market elsewhere. They argued that if 0.06% of Americans between 19 and 65 were to sell one kidney, the national waiting list would disappear (which, the Economist wrote, happened in Iran). The Economist argued that donating kidneys is no more risky than surrogate motherhood, which can be done legally for pay in most countries."

In the United States, 110,460 people are awaiting organ donation. Nearly 90,000 of those are awaiting a kidney transplant- a donation which is completely feasible for a living donor (in fact, kidneys from living donors last an average of 3 years longer than those from deceased donors). Another 16,000 of those are awaiting liver donation- also available via living donor.
18 of those awaiting donation will die each day.
Numbers are even larger in some other countries. More than 2 million people need organ transplants in China, 50,000 waiting in Latin America (90% for kidneys), as well as thousands more in Africa.
I'm just saying... perhaps it's the communist approach to organ donation, but I think we have enough for everyone.
As of today, there are approximately 307,006,550 people in the United States.
There shouldn't be an organ donor waiting list.

Maybe I should put my money where my mouth is.

gratitude

As I lay under the covers on the futon in my robe at 5 in the afternoon, sobbing into the pool of snot that was my pillow, Courtney came to comfort me. She asked if I had ever kept a gratitude journal, to which I shook my head. She explained how, though it was trite when she was younger, it helped her to feel happy. She suggested, as usual, that I get my sorry, soggy ass out of bed and do something.

The phrase "self-fulfilling prophecy" keeps skirting through my mind. The critical and utterly un-helpful part of my mind tells me that I always fuck things up. That I sabotage the best parts of my life.
Of course, that's a debate. Not that knowing whether or not it's true would be helpful either.

Being inside my brain is exhausting. Yesterday I went from calm and content to motivated and joyful... to irritated and finally disillusioned and achy. Every day seems to run the gamut from one end to the other, back again, up down and around. It's exhausting feeling everything so intensely. Every little thought and emotion... completely taking over, billowing into a nuclear cloud of feeling and reeking total havoc in my mind, body, heart.

The only time it stops is when I'm listening to others. I can be there for someone else so completely. I can shut out my own world.
"Don't you get tired of hearing other people's problems when you have your own?" No. Quite the opposite. It refreshes me. Give me the space I need to breathe, makes me able to look at myself with less emotion and more perspective. Put myself in the shoes of others, give sound advice that forces me to take some myself. I'm grateful for the problems and feelings of others. I can be in their heart for a moment and be out of my own.

I frequently find myself unable to tell the difference between having too much to say and having nothing at all to say. I just keep drawing, spilling out incredibly sad pictures. Pictures that actually feel much sadder than I do, but it is an invaluable catharsis.

When the waves of pain come... it's so much. It's so deep. It's been there for so long. I remember first feeling it with this intensity around age 10, when I began locking myself in my room and never coming out. My heart literally aching in my chest, I would lay in bed at night and writhe with pain.
The word writhe fits perfectly. When I hear it I see my father in my mind. I see him stepping out of the truck onto a gravel road, grabbing a large rock and bashing in the head of a crossing rattlesnake. When he did that, they writhed.
The neglect was so much worse than the abuse. 12 years old, 13. I remember the tears, just wanting more than anything to be touched. But there was no place for that.

I remember laying in the hospital, age 20. Feeling as though I might die, if not from the infection in my body then from the splitting pain in my chest. Without my glasses I couldn't see beyond the oxygen mask. But my best friend, the spiky-haired blur above me, stroked my forehead and sang to me. Tears streamed down to my ears. Love was killing me.

I felt it when I left JP in the driving snow, howling softly in my truck, having just lost the love of my life for the second but not the last time.

It's a feeling that feels like my oldest friend.

If I were to write a gratitude journal, I could write volumes about how things have improved since then. There's no end to how things have improved. Truly.
But, in the words of Alanis...

Oh, these little rejections, how they add up quickly
One small sideways look and I feel so un-good, and
Somewhere along the way I think I gave you the power to make
Me feel the way I thought only my father could.

Oh, these little rejections, how they seem so real to me
One forgotten birthday, I'm all but cooked, and
And how these little abandonments seem to sting so easily
I'm thirteen again, am I thirteen for good?

I'm not 13 anymore. Thank god I never, ever have to be again. I'm not subject to abuse or neglect. I'm not trapped, I'm not without options or people who love me... no matter how it feels sometimes. But god it's so easy to revert. It's so easy to forget. It's so easy to feel like a little, wounded child again.

So. Gratuity. Graciousness. Grace.

I am grateful that I have lived longer than I ever dreamed I would. And because of this, I have healed from more than I ever thought I could survive. How old I feel and how old I am is becoming more and more congruent. I am finally interested in women who are my peers and not years beyond me.
I am grateful for my intelligence and my sense of humor. I am grateful for my passionate heart, even though it gets just as passionately broken as it feels passionately joyous. I am grateful for my talents, which keep me sane.
I am grateful for my job, even though it sometimes drives me crazy. It lets me keep up on my financial obligations and keep a roof over my head. I have a safe place to sleep at night and I always have food. I am grateful that I was born in this country, where absolutely anything can be accomplished.
I always have someone to call when it's an emergency. Or I just need an emergency hug. I am extremely grateful to have met some of the most wonderful people in the world, and to have them as friends. I'm grateful for every friend I have, even if that friendship was forged through a failed relationship. Sometimes those are the very best friends: someone you can't hide from.
I am grateful for the endless opportunities that life presents me with each and every day.
I am grateful for the opportunity to right my wrongs. I am grateful for the strength to keep going, keep learning, keep loving.

I'm so excited to see what this year will hold. Can you imagine all that might happen in the span of these 365 days?
I rest assured that as many moments as I spend in an aching puddle of tears, I will spend just as many swelling with joy and tearing up at the sight of something beautiful.

This year I will spend time reading things things for fun and learning to meditate. This year I will complet a 60-mile marathon, and go on a silent vipassana retreat. I will listen to music I've never heard and spend more time looking at the ocean. I will laugh more and watch more movies. I will take more mini-vacations. I will take more bubble baths and use the outside grill more. I will enjoy the little things. I will create something beautiful as often as possible, and I will take every opportunity to extend respect and friendliness to those in need. I will spend more time looking at the moon and stars. I will nurture my friendships. I will nurture myself.