On Baltimore: Hearing the cries

I don't have anything new, or beautiful, or profound to add to this topic.  My voice is not going to add anything prophetic, or make people think new thoughts, or change...well....anything.  I suck at writing about politics and writing about the big, hard issues of the world in a way that is informative, so I'm not going to try here. 

I also know that if someone else were to post this, it would probably be the last thing I would read.  Honestly?  If I read, see, look at, skim, listen to, or watch one more article about Baltimore today, I think I'm going to throw up.  I wish I was exaggerating, but I feel physically ill.  Didn't sleep, can't eat, body hurts type of ill, so I'm writing for peace.  It's the only step forward I know how to take.

A few months ago, when I came back from Haiti, I was faced with the intense discomfort of having been to a country full of devastation and injustice, and returning to a country of excess.  When I re-entered this country, I was forced to confront, and re-confront my privilege with my every action: every time I turned on the tap, turned on the lights, took a shower, reached for something to eat or drink, I held in my mind's eye the pictures of people I had met who do not have that privilege.  Every time I sat down, it felt like a reminder of the fact that I have the privilege of leisure time, as it is so easy for me to meet all of my basic needs.  This startling, pervasive, and intense realization prompted me to write these words:

"I don't have children, but the analogy that keeps coming to mind is that it feels like the difference between knowing that babies cry and hearing your baby cry.

I knew the world was crying.  Now, it is my world that is crying.  This world -- the one that I live in -- with you, right here, right now, this world is crying.  Our world."

These words came back to me yesterday.  Hearing of the violence that occurred yesterday in Baltimore, seeing the controversy erupt, hearing the arguments of all of the scared and hurting and angry and uncomfortable people, I wanted to scream, "Don't you see!?!  This city is hurting.  These people are hurting.  This community is hurting.  We are hurting.  We can no longer just know that babies cry.  These are our babies.  The ones that we birthed.  They are crying, and we have let them cry unattended for generations.  Right here, in our very home."

Because we did birth these babies, didn't we?  All of them.  The babies of oppression, and racism, and fear, and hatred.  The babies of silence, and privilege, and anger.  We birthed these babies of police brutality, and rioting, and poverty, and systematic silencing and devaluation of entire groups of people.  We birthed Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, John Crawford III, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, and all of the black men (and women) who have been killed by police.  We birthed Darren Wilson, George Zimmerman, Sean Williams, and all of the miscellaneous good, bad, misinformed, scared, naive, and hopeful cops out there.  We birthed the good, resilient, hopeful people of Baltimore who started immediately to clean and pray and hope and stand together in community.  We birthed the peaceful protestors, and the gang members, and the clergy who walked together.  We birthed the rioters.  This pain -- it is our pain.  It is our world.  It is our community.  This pain is mine.  It is yours.  It is ours.  And nothing will change until we recognize that all of these factors -- the good, the bad, the ugly -- they belong to us, and we must be accountable for them.  We must be able to stand up together and face the things we have intentionally or unintentionally been part of creating. 

This morning, I was told that I had to report to work, and that we were operating "business as usual."  I drove in past a line of members of the National Guard, lining the street, with shields, and guns, and helmets.  I walked in to work past 20-25 members of the National Guard and Police, all with guns, all with shields, all in uniform, all standing at attention with their hands on their weapons.  I had to make choices today about whether it would be more helpful for me to see my client with anxiety for a session this week, or more harmful for him to drive past all of the armed men and women on the way to his appointment.  I had conversations with trainees about how they're from small towns in Alabama, or Louisiana, or Oklahoma, and they spent last night awake and listening to gunfire, and smelling smoke, and hearing helicopters and sirens and sounds that scared them that they couldn't identify.  I felt the panic in my body, and watched the tears rise in a trainee's eyes as an insensitive colleague considered the best escape route out of the city from our location, given that we are backed up to the Inner Harbor, and there is only really one way out.  I considered how I am going to handle conversations about this situation with my clients and their families.  I read a scholarly article and guidelines for mental health professionals on addressing racial trauma.  I supervised my trainee on how we are going to address the events of this week tomorrow in the therapy group we run together.  I received emails throughout the day about safety precautions and possible threats in the area.  I cried twice in my car. 

And ultimately, I left the city and drove home - and this is a privilege.  Ultimately, I realized that I have had the ability to not be (too) affected by the state of emergency that has been occurring for generations in Baltimore City until the governor actually called a State of Emergency.  Ultimately, I realized that I didn't need to be worried about walking into my building past those cops.  Ultimately, I realized that this crisis, this urgency, this pain has been in my world all along, and I have had the privilege not to see it.  Ultimately, I have been feeding those babies of privilege, and racism, and oppression by my inaction, by my silence, by my complacency, even as I drove through it and worked within it.  It is not enough to be a passive witness to pain.  To do so is to deny it, and to Other the people for whom it is an unavoidable reality. 

But even as we deny and other -- this is our world.  All of it.  These are our babies.  All of them.  This is our community.  These people are our people.  The crying belongs to us, and it is our responsibility to console, and change, and shape those babies we birthed into the communities, and people, and world we want.  The world we need.  The world we -- all of us, who are so deeply connected -- deserve.

I don't know where we go from here, but I know we belong to one another.

We belong to one another.

As we begin the healing -- our own, and that of the community -- the first step, perhaps, is just to witness and begin to name one another's tears. 

Blessed be.

Not in spite of, but right through

I recently told the story of how, when I was 8 or 9 years old, my feelings were hurt by a little girl in dance class who told me - in no uncertain terms - that it was not possible for me to be both Christian and Jewish.  At the time, I didn't understand how or why she thought this was just not possible, and I chalked her up to being some version of an 8-year-old intolerant asshole.  In my mind, there was no question: I was Christian and Jewish, dammit.  Me, and my life, and my worldview...I just thought they were big enough to be both.

And now at 29, when I go home for a Passover Seder and sit at a table with a traditional Seder plate and a cup of wine for Elijah as well as bunny candle holders and Easter egg tchotchkes adorning the centerpiece and the mantle, I think to myself, yes...yes 8-year-old me wasn't quite so far off.

Because I am both, you see...my lineage trickles down through my veins to necessitate both the telling and witnessing of the Passover story, and the celebration of life and rebirth that is Easter and Ostara.  I grew up attempting to swallow Grandmother's overcooked peas for Easter and Bubby's gefilte fish for Passover.  I sat in pretty dresses and little white shoes at Grandmother's house before searching for Easter eggs, and also sat in pretty dresses and little white shoes at Bubby's house before searching for the afikomen.  I grew up knowing all the words to Jesus Loves Me, and joining in a rousing chorus of Dayenu with my 42 relatives.  My history of religion has always been yes, and...  Yes, I can recite the Four Questions in Hebrew, AND I can sit on the Easter Bunny's lap.  Yes, I can eat ham and Grandmother's lumpy mashed potatoes for Easter AND eat matzos and charoset and the god-awful liver pate for Passover.  Yes, I can say amen after my Grandfather thanks God for the good food before us for Easter dinner, AND I can take my turn stumbling over the names of Rabbi Akibah and Rabbi Eliezer in the Hagaddah.  Yes, and.  Yes, and.  Yes, and.

But now I am 29, and my chosen religion dictates as one of its 7 principles that part of my living tradition is to continually engage in a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning."  I'll be honest: the past several years, my response to the holidays this time of year has been much less "yes, and" and much more "nope."  Not feeling it.  Any of it.  I identify these days as an agnostic; I believe Jesus may have been just a cool, historical dude; and I have never found much meaning or cultural understanding in the Maxwell House Hagaddah with its obscure text, its repetition, and its nearly meaningless passages.  I find my meaning in my church community and in our flower communion and its celebration of beauty and spring and rebirth following winter.  This is where my "yes" is living these days.

And yet I found myself this year sitting at a table, in a pretty dress and nice heels, looking at little statues of bunnies holding colored eggs, eating gefilte fish and horseradish on matzos, dipping my finger into my wine and counting out the 10 plagues: Dom (blood).  Tzfardeyah (frogs).  Kinim (lice).  Arov (flies).  Dever (disease on livestock).  Sh'chin (boils).  Barad (hail).  Arbeh (locusts).  Choschech (darkness).  Makat Bechorot (slaying of the first-born). 

Honestly, as we kept reading, I was getting progressively more annoyed.  The whole story seemed to be saying: "...and then God (Blessed be He) did this other really horrible thing.  And then we suffered.  And then more horrible things were done to us, and God is good (Blessed be He).  And still we suffered, and we suffered, and we suffered...and we give thanks to God (Blessed be He)."

But, you know, I went with it.  It seemed important to family that I participate in this, and so I did.  However, after a good 30 minutes of reading, my sister got to a section where they listed all of the livestock that died of disease...you know the livestock, right?  The cows, and horses, and the asses...and my sister (blessed be she), said "asses" and busted up laughing so hard she couldn't pull herself together.  I, of course, joined her, because it was hilarious...and then there we were, two adults completely unable to get through the remainder of the Seder, tears running out of our eyes, because she read the word "asses." 

When it comes down to it, though, it wasn't really about the word asses.  It was about the fact that we were 30 minutes in, hadn't even gotten the matzos with the horseradish on it yet, and we were starving.  It was about the fact that this telling of the story meant nothing to me at 10 years old, and continues to mean nothing, as the version is so full of obscure language and meaningless passages that I can't follow what it is saying.  It's about the fact that this particular tradition just does not work for me, and it's hard for me to sit through.  It's about the fact that I don't want to believe in a God that caused all this shit to happen.  I don't want to believe in a God that killed all of the firstborn children.  I don't want to believe in a God to whom the Jews had to go with their "bloody and mutilated children" to remind Him of their suffering.  I don't want to believe in that God, and I certainly don't want to thank him.  I don't want to read about the ways I should devote my life to this God who has created and permitted such suffering, and the ways I, as a partly Jewish-by-heritage person, am supposed to live and offer my life and heart to God. 

Somewhere in the Seder, the text stated that a Jew defines himself by his capacity to be grateful.  Passover is a celebration of freedom -- which I can get behind - but I have a hard time believing in an all-powerful, loving, and merciful God who causes such intense suffering.  And I have an even harder time responding to that with repetitive words of gratitude. 

So I lost it during the Seder because my sister read the word asses, yes, but also because if I had to say one more "blessed be He," I was going to chug the rest of my glass of wine, throw my matzos to the dogs, and go out for pizza.  I was just done.

But then today is Easter, right?  If I am a partly Jewish-by-heritage person, I am also a partly Christian-by-heritage person, and I have a grandfather who is urging us to go to church and get right with God and "all be Christian together."  I was wished Happy Easter today by parking garage attendants and the man who made my coffee at Dunkin' Donuts.  I passed church after church celebrating the fact that "He is risen!," and there is something in me that has to recognize that this, too, is part of who I am.  This is, like it or not, part of my yes, and. 

This day -- this celebration of resurrection -- it's not so much unlike Passover as it may seem.  Easter is the day that God's only son, who was sacrificed on the cross, rose from the dead.  In short: this Easter day celebrates renewal, and rebirth, and life, much in the way that Passover celebrates the Jews surviving and leaving behind the oppression and suffering they faced. 

For some reason, as I was driving home this afternoon, all of these thoughts and all of these realizations just made me feel sad.  It didn't feel like yes, and.  It felt like nope.  It felt like participating in holidays that do not hold meaning for me.  It felt like I should find meaning in these traditions.  It felt like I should believe in a God that loves me, and that I should continue to love that God even if and when He causes great suffering.  It felt like I should be able to be grateful in spite of suffering.  For reasons that are complex and hard for me to sort out, the whole thing left me feeling unworthy and shameful.  It left me feeling broken, and it left me feeling less than whole.  As I drove home this afternoon, I was angry at myself for my seeming incapacity for gratitude, and my inability to believe in a god.  In the spring holiday department, I was officially giving myself a big, red F.

When I got home and sat down to write this, I first opened up Facebook...because every writer knows that Facebook is essential to the writing process.  I was greeted by the smiling faces of children and families who attend church with me, and the text above the pictures expressed gratitude and love for the community -- our community.  One status in particular brought tears to my eyes: writing about flower communion, a friend wrote, "the abundance of flowers (in spite of us forgetting to bring ours) was a bright reminder of how often my children and I are cared for in spite of our mistakes and faults. Well, not in spite of, but right through them - as if the mistakes and faults are insignificant."

And there it is: the resurrection.  The rebirth.  The way that I can come back from that shame-filled place of spring holiday failure.  The way that we all can come back from that place, no matter the way we got there, or how frequently we feel we visit Unworthyville and all her highways of shame, and guilt, and failure.  In that statement, I found it -- my meaning today, on this free and responsible search: this day is the day we celebrate our year-long process of being born, and reborn, as worthy.  This day is the day we celebrate and acknowledge that we -- each of us -- faces a terrible suffering, and we -- each of us -- is here to go in and side-by-side through that suffering.  We are here to resurrect one another from those ashes of despair.  To bring each other from the place of emptiness, and lack, and struggle through to the land of connection and worth.  We are here to forgive one another, and to love anyway -- "not in spite of, but right through" the mistakes, and faults, and failures.  Not in spite of, but right through. 

When I was a child, my "yes, and" consisted of "yes I am Christian, AND I am Jewish."  I don't want my "yes, and" to become a "nope."  I want my "yes, and" back, but I want it to be different.  So maybe today, this is where my free and responsible search has brought me: yes, I am figuring out what I believe, and I am worthy through that process.  Not in spite of, but right through. 

Yes, I laugh during Seders, and I am slow to forgive, and I am imperfect and sometimes fail, and I am worthy through that process.  Not in spite of, but right through.

Yes, I travel the highway to Unworthyville so often I have carved ruts in the road, and I am worthy through that process.  Not in spite of, but right through.

Yes, that is my journey out of Egypt, and my resurrection.  Yes, I have the community I need to take that journey, and I am part of that community for others.  Yes, I love you and am willing to stand with you in that emptiness, and struggle, and lack, and I am here to forgive, and embrace, and love you.

Not in spite of, but right through.

Not in spite of, but right through.

Not in spite of, but right through.  

Ashes

I learned at 9 years old that I am too much.

I was 10 when I learned that crying
is not what 10 year olds do,

I was 11 when I learned to cry alone.

At 12, I knew how to contain the emotion inside my frame

and let it out only by trembling, I was

13 when I learned to contain that, too.

But it's taken 29 years to realize that emotions

are my first and only language.

That poetry

is my only way of speaking truth,

that everything else is a lie.

It has taken 29 years to learn

that it's not wrong to be a writer.

It's not wrong to put the truth in words

to let it be thought,

not wrong to let these thoughts out into the day,

to speak frankly of truth

and lies,

I am learning
that you don't need to see the fire to know something's burning--
but ashes only tell some of the tale,

I am 29 when I realize:

it's not always wrong that I've been lying.

I am learning that it's okay to hold my words captive in the burning building of my body.

Okay that I sometimes wait for days to pull the alarm;

let them smolder and burn to ash, make my body

a wrecking ground, a burial plot,

a scarred topographical map you can trace your fingers over like Braille

reading me even in the places of
no words.

I am learning

that my words will only ever suicide themselves onto the paper anyway.

I am learning

to find solace in the ways I sort through the ash.

I am learning

in this world of closed umbrella hearts

and hard-boiled eyes,

it's not wrong that my umbrella has only ever been open.

My heart is full and receiving

and still always preparing for rain,

my eyes are fragile

with thin shells and runny interiors,

I am learning

that the arch of the shell creates a stronger exterior

than might be seen at first glance,
I am learning

that even though I know this

I can break in the weak spots anyway.

It's okay that the size of my feelings doesn't match

the size of my skin.

They push from the inside

kicking like a fetus

just wanting to be born:

I've carried them for decades

and they are running

the words out of my mouth, setting fire to my inside

like teenagers looking for trouble, they are

matches, and fire crackers

carnival rides and broken records -

I sometimes sit breathing in the dark

blanket pulled over my head

the sound of my breath is the fire alarm

reminding me something is burning.

I am learning

the ways I search my body for a fire escape.

I am learning

to keep the fire extinguisher on hand.

I know you think I'm lying.

I know you think this is

poetic license or

angst-ridden writer or

dramatic woman looking for attention,

but I am learning to tremble.

I am learning

to sound the alarm.

To pull the trigger on anger

on grief

on shame,

I am learning to lodge the bullets firmly in their chests,

to set fire to the structures holding the lies

and watch them crumble.

As I walk from the rubble,

I pull out my umbrella.

I breathe in the smoky truth and decide to learn

to shield myself from the ashes. 

Write Something True

ARGH.

I so want to write today. 

Scratch that.

I need to write today.  I've needed to write for several days, actually, but I haven't done it.  And now I've been sitting and staring at this page and watching the sleet come down for longer than I care to admit, waiting for brilliance to come gushing over the page.

But brilliance -- like much of the country right now -- seems to be frozen. 

So instead of shooting for brilliance, I'm starting where I am.  Unfortunately, where I am right now consists primarily of "I'm stuck in writer's no-man's land," and "now "Let It Go" is going through my head because the word "frozen" has been forever ruined by Idina Menzel."

Thanks, Idina.

*****

I saw this brilliant little piece by Brian Andreas yesterday, and I immediately fell in love with it:

                                    How To Write Something True

1. Forget everything you know & everything you want to say.

2. Listen to the quiet voices of the world. Start with your heartbeat.

3. Touch the pen to the paper. Feel it, the way it is only at one point all the time. This is the place writing shows up.

4. Write one word at a time. This will take more effort than you think.

5. This kind of writing doesn’t care what you know, because you already know it. This kind of writing just wants to see what happens next.

6. When you can do this easily, go back to #1 again. This time no pen, no paper.

7. Live. Now you have something true to write about.

Perhaps this is what I need.

My heart is a little hurt-y today.  In part, there is Stuff.  In part, I just hate the month of March.  The whole month.  March 1 feels qualitatively different from February 28th, just as April 1 will feel like a breath of fresh air.  March is my "hold your breath and duck your head and just.get.through it" month.  March tells me that what I need to do is pull in.  Hibernate.  Cut open my heart, cover the hurt-y places with bandaids, bury them in scarves and winter coats, throw an ice pack in to numb the pain, sew up the incision, and wait.  But even just that -- even the cutting, and the covering, and the bandaging, and the burying -- even that requires looking at the hurt-y places a little bit.  And sometimes, hurt-y places just don't want to be looked at, you know?

So here's what I'll do: I'll follow the steps to write something true.  Will you do this, too?  Let's write something true together.

*Edited after the fact to add: This turned out entirely different than I expected.  It definitely correlates to the Brian Andreas piece above -- each of the 7 items served almost as a prompt for the corresponding stanza of the poem below.  I don't pretend to understand my brain.  This is just what happened.*

(Working title...I might change it...I hate titles.  Anyway...)

Truth Between the Lines

1.     These things are true:

I wear my fear branded into my skin. 

I tuck my insecurities into bed with me,

turn on a nightlight, and give them a kiss goodnight to assure them,

I will see them again tomorrow.

And it is true

that even when I kick my fears in the ass,

I'll only ever find them crawling back into bed with me.

They bring flowers

and whispered apologies,

so I am forgetting

that I only sleep with my fears because they make me feel safe.

It is true

that I invite them in.

Call them lover, call them friend, they are

my longest relationship.
In the morning,

I make them pancakes.

We drink coffee together as the sun rises,

and in that morning light,

I forget about the ways that I know better. I insist

that it will be different,

that I am strong enough to fight them. 

I am forgetting

about the ways they can crawl inside me.

I am forgetting

the way they know the scent of my blood. 

2.     The quiet voices are hard to hear

over the cacophony of Importance. 

I breathe in and let it still. 

My heartbeat roars, unexpectedly:

like a winter thunderstorm, she rolls

into my body, and envelops me

till I take refuge

ever deeper inside.

Start here, she says.

I breathe out and let myself be washed

in the deluge of thoughts. 

I start again. 

3.     This is the way we learn to be here.

The way we come here, to this place, again and again,

where pen meets page. 

Lungs meet air. 

Where tears meet face, and broken meets open, 

in this pinprick of a moment, line becomes letter,

letter into word, word into sentence, sentence into voice.

Here is the place where Showing meets Up to scare Giving away from her,

here

is where Running meets Away

and carries her back. 

4.     Slowly. 

This writing is a holy creation of destruction:

one word at a time, we build missiles that destroy our broken interiors. 

Something cannot be created

where no space exists.

I am learning

that truth creation is only ever a process

of deconstruction

taking apart that

which no longer serves us. 

5.     So we build from the nothing. 

Create something that only

exists in our minds,

I look for evidence of me in the spills on the paper:

this holy, fucked-up mirror of truths,

this pen

knows the ways I make breakfast for my fear and self-doubt.

It has watched me invite them in

despite bruised lips

blackened eyes,

shattered dreams,

this pen

is unforgiving in its truth.

6.     These things are true:

I wear my fear branded into my skin. 

I tuck my insecurities into bed with me,

turn on a nightlight, and give them a kiss goodnight to assure them,

I will see them again tomorrow.

I invite Self-doubt to breakfast despite knowing

she's only a jealous lover,

I start over

and over and over as

these facts unfold, here,

where Broken meets Open.

Where Running meets Away

and carries her back

7.     These things are true:

I stare into this holy, fucked-up mirror of truths.

I try to drink my coffee alone

before my breakfast guests arrive,

and I live.

I live.

I live

in this place

where Showing meets Up and scares Giving away from her.

I live

finding truth and breathing room

in the destruction between the lines.

3 things you should remember this week (and always)

What is it about those  articles consisting only of lists that is so damn enticing?  There are only about 100 of them a day, and they all say the same thing: "10 things every introvert wants you to know."  "12 things you should know if you love your dog."  "15 things you've always wanted to know but never asked."

Part of it is, clearly, the clickbait-y nature of the titles: "10 things to know to perfect every yoga pose you'll ever do."  "15 ways to achieve inner peace (in only one weekend!)"  "12 ways to make sure you're living your happiest life."  I skip over the "25 best ways of wearing eyeshadow" and the "15 sex tips to please your man" and the "12 tips to dress for your body type and look sexier than ever on a smaller budget while eating what you want and still losing weight" lists.  I stick with the ones that are...you know...deep and meaningful. 

I ignore a lot of crap that comes my way on the internet...but I'm ashamed to admit that some of these lists just pull me in.  It's not that I actually try to do what they say, or that I believe a list from Cracked or Buzzfeed or MindBodyGreen is going to change my life and put me on the path to inner peace, but I read them because sometimes they make me feel validated.  That list of 10 things every introvert wants you to know?  It sometimes helps me to clarify, "that thing you do that makes you feel crazy?  It's an introvert thing.  Other people do that, too.  And being an introvert is cool because, you know, Buzzfeed made a list about it."  Then, for about 5 seconds, I feel better about my introversion.  The 12 things you should know if you love your dog?  I do 8 of those 12 things...and I feel pretty good about my dog ownership abilities.  It's pretty reinforcing to just peruse these lists as they come across my screen, actually.  Given the popularity of these articles...which are, honestly, unscientific junk...I would guess that I'm not alone in this. 

This morning, this list came across my Facebook feed: "10 things all highly sensitive people should remember."  I clicked it -- of course -- and it was nothing surprising...but it was validating. 

I'm not even kidding.  This is a thing.
http://highlysensitiveperson.net/

I have mixed reactions about this whole "highly sensitive person" thing.  I came across the term when I was in college, and my reaction at the time was "FINALLY SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS ME!"  But as I tried to look more at Elaine Aron's work, it read like a bunch of popular pseudo-science.  I'm smart enough to know not to trust something that comes only out of one person's work, and is published primarily in the self-help genre.  Yes, she and her husband are doing some research with fMRIs...but I have yet to see any of it in a peer-reviewed journal (or with any other researchers), you know?  I couldn't actually get through her book, because it sounded to me like she was making "HSPs" the "victims" of living in a world that doesn't understand them, and like they are destined to a world of pain and suffering (through which they choose joy, like brave little soldiers!).  She writes in such a way that she makes people who are particularly empathic sound almost psychic: we know what you are feeling, and we feel it more intensely than you do.  Creepy, right?  It, honestly, all feels a little attention-seeking to me, and like it's one more way of saying "but I AM a unique and special little snowflake."  We get it.  You're special, and you feel persecuted by the world.  Next.....

I think I feel so strongly about this because I get it.  I am a person who is highly sensitive.  To everything.  Iv'e written about this before, and it's just how I've always been.  I have only ever, obviously, been me, so I can't say with absolute certainty that I feel "more" than other people, but I can offer concrete (if anecdotal), evidence that some things about me just work differently.  Getting out of the emotional realm, which is where things get a little blurry, I can tell you that my body reacts in more extreme ways to caffeine, to almost all medications, and to sensory stimuli.  I can tell you that violent or scary movies/TV shows have always had a physical impact on me.  It's not that I just don't enjoy them.  I will feel physically ill, and I will have nightmares, and I will have a hard time shaking it off.  Even just going to the movies can be hard...more often than not, I will come out with a migraine, and I will just feel like my sensory system is overwhelmed.  Lots of things make me feel overwhelmed.  When I do a good job of taking care of myself, I can largely avoid this feeling...but when I'm not doing a good job, overwhelm sneaks up on me, and threatens to overtake me.  And taking care of myself?  That's work.  It feels like I'm trying to constantly manage a body with ever changing needs and contingencies and expectations in an ever changing, ever more intense world.

It's hard to explain this feeling of "overwhelmed."  It's not like feeling overwhelmed in the sense of "I have so much to do, I don't know how I'll get it done."  It's not like feeling overwhelmed in the "I need to go here and there and have only 30 minutes...ack!!!" sense.  It's not even like feeling overwhelmed in the sense of "wow, it's loud in here and smells like a combination of beer, grease, and dirty feet."  It's feeling like my entire body is, for lack of a better word, freaking out.  Overwhelmed is when it feels like my body is full of electricity I can't contain.  I wrote a poem once in which I likened my spinal cord to keys on a janitor's key ring, "one key for every nerve,/ every clink and clack sends nerves running down my back,/ their feet pound my bones with steel-toed boots ."  There are times when the only thing I can do to calm my nervous system is to sit in the dark -- and even then, being alone with my own breathing can feel like too much.

I'll be honest: I hate writing this out.  I keep getting up and doing other things instead of finishing this, because it feels like you're going to think I'm making it up.  It feels like nobody else feels this way.  It feels like I'm being dramatic, or like I'm looking for special snowflake points.  This isn't glamorous.  This isn't me saying "I'm sensitive and better."  It just is. 

The end of the poem I wrote goes like this:

"...even doctors

cannot see these freaks of nature inside my skin--

these are not metaphors

but ways of turning what simply is

into something beautiful

my heart can understand."

I'm thinking about my word of the year again, and I'm thinking about this idea of being powerful.  The more I think about it, the more I realize that this internal sense of power must come from, first, accepting yourself and the powers you carry with you.  These days, I'm having a hard time liking myself.  (That's a hard one to admit, isn't it?)  I'm having a hard time being willing to do the things I know I need to do to take care of myself.  It's partially the fact that this time of year is hard.  It's partially other things.  And it's partially that I reached a point of extremely overwhelmed that I'm having a hard time settling, because I am having a hard time identifying what I need to make it settle.  Or, perhaps more accurately, I'm having a hard time allowing myself to do the things I know I need to do.  I am tired of being sensitive, and I'm tired of navigating the world when things seem to be too much.  Fair warning: if one more person says "self-care" to me, I'm probably going to punch them.  It's just not that easy.

Being this sensitive person brings incredible gifts.  Empathy is my superpower.  I feel all of my emotions intensely, even and especially the wonderful ones, and this is a gift.  Without being this sensitive person, I would not be able to write my heart in this way...and I love that I can write my heart in a way that connects me with others.  I am a better therapist because of this person I am. 

But this overwhelm from being in the world...it is not a metaphor.  I can't read the news right now.  I can't look at that amazing article you posted, and I can't read the headlines of the articles in the trending news stories, and I am deleting every email from every social justice organization that sends me emails.  When I see these things, I can literally feel the nerves in my body start to jingle, and my spine feels funny, and the vice on my head tightens. 

But then I feel guilt, and shame, and embarrassment that I have the audacity to find it all too much when I am a privileged white girl.  Fact of the matter is, I have the privilege of shutting it out.  What right do I have to take advantage of that privilege, just because my nervous system feels "overwhelmed?"  It feels like such a cop-out to say "I'm highly sensitive" and expect that to mean something.  I'm not special, you know.  It just is. 

Maybe powerful means that I feel strong enough to do what I need in order to be my best self.  Maybe powerful doesn't mean soldiering on.  Maybe it doesn't mean ignoring, and pushing, and fighting with yourself to get to where you feel you need to be, regardless of what's happening internally.  I guess I'm back to what I said last time: maybe being powerful consists of choosing to like yourself without hating yourself first.  Maybe it's making the radical choice of allowing yourself to take care of you, even in all of your too muchness.  Or maybe...maybe...I could accept the broader definition of: "being powerful is being willing to take care of yourself."

Here then, is Autodidactpoet's list of 3 things you should remember this week (and always):

1). You are brave.

2). You are powerful.

3). You are worthy of love and belonging.

Always. 

Autodidactpoet 2.0: A post about powerful self-love

You know, if I could type with my thoughts, I would be posting multiple times per day.

When I am in the shower, cooking, on a walk with the dog, driving, sitting in a meeting, or generally doing anything during which it is simply not possible for me to write, I have lots of ideas.  Clear thoughts and beautiful poetic phrases dance through my mind as I am unable to write, until they finally die and rot in the cemetery of Thoughts That Never Got Written.  When I finally sit down to write, those thoughts are gone, and I'm just left with a lot of anxiety instead.  My inner critic (aka "The Bitch") has been giving me a hard time lately, and has made it hard to get anything on paper.

My inner critic has been showing up in pretty much every area of my life -- particularly the past two

weeks.  "You're not good enough," she whines.  "Not smart enough, not pretty enough, not skinny enough, not kind enough or compassionate enough."  "You're not a good enough friend, or listener, or sister or daughter or supervisor or therapist," she chants.  She continues, sometimes louder and sometimes more quietly, "...and your house is dirty, and you didn't do laundry, and you have dishes in your sink.  You have paperwork that you didn't finish, and you wasted time watching Netflix and knitting when you should have been productive.  I don't care that you didn't get home until 10PM...you spent two hours watching Netflix and knitting.  Shame. On. You."  I had several mini-meltdowns this week about things like: feeling like a bad dog mom because I left my buddy alone so much.  And: feeling like a failure because I didn't do the thing that nobody told me was a thing that had to be done.  And: feeling like a failure because of things that happened years ago.  And: feeling like a failure because I was so exhausted from all the crises and stress this week and I didn't take the introvert time I needed, so my nervous system felt like I could feel every nerve ending in my head and my fingers and my spine.

There have to be better ways of working this shit out.

My body is ruthless in reminding me that I'm doing a crap job.  All those articles you see written by wheatgrass-drinking yoginis telling you that, if you listen to your body, it will tell you what you need?  They aren't lying.  Given, my body does not tell me whether to drink the spinach smoothie or the kombucha...but it does hit me over the head with migraines or complete nervous system overload, which almost requires the same level of listening............right?   

So in the midst of all of this, I've been thinking about my word of the year, and about what I'm going to do with this word.  Powerful.  What does this word even mean?

Honestly?  I don't know.  I know that this word feels right, and I know that this word has chosen me for the year...but I don't know what I want to do with it yet.  And that makes my manic Inner Critic unhappy.

In my good moments, I hear this quiet voice somewhere deep inside of me that gives me this calm, easy answer (probably the same voice that should be able to distinguish if I need the smoothie or the kombucha, come to think of it).  If I listen really hard, I hear her telling me that I have the power to choose my thoughts.  I have the power to choose to allow the voice of love that must exist somewhere in me, to be louder.  I have the power to say yes to taking care of me.

And that's hard.  That's harder than anything brave that I did last year.  That doesn't require just pushing myself through a little fear to do something.  That requires a complete system overhaul.  Like, if I were to really internalize and live that, I would be Autodidactpoet 2.0.  These patterns are very - very ­- engrained.  It's almost like I wouldn't know myself without my Inner Critic bitching loudly about something, you know?  She's awful, with a big nose and ugly teeth, and a voice that sounds like nails on a chalkboard...but we've spent a long time together.  She's one of my most reliable pals.

In talking with my friend Examorata today, in a slightly different context, I mentioned the idea that "you can't hate your way into loving yourself."  I said it casually, like I believed it, or lived it, even.  But it's hard, you know?  And it feels radical.  It feels like a powerful choice -- to reject the messages around us and the ones we have internalized.  To tell your inner critic to shut the hell up, and to allow yourself to feel what loving yourself...or even liking yourself might feel like.  To allow that to be what is real and in the forefront, because it's true, isn't it?  You can't hate your way into love.  Not for others, and not for yourself. 

Giving voice to my inner critic here makes me feel vulnerable.  We've all got that voice, to varying degrees, but we don't name it, do we?  Perfection -- or near perfection -- is just supposed to come easily.  But I know for a fact that there is power in naming the ugly voices inside our heads.  There is power in externalizing them.  They fester and breed in the dark, shame-filled places they reside, so there is power in shining the light on them and exposing them in an act of vulnerability.

So perhaps this is where I start with this word.  Perhaps here, in this place of overwhelm, and guilt, and shame, and feeling-too-much, perhaps this is where I start.  Perhaps this is where I make that powerful choice to move towards loving myself, without needing to hate myself first. 

And maybe, when I wake up tomorrow, I'll make that choice again.  And then when I see the dirty dishes in my sink, I'll make the choice again, and again when I struggle with what to wear to work, and again when I see all the paperwork that needs to be done, and again when I come home and watch Netflix and knit after a long day.  I will get the opportunity to make the powerful choice of love on a moment-by-moment basis.  My guess?  I'll choose love sometimes.  And sometimes I'll forget.  And sometimes I'll choose love, but feel shame, or guilt, or anger, or dislike, or even hatred instead...but the power of the choice is always there.  Always. 

What will you choose for your powerful self in this moment? 

And in this one?

And the next? 

How was Haiti?

I'm still struggling to write about my trip to Haiti.

Two boys getting water near MPP

I say "still" when in reality, I've been home a little over a week...and I think that's the problem.  I came home and was catapulted into a work schedule so hectic, I'm not really sure how it all got done.  It did, though, or it is, but in the midst of that, it's been a hard readjustment process.  Going from talking to people who are carrying water on their heads to interviewing predoctoral interns, and from seeing children playing with a metal hoop and a stick to seeing children tantrum because I'm cutting their screen time back by 30 minutes...it messes with your head, let me tell you.  I avoided the grocery store for a week because I couldn't stomach the idea of waltzing through 56 types of cereal and 3 aisles of junk food.  I'm completely serious when I say that my main meal last week was beans and rice.  Something about that just felt right. 

One of the hardest things, though, is answering the simple question of "how was Haiti?"

"Haiti was life-changing," I say.

"Awwww," they say.  "That's so nice.  So you liked it?"

Three boys and their donkey, near MPP

And I don't know what to say to that.  It's not that I didn't like the trip...but it's just the wrong word. 

I loved the trip.  While on this trip, I felt strong.  I felt brave, and confident, and at peace with myself.  I felt whole, and valued, and like I was an important piece of something transformative.  I did not feel the same self-consciousness and fear and anxiety that is always chirping on my shoulder.  I was doing something so far out of my comfort zone, and yet I did not feel afraid.  I don't understand why that happened...and as hard as I tried to hold onto it, it's gone now.  But it was there, for a week, and it made me feel badass.  I love that I was brave, and I love that I felt badass.

I love that this trip changed me wholly and completely.  I love that my worldview is forever changed.  I love that I had the privilege of breaking my heart open and allowing the beauty and the pain and the hope and despair of Haiti and her people enter into my heart.  I love that I saw landscapes so beautiful that they moved me to tears, and I love that I saw landscapes so devastated they did the same.  I love this experience in a way that you can only love something that is deep, and personal, and painful and profound.  I love the way Haiti has burrowed under my skin and now enters my dreams in beautiful and painful ways. 

At school

I love that I can sit on my couch in Maryland, cuddled under layers of sweatpants and blankets, close my eyes, and evoke in myself the feelings that I had while sitting on the Big Thoughts porch: feelings of peace, and community, and a way of life that matches the beating of my heart.  Feelings of discomfort, and growth, and feeling so very small in a world that is expanding out beyond what I knew was possible.  Feelings of love and hope for the world and her people, and feelings of disappointment, and despair, and a heaviness that weighs on my heart and body.  All of these things, all at once: I love them because they are here, and they are real, and they are changing me.  I love them because they are the world, and because I want to witness it whole-heartedly. 

So when I'm asked that question of "how was Haiti?  Did you like it?" I say, "Haiti was life-changing.  It was a very amazing, and beautiful, and difficult experience." I say this because at the water cooler, or in the bathroom at work I can't talk about how I hold in my body this sense of overwhelming vast holiness that consists of pain, and struggle, and beauty, and hope, and despair, and inexplicable resilience, and hopelessness, too.  It's an uncomfortable feeling I don't know how to name or contain without tears stinging my eyes.  I don't know how to say in an elevator speech that it's impossible for me to like the discomfort, and the despair and sadness and pain this trip opened me to.  It's hard to say that I liked seeing faces like the ones in these pictures.  It's hard to say that I liked hearing trauma, and hunger, and thirst, and struggle, because you can't like that.  I didn't like that.  But I held it in my heart, because it is real, and because I witnessed it, and because I am learning to hold those things.

Little guy at village 5

"So what was your favorite part?," they ask me.

And I struggle with that word, too.  Favorite.  Like my favorite color is purple, and my favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip...favorite feels like an indulgence.  Favorite feels like choosing which of the struggles I witnessed particularly appealed to me.  Favorite feels like choosing that beautiful landscape over the struggling, beautiful people within it.  There isn't just one moment that stands out...there are slideshows of moments, and roller coasters of emotions of moments.  So many beautiful, hard, broken open moments.

The moment, though, that I am really struggling to tell is the story of our visit to Bassin Zim: a completely gorgeous waterfall we stood at the foot of, and climbed to the top of and looked down.  The water was this amazing color of aquamarine that I have never seen in real-life water before.  We saw the "Voodoo cave" and went in another cave with supposed ancient drawings on the walls, and the biggest bats I've ever seen flying in and out of holes in the ceiling of the cave.  It was absolutely beautiful, and mysterious, and refreshing to see that much water in one place after so many days of dust. 

Bassin Zim

This experience, though, is the only one in which I started to cry and could not blink back the tears. 

Our tour guides for this journey were children -- boys, primarily -- that looked to be between the ages of 8 and 12 or so.  These children clamored to take our hands and to help us over the rocks and streams to the waterfall so that we would pay them.  These children reached, and reached, and reached for whatever hand they could find to grab it, and hold onto it, to be able to earn a dollar from us -- the white strangers.

And those faces.  Those faces.  Those faces just stay with you. 

The boy who took my hand introduced himself in English with a lilting Creole accent: "My name is Eben," he said.  "Take my picture.  Is very beautiful."

I introduced myself, too, and he repeated my name, tripping over the tricky vowel in the middle.  "Is very beautiful," he said again.

Eben

"My parents died in earthquake," he told me.  "That is my brother," he said, pointing to another boy.  Throughout our time together, he pointed to one boy or another and named them as his brother or his cousin -- and who knows what of his story is true.  It hardly matters.  What I know for sure is that he wore dirty clothes.  That the houses we passed on the way there hurt my heart.  That he wore adult size sandals he just barely kept on his feet as he walked up the steep hillside and over the rocks. 

Before we began our ascent, he took my hand and smiled.  He pointed up to the sky with his other hand and stated, "we have one God."  I smiled. 

"One God," he said again.  "We have one God."

I made myself smile again.  "Yes, Eben," I said.  "We have one God."

At the end of our walk, I gave Eben the dollar from my pocket.  He walked away, rough-housing with the other children.  I wish I could say it was playful, but another child had come up and punched Eben in the back -- I'm guessing out of jealousy over the dollar, or perhaps a previous fight -- and Eben ran off to seek revenge. 

We have one God, he told me.  One God.  We have one God.

Another child at Bassin Zim

When we were walking back to the vans, I stopped and looked at the waterfall and then at the children around me.  I caught the eye of a young boy -- perhaps 9 years old -- and the look in his eye, and something about his face reminded me exactly of a young client I love.  A young client who lives in one of the wealthiest counties in the US.  A young client who has some challenges, but attends an excellent school, has parents with advanced degrees who are able to provide him with everything he needs.  This client is so dear to me because of his beautiful, naive, creative and inspired soul. 

And this little boy here, in Haiti, with that same round face and soulful eyes, this little boy is essentially begging for money.  He is working when he should be in school.  Who knows what is story is, or what it will be? 

I couldn't help it: the tears just came, and I had to walk away to hide them.

I keep looking at my pictures of the faces.  Those faces.  And I keep thinking of Eben's words.  We have one God.  One God.  We have one God.

I reside pretty firmly in the agnostic camp...and in one sense, I absolutely agree with my little friend.  Of course we have one god, Eben, I think.  We have one god that is a god of love, and you, Eben, are loved. 

"Take my picture?"
Boys in the cave at Bassin Zim

On the other hand, I just can't believe it.  How can we have one God when that God allows such disparities to exist in the world?  How can we have one God when I am able to get on a plane and leave this country, and Eben will stay here, at Bassin Zim, in his too big sandals and not enough food, fighting for money?  How can that little boy look at me, with the fire of "Seen Too Much" burning in his eyes, and tell me with such certainty that we are blessed by the same holy being?  I don't know, Eben, this part of me says.  I don't know what sort of god must be up there that would deal you and all these other little faces this hand in life. 

What comes to mind now is the line from Staceyann Chin's poem:

"I believe God is that place between belief and what you name it.

I believe holy is what you do when there is nothing between your actions and the truth."
- from the poem"Feminist or Womanist?"

I still don't know how to talk about my trip to Haiti.  I don't know how to answer the questions people ask, and I don't know how to tell these stories, but I know that it was holy.  Witnessing the lives of the Haitian people and allowing their stories to seep in through my pores allowed me to align my heart and my actions with the truth of the world. 

 I don't know that I believe in the God that Eben asserted to me so firmly, but perhaps I can believe that my god is that place of love, and presence, and whole-heartedness that lives between belief and the name you devise for it.  My god lives in my feelings of love and hope for the world and her people.  It lives in the feelings of disappointment, and despair, and in the heaviness that weighs on my heart and body.  It is all of these things, all at once, and I love it, because it is here, and it is real, and it is changing me.  I love it because it is the world, and because I am here to witness it, whole-heartedly. 

Eben and friend