On General Assembly: Your Love Binds Me Up

This is likely the beginning of a 3-4 part post on my last week.  Honestly, I have so much I need to do right now -- write notes for work that are due tomorrow.  Go grocery shopping since I have no food in the house.  Figure out some specifics of what I'm teaching this fall because I'm meeting with someone about it this afternoon and should probably try to look like I know what I'm doing (spoiler alert: I don't).  I've been gone since Wednesday morning and didn't get back until 11:30 last night, at which point I pretty much just fell into bed.  This transition back to Normal Life is feeling a bit like somebody pushing me into the deep end, even as I try to resist.  Just a couple more minutes, I'm countering.  Just a couple more minutes to sit with and discover and unpack and relish this new, tender being that was birthed inside me this weekend.  Just a little while longer to nurture her quietly and get to know her more fully before we try to enter the world together.

General Assembly (GA) is the annual meeting of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA).  From business meetings to workshops to worship services and repelling over the sides of buildings...from discussions about justice and ministry and feminism and equality to composting and gender-neutral bathrooms....from music and singing and community to quiet moments of prayer, reflection, and meditation, GA has it all. I never could have imagined how much of "it all" GA has, actually.  Being only one person, I experienced only a tiny portion of what GA has to offer, and it was huge.  Too big for words.  Too much to put on a piece of paper, even, because I can barely embody it all in my three-dimensional flesh.  In fact, I may still burst open.  It's like I can feel my soul pushing at the edges of my skin, begging for more room.  The love and wonder and amazement I soaked in through being there is filling me so much, it almost hurts as it tries to escape from my body and make its way into the world.

There are so many ways I could write this, and none of them are feeling "right."  I suppose I could start with Wednesday evening worship and write my way through Sunday morning.  I could write about each of the workshops and services and meetings I attended. I could tell you about how mind-blowing it was to see our faith, which I had only ever considered in terms of individual congregations, in the context of a larger denomination.  I could write about watching the democratic process unfold, or about the power of worshipping with 4,600 people.  I could tell you about the simultaneously humbling, overwhelming, and empowering experience of understanding that I have a huge community I can call upon, lean on, and draw from in the justice work I want to do.  I could ramble for hours about what it feels like to have a community behind me that will stand with and behind me, that believe in love and justice, and that truly attempt to live their love in ways I did not know was possible.  I could go through each of our 7 principles and tell you how I saw them each lived into action this weekend.  Or honestly, I could just sit here and write as many synonyms for awesome and inspiring and humbling and energizing as I can generate.

And perhaps I will.  Perhaps I will blog about nothing but GA for the next 3 months.  Goodness knows I'd have more than enough to write about.  But there are two things I learned about most: the power and necessity of personal stories, and love.  So this is where I'm starting, in the knowledge that I'll write more later.  I'm starting with my story about love.

When I told someone close to me that I was going to GA, her response was this: "why would your minister want you to go to something like this?" and "those people must really like you.  What have you done to make people over there like you so much?"

These questions stung.  There aren't answers for them really, and the only answers I could find were "I dunno" and "nothing."  This type of thinking seeps into your consciousness, even if you aren't good at it on your own.  I don't want to brag, but I actually happen to be an expert at this type of thinking.  What do you think you're doing? I asked myself.  What can you possibly gain from this that will benefit anyone but yourself?

All the way to Rhode Island, I kept asking myself those questions.  What do you think you're doing?  Who do you think you are?  I felt unsure.  This thinking was no fault of anyone but my own brain -- but I couldn't reconcile it with myself.  Sure, I'm doing some work in Reproductive Justice within the congregation.  Sure, I consider my faith to be an essential piece of who I am.  Sure, I have ideas about expanding our congregation's acceptance and awareness of people with disabilities...but who did I think I was going to a big event like this, voting on denominational issues, being part of this larger community?

After arriving in Providence on Wednesday, as I walked out of worship that evening, something in me had changed.  The question had changed.  It felt as though something had physically changed inside of me.  A door was unlocked, perhaps, and something hidden and precious was exposed.  The question instead was this: how did you get here?

A year ago, I only attended my congregation sporadically.  I knew almost no one.  For nearly two years, I struggled to attend services.  I saw this vibrant community, and I did not see a way into it.  I believed I was unworthy of being part of it.  I believed I was too broken to join that space.  I worked hard to sit through the sermon and slip out quietly and unobserved.  I got to be an expert at that, too. 

The theme for this year's GA was "Love Reaches Out."  This theme was reflected in the worship services, in the workshops, in the justice work that is being done, in the hearts of the strangers and friends there with me.  Love does reach out.  Love is reaching out.  We are working to reach out in love.

And that, although I could not name it before, is the answer to my question.  I got to the place where I am now because love reached out.  I got here because I was seen.  I was treated as though I mattered.  I was given a space at the table of worth and mattering I thought I had been banished from, and I was permitted to come to that table in any way I was able.  Love reached out.  And it mattered.

Part of the pain of the past several years has been this shame-filled place where worthiness feels elusive: I knew I was capable of so much more, and yet was unable to access that person.  I felt betrayed not only by community and people and life, but also by myself.  I could not reach out in love and be the person I know I am because I did not trust that my light would be seen as valuable.  I did not trust it would be protected.  I did not trust it would be seen as precious.  I could not reach out to love and community, because recent history had told me my light might be snuffed if I did so.  My light might be blown out, or stepped on, or taken from me. 

But here's the thing: love reached out anyway.  Without expectation, love reached out.  My love reached out in return, and it was seen.  It was honored.  It mattered.  When we reach out in love, it matters.  When we allow others to love us, it matters.  When we honor and name what is precious in one another, it matters.  When we do nothing except speak in a way that shows others they have a seat at the table, it matters.  When we do the hard work of walking our talk on issues others hold close to their hearts, it matters.  When we engage in large-scale justice work on big issues that infuriate and sadden us, it matters.  When we listen to just one story, shake one hand, give one hug, it matters.  When love reaches out, it always matters.  I know.  In the deepest place in my soul where these damn tears keep falling from, I know.

There were several speakers who referenced being saved by Unitarian Universalism.  On the one hand, I have a hard time swallowing that language.  Being "saved" is language that seems to already have been cornered by other faiths, and it conjures images that just don't fit for me.  But I do know this: while Unitarian Universalism might not have "saved" me, Unitarian Universalists almost certainly have.  When I was in graduate school, living in another state, attending another congregation, it was the UUs there who kept me afloat.  That group of people reminded me that there is still good in the world.  I have this small group of amazing people, I told myself, and they are good.  As things in my world are crumbling, they are still good.

And then I moved.  Even though people told me "you will find more good people.  You will find more UUs," I didn't believe them.  I thought that, maybe, I had found some little pocket anomaly of good folks who were willing to love me in spite of my brokenness. 

It took me a while.  A long while.  As I started to grow in community, I thought, ahh.  I have found another pocket of good people.  How fortunate I am to find another little cluster of good folks.  Every time I found another person who reached out in love, I experienced unimaginable gratitude.  How can I possibly be so lucky?

During our worship service on Saturday evening, though, I got it.  Not just an "oh yeah!" type of got it.  Not an "I get it!" type of got it.  Not even an "oh my god, holy cow" type of got it.  This was a run-over-by-a-train type of got it.  A can't-catch-my-breath type of got it.  A descent-into-weeping-in-the-middle-of-worship type of got it.  I, who never cry, just could not stop crying these tears of gratitude and sadness and overwhelm. 

When we say "love reaches out," I realized, we weren't just talking about reaching out to the world.  We weren't just talking about our justice work and activism and reaching out to marginalized communities.  We weren't just talking about loving "people."  It wasn't just about others.  This love could also be for me.  This white, privileged, cis-gender woman?  I could need that love, too.  I could receive that love, too.  My feelings of brokenness are unique, as all of ours are, but also rather universal.  And that love -- that love being generated around me -- it could also be for that broken place in me.  It could start to heal me.

In an arena with 4,600 people, that's a lot of love, y'all.  When that realization hit me, and that love came pouring in...I couldn't breathe.  I couldn't sing or think or do anything but sit there, and cry, and let it happen. 

I realized, finally, that these pockets of a few handfuls of "good people" were not anomalies.  They were not this weird phenomenon I was lucky enough to happen upon.  I realized that in that arena alone, there were 4,600 people who were also Love People.  4,600 people who were trying to live and love reaching out in the only way any of us know how: imperfectly.  Faultily.  Beautifully.  I understood that, as I do my "work" -- be that the work towards Reproductive Justice or disability rights, towards being a person who reaches out in love, or towards being a person who is healing her own brokenness, I am joined by people all over the globe who are doing that same work.  I am joined by people who have that same set of 7 principles guiding them, who sit in their similar-or different-communities, and sing the same hymns, go through the same rituals, with the goal of reaching out to all of us in love.  Even as we are hurt.  Even as we and our loved ones and our world suffer great and horrific losses of faith, friendship, self, and even love.  Even as we hear about and experience tragedies and injustices and things that can never be made right.  Even as we experience and witness pain we did not know was possible, love reaches out.  In ways I forgot I could experience.  In ways I did not remember I deserved.  In ways I did not even know existed, love for you -- for me -- for all of us -- is always and forever reaching out.

So may it ever be.

The thing that needs to be said

Sometimes, my brain is a real jerk. 

Seriously.  I can think of all these really awesome topics I want/need to write about, and even start writing it in my head!  But as soon as those words hit the paper, it all breaks down.  My jerk-brain goes into overdrive: "you can't write that," she says.  "You don't have anything new/valuable to say about that topic."  "Pffft...really?  Come'on now.  Get over yourself."  "You're seriously going to leave that sentence like that?  Seriously?  What makes you think you can write, anyway?"  "Who do you think you are, writing this?" she asks.

Or sometimes, she tricks me, too.  Sometimes, things go like this: "ooooh, there's a nice sentence.  Write it down!  No, not that one.  The other one.  Here's another nice one, but don't write that yet.  Write the first good one.  No, you can't write that, silly.  Write that other sentence.  The good one.  No, that's the bad one.  You know, that awesome thought you had a moment ago.  You used another word.  Find that word you used first.  What do you mean you can't find it?  What do you mean you forget?  How could you forget!  How stupid can you be...I just GAVE you an awesome sentence!  What did you do with the sentence?  Come on and write it.  Now!  WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE SHUTTING DOWN THE COMPUTER!?!"

Jerk.

It's been a week of that.  A full week.  Of torture.  It's like having an itch you can't scratch.  For a week.  A FULL WEEK. 

Stupid jerk-brain.

See, all I want to do is write a thoughtful, angry, cogent response to my frustration surrounding Elliot Rodger, conversations about misogyny, and the attempts at discussion I have seen and heard emerging everywhere from Facebook to my office.  But I can't.  I can't write it.  I can't read about it.  I can't think about it.  I just...I can't.

I thought it was just writer's block.  I thought my stupid jerk-brain was in overdrive, being it's stupid jerk-brain self, and that I just needed to be able to think/focus/concentrate long enough such that, surely, I could find the mental place I needed to be in to write.

On Facebook, as I lamented my writer's block, a beautiful writer friend of mine said that what she does is this: "thank the critic for trying to protect us from being hurt again, and then send them off to play in a safe space -- a treehouse, a castle tower, a peaceful forest.  We tell the critic that we're the ones in charge now, and it's our turn to take care of things -- because we know lots of awesome skills they haven't gotten to yet.  And then we love ourselves up and give ourselves permission to fail AND to succeed, but most of all to have fun experiencing all that we can."

What beautiful advice!  I'm lucky enough to have lots of writer friends.  They're some of the best people on earth, I think.  Recently, another writer friend (who wrote her thoughtful, angry, cogent response to her some of her frustration surrounding Elliot Rodger and misogyny and the developing conversations here) said to me: "I have a right to my stories and I have a right to tell them.  So do you."

And she's right.  They both are.  And together, that's what is making up this block: this desire to tell a story here, in writing, and the fear I experience in doing so that is making writing impossible.

Whenever I feel this old friend of mine named Fear sneaking up on me - which still happens often, but not nearly as often as it used to - I remind it that my intention this year is to be brave.  Brave with a capital-B, even.  In my post on this intention, I wrote: "Bravery is feeling it all and making the choice to do what is right.  To do the thing that needs to be done.  Not the strong thing.  Not the knight in shining armor "brave" thing as we typically think about "bravery."  Not the courageous thing, or the hard thing, or the difficult thing, or even the thing that requires taking the road less traveled by.  It's not the choice to do what should be done.  Being brave is the choice to do what needs to be done."

Being brave is the choice to do what needs to be done. 

And that's just it.  I happened upon this stumbling block a few weeks ago, and it has grown bigger and bigger ever since I had this "a-ha" moment.  I tried shutting it out, tried to yoga it out of myself, tried to just acknowledge it and let it go...but it's something I need to say, y'all.  I just do.

I don't have anything new to say.  There is nothing here that you can't find a million other places on the internet, or in the hearts and minds of a million other women.  But I'm saying it anyway.  Or I'm going to try to, if my jerk-brain and my fingers will cooperate.

(And here is where I get stuck, stuck, stuck.  In spite of all that introduction, this is still where I get caught). 

I've thought a lot about feminism, and rape culture, and misogyny.  I've thought about these issues abstractly, and as they applied to me, and as they have played out in my story, and I really thought I got it.  I thought I understood.  And I did...but there was a piece of it I didn't get. 

I was standing in my kitchen a few weeks ago, chopping zucchini, when I realized it.  I had just read some article on the shooting at UCSB and Elliot Rodger, wherein the author made the point that misogyny was behind the violence.  That somehow, in our culture, we permit or condone or expect a certain level of misogyny, because that shit keeps perpetuating itself, and it's not changing.  It is expected that men hold the power.  It is expected that men have some sort of right to women's bodies. 

Of course I had heard this before.  Of course I had known this was problematic.  Of course I had written this before.  But in that moment, as I was chopping zucchini, I got it.  I mean, I really got it.  Standing there in my kitchen, I heard the voice of the man who sexually assaulted me.  I've heard and re-heard his voice saying these words countless times, but in that moment, they took on a different meaning that let me see the bigger picture.

It's just five words.  He said it 3 times, at different points. 

"Nobody says no to me."

On the rare occasions that I tell my story, this is not a detail I tend to include.  It was just one of many things he said...but it sticks with me.  It's not something I like to remember.  It's not something I want to type, or tell you, or talk about.  In fact, it's really hard to type it out.  But it's also true.  And, perhaps, it's important. 

      

"Nobody says no to me." 

It was a threat, yes.  And it was also just a statement.  A statement of his power and control and his ultimate sense of entitlement.

"Nobody says no to me."

And that's what I finally understood in my kitchen the other day.  I have understood power and control and entitlement and sexism and violence against women, and how those things are interconnected in a broad sense.  I have understood on a systemic and institutionalized level how all of these things are damaging to women individually and to women on the whole.  I understood how these patterns of behavior exist, and how they hurt men, and how they hurt women.

But I didn't "get" how it hurt me.  In spite of all the thinking and writing and talking I have done, it still felt like my story had to be different.  It was still personal.  There was still something about me that made it happen.  It still had to be my fault somehow, right?  Because all this awfulness that hurts other women and the world...that couldn't have also been what hurt me.  I must have still had some control in making that happen.
 

And it was personal.  It is personal.  Of course it is.  Because it happened to me. 

But it wasn't different.  That entitlement -- that sense of power and ownership he had over me and my body -- that wasn't personal.  That was the entitlement that is behind street harassment.  The entitlement behind every rape and sexual assault.  The entitlement behind the men who feel they have the right to devalue and diminish women's stories as they speak out as part of the #yesallwomen hashtag.  The entitlement of Elliot Rodger.  The entitlement of men who don't question the power they have, purely because of their chromosomal makeup and their genitalia.

It was personal.  But it wasn't different.  This is, at once, both an incredible relief and incredibly devastating.  Acknowledging that it wasn't personal helps me let go of some of the yuck I've been holding onto.  And it's also devastating, because it actually takes away a little more of that sense of control.  It wasn't because of something I did or didn't do.  It wasn't because of what I was wearing or not wearing or how I was acting or not acting or who I was with or not with -- which means that changing my behavior has little to do with what may happen or not happen, right?  My behavior has nothing to do with that sense of entitlement.  My behavior does not change the fact that some men (largely unconsciously, because it has been fed to them from the time they were babies) feel they own the rights to my body.  Some men.  Not all men.  But some. 

So when men aren't willing to sit with and question that entitlement and the power they are bestowed because of their chromosomes and their genitalia, then they are labeling themselves a threat.  That, then, is all I'm asking: for men to sit with and question the power they have inherited.  Perhaps not even question it-- maybe just acknowledge it.  Maybe just name it.  Maybe just realize that, in spite of being an intelligent, educated woman, it has taken me 4 years to name this for myself.  Maybe just that. 

I don't know how to change the world.  God knows I try, but I don't know how.  But perhaps it starts with this understanding.  Perhaps it starts with naming this for myself.  Perhaps it starts with the immense bravery it has taken for me to write this, and with the struggle I have gone through to get these thoughts onto the paper.  Perhaps it starts with all of us - men and women - just sitting with my thoughts on bravery:

Bravery is doing the thing that needs to be done.

I needed to tell this story...and it is terrifying to think now of sharing it with my small corner of the world.  But perhaps -- perhaps -- it will resonate with someone.  Maybe just one person.  That one person makes it worth it.

What is the thing that you need to do?  Where is that act of bravery living in you?  How can you share it -- whatever it is -- with our world?

How do I be this person I am?

I can't really say that I have a favorite poem, simply because there are too many amazing poems to have just one.  I'd say, though, that if I were to create an anthology of my favorite poems, this one by Lucille Clifton would definitely be included:

won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

 What a gorgeous piece of poetry, right? 

I've been thinking about this poem a good bit lately, particularly that question she asks in the middle: "what did i see to be except myself?"  In some ways, I think I have been asking myself the same question. 

My life feels on the cusp of big transitions in so many ways.  Starting in September, I will, for the first time in my life, no longer be a trainee or a student.  I'll also be teaching a college course that is 100% my own...which I have sorta done before...but this is different.  In the past several months, I have grown and changed tremendously.  I am feeling strong and connected, and I feel drawn to speak and act on issues I care about.  I am sharing writing I was previously too embarrassed and scared to share, and I feel I am more "me" than I have ever been.  There are big things happening in and around me, and I am incredibly grateful. 

Even as it is wonderful, though, it is also a little frightening.  And it's confusing, sometimes.  And honestly, it's just a lot to figure out.  To tell the truth, it's also a little...lonely isn't quite the right word, but it's the closest word I know.  A little weighty, perhaps, to feel like I am forging a new path alone.  It's not that I don't have the right tools -- I do.  (*Pause, as I search for the right metaphor here....*)

 (*Right, got it.  Press 'play'*).  It feels like this: I've been on a deserted island for a long, long time.  For a long time, I didn't have the tools I needed to make an effective trip back to the mainland.  I thought I was making progress, thought I was going somewhere when, in reality, I just kept circling the damn island over, and over, and over again.  I found enough to keep me alive, and for a while, that was enough.  Just circling the island was all I could handle...but then, I needed more, and I started making my way back to the mainland.  One by one, I found the tools I needed.  One by one, I found people along the way who walked with me, or gave me a ride in their car or their helicopter or hovercraft or boat before dropping me off at the next point I needed to walk from.  Without them, I could not have made it to this point.  There is so much gratitude here. 

But now, I'm back on the mainland and I'm reintegrating into society.  It's not that we have a Romulus and Remus situation going on...I'm no feral child.  But as I continue re-joining society, I am different than I was before.  I have different knowledge and understanding, different things I need to say, different passions and likes and dislikes and comforts and discomforts. 

 Mostly, though, I find myself hungry for someone who has walked this path.  I'm hungry and wanting someone who knows this journey.  This path that I forged alone -- I am proud for having done so.  I look back now at the blisters from having carved this journey with my own two hands, and I can touch them with a certain gentleness and understanding I hadn't previously been able to reach. 

 But now, I want to be able to look forward to someone who came before me, who can show me that the rocky path is an option, but there is also an easier way.  I want someone who has been where I was to truly understand, in all the ways I understand, exactly what it has meant for me to get to this place.  My soul is hungry for someone to answer the question that is burning in my heart and my mind and my skin: how do I be this person I am becoming?

 I have always been very clear on where I am going and what I am doing.  I mean, when I was 11, I decided that I wanted to teach a dance class to homeschoolers at our homeschooling co-op, and damn if I didn't check books out of the library on teaching creative movement to preschoolers, write out a schedule, lug my Fisher-Price record player into the church, and teach dance after lunch.  Being one of the "first" teenagers in our homeschooling community, I made the road for others to follow. 

 By the time I got to college at 17, this was just how I worked.  Want to graduate in 3 years?  Done. I didn't just volunteer, I was the site coordinator for the volunteer job.  Difficulties with transportation?  No big deal...I just took the drive-the-van safety course so I could drive the 16-passenger van through Baltimore City to the elementary school where we worked at the afterschool program.  Sure, I looked up to the upper-level students, but really, I didn't need models.  I saw the path clearly, and where there wasn't a path...well...I would just make my own.  No big deal.  It's what I had always done.

 In grad school, your steps are slightly locked in as you progress through the program, and I made of those steps what I needed.  For the first part of grad school, I had some mentors that I sincerely looked up to and respected.  I desired to be like them, and learned from their experience and their expertise.  I had thought-provoking discussions with them, and I wanted to emulate them in certain ways.  I took bits and pieces of them, and tried to shape those pieces into a form that most closely represented the type of clinician, researcher, and person I wanted to be.

 And then everything fell apart and, in the scheme of things falling apart, I lost my mentors.  Through no fault of my own, I lost their support.  For the last year and a half I was there, I pretty much felt that I was on my own.  Good thing I had that history of figuring it all out, right?  I tried to tell myself that it was no big deal, and that I could make my own path -- and I did, because I'm good at that, because I've been doing it all my life.

 Now, I have people around me that I respect and trust at work...but I respect them as professionals...but I wouldn't necessarily call them mentors.  We talk work stuff, and we agree and we disagree, and they are wonderful colleagues with experience I can learn from.  But we are just very, very, VERY different in terms of our personal lives.  In terms of this "how do I be this person I'm becoming" question, they aren't the models I'm looking for. 

 My professional life is, clearly, important, but my personal life, and my writing, and my need for activism are also incredibly important pieces of who I am right now.  And the intersection of those pieces?  Whew--that just makes life even more confusing.  It's beautiful, and stressful sometimes, and confusing sometimes, too.  As Lucille Clifton writes, I feel I am standing, "my one hand holding tight / my other hand."

 For the first time in a long time, I like this person I am becoming.  But truth be told, I'm also scared of her.  This person that is blossoming from me is strong.  She's afraid of speaking and using her voice, and she does it anyway.  She writes and she shares her writing.  She is learning to wear her body without shame, and she allows herself to love and to be loved.  This person that I am becoming can feel and channel anger appropriately.  She's passionate.  She's willing to start to believe that she's worthy.  She's connected and connecting, and she knows how fucking hard she had to work to get to this place.  Indeed: "come celebrate/ with me that everyday/something has tried to kill me/and has failed."

 But how does she do it?  How does this person I'm learning to be learn how to navigate these changes?  How does she balance her work, and her activism, and her writing and her passions and her need for quiet and stillness?  After all, "what did i see to be except myself? / i made it up."  What DID I see to be?  I don't know.  I made it up.  I did.  I have always been clear on where I needed to get to...and now I'm here.  How do I be this person now?  

 Perhaps this is what we all do, no?  Perhaps we are all, each of us, our own mentors and mothers and models.  Perhaps this process of "growing up," whatever that means, involves us all just making it up, and learning from ourselves. 

 But is it wrong to want, sometimes, to look outside yourself to see how other people, who have been in my shoes more or less -- is it wrong to want to see and learn from them?  Is it wrong to reach -- when you're on this cusp of change -- is it wrong to reach out on this bridge "between starshine and clay," and hope you reach someone else's hand, rather than your own? 

How do we -- ANY of us -- become the people that we are as we all make it up together?

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.