From self-care to community care

I'm tired, y'all.  Not physically tired, and not drained necessarily...my soul is just tired.  It's telling me to be quiet, to hibernate for a moment, to sit and read books unrelated to the issues that I care about most deeply.  To write until I find some stillness.  Until I can put my finger on what it is that's nagging at me.  I took a long walk last night, and then sat outside with my journal until it was too dark to see the paper.  I wrote a little, but I mostly just sat and stared and thought.  It's been a long time since I've just sat and stared and thought.  Today, I went to yoga, and left a bunch of garbage I didn't need on my mat.  I feel lighter, and my thoughts are clearer.  I'm feeling about ready to re-engage with the world.

I'm friends with lots of awesome people.  I read a handful of really awesome blogs, and I have found/created a community of people who care a great deal about the same issues I am passionate about.  Considering there was a time I felt extremely isolated in my caring about these issues, this is awesome.  Really.  I wouldn't trade it for anything.  But -- it also means that my Facebook feed, my email, the conversations I have...it's all centered around the same issues.  This week, those issues have exploded: sexism, rape culture, misogyny...it is all over everything.  People are talking.  Some people are listening.  Other people are being assholes.  Still others are not getting it.  Others are arguing and saying everybody has it wrong.

In other words -- hold on to your hats, people -- the internet is still, officially, in working order.  There continues to be the correct percentage of agreement, disagreement and trolling that seem to keep the internet waves in place. 

I posted here about something awesome and wonderful that happened for me.  That thing is still awesome and wonderful and important...but it also made me realize that there is still so much work to be done.  There is always more work to be done.  Always more, and more, and more work to be done.  In part, that's where the burnout comes from, right?  Seeing failure and seeing victories, and knowing that always, always, ALWAYS there is more. 

It's a hard thing to see your reality -- your often undiscussed, often ignored, often silenced reality -- reflected across every inch of everything you read.  It's hard to struggle with the reality of "other women are acting and speaking and telling their stories...and what am I doing?  Why can I not tell my story?  Why can I not act and speak and tell?"  It's hard to see some brief Twitter statement that makes you realize things about your own story.  (Full disclosure: I don't twitter or tweet, so I don't really understand it...but I've seen a lot of #yesallwomen tags posted to Facebook or in articles I read).  This reading, this witnessing, this awareness raising, this conversation-having...this is also a type of work.  It's hard work.  It's hard work because it's hard to witness the suffering, and the anger, and the injustice.  It's hard work because it's hard to reflect on your own suffering, and anger, and injustice.  It's hard work to see the ignorance, and the hatred, and the violence.  It's hard work to see the resistance, and the backlash, and the fighting against every step forward.  There are times when the resistance, the counter-arguments, the backlash feel like a push to keep me moving forward.  There are times when they feel like a slap in the face.  There are times when they re-ignite the spark of righteous anger in me, and there are times when it feels like a deep and painful violation.

I care about many issues.  We all do, right?  But I've realized: as deeply as I care about disability rights and advocacy, and as much as I care about calling out ableism, my relationship with this is entirely different because I am privileged enough to take a break from it.  When I need to take a break from advocating and discussing and reading about it, that's all I have to do: take a break.  What a tremendous privilege.

The issue with sexism, and women's rights, and rape culture, is that (to a large extent) I can't take a break from it.  (Okay, so compared to others, I am incredibly privileged in that I live in a pretty safe area, I am not facing violence or sexism in my home, I live in a country where I have basic human rights, etc, etc, etc).  But -- largely, I feel I can't take that break.  Even when I don't engage it mentally, the facts behind this issue live inside my bones.  They are part of me.  Taking a break feels like letting others down.  It feels like selling out.  It feel like not caring enough, not being active enough.  Taking a break means I'm not this big strong person who has a voice.  It means I fill that stereotype of victim.  It means that I am allowing myself to be silent or silenced.  Who knew there could be so much shame here?  Who knew this act of gathering strength could feel like so much more?  Therein lies the exhaustion.  Therein lies the burnout.  Therein lies the desire to hibernate sometimes: it feels like the only way to escape this reality, without having to face the shame of letting others know I need a break.

But the thing is: we all feel this way.  We have to.  There is no way we can all soldier on without this sense of overwhelm and exhaustion regarding whatever our passions or "hot button issues" may be. 

Of course, the response everybody has (including me) is "practice good self-care."  And let's say we do -- let's say we take deep breaths, and we meditate or go to yoga, or we write or run or walk or sing, or whatever it is we do that makes us feel whole again.  It's awesome, right?  But sooner or later, we're going to feel empty again.  Sooner or later, our cup will be empty, we will have forgotten our oxygen mask, we will be back where we started.

 We forget to mention, too, that activism IS self-care.  For me, learning to have a voice, learning to speak and write and be this person I am becoming -- that has been the most important act of self-care I could possibly imagine.  And yet -- there are also times that it is not the type of self-care that I need. 

So even when I write about self-care here, I am thinking and planning and community organizing in my head.  It is who I am.  So this is what I came to on my drive home from yoga today: this burnout happens in community.  As a result, I can only imagine that the cure also comes from community.  We need our activism to be a self-sustaining, self-perpetuating cycle of filling us up.  We need to find a community self-care.  I can think of few things more radical!

We need to find a way of caring for each other that moves like geese in formation: one of us will lead, and then, before we get tired, we'll fall to the back of the line and someone else will take our place.  There is no shame in falling to the back of that V -- it is expected.  We all take a turn, and we all care for those of us who have most recently run out on the frontlines. 

What would things be like -- how could we imagine this sort of world?  How could we create an intentional community in which this is the way we support one another?  How do we see and respect the burnout in others?  Can we name it for ourselves without shame?  Can we name it for others without insult? 

I don't have answers, friends.  But I'm willing to ask the questions.  I'm willing to call myself out on this shame and hesitation associated with stepping back and breathing.  I'm willing to say that what I need is individual self-care, but also community self-care.  Will you meet me there?  Can we step forward into this place -- and further still into whatever lies beyond -- together?

Rise Over Run

When I was a kid, math time always made me cry.
I remember
crying at the kitchen table about x and y and
repeating six times seven is forty-two until
I didn’t have any more of a clue how to get to six times eight
but six times seven is something I never forgot
and I remember
squaring roots and finding decimals and looking for the sine
hoping it would signal me with what to do next
and the x and y were supposed to make
the slope on the graph of the paper with the little squares
but all I could see was how I could make
an amazing mosaic
if only I could use my colored pencils.

But nothing about me was ever square.
If you get to the root of me you’ll see
I’ve never been black and white
always lilac or magenta
or forest green with a lavender hue

that fades into a sunrise like a memory about to happen.
The words I speak could be
the best memory you’ve ever had but
if 42 is the answer to the universe I
memorized the answer without a clue how I got there
and I’m sure it involved
addition or division or
the mean of the range of something which cannot be said
so a random number was used instead.

And I remember
my father lamenting:
“Sweetie, it’s just rise over run.”
But the only rising I cared about was the rising of the sun.
The only run I wanted to find
was the running creek behind my house,
the wind's fingers running through my hair,
and I didn’t need math to learn
the slope from “I don’t understand” to
“look how stupid I am” was a steep one.

If I could use my colored pencils I’d draw you
the slip ‘n’ slide on the side of the mountain so steep
numbers are the last thing you need
to know which way you’ll fall.

And I remember writing lists
of how I could be better
do better
look better
seem better
even though the distance between Me and Perfect
was the only thing I knew how to measure.
So I kept rising and running

hoping I’d run into the perfection I ached to find,

but ran until I could neither rise nor run
so I laid in the valley praying
the shadow of the slope above me
would hide me in her shade.

But I kept rising and running

spending too long trying to find

my smile in the powders and brushes,
trying to find a body in the clothing I used to hide
from love I thought wasn’t mine.
I stormed from the bathroom, late for the day
angry that love was always subtracted and divided

but never multiplied or added.

So I went for a walk in the rain.
Felt the thunder in my chest
knowing I gave away my umbrella long ago
when I thought I could be protected

and I remembered

that when you multiply a negative by a negative

you get a positive
so Me times Rain, I thought,
might be my only way up.

And I remember
letting the rain undress me so I
could catch a rare glimpse
of the beautiful face
I didn’t know I had.

I paused, then doubted if it could be true, but I
let myself climb up the number line of momentary self-worth
and wondered what this thought would feel like
if I rocked it in the middle of the night.

This, I thought,
is the poetry of my body and
I remember
making a promise that one day
it will all add up
and I’ll run to embrace my heart for where it’s been
and rise

to be who I truly am.

And yet, joy happened, in spite of everything

Have you ever had something happen that feels so vast and wonderful that your heart seemingly stops and you aren't able to find your breath?  Something that makes tears stream from your eyes, your hands come to your face, and you weep alone in your kitchen, just because something so transformative has happened that there is no other way for your body to express the intensity of your emotion?

I have.

And, in that moment, a burden I did not fully know I was carrying was dispersed like the seeds of a dandelion being blown away by a breath of love and justice.

I wish I could find the words to tell this story.  I wish I had the ability to lay it all out in its ugliness, its guilt, and its shame -- but I don't.  I wish I could find the words to say what it's like to have a moment when you can not only see the light at the end of that tunnel, but also learn that the light is the sun, and you can bask in a warmth that fills your soul and every cell with heart and with peace.  My heart resonates with Anne Lamott's words: "if people wanted me to write more warmly about them, they should have behaved better."  These words are truth.  And yet, it's so hard to break through to find the courage to write it.  The words are there.  The courage is not.  The love is there.  The desire is there.  And yet, I just can't tell the story in the way I want to tell it.  It's too complex.  Not here.  Not now.

And yet, there is change here that I have to tell about.  And yet, I have found a sense of wholeness and a sense of rightness I thought I and my world were missing.  The world has changed in ways no one I know now can see, and I can claim a piece of ownership and agency in making that change.  There is a change that has occurred as a result of my actions that is good, and is right.  It is a small change...but it is right.  I am choosing to let myself feel proud of that.  I am choosing to let myself feel a sense of strength, and of agency, and of pride.  I have a sense -- finally -- that my suffering, and my pain was not for nothing.  I have a voice.  I am able to use it.  I did.  And it was heard. 

I used it.  And it was heard. 

When we suffer -- when something painful, or awful, or challenging happens -- so often, what we want is for our suffering to be acknowledged.  We want to be heard.  We want our suffering to matter.  When we are in pain, and our suffering goes unnoticed or unacknowledged, there is an overwhelming sense that we don't matter.  Our suffering doesn't matter.  And that?  You internalize that.  You carry that around with you.  Maybe you find one, or two, or a handful of people who tell you that your suffering, your story is important...but it's hard to compete with the stench of the systemic issues surrounding you that are hell-bent on keeping you in your place: quiet.  Small.  Ignored.  Not mattering.

You tell yourself that it matters.  You do the things you can to feel strong.  You seek support, and you try to talk and tell your story...but there is still this huge institution holding you down and telling you that your voice will not be heard.  That your suffering is wrong.  That you are wrong.  That you do not matter.

This is the reality I have lived with for several years now.  And yet -- suddenly, unexpectedly, this week, I got a small piece of news -- just a couple paragraphs -- that said, essentially and indirectly: you were heard.  Your suffering matters to us.  We cannot change your suffering, but we'll change our ways so others won't suffer in the same way. 

And, in reality, nothing can be done about my pain.  It is done.  It is in the past. 

But acknowledgment of pain is huge.  It is enough.  It is enough for me to believe that my suffering mattered.  That I matter.  That I have a voice, and I used it, and that I was powerful enough, and loud enough, and mattering enough to make change happen.  I had a hand in the fact that other people will not be hurt in the same way.  This happened.  It really happened.  I helped in making change happen.  Real change.  I helped to make that happen, in spite of everything.

I hate (HATE) the cliches people throw at difficult situations.  "Everything happens for a reason!" sends shivers up my spine, and "every cloud has a silver lining" makes me want to punch somebody.  I know you may be thinking them -- and even, in my struggle for words, I found myself falling back on these cliches.  But that's not what happened.  Everything did not happen for a reason.  This happiness, this relief, this change and justice, this mattering I have found is not the silver lining.  Why?  Because if there is a silver lining there, it is because I made it.  It is because I put it there.  If there is a silver lining, it is because of my actions, and because of my own strength and courage and resilience.  If there is a silver lining, it's because I mined that silver, ground it up, and I painted the inside of that cloud.  If all of this happened for a reason, it is because I made the reason as I went along.  It is because I built that reason from the ground up.  It is because I have found change, and I have found a sense of peace -- and also of justice.  I have found this -- I helped in creating this -- in spite of everything. 

Living inside Brahms' Requiem

Have you ever walked inside a holy place and felt the awe that descends upon you as that holiness enters your body?  Perhaps in a church, or in front of the ocean, or standing in front of an amazing piece of art -- there is this thing that happens where something inside you moves and you feel a shift -- a change -- and everything becomes still and vibrant and alive, such that everything from your breath to the bottoms of your dirty shoes becomes sacred.  You feel alone and connected; isolated, yet bonded with all those who have stood on that holy ground before.  You feel certain that there is no way to ever tell anyone what just transpired -- and yet also feel certain they must have felt their center tremble, the goosebumps run from their legs up to the top of their skull, felt the tears stinging their eyes in joy, grief, fear, comfort, peace and sorrow.  It is a full-body, all encompassing experience that is impossible to describe.  Even the word "holy" -- one of the biggest words I know -- does not feel big enough to fit the vastness that is this experience. 

This is what it is like to sing Brahms' Requiem. 

I'm not really a singer.  I can read music enough to skate by, but this past September was the first time I sang in front of anyone since I mumbled through "The Rainbow Connection" with the children's choir when I was 12.  So this experience -- this way of learning to live inside Brahms' German Requiem -- this was new.  This was going outside of my comfort zone.  This was pushing my abilities to the limits, and messing up, and getting frustrated, and trying again.  This was wrong notes, meaningless syllables that were supposed to sound like words, squiggly lines I couldn't figure out, and rests I continuously sang through.  This was frantically glancing at my neighbor's eyes as I tried figure out where they were on her page, being unable to find the downbeat (any downbeat), and finding myself unable to count to 3.  This struggle felt anything but holy.

But then Brahms started getting stuck in my head.  I sang Brahms while I was washing dishes, while I was driving, while walking the dog.  Thank goodness my neighbors are Deaf -- otherwise, they too would be well-versed in Movements I - IV.  I sang Brahms in my head while at my desk at work, I hummed it in the hallways, and slowly, it became part of me.  It felt joyous, and angsty, comforting, sad and beautiful.  This agnostic sang about the word of the Lord enduring forever, and something about the ransomed of the Lord returning and coming to Zion, and though I really had no clue what I was saying, I loved it, as one can only love things we don't understand: with admiration and a certain respect and humility that the piece surely deserves.

At long last, things came together.  The first time I felt myself embodying that music during rehearsal, it nearly moved me to tears.  It felt right.  It felt like this making of music and sorrow and joy and comfort was something we were supposed to do.  It was at once intensely personal and vulnerable, and also a shared, community sense of belonging and connectedness.  It felt like community, and love, and it felt like coming home.  And then we lost it again...and so we rehearsed, and tried, and practiced, and sometimes we found it and sometimes we didn't.  We struggled, and we practiced, and we hated and loved Brahms simultaneously. 

I joined the choir in an act of faith.  Prior to joining, I had been what one might call a lurker at church: I came, hid out in the back, and left, quickly, talking to no one.  I did not trust community, and did not believe I could be part of it.  I did not believe I would be welcomed, did not believe that I was deserving of any friendship, or camaraderie, or love I may be given.  I was hesitant -- scared, even -- to belong, until finally, I let go of the comfortable trapeze bar to which I had been clinging, and I flew.  To my surprise, there was not only another trapeze bar within easy reach, but there was a trampoline below me, and a spotter on either side.  I came to remember how it feels to belong.

Even as I say "belonging," though, I know it is more than that.  Being part of that group today, standing there and singing a piece of music that is more vast than my mind and heart can fathom, I felt small and humbled, like I was standing not just before that which is holy, but actually residing inside it.  Like looking at the night sky, I felt dwarfed by the enormity of beautiful that was surrounding me.  And yet -- as part of the creation, I also felt powerful, and important, and necessary.  I was at once important and nothing, just as we all are at every moment in this universe.  Our minister of music reminded us often of how every note Brahms wrote was intentional.  Every note was shaping the next, and the next, and the next, until the whole line, the whole movement, the whole piece was born.  Without one of those notes, it would have been different.  Each one is necessary.  Each one is intentional.

And, perhaps, that's just it.  In the larger scheme of the world, this little performance today was nothing.  In the larger scheme of this particular piece of music, our non-professional, non-auditioned choir surely did not create the most beautiful or technical or important version to have been performed.  But it was intentional.  It was necessary.  The shape of our hearts and those of our listeners today would be different had we not sung it.  We created something holy using only our bodies.  Is it not necessary to create beautiful things, if only for the sake of creating something temporary and beautiful that changes the very shape of our souls?

Of course, if I had not been in the choir it would have been just as beautiful.  The teary eyes in the audience would still have been teary.  There still would have been the pause when we finished, as everyone breathed into the stillness that followed the intensity.  It still would have been holy. 

And yet -- I was there.  In order to create this music -- the music we birthed and inhabited today -- I was necessary.  We all were necessary.  If just one of us had not been there, it would have been different.  In order for my heart to be stirred in this way, we were -- each of us -- necessary.  In the creation of today's holiness, we were -- each of us -- intentional.

And isn't the piece itself one big parallel for this process -- my process -- of belonging?  I came to the choir and to UUCC in a place of mourning, of sorts.  As someone who struggles with the idea of a God, I define that which is god (that which is holy), as connection and community.  I find the divine in my connections with others, in love, in that which is held in belonging and kindness.  So when the first movement starts slowly, gently, softly, I hear:

Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.  

Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.  

They who suffer shall find happiness and joy. 

The second movement continues (with edits and interpretation on my part, for the sake of my parallel here): 

For all of us will suffer, and all of us will die.  

Be patient therefore unto the coming of that which is holy...  

That which is love shall endure forever.  

And you shall come to a place of holiness with songs

 and everlasting joy upon your heads: 

you shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

And the third movement carries it further still, singing that death and suffering is reality for us all, and then:

In what shall I take comfort? 

I hope in that which is holy.  

Our souls are held by the hands of that which is love, 

and there no torment shall touch us.

Finally, the fourth movement -- the last one we sang -- brings it all to a beautiful, comforting end:

How lovely are the places where holiness abides!  

My soul longs for those places, and my heart and flesh rejoice in their love.  

How blessed we are to live in this house of love and holiness. 

Is this what Brahms meant in his Requiem?  No, likely not...but I like to think he would not find this interpretation to be blasphemous.  Having resided as I did, however briefly and imperfectly, within his Requiem, I like to think that he would see this interpretation as I do: simply intentional, and necessary. 

To my fellow singers: thank you.  I am humbled by your talents, your beauty, and your love.  How blessed we are to live together in this house of love and holiness. 

Story-Holders

This is also a poem I have a history of disliking.  When I wrote this poem, it was much longer...and was quite boring in parts.  It had good pieces, but it was actually kinda dull.

I went to a poetry reading -- my very, very first poetry reading, actually -- and I took this poem.  I was scared.  Like, body and voice shaking type of scared.  But I read it, and people liked it, I got a lot of good feedback on it, but there was that one lady.  You know that one lady?  That ONE LADY that has something to say about everything.  After the poetry reading, when I was feeling all buzzed from the adrenaline of doing something I was scared to do, That One Lady came up to me and said, "your poem was nice...but the ending was cheap.  I wanted to be wowed.  You can do better."

And just like that, I hated the poem.  It has a cheap ending.  It didn't wow.  Bummer.  Another one for the recycling bin, I guess.

It's embarrassing that I let That One Lady, in her gold-tipped pumps and too much blue eye shadow ruin that experience for me, but she did.  I have since written and rewritten and rewritten this poem, hearing That One Lady's words ringing in my ears so clearly that my eyes stung with the perfume she bathed in.  

Perhaps it's the streak of defiance I have in me -- but in as many times as I have rewritten it, I have never changed the ending.  I've tried, but it doesn't want to be rewritten.  There is literally nothing else that comes up, other than that cheap, non-wowing end.  

So this is it.  This is the final version of this poem.  Complete with the cheap ending and the lack of wow. 

And you know what?  I'm okay with that.  So there, lady in the gold-tipped pumps.  

No, seriously, I want the end of this poem to be kind of quiet.  I like the overall arc of the poem.  It starts rather quiet, it's intense through much of the middle, and all the way through to halfway through the last stanza...and then it gets quiet again.  It needs that, I think.  I need it to be that way, because I want the wow in the middle.  It's not a wholly satisfying ending, but is the first step of a journey ever satisfying?  I think not -- how can it be!

Is an ending still "cheap" if it has a purpose?

Story-Holders

This poem is for the women who are story-holders.

It is not for the story tellers.

I’m not talking about stories that come out in coffee shops,

at the water cooler,

over phone calls while cooking dinner or changing diapers,

this poem is for the stories held in the wombs of women.

Impregnated by generations before

these stories send women into a labor of silence.

Fear.  Shame.   Rage,

and they bestow inconceivable strength.

When women can’t give birth to their story,

they hold it, deep inside, in places that will see no light,

in places where no one can hear the screaming,

and so they become

story-holders.

Women.

They hold so many stories in their story-holding wombs,

they don’t know how many stories are there.

Like my story-holder:

I got down the other day in front of my

full-length mirror and I looked and listened,

held it, rocked it, tried to comfort it,

till I heard this story:

my grandmother’s sister died in a fire in the outhouse.

My great-aunt, she was with her when she died,

and all the women in my family held this story

and told no one for so many years, it was almost like

it never happened.

Except for the fact that it did.

Except for the fact that my great-aunt hid in closets during storms and no one knew why.

Except for the fact that her story-holding daughter moved away and made her story that

she didn’t have a mother.

Her story ends that she killed herself

and all those stories.

I guess some stories

are just too painful to be born. 

The women in my family are story-holders

but not story-birthers.

We hold our stories tight

ignoring every throb, pang, seize of story pain.

These stories are not safe for work.

Not safe for home.

Not safe for human consumption --

and yet we carry them

and we give them to our daughters to carry.

My story-holder holds my sister’s story.

This story, you must hold close to your heart:

bring it into you, let it feel your heart beating,

bring it in to the warm place between your breasts,

bring it in.

My baby sister had just come home

from being locked behind doors with other girls who

were just trying to live up to something,

 just trying to find one moment in which they could feel worthy,

feel alive

feel beautiful.

Our teenage bodies lounged on the floor of her bedroom

till she told me she was scared.

I crawled into her bed,

pulled her bony frame up with me

and she cried.

I held her bones against me, soaking in the stories she couldn’t tell

locking them tight in my story-holder

not knowing, not telling, just sharing

wordlessly.

And then there are my stories.

As if there is any room, I have squeezed stories into my story-holding womb

kept them locked like a high security prison believing

these stories should be held, as tenderly as an iron-cage story-holder

with teeth and locks and iron bars can hold them

while ensuring they will never, ever escape.

I hold stories differently now.

I could transform my body into an iron, story-holding vessel

unconquerable, removed, disengaged,

I have that power and

the women of my family have taught me well

but I think I

might need to birth the stories and listen to their cries because

this could be my new beginning

and this

could be

my first step.

Just another body poem

This poem is driving me CRAZY.  It's been wanting to be written for weeks now, and has been written very slowly.  But I think it's done.  I think the flow of it needs a little work, but I'm done with it for now.  Plus, this is the second night I've stayed up past midnight working on it.  It needs to be done.  For now.

Everybody's got a poem about their bodies.  There are so many poems about bodies.  We all get caught up and self-absorbed that way, don't we?  I've written many poems about my body, or parts of it...most of which I don't share.  But here's this one.  It's just another body poem.

I can't decide on a title, because I suck at titles.  I could go with a simple "This Body."  Or "Truthsong."  Or "Crucifixion."  I think I'll go with the one I chose, though.  For now, anyway. 

Or, I could make it long and complicated, like: "Poem to my colleagues on why I don't engage in your negative body-talk."

[Content note: eating disorders, sexual assault]

Bodyshame

When women lament their stomach

their thighs

their arms

their right big toe

this body rises, indignant.

This body balks at diet plans.

She will not discuss weight loss goals

or curse the gym time it takes to reach them,

she cares not about:

her water-weight

her muscle mass

her BMI

or the calories in oranges.

This body stretches into downward dog.

She bows in recognition of scarred flesh.

Broken heartstrings. Skin burning for love.

She knows her muscles ache

to remind her they exist:

this body begs to be nurtured

in ways this world forgets to name.

This body will not shame herself.

This body knows the fear of disappearing.

She has seen beautiful fade to bare:

it's a fucking privilege to shame your body

without the weight of others' bones on your flesh.

Tell me how to hate your body as you check her chest for breath.

Laugh about diets, your thighs, your ass,

when you've seen how body eats muscle 'cause there's nothing left.

Tell me how to shame your body when you've thanked god over ounces,

or sat holding a body's relic of hate's aftermath.

Tell me how to shame it then. 

Tell me how to hate it.

Tell me how to love it.

This body has felt eyes and whistles rise like drawn weapons up her neck.

Has been every man's challenge when she closes her doors.

This body has known dark-alley hands with heavy touch,

beer-soaked mouth on lips and flesh,

fear-clenched breath,
back on brick,

lungs that beg for air.

This body has known bruise, bite, bleeding

the empty quake of nothing that erupts into emptiness,

this body has known broken.

I don't know how to praise her.

Was not taught to sing her hymns or speak her gospel,

was trained to hide her goodness, her wholeness, her flesh.

I wear my bodyshame like crucifixion.

Each nail an emblem

of how Woman I can be:

I never learned this body holy

but I know her temple is cells and breath.

Her deity, Truth, worships at her feet

that bless this holy ground,

sing her holy name,

her truthsong is love, only and over again, love,

for she who has carried me through. 

She who is sweat and tightness and stretch.

She who knows how to woman,

to open, to strong,

to soften, to power, to cry

to close, to quake,

to sing, and sing, and sing...

How can I shame this warrior-goddess body

who has only ever wanted

to love me

home?

The exquisite pain of fighting alone together

I've had a very full day.  A very long, very full, very wonderful day, actually.  And I'm completely overwhelmed.

This morning, I participated in a fundraising walk for a local rape crisis center.  When I saw the fundraiser advertised, I knew I had to do it.  I found an awesome friend to do it with me, I raised $170.00, and I went.  I've done walks before -- I participated in Relay for Life in both college and grad school, and I've staffed tables and raised money for several autism walks.  But this walk was different. 

First of all, it's the only walk I've ever done in heels.  The walk -- called "Walk A Mile In Her Shoes" -- asks everyone (men included) to wear high-heels for the mile-long walk.  With the focus on teaching men not to rape and to be allies for women on this issue, they're asking men to (literally) walk a mile in a woman's shoes.  It's catchy, right?  And, I'll admit, it WAS pretty awesome watching men of all ages totter down the streets in heels -- some with socks, some without, and some with packing tape wrapped around the foot and shoe to keep it on (points for creativity there). 

There were signs, too, of course: "Real men don't rape."  "Rape is a 4 letter word."  "Rape hurts ALL of us."  It was an easy walk on an incredibly gorgeous day.  People came outside to watch us walk by, take pictures of the men in heels, and clap (or, you know, just stare.  That too).  People driving by honked their horns and gave us a thumbs up. 

I had this moment, out in the sunshine, with a big crowd of people all joining together to stand up against this horrific thing that I frequently feel so alone in fighting, when I realized: I'm not alone in this.  This is not a battle we fight only from our individual bedrooms.  This is not a battle we fight only through words on a page going nowhere.  This is not a battle we fight only in moments shrouded with stillness, and silence, and pain.  We can also fight this battle together.  People care about this issue.  People care enough to come, they care enough to walk, they care enough to wear heels for a mileand, when this issue is on the street marching through town, people care enough to agree and to acknowledge us. 

I know this, of course.  I know that there are many, many people who care about this issue.  I know that there are many, many people affected by this issue.  I know that "rape is wrong" is a statement most people can get behind.  But it doesn't feel that way very often.  When you're fighting in the war, it's hard to see that there are people battling alongside you and behind you and in front of you because you're just so focused on making it out of that battle alive. 

And yet...there we were.  Together.  Standing together in the April sun, complete strangers, daring to stand on this issue that we all fight alone.

Tonight, this thought fills me with an exquisite pain that's hard to explain.  It's just so right, you know?  It's just...it's as it should be, and that's beautiful.  For once, it feels like somebody got something right.  For once, it feels like maybe...just maybe...there's hope.  Maybe all the sunshine went to my head, but there is this emotional pain that feels a little bit like a closed heart breaking open -- painful, and beautiful all at once. 

****************************

I will be teaching a course at a local university starting in the fall.  Last week, I got an email from a professor/mentor/friend there, who asked if I would be willing to talk with a student about graduate school and answer her questions.  I agreed, and we arranged to meet this afternoon. 

And what an incredible, incredible young woman she is!  She wants to be a therapist, and her passion lies in working with victims of sexual violence.  She currently volunteers 5 days a week as a victim advocate on the overnight shift for a local hospital.  She's going to be travelling abroad to work with victims of sexual violence in a third world country.  You can just feel her open heart and enthusiasm for life exuding from her body, and she hung on every word I said.  I felt completely inadequate in "helping" her (didn't I just graduate from college?  How is it possible that she greeted me as "doctor," and I had to remind her [twice] to call me by my first name?). 

It's overwhelming to feel so looked up to and respected.  How incredible it is to see someone with such passion for working on this issue!  Someone who says it is her "calling," and who is so ready to take on the world.  How amazing it is to feel that I now have some degree of influence over the students I come in contact with -- that I can help them develop plans for their futures, or see where they want to go, or how they can move towards becoming more of the incredible beings they see themselves becoming. 

It's just so right, you know?  It's hopeful, and beautiful, and powerful and right to see this young, empowered woman bursting at the seams with desire to change the world.  To be able to tell her of one possible path, or maybe two -- and then to leave her to make those decisions on her own. 

****************************

It's not that I've been depressed, but I've been tired.  I've felt alone.  I've felt overwhelmed.  I feel a tremendous responsibility to give back to the people and places that have helped me; a responsibility to give back to people who know the struggles I have known; and a responsibility to change the face of my profession, given the wrong I have seen done within it.  As the days go by and nothing visible changes, you feel ineffective and you feel tired.  As the days go by and you focus more on getting yourself through them than on lifting others up, you feel tired.  As you see the same problems, and the same arguments, and the same conversations had over and over, you feel tired.  It's crazy-making, and exhausting, and lonely, this fight. 

And then there's a moment when you that you are not alone in these struggles or this fight, that it's not your responsibility to change the whole world, or even your corner of it.  It's your responsibility to get up in the morning.  To walk.  To breathe.  To smile.  To cry.  It's your responsibility to find yourself in the loneliness and to make it through those moments alone.  It's your responsibility to find the moments of connection and to make it through them together.  Such is life.  There is pain in isolation, yes.  But there is pain in connection and community, too.  An exquisite sort of pain.  There is pain in the contrast.  And that pain, in the ways it serves you -- it's right.  It's beautiful, and painful, and right. It will crack you open, and open, and open, and those cracks are painful and hard...but also right.  Also beautiful.  Also exquisite.  It is also part of being alive.  

I guess that's the thing.  I guess that, today, I felt alone, and I felt connected, and I felt whole and wholly cracked open.  And isn't that what it is to feel alive?  What more can one hope for, but to feel alive as we fight alone, together?