Tackling the truth

As the New Year approaches, here's the list of issues my close friends have pointed out to me:

• you have an elusive identity
• you tell people who you are, exactly who you are, so that they don't have to do the work to figure it out
• you don't know how to stay in one place (again)
• you don't know how to be young/let yourself be your age
• you've been sad this semester. You haven't been writing, have you?

Although all of these hit me and have been absorbed into the whirlwind of self-evaluation that lives in my brain, this last one slammed me. It flattened me and bruised my soul. I got defensive and said that yes, I have too! been journalling, but deep down I know it's a lie. My journal is full of logistical notes, important transcripts of official meetings, the occasional lecture notes when all I brought to class was a journal and a planner...but no musings, no poems, no pages upon pages of trying-to-be-a-deep-21-year-old-ness. The occasional list of 5 happies, the daily lists I write of what I am grateful for and happy about each day. But now, as I flip back through the pages, I realize that even those are few and far between.

Has it been a semester of growth? I'm not sure. It has been one of change, without a doubt. I colored my hair dark and wore it straight a lot. I fought off bedbugs--twice--got locked inside and outside my apartment, had a breakdown about the gas bill. I made new, dear friends and rerealized how awful I can be at keeping in touch with old(er) ones. I have been forced to assume the role of responsibility and maturity in relationships, keeping my heart safe but extremely lonely.

If we back up to the year, I have grown tremendously. 2010 saw me open the year at a Roots concert in San Francisco with my sister, then in Oaxaca, Mexico, building a schoolhouse and doing graffiti and learning about and meeting with different social movements. Then I moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I spent four months polishing my Spanish, bonding with Americans, traveling, working at a co-op, trying to feel useful in the world, and learning how to love myself in social spaces where my world orientation wasn't really shared or valued.

But going back, what strikes me the most is that all of these issues people have identified within me are defense mechanisms. Exactly what or whom I am defending myself from I am not sure. I can only hope that someone will do the work of finding me, of finding out who I am even as I tell them, that they will love my wanderlust, and maybe even join my travels, that they will love my youth and my old soul, letting me be a child at times and letting me believe I am anciently wise at others. Of course, it is up to me to let down my guard.

The last one is my own mountain to tackle. No one can make me write. My tendency to hold back from writing when I am not fully happy is one that will take heaps of self-love and strength to face. I am growing into someone who is learning how to be alone with herself. Penning down the pain along with the smiles is part of this journey.

"I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments." --The Invitation, Oriah Mountain Dreamer

When they're nice to You

I sat on the L train penning down my thoughts as they came to me. I was aware of the teenage boy next to me pointedly staring and muttering under his breath at the sniffling homegirl on his other side. It got so intense that I looked up, right when she did. She locked eyes with me, then her attention swung to him.

"WHAT are you looking at?!" she exclaimed. "I'm sick!"

He kept mumbling, but averted his eyes. Next his attention landed on me. I felt increasingly uncomfortable as he watched me writing. Maybe I shouldn't journal on the subway? I forget that our personal bubbles can easily be permeated. Anyhow, his eyes dug deeper and deeper into my page, until I was sure he was with me on this emotional rollercoaster of a morning.

"Excuse me..." Damn. It was enough that his eyes were violating my morning. Now his voice?
"You have really nice handwriting!" I look up and he grins at me, completely genuine, a break from the dark energy he's been throwing like darts around the train.
"Thank you!" I smile back, and return to finish my sentence, punctuate it, and store away my journal for another, more private time.

My mind is racing. I just exchanged some nice energy with this young man. Does that make me complicit in the deathstares and completely rude energy he directed at the woman on his left? By entering into an obvious, vocalized smile and exchange, am I contributing to her feelings of discomfort and lack of safe space on the train? But I also don't want to perpetuate a cycle of negativity this morning. If he (or I, for that matter) is having a bad start to the day, maybe our exchange will ease him into the day, setting a different tone for upcoming interactions.

Now, what does it mean for the woman? A large part of me is conflicted as well because I recognize the gender implications of these two interactions. A (very young) man just disrespected and dissed a sister for her physical condition. He felt entitled to stare her down and entitled to read my journal. Entitled to compliment my handwriting and know that he would be permitted to. So am I complicit in something wrong? Yes. I am also complicit in what I believe is something humanizing, in a new type of interaction.

And as I step into the sunlight, feeling fragile and contemplative, it begins again. I'm waiting to pay for my buttered blueberry bagel and large coffee (skim milk, 2 sugars) at the bodega, when the voice of the man in front of me interrupts my thoughts.
"3/4 water, man."
"What size do you want?"
"3/4 water!! Agua!! Water!!" Clearly the man misheard the store worker and thinks he doesn't understand English. I come in here every day. This man was most likely born in the U.S.
"I know. I'm asking you what size you want," the unaccented answer returns to him.
The confused/rude man and I start to leave at the same time. I hold the door for him.
"Thank you, sweetie!!" he smiles down at me.
"You're welcome!" But are you?

What if they're only nice to You?

Love is clean?

"Love" and "purity" are words we often hear linked. But "love" and "clean"? When my roommate told me "love is clean," she was talking about our home; loving our home means maintaining its cleanliness. But is that where it ends? The sentence has stuck with me. As I move forward in life every day, I find myself in messy romantic circumstances. Which brings me to apply this quote and question myself and the lovers in my life. I have always been of the firm belief that messy and clean are not inherent opposites. I used to claim this vehemently because I used to be extremely messy in my home life. Those who knew me in my teen years can tell you that I lived in piles of clothing and books and jewelry and nail polish and journals. My dad used to joke (and crack himself up, of course) that my room was a hazardous waste zone (a recycling administrator's humor). Much like my life now, except that now my mounds of clothing hang neatly on hot pink hangers, my jewelry in little colorful bowls from the 99cent store, my nail polish in a canvas bag designated for all things manicure-related, and my books and journals line my window sills and press heavily down on a small bookshelf that sits outside my door. The act of organizing these things for me now translates into loving these things and loving my home.

So back to people: is love clean? If love is dirty, if love hurts, if love is hard and complicated and the lines are blurry and fuzzy, is it not still love? And if the answer is yes, it is still love, now I must ask: which type of love is to be desired? But maybe this is the wrong paradigm all together. Maybe what I need to ask is: which type of love helps me grow? I have to admit, though I'm afraid to face the fact, that the answer feels a little filthy.

The Sweetest Thing

Lately I have been extremely homesick. This is also the happiest I have ever been in New York City. Brooklyn is home and beautiful and life is good. Last night a best friend and I cooked pasta, sauteed spinach and mushrooms and cherry tomatoes, and dined on my fire escape, watching the sun set over the Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn backyards. So why the hollowness in my stomach at random intervals throughout the day? Why the yearning for where I am not--for Oakland?

Last night, in addition to the almost-Autumn breeze and avoidance of school work, I realized what I am missing so ferociously. It is my Oakland men. Now, before I go into my full-on appreciation, I will say that this is not to ignore, negate, or pretend away the far-too-frequent wrist-grabs, cars that hover behind you down a block, honks and whistles and hands that should not be in action. The elements of pimp culture that imprint and blueprint our male-to-female relations in the Town are real and must be addressed. This post is not about them.

Freshman year of college, Year 1 in NYC, I sat in the freshman dorm of another college, reflecting on relationships with a girlfriend who also hailed from O-town. Though I have no clue what I was saying, I remember how she looked as I said it. Increasing perplexity clouded her face, until she cut me off. "But Lillz, you have to recognize that not everyone has a Roy*. A lot of women don't have friendships with men who tell them they love them every day." My non-romantic relationships with males in Oakland have nurtured me in ways I am just now beginning to understand the impact of. Though we no longer talk every day, Roy still tells me he loves me. He still tells me I am the most beautiful woman in his life, after his mother and sister. And we never, ever have considered dating. We probably never will. The compliments are not motivated by sexual tension. The fact of the matter is quite simple: we love one another, deeply and fully, and we verbally share this. And he is not the only one I share this dynamic with.

I miss the multiple directions that a, "Good morning, gorgeous!" and a, "You're hella pretty" come from, and the multiple places they lift us to. The little blushes when we tell them how handsome they are, too. The way their heads raise up a little higher, shoulders straighten out and smiles broaden. The arms that curl around us, the way we walk, understanding that we are joined by an endless and limitless beauty that we both understand. I tell these men how attractive they are without desiring them, and the same goes for them with me. The only desire we operate with is the itching to be linked with another bright spirit. The closer the bond, the brighter our inner lights shine, and the more radiant our outer shells become. I am (and, for as far back as I can remember, always was) able to tell many, many men that they are the epitome of handsome and mean it with all my soul.

I am convinced that there is something special in the water in Oakland, California. I miss this sweetest thing.

*Names have been changed to protect the identities of those who don't know they're in my blog. ;)

Why do you smile so much?

"Why do you smile so much, even when you shouldn't?"
Though she was referring to my use of emoticons, she is in no way the first or the only to call me out for excessive smileage. People get uncomfortable. Many of my close friends told me that before we became friends, they just knew me as the really smiley girl. I guess that's not a bad thing, but far too many people seem to equate smiles with naivete.

But it's like the line in the poem "The Invitation," by Oriah Mountain Dreamer: "I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain." How you deal with sorrow, grief, and traumatic events speaks volumes about who you are in your life. My girl told me she laughs her way through hard things. I personally shut down and hibernate while I process, or if I am unable to steal away, I force those with me to process alongside me. But when my former student said that I smile when I shouldn't, I got to thinking: maybe my smiles are offensive to others. Maybe they make me seem frivolous and unserious. As much as I like to think that is the baggage and issues of the people offended, I can not escape the fact that we are participating in this interaction called life together.

I won't stop the smiles, especially because psychology knows that a smile can impact your mood in a positive way, takes less muscles than a frown, and helps me win the battle between negative and positive in my head. But it's not quite so simple. Too many times in my life when my face has been resting in a non-smile, men have ordered a smile. Too many, "Smile, baby. You're too young/pretty to be frowning." Which is incredibly offensive, invasive, and--as much as I hate to admit it--effective. Though my facial expression can not be craved and requested like an item on a fast-food menu, clearly these comments have stuck with me, ruminating and building new ideas, thoughts, and emotions. My smiles are not to be produced on command, and at the same time, the command then begs the questions of who they're for and who they touch.

This is no longer verbal, but facial intentionality. Because the truth of the matter is that the smile is not just for myself. Even I can not control my smiles most of the time, and am proud to discover that my resting face is a smile. Dig a little deeper, though, and I can not deny that I put it on and take it for walks for you, too.

What is a cavity, really?

They told me I had 12 cavities and I was in shock. That part of my body could have been rotting away, dead and damaged and unbeknownst to me just baffled me. What other parts of me might be damaged? What mold am I harboring? What emotional pockets of decay might lie within the boundaries of this body I call my self? Too scary to imagine that a sharp metal object could probe my inner depths and reveal spaces of waste, festering within and poisoning the healthy, happy parts of my being. This is no longer physical. My body is not just flesh, but a curvy, cushy manifestation of my soul. If enamel from my gap-toothed mouth falls away, my soul is peeling. Whether shedding as part of a natural process or whether being ripped open by a mechanical tool, we are morphing.

Merriam-Webster online defines a cavity as

1 : an unfilled space within a mass; especially : a hollowed-out space
2 : an area of decay in a tooth : caries

What unfilled, hollowed-out spaces do we carry with us each day? How dangerous can these spaces be? How powerful? In the same way that they drilled the decay out of my mouth and replaced it with artificial stucco, can we clear out our emotional rot and replace it? And is it possible to replace with something genuine and sustainable, or is the replacement always slightly foreign, never fully part of our original selves? And which definition do we operate with when talking about emotional cavities? Is a cavity a void, or a space full of dying substance? What is a cavity, really?

Verbal Intentionality for the Sake of Others

Two days ago in Los Angeles a good friend that I made in Buenos Aires, who just happens to be a Santa Monica native, took me to Abbot Kinney. Abbot Kinney is a street in Venice near the beach that only houses independently owned shops and restaurants--chain businesses are a no-no. When I asked my friend if this was the street he had told me about one night in Argentina, where Pinkberry had existed before it was a chain, he was flabbergasted that I remembered. One night over wine he had explained to me that Pinkberry resided on Abbot Kinney when it was a small start-up, but when it became a chain, a mom-and-pop homemade icecream joint opened up next door, the community boycotted Pinkberry, and it went out of business.

As he mulled over the fact that I remembered his story, we continued walking towards a coffee shop. Several minutes later, he said, "I really shouldn't tell people that." Confused and intrigued, I asked why. "Because that's a little tiny space in your brain that was used up with information it didn't need."

What a thoughtful, different way of thinking about your words. Usually folks talk about intentionality for the sake of representation, for the sake of self-image or for upholding the honor and respect of your individual person, but also the multiple identities and communities your selfhood might stand for or be understood as. To be verbally intentional and deliberate for the sake of another's brainspace is such a beautiful concept. Then again, is it really my job or my place to decide what information another should be exposed to? Yet again, is not the very act of being, including speaking and acting, exposing others to information and experiences they have no choice but to interact with in some way? And we can not know why or how another brain will latch on to our words. I explained to my friend that my brain latched on to the information he deemed insignificant for me to remember because my brain has an anti-corporate sentiment; my remembrance of his Pinkberry anecdote is actually useful and not a waste at all.

This brings me to the politics of blogging, which I will expand on at a later date. Is the word-based intentionality I practice with my blogs done for the sake of others? What a self-less world my friend lives in, if he practices what he puts out into the world for the sake of the souls he is sharing space with. I have to admit that I am much more selfish than he. When I blog, it is because I think that these ideas I am processing and the experiences I am reflecting on are crucial, and that my personal relationship to them matters. Whether or not your brain chooses to latch on does not concern me, so much as the pure and simple fact that I am moving them beyond myself. Of course the hope is that my thoughts and ideas will link with another's, or with many others, and that collectively we will create a verbal, emotional, mental, and energetic forcefield that will propel us forward. For now, though, let me just say that I am practicing verbal intentionality. For whose sake, exactly, only time will tell.