Been too long

I can barely remember how to use this blog. Please accept my apologies for the messiness of it, the repetition of the pictures, all of it.

Writing from Austin, I love it here but I've been silent because I've been threatened. Seems on more than one level, my transparent life has become about keeping secrets for the benefit of others and, I've been told, for my own benefit.

This presents a huge problem for me. Absolute transparency has always been my ally. I believe in it. In the spirit of transparency, I have to say here and now, the conflict between who I am and who I love has reached the point where it must break something or be resolved somehow.

The subject of men and women has been brought into the foreground for me - this wasn't intentional but circumstances being what they are, I find myself being confronted with my own philosophy of life and looking pretty hard at the areas where I've accepted social and cultural restraints that run counter to my own beliefs. It's an interesting time. (and I can see why that's a curse.)

Most recently the issue of my value as an individual versus my social value as a spouse has been pressing at me. My father raised me to be married - my mother was so passive her influence meant nearly nothing. I was lucky enough to be given the raw materials to make me attractive to men and this "training" while it may have been rejected by me, given the choice, did take root.

Feminism is a noble ideal but the fact of the matter is, we live in a civilization where it is foolish to the point of being dangerous for a woman without an economic foundation in place to decide to live independently. I am that woman right now and I am increasingly aware of how the men to whom I am attracted benefit from that without ever having to make an appropriate reciprocal gesture.

That may sound materialistic or mercenary or worse - but it is still the truth that marriage provides a material benefit to women that it does not provide to men at the same time as it provides a social and emotional benefit to men that it does not provide to women.

To date, I have provided the emotional and social benefit with no expectation of the material security. That needs to change. I may think it is only right that I make my way in the world as a man but as Malcolm Gladwell points out in Outliers even that idea is more myth than reality and it is time I made my peace with it and acted accordingly.

That's all for now. More pictures later, this is something I need to hash out. I do so not only for myself but for any other woman who, like me, thought Virginia Woolf was no longer relevant to contemporary women and makes her way through life without a net.

Things begin to settle

I don't know why it seems to take me so long to make transitions. I've been here two weeks now and have barely written a word, just got electricity, haven't got the gas hooked up. I suppose part of me is just as surprised to be here as the people I talk to who tell me I'm brave to go away for such a long time.

But really, I don't see it.

If you can possibly be somewhere you love with someone you care about, wouldn't you do it? Shouldn't you do it? Shouldn't everyone move heaven and earth to be happy? And isn't life short enough without assuming you can't do what you want to do? (provided you do not hurt others of course)

I think life is short. The world is pretty big to a little creature like me and if it is even remotely possible for me to pursue happiness, then I am going to do exactly that to the exclusion of everything else.

The thing is, when I was in my 20's I had this little breakthrough that life without real happiness was pointless. Sure, I wanted to do right by the people around me, be a good person, benefit the world, all that stuff but if I lived in absolute misery while I was doing those things then what did that say about the gift of life that the Creator gave directly to me? After all, that's the only gift I know for sure was meant for me.

Singing is for other people too, so is writing, art of any kind, a sense of duty, the ability to exert oneself on behalf of others, the health I gave to my only son - those are gifts G-d gave me to pass on to others and it was an honor to do so but without a sense of joy and wonder and without some daring, daring to be fully alive - they don't mean very much.

So here I am, finally cracking the crust of my inactivity. Settling like a feather on a ledge, I suppose - probably easy enough to set me adrift again, although I hope not.

I have been true in my heart. True to myself and true to love - in all its many forms. I hope, I like to think, we can all say that but I'm told it's unusual. It shouldn't be.

I've been told I'm lucky but I think I'm just awake. I'm poor - poorer than I've ever been. Certainly poorer than I ever expected to be but if the cost of money is your soul, then I really think it is a blessing to be poor.

It is a blessing to have a mind and be able to speak it, however clumsily. It's a blessing to stay awake, a blessing to draw breath and see the sky. I'm aware of it - so aware I can't dismiss it, can't put it off for even a minute. I can endure the reluctance of others, people I love who are still afraid to stand up and be in the world but not of it but I can't live that way myself. For me there is no other choice and I do need to remember that. Waiting seems kind but ultimately it is wasteful.

I need to write but maybe I also need to just shut up and post some more pictures.

Texas

Subletting is complicated.

Living your life your own way, no matter how closely you stick to the rules as they are written on paper, is complicated.

It's all complicated.

People will tell you to follow your dream and be true to yourself - that's all well and good and it feels good to do it but what they don't tell you is that once you actually manage to do it, things will not get any simpler.

I'm happy to be in Austin. I have a sublet that has lots of natural light in a neighborhood that seems to be about as convenient as it can be but there are still wrinkles to be ironed out, time lost to complications, adjustments to make - this phase of life with its distinct patterns of melancholy is different from the last but there are still patterns of melancholy and still the big questions of life to be wrestled with. I tend to forget that when I am striving to get somewhere or something.

I'm in a starbucks in Austin waiting for my electricity to be hooked up because the guy from whom I am subletting had it all turned off - this will cause me problems the next time I want to cross the border. More problems. It will make the way harder and he did it without a second thought, he did it without mentioning his intention of doing it to me - there is always some complication to make things hard, even when you think you've gotten what you wanted.

The internet will come back on Friday, the gas? Well, I haven't dealt with that yet so it's anyone's guess. Water and electric I fixed today at a premium and of course this means my bank account is taking a hit every time I turn around.

The apartment itself is alright. It has a lot of windows and yet still seems to manage to suffer from whiffs of that overheated cheerlessness so characteristic of Austin. One must choose carefully in these things and one must always remember why you've come here.

Gearing up to write again - that's hard too. Voice changes by context, it just does. I haven't exactly found my voice here. It'll take a while writing crap like this to get there.

Walking makes me a bit of a freak here. Fact is, I can't lead this double life and afford a car. Another fact is, I need a car here. Of course that raises the question, would it be easier or harder to cross the border by car?

The fact that I have come and gone three times now makes no difference to the border people, they do not deal in logic. One must always bear that in mind.

Today someone suggested many Mexican ex-pats choose to fly to Canada and then cross into the states from the northern border because it's easier - well, it's not easier and they treat everyone as though they are trying to do something nefarious even if, like me, you're not.

So every action I take has an element of performance - always wondering how it will be perceived by the border guards. As though they were spending all their time tracking me, one little insignificant woman from Canada. It's egotistical paranoia but they reinforce it every time I cross so it's hard to lose.

At any rate, I'm a writer now - for real and for true so I suppose I should be spending my time writing and not worrying away like some demented terrier at all of these peripheral issues.

I'm in Texas. Expect things to change.

Connecticut Evening

It's a lovely, early evening here. Birds and crickets are singing, the butterflies are having their evening meal. It's peaceful and lovely, everything life should be and missing only one thing, or person. Everything in its time, I suppose. Here are some pictures I took this morning.

Desperation Bubbles Up

Hard not to see metaphors for daily life in the headlines. As the oil in the Gulf keeps defying attempts to suppress it, so do all the other issues that have erupted as a result of our plumbing the depths of our culture to satisfy our greed. You can't turn around without seeing the results of that and no amount of saying or teaching or otherwise reinforcing "nice" or "decent" behaviour seems to be able to keep a lid on it.

There was a time, within my lifetime, when people considered the issue of a fair exchange as the foundation for doing business. You would sell something for a sum of money or exchange your work for a fair sum and along with that basic exchange would go the assumption that both sides were getting a fair deal.

It's not like that anymore. Case in point; the sublet apartment. There was a time when a person who had to be away from home for an extended period was faced with the choice of paying their rent or mortgage to maintain an uninhabited space in their absence or storing their belongings and finding a new place to live when they returned. Some people would get a housesitter or hire a security service to look after things while they were gone. They would often pay for this service on the understanding that it is significantly more costly to store one's belongings and/or pay for an empty place than it is to have someone checking on these things and making sure they stay safe in your absence.

That's changed.

Suddenly, people who need to be away from home see their empty place only from the perspective of potential "customers" They view their home not as a responsibility but as an asset from which they can expect to turn a profit. I find this shift in thinking discouraging for a variety of reasons.

First, that kind of thinking assumes that only you have value in the world and that anywhere you go or anything you do, your value and your comfort are more important than anyone or anything else. This idea that the priveledge (I cannot spell that word I never will be able to spell that word, get used to seeing that word misspelled.) of living in your house and taking care of your belongings should command a premium. It shows me you think you are better than anyone else.

Second, that kind of thinking indicates to me that you think your very presence on the earth makes you more deserving of payment than anyone else. You want to go away, maybe you need to go away, and you need someone to take care of things while you're gone. You think your ability to have acquired a home makes you superior to people looking for a home in your community? It doesn't. When I have gone on long trips, I have sublet my apartment and I've footed the bill for some of the extras because it is a service to me to have someone take a short-term interest in my long-term home. It allows me to keep my place in the community and that is a benefit to me - I am respectful of it.

Third, it shows me that all you care about is money and that's the saddest thing of all. It used to be these situations were rare - recently I've seen ads for "home stagers" where you are expected to furnish, maintain and show a house while it is on the market and also pay for the privlege of doing so.

I cannot think of anything that shows me the complete contempt we have for each other better than that and it makes me sad every time I see it.

What's next? Going on vacation and renting out your dog?

Most of us have our priorities all wrong. I wonder what it will take for us to wise up?

Breather

Today, it occurred to me very suddenly that it is summer.

Maybe that makes me an extraordinarily slow person, that's certainly possible but it did come as a surprise. It happened when I heard someone skateboarding outside and then saw a little girl adjusting a handbag the size of her chest, slung formally over one bent elbow as she approached the gate to her friend's house. Going to play.

It's a summer day, kids are sleeping in or going to day camp. They're swinging their legs over pools or riverbanks or piers and they're talking to their friends. They're wearing their play clothes and enjoying the sun. They're not worried.

And I realized that can be me too. I've been caught up in the idea that I don't have enough and so I need to be concerned about work all the time but all that seems to do is make the days feel like they're wasted even before they begin and truth be told, although my income is meagre, it is there and it is growing slowly.

It's summer. I can wear play clothes, I can stand on my balcony and drink iced coffee, hell, I can work on my balcony if I want to. I can go to the river and swim. I can do all of these things anytime I want. I've made enough sacrifices that my work lives with me, it's part of my life, it's in service to me, not the other way around.

So I took a breather and let myself out of the vice grips. I can do whatever I want because I will no longer do what I don't want to do. I refuse to give my life over to stuff I hate. No way. No more. But it's hard to remember that it's ok to be that way. I often slip into feeling guilty about it and then my productivity drops through the floor. It's a paradox and it's tricky to avoid.

I grew up thinking work had to feel bad or it wasn't work. At the same time I am not the kind of person who can really attend to people or things I dislike. That means I am really bad at most of the things I would consider work and really good at the things I love to do.

Most of the things I love to do are things people would consider to be work - so that's where I earn my living but the guilt gets in the way.

Well, not today. Today, I'll do whatever I want and I hope I'll do that tomorrow and every day for the rest of my life and sometimes I'll get paid for it and sometimes I won't and that's just fine by me.

Oil and Me

So many of my friends are posting videos of the Gulf oil spill on Facebook. They post the worst one they can find and then express their fear and despair over the disaster and/or their anger and frustration.

I suppose this is natural. It's a terrifying thing to see birds, whales, dolphins and turtles covered in oil and dying - terrifying and shameful because it is the result of our desire to lead lives of greater and greater comfort and variety.

But does it help?

During my time as a preschool teacher I learned a lot about what motivates people. One important thing I learned is that children cannot be governed by fear. When you threaten a child they find ways to ignore the threat or they rise to meet it in order to see just how bad something can be and to prove to themselves that they can endure it (or find out if they can't, where their own limits are) or they move on to something completely different. What they don't do, what they never do, is address the threat as you have presented it. In the rare instance when it does seem to work, it works only once and it sets you up for having to increase the fear stimulus exponentially the next time you try the same tactic. (that's why we end up with "delinquent" kids, they have almost always had caregivers who tried to parent with fear and shame.)

People are like that, even in adulthood, the main difference being, in adulthood, it is a lot easier to ignore the fear stimulus and declare the situation hopeless and therefore completely beyond any attempt at personal responsibility.

In my spiritual progress through this life (limited as it is) there have been two contributors that have prompted me to challenge myself on this way of thinking. In Judaism, we are asked to accept moral responsibility for our actions. There is no vicarious salvation and G-d will not fix whatever is wrong with your life or the earth or anything else, that's up to you. G-d, in Judaism, flows only through us, through beings.

In First Nations traditional religious belief, you can only tell the stories that are yours. There is a similar emphasis on personal responsibility and the idea of beings having a soul, a right to be here and sentience extends to everything on the planet. Yes, even rocks. We are also taught that we are responsible not only to ourselves but to our place in the community. Any decision made must take into account the interests of the seven generations that preceded me and the seven generations that will come after me.

While it would be easy to lament the fact that others have apparently not taken these ideas into account when doing things like drilling for oil or establishing economic structures that rely on filling the skies and the waterways with waste - that would be disingenuous and arrogant. I have ridden in a car, I have driven a car. I liked it. I like to fly and many of the decisions taken by people that led to this spill were taken quite honestly with my tastes and my benefit in mind (although not directly.)

It also bears remembering that the oil that is spilling into the ocean right now is oil we collectively intended to spill into the sky.
I honestly do not see how that is very much better. It's less visible, but it still causes death and destruction, more of it every year.

We are upset because Creation and our actions have combined to spill this oil into a confined and highly visible space. I know I will sound crazy when I say it but that is a gift.

We need to see the natural consequences of our actions. Natural consequences are great teachers. Nevertheless, there is a big difference between natural consequences and the kind of fear, anguish, anger and despair that comes of repeatedly watching the results of our actions on the other beings in our world, bemoaning it, blaming others and then obsessively showing it to others so that they too will feel enraged, frightened, threatened and impotent.

For the last 15 years, I have led a life with a relatively small footprint. Much of that has been deliberate. I left a place of comfort and material security in order to move into a life that had the potential to be more meaningful and more interesting. I accept a certain level of poverty as one of the results of that choice and at the same time I wrestle with how much I can assume responsibility for my place in this oil-based culture. How much more am I willing to give up?

I liked being a princess. I liked driving my car and eating whatever I chose. I liked having nice, new clothes and expensive shoes, I like nice restaurants, I like nice houses, I have expensive tastes - tastes that go beyond brand labels which frankly, I still consider to be somewhat vulgar; as far as snobbery goes, I am as bad as it gets. and I will tell the truth - I'm getting awfully tired of going without those things. Just the same, I am aware that I can only heal what my own life touches and so as much as I would like to be able to do a lot of things that damage the environment - fly more often, drive a car every day, those are not responsible choices and until I know for sure that I have the strength to decline consistently, it is probably better that I manage my negative inclinations by a kind of personal perimeter shopping. I work to meet my needs. I publish when I have to and I try to be careful in the world in every other way. Because at heart? I am an irresponsible hedonist and I will not do the things I need to do in order to have the positive impact I want to have on the world. I don't dip into places where I might be tempted to return to that lifestyle. It is too much fun. I cannot manage that addiction.

I think, collectively, if we really want to address this oil spill we will need to come to terms with the idea that we just can't have all the stuff we want to have. We have to pick a place where we live and live there (I am still guilty of avoiding that choice) We have to accept the indignity of public transport at least half of the time. We have to politely decline the delicacies that are brought in from G-d knows where at a cost that is so high it cannot possibly be reflected in the dollar amount we pay to consume them. We have to wear last year's clothes. We have to use last year's computer and we have to keep it and love it and care for it as though it had to last us a lifetime.

We have to take more pleasure in each other and less in our stuff. We have to look at those turtles in the river, those birds in the marsh, those whales in the bay and accept that they have their lives and the right to live them as fully as we do and if that means we don't get the pleasure of observing them up close, well, that's what it means.

And I am convinced that nothing can be achieved by catastrophic thinking. Stop telling your friends how bad they are and how much you regret it and start finding ways you can fix the things you do that add to the problem.

If there's an answer, that's where we'll find it.

Done ranting, go back to sleep.