All Mixed Up

"Research shows that the more elements make up your identity, the less threatening it is when any one element is threatened." --Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project

Huh. I am currently reading Gretchen Rubin's book The Happiness Project, a book that I picked up in JFK while waiting for my flight to California on Christmas Eve. It has a big yellow circle on the front informing me that it was #1 on the New York Times' bestseller list, and who doesn't love to read about Happiness? It reminded me a lot of the course I took in my last semester of undergrad, "The Science of Happiness." How can we incorporate more happiness practices and states of being into our lives? With 2012 fast approaching, it felt appropriate to read about one woman's yearlong exploration of theories and practices in Happiness.

That said, this sentence ("research shows...") made me put down the book and think. I've been on board with Gretchen up until this last paragraph on page 78. I am not sure that I agree. Maybe it's the mixed-baby complex that's balking. My best friend and I often talk about the infuriating inferiority complex that many mixed souls experience by never feeling "enough" of any culture, of any race, of any complexion, of any identity. An ex-partner told me once that he is not attracted to White women. I'm not sure if my eyes darkened or my lips curved downward, or if he just realized the hurtfulness and inaccuracy of his statement, but he quickly backpedaled. "I mean, unless I don't know at first that they're White." A challenge to one part of our identities is very threatening, because it assumes that one facet of our identity can be easily extracted from another. The fact that this man was attracted to the idea of who he thought I was initially, and not the reality of who I am, fundamentally threatened me. For this reason, I try to use the term "mixed" over terms like "biracial" or "half." People can not be neatly divided into two (or more) parts, separated out, one part removed from the other. We are all mixed up.

Maybe it's the wanderluster in me that feels offended by this assertion. I have been living in New York City for the past 5 years of my life, traveling the world in my free time and periodically returning to my home base in Oakland, California. Some of my best friends in NY are from the East Coast, and it's a weekly ritual to be told just how "California" I am. They constantly remind me that I am too friendly, too bubbly, too optimistic, too hippie-ish, and so on to ever be confused for a New Yorker. Then I come home and listen to exclamations over how colored I am by New York swag. (Can you tell how obsessed I am with both Cali and NY?) A threat to either identity sends me reeling into confusion and identity crises. I carry the best and worst of both places with me every day, everywhere I go, no matter where I am. A threat to either is a threat to both, and a threat to my core.

Then there's the classed aspect of my identity. Growing up middle class in a working class city, in a working class neighborhood, then moving to the opposite coast to attend an elitist private university, and ending up in my current position, teaching kindergarten public special education in the Bronx has sculpted my class consciousness and identity in a profound way. A threat to any part of that experience is a threat to it all. My world orientation is a combination of all of these elements and experiences. And class cannot be extracted from place, which can not be extracted from race.

Maybe this is a blog post about my own insecurities. And I am okay with that. At the end of the day, the more elements make up my identity, the more dynamic and evolving I am. I like to think that I am a multi-faceted person. My friends tell me I am so multi-faceted that I am elusive, and do not always present all aspects of myself to the world. I am working on that as we move into 2012. Still, I am moving with an acute awareness, thanks to Ms. Rubin, that every part of my identity is inextricably linked to the others. I roll around the world today a compilation of all of the experiences--good, bad, ugly, beautiful, conscious, subconscious--that I have been a part of thus far. I can handle the threats that may come, but I do not separate them. I process and feel them deeply, because a threat to one aspect of who I am is a threat to my essence. I am moving into the new year with a deep love and respect for every element of my identity, and, more importantly, with a deep love and appreciation for the messy, unbreakable relationships these elements have with one another.

So. Vulnerability.

So. Vulnerability.

So. I am an open person. We all know this. But I am also a protective person. Beautiful, bright, love-filled, and damaged. Curious, inquisitive, responsive, and secretive. I open my arms to the world in order to fold into myself. I love fiercely, widely, in order to buffer and prevent rejection. So. I produce and perform an openness that seems to be deep because for so many others it is. The openness on my outer skin matches the inner vaults of some people's hearts, lungs, circulatory systems. I breathe reflections and musings that fuel me and my fortress, rather than expose me and my fragility. So. I am fragile and strong. I am gendered and I am womanly. I am refined and raw. So. A close friend called me in tears, drunk, three years ago, opened by alcohol and emotion. "People think I'm strong because I'm stoic. They think you're weak because you're soft. But you're a rock. You hold it down. You hold me. You're my rock." Maybe my softness is harder than even I realized. Maybe in a worse way. I always knew that my soft was strong, but hard? I am soft in order to avoid becoming the type of hard that scares me. Maybe because I am soft, I haven't given myself the opportunity to know love. Sunshine so bright and constant it dries up all the rain. The beautiful rain that sometimes causes floods and disasters and is the necessary ingredient in growth. So. I am afraid because I have lived with this flesh-adhered openness for so long, seen so many other souls uncurl and smile at my touch, and never pushed myself to open further. You asked me to teach you vulnerability, told me I'm an expert, and yet I don't know how. I can show you how to live and love like me, which may be radically vulnerable for you, but for me.... So. I am on a journey. I am afraid and I am hesitant. I am ready and it is crucial. Here I go. Ready, set, grow.

Some Things I love About California, in no particular order

• fresh, accessible fruit
• foggy mornings
• my family, both immediate and extended, who are pretty much committed to never leaving the Golden State
• avocados
• the wildflowers that line even the ugliest highways (see Route I-5)
• my block party (and being pronounced "too grown" by the neighbors who "watched you get ready for your first day of kindergarten")
• projects like the East Bay Children's Book Project (http://www.eastbaychildrensbookproject.org/), that supplied me with a substantial start to my classroom library
• Art & Soul
  
• the beach(es)
• thrift stores that are actually affordable
• the bartender who asks you if you blazed in the parking lot (which you actually did not), and why didn't you invite him?
• talking to strangers without it being weird
• running in the same circles as multiple former teachers
• warm afternoons and chilly evenings
• listening to Harry Potter on tape in the car with my dad
  

The seality of it all

Written Friday, May 27th, 2011 on Coney Island Beach, Brooklyn, NY

...there's something so completely magical about the ocean. I can't explain why, but I feel a sense of calm and peace wash over me when I'm at the ocean. Maybe it's the sound of the waves rolling in and breaking. Maybe it's the vastness and the fact that there's no end in sight. Maybe it's the way that people act like they have not a care in the world, like they left all their worries and baggage in their car trunks or on the subway train. I know that part of the dynamic here is so unreal, which is why it makes for such a beautiful escape. Or maybe it's that this is reality, and my daily life has been twisted and corrupted to such a degree that I need to return periodically to the ocean to remember what it means to be alive.

Perpetually In Love

I have known this for years about myself: I fall in love with people almost every day. Not in the romantic, sexual, I-want-to-be-your-one-and-only type of way, but in the I-want-us-to-be-nonsexual-life-partners direction. I crush on people, regardless of gender, age, physical location, and regardless of whether or not I feel a physical attraction. I fall for people, hard. And though of course it is sometimes in a very romantic and/or sexually motivated way, more often than not I just desire them as spirits in my life.

Now, when I was visiting home last August, a thought popped into my head: perhaps it is possible for our souls to love each other, even when our selves do not. I posted this thought on Facebook, and received a ton of responses (personal responses, not publicly posted on my status. This seems to be the trend to all of my posts. Maybe because the topics are so personal...people call me or gchat me directly to discuss the content and their musings and postulations). So many people felt me on the notion that our souls can be in love with each other, but some part of our selves, whether it be our mannerisms, our habits, our emotional/expressive tendencies, just DO NOT CLICK. Many of us know this feeling far too well. Remember that person you just could not break up with? That person whose soul made you feel so loved, so understood, so right? That person who kept you involved and intrigued, even when your emotions were strung out so thin you thought your spirit might snap? Yeah, me too.

Lately I've been thinking about souls vs. selves in a slightly different light. In a span of 48 hours, without any prompting on my part, 3 different friends at 3 different times shared with me the thought that our soulmates, the people we are in many ways in love with, are not necessarily the same people we go on dates with or go to bed with. The third person to bring this idea to the table noticed me smiling and asked why. I told her that she was the third one to say it, to which she laughed. "You WOULD have this conversation three times in two days." Yes, I would.

When I make a new friend, I often feel like I'm falling for them. There's a whole courtship that ensues. And because I feel no pressure to "play the game" or to "play my cards right" and keep them guessing and interested, I do not hold back. Why should I? I don't care if they think I am too bold or too forward. I am a lot more affection than some people can handle, but if we are going to fall into friendship/love (or a word that does not yet exist to describe the sensation and dynamic), I am going to bare my soul and you will either take it or leave it. I have been blessed to find that most people take it.

But the other night a close girlfriend called me out. I was gushing to her about new people I met and how I was falling for them, essentially. She listened, nodding. "Okay, but are any of them going anywhere romantic? You have no trouble making friends. We all know that. You have too many, if anything. Now lovers...that's another story." Touché, boo. I have too many complicated relationships for precisely this reason. I am so enraptured with people, so infatuated, so in love with people's essences and beings, that there are often no clear boundaries. And I have no trouble initiating romances, but sustaining them is another matter. My heart is in love with so many people at once that settling down and focusing my love and energy on one soul has proven quite difficult. This is not to say that I am polyamorous, because I have crazy insane jealousy issues when things start to get a lil more serious (those are for another post!). It does mean, however, that it is hard for me to stay focused on one person. I just overflow with love that either overwhelms one person or I start to feel like I need to be emotionally stimulated by more than one person. And the thing is, it really doesn't bother me. I am so emotionally fulfilled by my relationships. I start to wonder, though, if we are all on the same page. I spill so much of my heart into those close to me that I often miss cues that indicate a desire on their part for something more. And how are they supposed to know when I want something more? Cuddling and constantly complimenting and professing love on the regular are integral parts of what I call friendship. Most recently, a close friend who wanted more and I had to have a talk about curbing back our verbal and physical affection until we decide what exactly it is we both want and where we are going.

Maybe this means that I have yet to find someone with whom I am in love on both the soul and the self level. Or maybe it means that my definition of love is more fluid than most. Maybe it just means that I have yet to find one of my soulmates in the romantic sense. Or maybe it means that I have found too many and my heart is in overdrive. I have no answers right now. I just know that I am perpetually in love.

Home is where the Family is.

A profound conversation happened a couple of days ago, and it took me the following couple of days to work up my strength to dive into the feelings and concepts it brought up for me. As I sat having brunch with one of my dearest friends, we talked about the process of deciding our futures, of choosing the next steps in our life paths. To put the situation in context for you, let me explain that this friend--and her family--came into my life during my first year on the East Coast, at a time when I was feeling extremely lonely and lost in New York. Spending time in a house with a loving family helped heal my constantly rupturing relationship with New York City.

As I decide what is next after graduation, family is always in my mind. I have spent the last four years away from my family, constantly struggling with the tension between "doing me" and the understanding that being me is dependent on my relationship with my familia. I always say that family is the most important thing, but do my actions reflect that? How do I put family at the center of my lifestyle, while also being the most engaged and productive "me" in society?

Overwhelmed with guilt and pain spurred by the physical distance between us, I did what I always do when I'm feeling off: I called my mama. I told her about the conversation, and about my fears that something terrible will happen in my absence, or that amazingness is happening in my absence...the point being that I am absent. She listened patiently, then challenged my notions on being close. She doesn't feel that I am as far away as I am. I call several times a day, and do my best to keep in touch. Even if I were living in California, she says, I would be on my own tip, and most likely not home with the family as much as I am romanticizing in my mind.

I hung up the phone soothed. But every minute that I spend pondering my future, family lingers. Can I be truly happy so far from them? And if I am staying to engage in education work, or justice-based work, why not take my degree back home? No doubt that work is needed in the city that brought me up. Don't I owe it to Oakland? But then, what else do I owe to myself? There are tens of people in my life in New York who feel like my soul's family. Though we are not blood-bound, the thought of leaving them now breaks my heart a little, too. As I have traveled the country and the world, counting my blessings and bonding with new spirits, it has become harder and harder to leave each place, and harder and harder to know where--and when--to stay.