Seattleite from Syracuse

Fighting Fairly and Reasonable Rhetoric

2012-02-16T20:00:00.000-08:00

This post will be a rant of sorts, drawing upon my personal experiences to make the point that us, as UUs, need to take a moral stand in areas of disagreement.

First story:

http://xkcd.com/386/

You know those awful anti-poor-person memes? There are a few going around. I saw this one yesterday:

“Put me in charge of food stamps. I’d get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Hos, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.
P

ut me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I’d do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we’ll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get tats and piercings, then get a job.

Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your ‘home’ will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place.

In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a ‘government’ job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the ‘common good..’

Before you write that I’ve violated someone’s rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules.. Before you say that this would be ‘demeaning’ and ruin their ‘self esteem,’ consider that it wasn’t that long ago that taking someone else’s money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.

If we are expected to pay for other people’s mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices. AND While you are on Gov’t subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Gov’t welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.”

This was posted by someone I am acquainted with from a forum who is a nice person, and frankly I was rather stunned that she had posted it because, as noted elsewhere, this is a pretty horrendous display of a lack of empathy, not to mention it violates a lot of the rules of rhetoric and logical consistency. The assumptions it is based upon are not true. (Especially shocking to me was the fact that the forum I know her from has several women on public assistance. I would like to think she was not arguing for our mutual friends to be sterilized.) So I replied, "As someone who has needed governmental in her life, I find this incredibly insulting." Someone else replies that the sort of caricature above is the norm, and so I whip out some of those handy social science facts that you end up knowing when you go for a PhD in sociology to illustrate that the above is a political straw person. I did not insult the poster, I did not mention that I am working towards a PhD because I realized I was speaking to someone without as much education. It would come off as condescension and disrespect. Instead, I called out the meme for being inaccurate and immoral.

I shall admit that I do feel a bit of a moral obligation as both a person of faith and a sociologist against passively permitting these perspective to be seen as truth. It is not standing on the side of love, at all. It does not reflect science, either.

Over the course of the next few comments, I am accused of "hiding something" making up "mickey mouse statistics" (I cited a Florida newspaper and the CDC's drug stats), or misinterpreting statistics. Trust me, I was not. "If she thinks that's right" was the term used instead of, well, directly addressing me with my name. "She" was thrown around so much that I wondered if the writer felt that being female was discrediting on its own. Ultimately, the reason that I was seen as wrong was not because someone had better, irrefutable numbers, but because I disagree with them. So I must be inaccurate. (Needless to say, I immediately disengaged.)

Second Story:

The day prior, I emailed my students about their writing. First, let me get this out of the way: my students are smart. They are attending the best public school in their state, they are passionate, and their intelligence shines brightly through during any conversation that you have with them. Their cleverness alone is insufficient for good papers, and I was emailing them because their writing used unacceptable rhetorical devices. Alas, these are the techniques acceptable today: repeating the same idea over and over again instead of supporting it with citations, terrible sentence structure, and writing what should be an analytic paper with a tone of outrage. The world was going to end as a result of whatever issue they wrote about and most papers paid little to no attention to the merits of the other side. They are writing as they read. If you read the internet, you find that this is how controversies are treated.

Third Story:

I went to a forum for the University of Washington regents regarding very unpopular budget cuts and tuition increases. I sat among a couple hundred students. To make comments, you needed to sign up about a week prior. Despite being present but a half and hour, I watched many persuasive faux-pas. First, half the speakers did not show up. Second, I watched as several students addressed the board in a hostile, aggressive manner, with one even turning his back to them. Third, their comments seemed to reflect a lack of preparation: weak sentences, ill-informed arguments with occasionally irrelevant support, sometimes no support, and no where near convincing. The basic rhetorical rules of... speaking... were gone. I found myself desperately hoping that the Board of Regents would take these poorly constructed arguments as a sign that they need to invest more in education. I understand that the following speakers were not universally bad. An email arrived in my inbox from my union describing this forum as a time when, "... members came out to the meeting in force and clearly and passionately communicated the need to creatively address problems..." What? I do not think my standards are that high...

Concluding Point:

These are signs of our times. Right now there is heavy political polarization, and the tactic of ad-hominen is not just alive and well, but the primary rhetorical device. Credibility is being defined by whether or not the speaker agrees with your points. Respect is not given to those holding differing opinions, and scape-goating is alive and well. Especially if you are a woman, poor person, gay or lesbian or queer or transgendered, or unemployed.

We should advocate for a sane, respectful social discourse. I believe that our political process has become as culturally toxic as some of the proposed legislation. I would bet lots of money that the same reasons that we have terrible talking heads are the same reasons that birth control is up for debate: there is a lack fundamental respect for each other, for what we perceive as "other".

If we, Unitarian Universalists, seek to stand on the side of love, we need to build it first on a foundation of respect. We should advocate for the inherent worth and dignity of everyone in the political process and not just seeking it in the outcomes of legislation.

Good Eats

2012-02-15T09:21:00.000-08:00

That spouse of mine outdid himself yesterday. Monday I made a special meal for him, and last night he made a special meal for me. Soup and Sweet Potato Quinoa burgers. I am going to share the recipes he used here because they ought to be shared.

Butternut Squash and Roasted Red Pepper Soup from Tasty Yummies

Instead of Butternut Squash, Will used a Blue Hubbard Squash and instead of roasted red peppers he used yellow peppers. He did not blend it into a bisque, and honestly, I liked it better that way. The soup was divine.

The next dish was Maple Sweet Potato Pecan Burgers from the Tolerant Vegan

Will followed this recipe exactly. It. Was. Amazing. Time consuming, but so delicious.

It's really delightful to be married to someone who is so considerate and an amazing cook!

I will share with you a pasta sauce I invented for his meal on Monday. It's a fresh sauce, no cooking (which was good because some of the other dishes were a bit labor intensive.

Lemon-Garlic Sauce

Juice of one lemon, plus pulp
8 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon tarragon

Mix together and let sit for about 20 minutes.

Toss over 1/2 pound (dry weight) freshly cooked linguine. It makes a great side dish.

Gay Marriage Signed into Law in Washington State

2012-02-13T12:32:00.000-08:00

from http://www.tvw.org

To quote http://www.tvw.org/capitolrecord/index.php/2012/02/governor-signs-same-sex-marriage-bill/:

"Gov. Chris Gregoire said today “is a proud day that historians will mark as a milestone for equal rights.” She told stories of several people who had contacted her during the debate about same-sex marriage, including a teenage girl who had considered suicide because of her sexual orientation, but said the debate had changed her mind.

Gregoire teared up when thanking the younger generation for speaking up, gesturing to her two daughters standing on the side."

There's a possibility it will go to referendum. I suspect the law will stand if it does.

Transitions

2012-02-07T19:11:00.000-08:00

Monday's Prompt:

Prayers can take different forms. They can be addressed to a deity, an idea, for guidance, or simply to express your thoughts or emotions.

Yesterday, a friend that I deeply respect lost someone very close to him. The news came via a very moving email, and as my eyes moved from word to word I could them welling with water. I can only imagine the pain he's in, and frankly I try not to: death of a close loved one is the thing I am afraid of most. I cannot bear the thought of losing my husband, parents, family or friends. It is a futile dread; I am fearing the inevitable. I prayed (to whom or whatever would listen) that he and his family would find comfort and strength.

The weather was beautiful so I left my computer and walked outside. The air was so still. The sky had no clouds and the mountains stood crisp and clear on the horizon. Breath-taking.

At the same time, the world felt empty and ephemeral. Thought again of my friend, thought of my mother, my husband and everyone that I love. They are here, on this planet, in this life, for now but not for always. Some have already left. Nothing - not the trees, the grasses, the people, the animals, mountains, or water stay where they are, as they are, forever. In a time frame beyond what I can perceive, even the Earth shall be gone.

Have you ever had a moment where you felt so fundamentally temporary?

I struggle to keep a healthy perspective on mortality, oscillating between forgetting and obsession, trying to find that delicate balance between risking for living and avoiding risk to keep life. I have been reading Forrest Church's Love and Death, and about how death is the price one pays for this great opportunity to be alive. He says somewhere in the book that grief is the evidence you have loved. It may be accurate, though it is not consoling. I study social problems for a living, and every time I read or hear of some tragedy, all I can think of is that it was that person's only chance on this earth.

It always seems so brief.

Musings on that "religious movement" question

2012-02-01T09:40:00.000-08:00

A couple brief thoughts regarding Rev. Morales' working paper:

Being a collection of congregations is static, unless you're in the business of church planting (we're not). Being a movement, by definition, requires motion. It means we need to step out of a complacent belonging. There is nothing wrong with having a goal of creating an accepting community. In fact, I would argue that successfully creating that is a piece of social change in and of itself. But for that to be successful, we need a reputation and to have a reputation we need to be known. To be known means that one needs to reach out.

It is my strong suspicion that meaningful leadership towards progressive social change is going to come from faith groups. The current of political ideas is a stream of money; practices of the economy are notoriously self interested. Change to further "good", or collective good, is likely going to come from the ideas of religious leaders: Jesus, Buddha, ministers, etc. The common good does not always fit in the categories of "efficient" and often does not comply with self-interest. Something that appeals to the good of everyone is going to need to come from a moral grounding elsewhere.

Granted, fewer people are embedded in religious communities in the US than they ever were. So we'll see.

Aiming for a Compassion Driven Economy and Politic

2012-01-30T11:35:00.000-08:00

30 Days of Love, Day 15. The Task: Make this video viral:

Um, I doubt I have enough readers to make a video viral - heck, I probably barely have enough readers to pass the common cold. But while I'm sharing inspirational videos with you in false hopes of making something go viral, let me share this one from Rev. Dr. Leslie Braxton at the MLK rally:

The email prompt, written by Meredith Lukow, asks us to consider this:

As I’ve watched the presidential campaign season unfold around me these past few weeks, I can’t help but notice that the underlying themes of fear, of scarcity, and of “the other” permeate every discussion. Our political culture has become toxic on both sides. We have become obsessed with ensuring specific benefits for ourselves, our subset of society, and even our country at the expense of others instead of creating solutions that make our global community as a whole better, stronger, and more just.

In a sermon yesterday at University Unitarian Church, Rev. John Luopa gave a sermon saying nearly the same thing! It was followed by a teach-in on economic justice (a very successful one courtesy of our awesome social justice coordinator and a super active member of the young adults group.

The point is this: our political discourse values being right, it values being efficient, it values lots of things that are not people. Rev. Luopa argued that we, as a society, as liberals and conservatives, have lost our moral grounding by either walking away from the ideas in faith groups or by co-opting them under this misguided idea that Jesus likes capitalism.

Let's not pretend that liberals do not engage in ad-hominen politics as conservatives do. This morning, I was reminded of this courtesy of one of Seattle's free papers, The Stranger. I respect Dan Savage's work in mainstreaming gay and lesbian relationships, and the "It Gets Better" campagin. His response to Rick Santorum's politics was wrong. I also find Santorum's attitudes towards women's bodies and rape to be abhorrent. However, Savage's tactics in this case are not conducive to creating a society of respect and compassion in the same way that a society which takes away rape victims' ability to self-determine their bodies is also not one of respect and compassion. They may stand on opposite sides of one issue but contribute to the same problem. (Savage has done a lot for LGBTQ groups in ways that are helpful; I am not discounting that. I am criticizing the tactic not the person.)

The Stranger also notes that what changed Washington Senator Mary Margaret Haugen's mind on marriage equality was her constituents' kind, heartfelt outreach. That's more like it. That is the sort of method that will last.

The ends do not justify the means, because the means create the circumstances of the ends. How political and economic goals are achieved, in my mind, is just as important as what one is working towards.

A Unitarian Univeralist Movement? (working out ideas here)

2012-01-24T23:03:00.000-08:00

This is the pier at on the West Shore Trail of one of my favorite places. When I was a youth, I would take my bicycle and ride to Onondaga Lake Park. My day did not feel complete without my bicycle and my solitude and the quiet time to think that I found in this place. I generally went around sunset.

Sometimes I would sit on the recycled benched on the pier by the Salt Museum and stare at the city of Syracuse. Even now, the ghost in my mind, it is a soothing image. Sometimes I would go to the West Shore, and walk on a wooded trail, listening to the rumble of the highway (I-690). I remember one time in particular, I was 15, and walking through the section of Long Branch Park where the amusement park was sixty years before. I was by myself. Maybe not. It felt like there was some presence there. Being Catholic at the time, I presumed that it was God with me. (Was it? Adult Agnostic Me says - who knows? I am OK with the mystery.) I felt absolutely at peace in that moment.

This is South Dakota in 2010, on our drive from Buffalo to Seattle. Sometimes it surprises me that Will and I successfully trekked across the country on the slight amount of planning that we did. One day in advance. That. Was. It. In retrospect, we were fine, but I remember being scared. I was moving to the West Coast. I had no idea what awaited us in Seattle. Lots of things, some very important to me, felt like they were dangling in the air, waiting to crash. I struggled with the uncertainty. It is also a time that I felt, dare I say it, close to God, should there be one. I felt like I belonged to the Earth. That connection brought me peace, in the same way it did at 15.

Rev. Peter Morales published a paper about the relationship between the identity of Unitarian Universalism and affiliation with congregations. He argues that Unitarian Universalism should think of itself more as a religious movement instead of a collection of congregations.

I agree with him 100%. I also share a lot of the reaction that various other UUs have - this is not exactly earth shattering. In fact, I am already active with many of the suggestions that Rev. Morales gives. Being somewhat uninterested and somewhat ignorant of UUA politics, I already thought of UUism as a religious movement. Imagine my surprised when, in the ensuing discussion, I discovered that I had the wrong idea the entire time.

I do not experience my faith as my membership in my congregation. I would still call myself UU even if I had not found University Unitarian Church when I moved to Seattle. Of course, many do feel closest to their congregation and there is nothing wrong with this. A movement is something that flows. A congregation is based around something, usually a geographic place, that is often stable. Flowing can surround stability. I think what Rev. Morales is identifying, though in different words, is that the UUA's focus on congregations means that we have a faith that thinks of itself through these reference points. They are scalars on a raster plane. (What? GIS terms?) We experience the world beyond our congregations, so it makes the most sense of think of the faith community as beyond them.

There is a broader challenge with this, and that is understanding what makes us UUs. Our elevator speeches are long enough. We struggle with our identity. I suspect a reason the congregational point of reference is so useful is because the buildings, even if they house people whose ideas differ extensively from one another, give some sort of commonness not found in our theology. We need to understand our coherence better. Otherwise, we are a movement with a name but a thin description. We would be a movement of smoke.

A Christian is a Christian because they believe in Jesus Christ, not because they subscribe to the Southern Baptist Convention. A Unitarian Universalist is a Unitarian Universalist because they...

...

Believe in the seven principles?

Seriously. I have my answer to why I am UU, but that answer is mine. What is the commonality that keeps us naming ourselves the same way?

I come at this as an outsider to some parts of UU culture. I am active in my congregation, but I was raised Catholic. I have no experience with the "con" culture, I have no experience with GAs, my religion was inherited with my Italian ancestry. I did not stop being Catholic when I left my home church for college. I stopped being Catholic when I stopped seeing Christ as a form of God. I think of my chosen faith in the same way. It is an attribute of me. I did not stop being a UU in South Dakota, when I left my beloved church in Buffalo. If the Pew data is to be believed, UU's self-identification does not require a congregation. The UUA should mirror this perspective, obviously.

Same-Sex Marriage in Washington? There's Enough Votes (!!!!)

2012-01-24T10:51:00.000-08:00

I have never written a thank you note to a politician before. In fact, I feel a little awkward admitting that I have now. One is to my governor, Chris Gregoire, and the other is to my state senator, Ed Murray. The occasion that has inspired me to do that gay marriage has enough votes to pass in the state of Washington. Our governor had changed her mind, and cites the perspectives of my generation in part of the reaon her perspective changed.

This thrills me. This legislation is not just about the legality of marriage - that focus is too myopic. The controversy is because this is about the types of relationships that our society legitimates and accepts. Beyond types of relationships, it's also about the types of people that we say are OK. There is absolutely no reason that lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, queer or anyone else should be treated as second class citizens.

Washington has a lot of problems, especially economic ones. Some people would argue that gay marriage is relatively trivial in these times. I disagree. I cannot think of anything that impacts my life in the day to day as much as my marriage does. It is not just the fact that I have an amazing spouse. I have done the cohabiting thing, and I am doing the married thing. It is different. It is different to introduce Will to strangers as my husband instead of my boyfriend. It is different legally too. In the few occasions that we applied for social services for example, our marriage is taken into consideration because we were seen as a unit. If you are in the military, it impacts your pay. I have a suspicion being married positively impacted our ability to find housing too. Being heterosexual, I experience my relationships with the support of society. I have the privilege of my union being seen as normal, perhaps even desirable, in the eyes of those around me. Yet my spouse's and my love and commitment for each other is no different than those of the LGBTQ couples I know. It is wrong that we get extra support. Our marriage is not exactly traditional, but because of our sex, we do not have to defend it. I am delighted that odds are good this privilege will be extended to others willing to be in committed relationships.

I suspect my grandchildren, should I be lucky enough to have them, will probably look with pity upon the years of my youth for how backwards we were when gay people could not marry.

(This is partially in response to Standing on the Side of Love's Day 9 Prompt: What does your local community struggle with? and partly because I am too excited to do any other work).

ETA: Hat tip to the Rev. "Ms. Kitty" for the initial news!

Snowed-In In Seattle

2012-01-20T12:00:00.000-08:00

The blog title is not entirely true. While the City of Seattle municipal agencies asked everyone to stay inside, most people took this to mean "off the roads". I had three snow days in a row. However, people in my neighborhood (including my husband) walk everywhere. My husband, who is impressive in many ways but one of them is his work ethic, has been one of the few people to show up to work for the entire time. A friend of mine skiied to work. People may not have driven to work, but they did wander out to parks, friend's homes, and other forms of winter fun.

So, my neighbors made do. They sled down the hill with whatever they could find, which includes sleds, signs, baking sheets, pizza pans, and kayaks.

Denny Hill . Capitol Hill . Seattle . 2012 from randall statler on Vimeo.

(credit to Randall Statler, who shared this on Capitol Hill Seattle.)

They turned the snow into humorous art.

Car Stegosaurus, one of many, in Capitol Hill

Snowman on a mailbox on South Jackson Street (Pioneer Square area)

Coca-Cola Polar Bear in Cal Anderson Park (Capitol Hill)

The buses added chains and kept running, albeit on snow routes.

Sound Transit 545 to Redmond

And most people stayed off the roads.

A Generally Busy Intersection: Broadway and Pine

In my fine native city, which has not received much snow, this amount changes almost nothing. You drive with snow tires and a little more caution on well-plowed streets. Here it means reading Cliff Mass' blog, and slowing life down, way down. I will take any opportunity to slow life's pace and to savor it a bit more. Not to mention that I do love winter.

The storm was bad. It was much more intense than last season's snow. It knocked down power lines and trees and people got hurt. Ice is now falling from radio towers and tall buildings. Gov. Chris Gregiore declared a state of emergency for all of Washington. The airport canceled all its flights, though I guess they are back up now. According to meteorologist Jim Cantore, we had record snowfall.

Today's prompt for 30 Days of Love was to "Come Out" about personal struggles for the purposes of inspiring others. The story posted is certainly inspiring. I will admit it, even if I could fill a drawer with index cards of such stories, I do not want to share them. It is not an issue of shame, but of boundaries. So take instead this story of how everyone around me dumped their creativity into difficult circumstances and had fun among the caution.

Day 2 of 30 Days of Love

2012-01-17T17:46:00.000-08:00

Description: To know the story of us and the story of now, we must know the story of self. Powerful actions emanate from profound self-reflection. Join us in introspective love by answering crucial questions this week.

Today’s question: How is love part of your personal identity?

In some ways, it is all of it.

Cornel West said that "justice is what love looks like in public". I do sociology in hopes that my work would contribute to a more just world. The organizations I am involved with do the same things.

I am currently married because I love my husband, and decided that love often comes in the form of commitment and trust. Will makes it fairly easy as he is an impressive person in all ways which are important, and I am grateful and blessed by his companionship.

I call my mother every Sunday because I love her, I am grateful to her, and I really appreciate her! She also happens to be a fabulous person and great conversationalist... but still.

I do my best to keep in contact with my friends because I care for them.

I contribute some efforts to my church's community because I love it, and helping out is how I express that.

My identity is what I do; love informs how I choose what these actions are.

Thirty Days of Love, Day 1 (MLK Rally)

2012-01-16T18:28:00.000-08:00

Well, why not. Thirty days of love are meant to be an inspirational practice. I cannot post every day, but this is worth trying.

Today's prompt suggested sharing one's favorite Rev. Dr. King quote. I should choose one? He's like Cornel West, in that he spoke in lots of delicious sound-bites.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

I attended the MLK Day at Garfield High School. The turn out was impressive, considering the snow that Seattle is experiencing. A workshop on non-violent techniques filled with friendly, inspirational people started the day. The rally programming included one of the most captivating speakers I'd ever heard - Rev. Dr. Leslie Braxton. AND! It turns out he spent 12 years in my former home, Buffalo, NY doing a slew of good there. His voice boomed over the loud speaker with a combination of prosaic poetry and rhetoric that filled the drained well of inspiration in me. He spoke at the Working Washington rally in November too.

Rev. Dr. Braxton argued that, "When young people take serious issues seriously while they are still young, history changes." He gave illustrative examples of people in Seattle and of took my generation for task for consuming the fluff and "garbage" in our media. There was faith in his voice, but the sort of faith that flows into the people who hear him. I think that people need to hear that. People my age need to hear that. I needed to hear it. I am aging out of the part of youth where you are seen as having potential, and aging into the part where it's expected that at least some of that potential would be realized.

As someone who writes, I listened in awe of the hours he must have spent crafting the perfect flow of words that greeted my ears, and the heart and spirit it takes to write them in the first place. If I had to choose the one word to describe those moments listening to Rev. Braxton, it is summed up in awe. These rallies will not change the world. I gathered that many of the people around were families of people who are already activists. The calls to action were greeted with emphatic agreement. This is a community aware. What these rallies do is reignite those of us whose candles have burned out that pursuing the light is not a lost cause. The world can change.

I used to write (though not in this blog) about critical theory and emancipatory theory and I dropped it. I lost it. I burned out. Occupy rolled around and... yeah. I am still conflicted, as the voices surrounding me talk in support of it. Time to re-engage those old ideas, perhaps these older eyes will see something new.

These rallies are useful because they drive some light into intellectual and spiritual darkness.

The Overexamined Life Is Not Worth Living - Rev. Church

2012-01-11T10:37:00.000-08:00

I am currently reading Rev. Forrest Church's Love and Death (published by Beacon Press). I am not finished with it yet, but so far it is a nourishing read.

One section sticks out to me. Rev. Church writes that

...So let me argue against myself. Let me confess how pleasent it is to go through days, even weeks, without thinking about death, our own death or the death of our loved ones. A master of rationalization, I know full well how functional it is to worry only about little things, little failures and successes, to be nettled only by little envies and grudges, and to indult lots of little pleasures: watching a game; reading a good book; taking in a show. Even coming to church.

An overexamined life is not worth living. I know that. ... The harder we work to get things exactly right, the more cautious we become, the more careful not to fail. Risking nothing, we stand to gain little beyond the security of a battened-down existence. We miss the sea breeze and the ball. We will know little failure, or only little failures, but consider the cost.

... So if you are struggling with a relationship, out of touch with an old friend, unsure of whether to risk a new job, uncomfortably estranged from your father; if you are hiding to be safe, taking care not to be wrong, I suggest that you take a chance. Don't wait until you are sure. Don't wait until you have it right. Though waiting till we have it right works for some things - mostly little things- often our most important decisions and actions are so fraught with danger that we will never surely get them right. If we don't fire before we take perfect aim, we may never fire at all.

Life is filled with danger. That's just the way it is... Dare to live before you die. (p47-49)

I dumped my motorcycle on Sunday. For getting tossed off around 15-20 MPH, I walked away pretty much unscathed - my shoulder is sore and that's it. No bruises. No broken bones. No concussions. For the terrible choice I made on turning angle, I apparently made the best ones on gear. Greater injuries were sustained the last time I crashed my bicycle. The damage to the motorcycle was something I could fix mostly on my own - straightening the handlebar, and I'll have to replace a peg. The accident was entirely my fault, reflecting a desperate need for more practice.

I am incredibly guilt of overthinking. It's partly responsible for why I dumped the motorcycle. It's responsible for why I have a blog filled with existential concern (example here). Yet, while I get Rev. Church's call to worry less and do more, I should admit some concern that I may cross that thin line from bravery into stupidity - to my peril. The past year was unusually cautious for me - the year before that was unusually stupid, though I thought it was brave. One of my resolutions for this year is to get it right - be brave enough to keep life rich, though practice due caution.

Do you ever struggle with the balance between paying enough and paying too much attention?

I could live here

2012-01-09T12:29:00.000-08:00

We were in a table in Lagniappes - Will and I, our friend M and his fiancee, Sare. We were talking about a million things, and Sare made a comment that in every place she's visited, she thought, "I could live here..." I think she meant it as commentary on how she liked all the places. It occurred to me later that perhaps that is a state of mind, being comfortable anywhere.

Her comment stayed with me for awhile. Happiness, for about a week and a half, came in the form of sitting in the homes of family and old friends. It was laughing with my mom. It was listening to Dan's observations of the world. It was skating with Will's family, after driving through countryside that we used to frequent all. the. time. I kept thinking to myself, "I could live here" and then thought of Seattle, with our cats there, and it seemed so far away. I got to Seattle, and thought, "I could keep living here."

Will found this map of migration that uses IRS data. Can you say "snazzy"? All of those people, moving all over the place. I seem to keep coming back to this idea of location. It's not just a matter of channeling my inner Richard Florida. My mortality seems more vivid to me lately, and with that comes the question of "What type of life do I want?" The quiet one in Western New York, or the fast one in Seattle?

Today a friend of mine comes to Seattle to seek apartments. He's moving here, in hopes of redirecting his life.

The process of discernment this friend went through was thorough and deliberate. It reminded me of how Thoreau valued deliberate living. I remember reading Walden and having the impression that Thoreau was the sort of person who I would not like had I met him. I remember feeling as though his self-reliance was a masculine trait, that he was downplaying the experience of women's interconnectedness. It is also very likely that my memory fails me, or that I was wrong. (At least I read it.)

His call for deliberateness stuck with me. Especially as I am in an occupation that promotes inertia and can easily become a black hole that sucks away all of your life. I could live at Walden Pond, that quiet place. At the same time, I could live anywhere.

The scary thing about life is the amount of control you simultaneously have and do not have. The decision to move to Seattle was made on a track of life that I chose and felt pulled by. Inertia. I am going to think more about that.

Back from Syracuse and Buffalo

2012-01-04T09:57:00.000-08:00

I did not write about leaving for fear someone might break into my apartment. Last night at 2AM my spouse and I returned from a great trip to visit our friends and family "back East". I spend nearly two weeks very happy.

It was wonderful. If you have the opportunity to take a trip to see your easy-to-love family and discover that a slew of your friends are so happily coupled, DO IT. In my "happy memories" mental list, I can now add scenes of sitting in my family's kitchen, my aunt's living room, my friend's living room, at the Lagniappes French Quarter Cafe, Marco's Italian Deli, Amy's Place, or the Retreat and a few others with friends and family visiting, chatting, and catching up. Skating, cooking, laughing, hugging, and getting one heck of a welcome from my family's uber-excited Yorkie. I felt so lucky to have seen everyone that I did. It had been a year since I was back east. Despite all the changes, in some ways it felt like I had never left.

I am now back in my apartment with a stack of to-dos and should-have-been-dones, jet lagged and not certain where to start. Basking in gratitude? Already there.

How Occupy Seattle Lost My Support

2011-12-22T17:00:00.000-08:00

Do not get me wrong. I support Occupy Wall Street, and share the indignation about the inequality in our society that the movement represents. The folks in Occupy Seattle were my neighbors for a little while. Their camp at Seattle Central Community College is a (low) number of blocks from my home.

I never joined them. Frankly, I was not comfortable with the fact that they were there.

First of all, it seemed obvious to me that the reason they chose SCCC was because they could not be evicted - at least not initially. For some reason, the Washington State University system does not have a ban on camping on campuses. (State University of New York? All over that.) They claimed it was to make a statement about public education. Eventually the board of trustees for the school made an emergency rule and then they were evicted. Now, presumably this initial lack of prohibition applied to all public universities in Washington. So, why camp at a community college? Why not "occupy" the University of Washington, the flagship university, less than four miles away in the same city? Why tax the resources of a struggling community college? The answer seemed to be more of "because they could" than any political sensibility. I got the sense that they were using the same tactics that the 1% does - imposing themselves upon others for their sole benefit, regardless of the harm done upon the imposed, because for whatever reason (privilege, resources, etc) the imposed cannot fight back.

The camp was a mess. Pure and simple. Fine. When you get lots of people in one space, without property sanitary facilities, it gets messy. My neighborhood has a homelessness problem, so many of the issues weren't unfamiliar, just concentrated and easier to see. After they were evicted, they proceeded to "occupy" a vacant warehouse and a vacant duplex in a poor part of the city. Tagging appeared in local areas more so than usual.That was a problem in my neighborhood too. It was not clear who they are trying to stick it to. If it was the 1%, they were in the wrong area. Again.

But those things, as frustrating as they were, did not completely erase my support for these activists because they had a premise, inequality, that is accurate. It was somewhat easier to forgive disastrous execution if you got the sense that their hearts were in the right place.

I maintained this opinion until I was directed to their General Assembly minutes courtesy of my local neighborhood blog. Up to debate was a proposal, that failed 16-54, to

Commit to using methods of non-violent civil disobedience at all of our demonstrations and define violence as unprovoked physical aggression.

Wait, what? Y'all rejected non-violence? Why? Here are some quotes from their minutes. I did my best to highlight it in such a way as to not take it out of context. Any bolding is my own for emphasis purposes.

Maria - Understands that proposal is to make OS a strictly nonviolent movement. This puts way too much authority over her personal actions. Rule will only alienate those in the movement who want to use a diversity of tactics.

"Diversity of tactics"?! What does that mean? That my neighborhood will keep having problems like these?

Kathleen - When anti-war movement was at high point, was a proposal from pacifist, liberal, anti-war coalition that unless you accepted vow of nonviolence, could not be in coalition. That was really bad. It was very divisive. Was attempt to shut up radicals, socialists, and anarchists.

Matt - Bothered by this, because he doesn't know who will decide what is provoked or unprovoked. People are saying nonviolence, but they're not there when outside violence is occurring.

This is a legitimate point, in my mind, given the fact that the Seattle Police Department is too quick to use force, and too often it is excessive and uncalled for. To protect themselves, they'd really benefit to define that.

Circus - This won't pass. Doesn't matter how you word it. When you include "nonviolence" people will oppose it. Tempted to propose an endorsement of violence to bring attention to the fact that we're not this and we're not that. Alliana didn't say we're nonviolent, but that we will use nonviolent tactics. Didn't say that we will not use violence. 100 people saying we're not violent, rah, rah, rah, if one person throws a flare, we'll be labeled violent.

Stray - Opposes this. Thinks we should take steps in opposite direction, toward self-defense against police action. Since beginning of OWS movement, police have been using violence and aggression against so-called peaceful movement. We should adopt strict policy of self-defense against police and recognize Seattle Police Department as a criminal organization.

There are some definition problems with this... such as the meaning of the word "criminal", but that's an aside.

Chris - Proposal is unprovoked physical aggression. People say the whole capitalist system is violent. Agrees, but thinks this is because it is able to hide violence. Ignoring that this PR fact is fact will doom us to failure. Consider different between direct violence and systemic violence.

JW - One reason people press nonviolence is to attract wider variety of people, but port action had very wide variety of participation. Let's be honest: people are concerned about turning off middle-class white people.

Well, this white woman of working class origins (who has no idea which class she belongs to right now) doesn't exactly approve of violent tactics either. I am turned off because, as a person of faith, I believe in the inherent dignity of everyone, and strive towards a world that we do not harm life. Police officers, as misguided as they are, are still part of this world and that's what makes these reforms hard. The people you dislike are still a part of the web we're in.

Emily - To people who favor this: As someone who once believed in nonviolence, a white person: What is so threatening? What would you be giving up by embracing a diversity of tactics? What would you give up? When she analyzed this years ago, realized she'd be giving up some privilege, realized she was not so afraid of the tactic, but afraid of the real result that could come from radical change. What are we afraid of? What is the threat?

That an "eye for an eye" makes the whole world blind? Be the change you'd like to see? I do not want social change to come at a cost of peace. I fear that after the police, this group of activists would justify their "diversity of tactics" towards all who disagree. That we'd take a collective step backwards. That is what is so threatening.

? - Regarding definition: Society is an act of unprovoked violence. Revolutionary violence we're seeing across the world would be considered nonviolence. We're hung up on the word. To invoke the letter from Cairo: wish not to use violence, but wish not to lose. Demonstrations will respond to conditions. We have half-way revolutions that never complete because of these issues.

So... is it winner take all, at any cost? There's no revolution right now. There's discussions through the same political and media channels that we all use. Most people are at home. Most people are watching, waiting for some leader to take the helm.

The last person quoted was a bit of a breathe of fresh air, highlighted several problems at once (willingness to adhere to violence, persistent problem of police brutality):

Mohawk - Upset that we're discussing this. Agrees with proposer about proposing over and over again. Has been here since the beginning. Has been punched in the stomach and pepper sprayed by the cops. Sat non-aggressively, [....] Should try not to use violence unless your life is in danger. Please have understanding of that. Understands that we disagree.

The vote to reject the commitment to nonviolence was 16:54. Over three times as many people opposed it as supported it.

I really hope that the Seattle occupiers are the extremes of this "movement" and that what I have been watching, the disregard for the broader community, lack of assessing impact on people they claim to support, and willingness to embrace violence, is atypical.

I have sensed a general unwillingness to really criticize the movement by liberal establishment types. I have not seen critiques on the UU blogosphere, for instance, though perhaps I just did not notice them. I know I have been hesitant to criticize for fear of losing my liberal street cred. A columnist in Real Change received very ugly feedback when she spoke out against it. When people do criticize, in comment sections of websites, the rebuttal is often "social justice is happening" and if you don't support them, than you are clearly against their cause. That it is possible to have the same goals and disagree about the means gets ignored.

Anyone who has been in an argument with a loved one knows that it's not just what you are saying, it is how you are saying it which will impact your support and ability to persuade. I am not persuaded.

I am nervous.

Thinking More About Class

2011-12-20T17:38:00.000-08:00

A good friend gave me the book Limbo by Alfred Lubrano. He read it prior to becoming a graduate student at an elite university, and figured that I would be able to relate to it. The premise of the book is that upwardly mobile people from blue collar families have some unique struggles trying to get into, and then functioning in, the white-collar world. Lubrano describes the value conflict between the spheres. Blue collar people value honesty and authenticity. White collar people value being agreeable. Blue collar people are accustomed to viewing the boss as an enemy, co-workers as allies. White collar people see being viewed well by the boss as very important and co-workers are competition. In addition to struggles in the professional world, he describes struggles in social realms, such as expectations with dating, worrying about your children becoming entitled and ungrateful because they have privilege, and so forth.

The key point of this book is that if you are not born into the middle class, learning how to function in it can be very difficult because it operates on the unspoken. This allows the middle/upper classes to perpetuate their privilege with greater efficiency. It also means that those from working class backgrounds feel consistently alienated.

I appreciated this book, because while people are at least somewhat willing to be aware of issues of race and sex (albeit, not always successfully), class remains a very effective othering tool. It's not that your background is different, it's that you're doing something "wrong". Even in places that should, theoretically, know better: universities, social justice groups, and churches.

In many conversations about "diversity" in Unitarian Universalist communities, it seems like people are asking the question, "Why don't they like us?" "They" are people who are not upper-class, not white, and not members of some other privileged category. "Us", ie UUs, often mean those who are privileged. Sometimes the conversation seems to imply that non-UUs just do not appreciate the great things UUs do, as if the problem was with those who feel disaffected and not with our struggle to welcome our fellow human beings regardless of their background.

The lesson of Limbo that is most applicable to Unitarian Universalism, IMHO, is that inaccessibility likes to camouflage itself in a coat of subtle normality. A perception of normal is class informed, so it seems like it is "the way to do things" and that it could be exclusionary does not occur to people. If something is seen as normal, then it is not seen as a problem, and it may not feel privileged.

Inadvertent instruments of exclusion could include:

Sermons require a college education to understand them
Sermons that focus on self-actualization (which is a problem to focus on if you're secure in the basics)
Religious education programs that have high prices to take part in them
Church dinners or fundraisers have high ticket prices
Social justice work assumes a model of "Us helping them", in other words that those in the congregation don't need help, "other people" do.
Justice initiatives that favor foreign countries over local communities. It is not that East Africa has less important problems, or that we should only focus on local issues. It is that the act of working on problems affirms the trouble as true, and if you do not work locally you are complicit to those problems.
Attitudes of congregants towards each other. Prejudice is often subtle and unrecognized by the wearer

My church really struggles with some but does a great job with others.

The difference between class issues as it applies to a faith and to the rest of society, is that faiths generally try to be welcoming due to a moral or theological imperative. I suspect that class-inspired gatekeeping is an artifact of current membership composition. I could just as easily write a similar list for the academic field of sociology. Many people in the field would not care about my list because, like all of academia, sociology prides itself on its exclusivity. The same could be said for white-collar work. It is chasing elite for the sake of chasing elite. Unitarian Universalism has acted on a desire to advance social justice, and in my experience congregants often care. Ultimately, to reach out to everyone requires being aware of how people relate and see the world, and how broader cultural contexts impact how we think, treat and evaluate each other.

Ministers, Violence and Buffalo NY

2011-12-16T18:00:00.000-08:00

As a result of some correspondence with a friend in Buffalo, I rewatched The Forgotten City (NSFW: Language, depictions of violence, there is a naked woman and it's unclear why she is there or what will happen to her). The nature of our exchange was talking about how segregated Buffalo is.

The place can feel like two different cities - there is the "Buffalo" of first ring suburbs, Polish heritage, the Bills, snow and chicken wings. The one were land is cheap and living is comfortable. You will find a lot of white people here.

Then there is the other Buffalo - crumbling houses, high rates of violence, joblessness from structural economic change, and exhausted social services. You'll find a lot of black people here.

The lines I am drawing are not absolute, as there's people of both (and neither) races on either side. I'm telling you trends. You would notice them too, if you were there. With the trends come prejudices. There are people in the first and second ring suburbs who take pride in how long it has been since they stepped foot in Buffalo proper. Likely because I am white myself, I have heard terrible things spoken about Black people in the city. I have often found myself the only white person on the Buffalo public transit. White people ride their bikes in the street, feeling entitled to. Black people ride theirs on the sidewalks. I can only speculate on why, but I'm suspicious. At least this was true a year ago.

In the documentary, The Forgotten City, they explore the culture surrounding an area in which one filmmaker's friend was shot by a friend of the other filmmaker. They find a culture of violence in a background of severely under-performing schools, high rates of unemployment, and so forth. Buffalo has lost half of its population since 1960. This is mostly due to the loss of the steel manufacturing industry, which was a main employer in the region.

Ministers serve as informants for the filmmakers, describing the problems they see and the solutions that they think might help. They are redemptive - these are Christian ministers. Loving yourself, loving all of humanity because they are human, and lifting the poorer off the ground are things cited. Basic Jesus-stuff, pretty much.

I started wondering what a UU minister would say if their congregation was one that experienced these problems of violence, hopelessness, and despair. You cannot say that God is watching over your dead kids if your congregation is allergic to the term "God". You cannot appeal to salvic terms if your congregation is earth based. It is not just what they would say, but also how would they lead. Us UUs, in my limited experience, are very good at doing social justice organizing from our mostly privileged positions.

I found myself wondering, in the way that I have no answers, if the way that UUism is practiced would provide comfort. Navel gazing is a luxury of the well-to-do. I've read that we are an inspiration focused religion, but inspiration is also a luxury of the rich. We wonder why we are not "multicultural", but perhaps some of the answer could be in how we answer the problems of humanity?

I don't know. I am writing this, hoping to get your feedback. What do you think?

Risk Taking, Part II

2011-12-15T08:58:00.000-08:00

I bought a jacket from a gal on Craigslist. I waited at the door to her apartment and watched as a figure of exactly my proportions and size answered the door. The fit was perfect. The price was right. There was some armoring and some reflective qualities and it was an all-seasons jacket. Perfect for the riding I plan on doing. The color was what I wanted as well. We chatted a bit about riding. Her reasons for selling the jacket were that she's leaving the hobby. She loved it, and had a sweet bike, but was afraid an accident would take her out of a professional training program she just started. The gloves she gave me were frayed a bit, leading me to conclude that something had happened.

Her jacket was so protective because she clearly had a healthy sense of self-preservation, and her decision to leave probably reflects that self-preservation.

Will and I were really nervous when we took our Zipcar out to Lake Stevens to buy from the fellow we bought it from. First, it'd been awhile. We have endorsements (Washington's equivalent of a motorcycle license) but had not ridden since we earned them. Second, it was cold out, and we weren't completely confident about the gear. Third, this is a hobby that could kill us.

There have been times that I did not pursue an particular adventure or line of action because I was afraid. Later, I would beat myself up, angry for being a coward. In retrospect, some of those were good choices. Other times, I just held myself back. Now, the irony with a motorcycle is that I sufficiently risk-averse that I am unlikely to take it faster than 40, at least until I am good. Which is not "safe", but so often safety is just a perception as opposed to an objective reality. There are things that are more dangerous than others. But even standing in my living room could kill me should an earthquake start. You cannot control everything. You can learn to cope and hope for the best.

My task at the moment is to make peace with that.

In other news, forget shopping days till Christmas. There are six days until Solstice. Seven until I am on a plane towards my home city, visiting it for the first time in a year. (!!!!!) May everyone stay safe and warm.

Transitions. Again. Struggling. Growing. Again.

2011-12-14T22:53:00.000-08:00

Moving to Seattle was rough. The the texture of unfamiliar terrain can sometimes be as soft as sandpaper. We had few friends here (though the one we did is a great person), very little furniture, uncertain job prospects, and dwindling resources. I would be a liar to suggest that the uncertainty did anything but terrify me. Eventually graduate school started and Will found work. We joined our church. We made friends. We acquired a couch, several bookshelves, and a sofa. Our tiny apartment morphed into a place that could be happily called home. We learned to create and structure our lives, selves, and relationship in a way that supported each other.

As circumstances became such that our financial resources were less strained, our days had some routine, faces became more familiar, I started to soak in some of the comfort that comes with being settled in a place. Uncertain circumstances were sufficiently explored to become certain. Nothing is ever fully certain. A certain degree of predictability can feel safe. In the last two months, it finally seemed that Will and I were on a slow uptick.

We started to scheme and make plans, not feeling restricted by tight funds. A motorcycle has been our dream; we researched the topic so we could pull the dream from our consciousness and find ourselves on one. Craigslist was consulted. A suitable candidate found. Appointments made, car rented, gear acquired, and funds withdrawn. It was going to happen.

Then the news came: Will's department is being outsourced to the Philippines. Because he has more responsibility, he keeps his job an extra month longer, to the end January, and can apply for the four new positions they are making to replace 22 people. A couple hours later, he finds out that he received the raise he lobbied for. Go Will! He made his case and won. I am so proud of him. Good news overshadowed, I am afraid.

I reacted well at first. I suited up to be the supportive spouse I have strongly desired to be. My armor shined pristinely, almost like it'd never been used. Thought of the smiles, soft, supportive hugs, the rhetoric of encouragement. I would do it. I love the guy, after all. You would think it would be easy. My plan was successful ...for a whole two hours. Far too short of a time before my husband arrived. In that time, my armor cracked. I soothed the anxiety with music and then accidentally locked myself out of the apartment when I went to grab the mail.

I did not have the sense to have a coat, but I did get lucky in that my cell phone was in my pocket. I went to the library until it closed, then texted all my friends in Capitol Hill to find a warm place to be. All managed to be out, except one, and I stayed there with her and another friend. I sat there, and felt the anxiety taking hold. It would have been worse had I not been there. My strong, supportive intentions were struggling with a real desire to freak. the. heck. out.

When Will got home, I got home, hugged him and burst into tears. You know what? I'm tough, but I'm human too. I was angry and scared and angry at myself for failing. For some reason, job loss and unemployment are my achilles heel.

It felt like fate was mocking us for looking forward to future fortune. Obviously, rationally, this was not personal. It felt that way. Memories of freaking out over how to pay bills (which can make graduate school seem very trivial) flashed back to me. The stress flashed back to me. It's not the same though. We'll be alright, if for no other reason than stubbornness. We spent the evening talking about a plan, and what we'd do.

We bought the motorcycle anyway. On some levels, it makes sense - a car is not remotely possible, a motorcycle increases the radius for job prospects, and the transit issues that prompted me to pursue it did not disappear. It was inspired by a stubborn desire to not let my fear-induced risk aversion to prevent me from embracing life further. We've felt trapped in the city of Seattle. Not anymore. (Besides, we can always sell the bike.) The man we bought it from was the nicest person I'd ever run into on craigslist. The sample size is actually quite large there, full of positive experiences, so I am saying something. The bike felt comfy. It was so nice to ride one. It felt right. Even if it was, after taxes and insurance, two months of rent.

I read somewhere that the lessons you learn in life will keep coming back at you until you learn them. The textbook is open to the test page, and it's teaching me now. This time around I am trying to embrace risk, embrace the uncertainty and not let it rule me. Safety is a bit of an illusion, because you never know when something sudden happens, or when death comes knocking. We'll see. Here's one for hopefulness, and gratitude in the present. Wish me, and my spouse, luck.

I imagine I cannot be the only person staring at these shoes, waiting to put them on. They seem well worn. As long as no one died standing in them, we'll be OK.

I am from the snowiest city in the US

2011-12-01T08:11:00.001-08:00

Whenever someone asks me if it was hard adjusting to the rain in Seattle, I generally reply something to the effect of "You don't have to shovel the rain."

If I told them I moved here from Buffalo, there's often a reply to the effect of, "Oh, yeah." Buffalo has a reputation for snow. It is #3 in the US for snowfall, after all.

If I told them that I am from Syracuse, my fine native city, I have to explain the snowfall. Syracuse does not seem to have the reputation for being buried in snow that Buffalo does.

Which is odd, since it is the snowiest city in the US. Rochester is #2. According to that article, I've managed to be in Syracuse during its coldest day and in Buffalo during its coldest day. If correlation was causation, Seattle would be doomed.

I saw that article and realized why every piece of fiction I write involves a thick layer of snow. My uncompleted NaNoWriMo entirely took place over winters in Syracuse. I do miss it. I do feel a bit like I am missing a piece of my context.

The Adventure That I Am On

2011-11-25T17:56:00.001-08:00

Around the time I was listening to a friend describe his experience living between two countries, it struck me.

I was sitting in the passenger seat of his car, and he was giving me a ride back from a UU Young Adult retreat in Kitsap Peninsula, which had been fabulous. A weekend spent in a gorgeous cabin around a quiet lake with trees and good people. The meals were communal, the conversations rich, and the atmosphere warm, calm, and trusting. One fellow, whose graciousness always stood out to me, initiated a night hike around the lake. Four of us went: him, another man, another woman, and myself. We each led a leg of the hike. On a full moon, it's hard to see. Your eyes never fully adjust. This turned out to be fine. The hike was the opposite of life: I could find the path despite not seeing any of my surroundings well. Instincts led the way. In life, it often seems easy to see surroundings. Discerning a path is the challenge. Understanding the surroundings is just as tough.

The conversation on the car ride home was rich, the views outside the window of this beautiful city that I live in was also rich, and I was warm with a sense of affection for the people I just spent a weekend with and the husband I was about to rejoin.

I realized it again, a few weeks later. I was giggling with a much-loved friend who was sitting on the good couch in my apartment, as we sipped the vegan, soy free hot chocolate we decided to make together after having dinner. I was late to dinner because I went to a protest. I had been standing on the University Bridge with a friend and many other people, declaring that this is an unjust economic system.

The thought returned to me as I hopped off the pavement around 12:16AM this morning. I had crashed my bike just before arriving at that same bridge. I was biking home after a fantastic evening at with a few friends. We'd graduated from hot chocolate to Thanksgiving feast. Shared meal, shared drinks, shared cleanup and shared time infront of a fire fueled by a strange burning device. (BTW, when they say don't agitate it.... they mean it.) It was my friend J's first Thanksgiving away from her family. My second. It was a fantastic evening, and I had the same sense of belonging and warmth that my family imprints on me.

I crashed my bicycle because I was tired. It is atypical for me to be anywhere besides my bed after 10PM, much less speeding down the Burke Gilman on my bicycle. Will, with our cooking gear, got a ride home with a friend. My bike didn't fit. That's fine, I told them, the weather improved, and I do love a night ride. Unfortunately, in my tiredness, I must have misjudged the angle needed to clear a sidewalk off the Burke Gilman trail before the University Bridge. The sidewalk caught the tire wrong. Bike and I went down. Had the Burke been as crowded as it typically is, and I'd likely hit someone else. But it was midnight. No one saw it, no one else was hurt. I hopped up, my left side sore as anything, and noticed the Seattle skyline. Beautiful. I live in such a gorgeous place. I was fine in the deepest sense, if mildly physically injured. I had faith I would be fine.

Gratitude cut through the grinding sound of some seriously effed up bearings. Stocked up on caution and adrenaline, I knew I'd be home soon. I biked under I-5, witness to a tragically impressive tent city, along Lakeview to Capitol Hill. There was a man, dressed in the modern "hipster" fashion, smoking on the Melrose path. He said "Hi!" I said "Good evening!" as I road past.

My husband and I woke up late, snuggling, and spent the crisp, clear and gorgeous day walking through our neighborhood. We walked the greenway trail at St. Mark's. We soaked in the plants in the Conservatory and the views in the water tower at Volunteer Park. We walked basking in the warmth of the sun and of each other's company. We ate a healthy, delicious meal together and read until the sun set. Now I type this on a free sofa with my two cats, cuddled up next to me and each other.

This is my life now.

The storm of adjustment has dissipated, and in the wake of the teaching moments and "learning experiences" I find a growing collection of fleeting moments of absolute beauty, peppered in with worldly struggle and human connections. It exists because I have stopped looking to cut paths through the uncertainty and made peace with it, as much as I may. This is my adventure. It looks different than I thought it would. It looks better than I thought I would. I spent so much time mourning a version I thought I wanted, and realized that perhaps I did not know myself as well as I thought I did. I do not know things as well as I think I do. Blessings continue to line up in the forms of people, circumstances, and luck. Wow.

While I also do not believe a prayer of "Thank you" is enough, it has found a frequent home on my lips.

Pictures from Occupy Seattle, Working Washington Rally at the University Bridge

2011-11-18T08:37:00.001-08:00

Working Washington organized a rally with University of Washington students, labor unions, and the Occupy Seattle folks to protest state cuts in a context of needed infrastructure repair. Everyone gathering on the University bridge to symbolize the repairs needed to other bridges. Washington doesn't have a great record with bridge problems. From Galloping Gertie in Tacoma, to the sinking 1-90 Bridge between Seattle and Mercer Island, sinking Hood Canal Bridge, and the slew of problems with the SR-520 "Evergreen" Bridge there is a record of problems and current need. There's been a lot of political problems finding funds to replace the SR-520 bridge, and I guess it's federal stimulus money which will do the job.

Another graduate student and I went to the rally at Montlake and Pacific, by the UW campus. We then marched to the University Bridge, watched by three helicopters. The sun sets early up here, and so through my pictures were taken between 4:00-5:00PM, they are all dark. Because it is Seattle in November, it was raining. My fingers were numb, so changing the settings was hard. But here are a few pictures, in case you would like to see them.

At Montlake and Pacific - Labor Rally

Heading to the University Bridge

On the University Bridge, Meeting the Occupy Folks

On the University Bridge

On the University Bridge deck

By all accounts, there was no violence. I stayed until 5:30 before walking back to Capitol Hill. I don't like lingering at protests, and I was nervous about potential violence. There was none. The police stayed away. This is in contrast to Tuesday night, where an 84 year old activist was pepper sprayed by police. Seattle is a bit unusual for the Occupy movement, in that it has formal support from the city council, but similar in that it has opposition from business owners and neighbors who do not want them camping there. It is a loophole in the Washington State law that does not explicitly prohibit camping that permits them to remain at Seattle Central Community College, but the college is seeking legal ways to kick them out. We'll see what happens.

Better, Not Perfect: What Occupy Seattle and the Title of My Blog Have in Common

2011-11-15T11:10:00.001-08:00

There was an article in The Stranger about a forum that Occupy Seattle, with The Stranger, organized to discuss the goals of Occupy Wall Street. According to the author, Dominic Holden, it went terribly:

Activists had planned to interrupt the panel because, some said, they opposed the power dynamic created by speakers on stage talking into microphones. Although Occupy Wall Street uses the belabored people's mic—which involves one person speaking and the crowd repeating everything—to amplify the soft spoken and encourage free speech, last night it was used to silence the panel. The call and-response created an echoing cacophony. Despite pleas from several older audience members who couldn't hear well to let the panelists proceed, the Occupy activists demanded a vote to overtake the forum.

*facepalm* It's like the Xzibit meme. I am imagining a picture like this:

Generated here.

I get it, OK? I get this desire to do things right. I get the desire to level the privilege playing field. I get the idea that a democracy requires a level power dynamic. I get that power imbalances lead to oppression. Occupy Seattle is anti-oppression. At the same time... you shot yourself in the foot. This attempt to have a pure movement, free from Democrats, Unions and non-profits, had the effect of alienating people who would otherwise support it. The perfect became the enemy of the very good, or even the marginally better.

Settling and compromising do have places in social movements. One of the reasons that anti-choice activists have been so effective in a lot of places is because they settle for hammer-and-chisel method as opposed to dynamite.

I was discussing this with a woman from church who was so generous to give me a ride home, as we passed Occupy Seattle. Then I remembered this blog. I hate the title "Syracusan in Seattle". I put it down initially because I just needed something to start writing. I am not a complete social networking dunce, so I realize that identity stability is important when it comes to blogging. (They call it "branding".) Meanwhile, I am more than a little spooked by the idea that I put a lot of myself out here. So the instability is alright.

I spent some time trying to come up with a better title. In the same way that thoughts about changing the name of my church's Young Adult Group spurred a bit of an identity crisis, I suddenly felt compelled to decide exactly what the purpose of this blog is. Why am I writing? When someone comes to this space on the internet, what should they expect?

I decided not to worry about it. I also decided to settle on a name that I hate slightly less than "Syracusan in Seattle", which is "Seattleite from Syracuse." It feels more honest. One reason is how much time has elapsed since I lived full time in my fine native city. Most of my adult life was actually spent in Buffalo, NY. I met my husband there, and my in-laws are there. My generation of my extended family of origin has done a great job of moving away from Central New York (we've moved to New York City, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Washington, and soon to be Virginia. That's not even counting my cousins in Florida.) Another reason is that I love Seattle. I love being here. I love the weather, if not the darkness. I love the political inclinations, if not the regressive taxes. I love the scenery. The people are all right. I have fabulous friends here. I feel at home.

Progress moves slowly sometimes. Maybe I will figure out a title I do not hate. Maybe Occupy Seattle will get something done.

About Those Hipsters

2011-11-14T09:02:00.001-08:00

I find generalizations about my generation fascinating, and not just because I contribute to a millennial interest website. I live and breathe in this culture, while simultaneously feeling like an outsider. I have been reading a bit, be it scholarly or memoir, about previous generations' youth cultures and think about my own, courtesy of the neighborhood I live in and the people I know/have known. I feel no particular pressure to conform to anything (except decent footwear, but that's another blog post for another time. My Dr. Martens are getting patch #2 at the cobbler right now.)

One of the editors of TNGG tweeted a link to a New York Times article about Millennials, which refers to us as "Generation Sell". It argues that we are not rebellious like previous youth generations, we're pleasant, polite, moderate and affirming. (Really?) The author, William Deresiewicz, goes on to argue that,

"Today’s ideal social form is not the commune or the movement or even the individual creator as such; it’s the small business. Every artistic or moral aspiration — music, food, good works, what have you — is expressed in those terms."

My first reaction was to search my head for this supposed zeitgeist in anecdotal evidence. I did find some. Music? How about some Doomtree, a Minneapolis-based indie rap crew that is all DIY. Food? Well, my twitter feed is full of vegans who have done just that (here's an example). Good works? A friend of mine is a self-employed employment lawyer, and another from my church does class action law suits. I thought of a former acquaintance who seemingly collects failed business ventures in the way that others collect fancy shoes. (Must... think... of... something... besides... footwear.)

These anecdotes are just stories that reflect my social circles. I could think of lots of other people who are working for big corporations or seemingly devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. I can give you a long list of people whose good works are tied to big institutions (think Americorp, Teach for America, and/or the Peace Corps). "Volunteering" for Americorp seems just as trendy in liberal circles as starting your own business, but maybe that's a Seattle thing. I think the author is mistaking the entrepreneurial spirit, which does exist, as an indicator of commercialism when it could just as easily be the sign of a desired radical individualism. If you are your own boss, you do not need to answer to anyone. Social media is notoriously leveling, making everyone accessible to everyone else and fostering a sense of entitlement that one should be. Deresiewicz cites Steve Jobs as a demigod for autonomy. Individualism. Most of the population of the United States are the descendants of pioneers and immigrants, if not these themselves, for better or for worse. Finding your own way, be it through psychedelics, sticking it to the man, leaving your country, or entrepreneurship are all variants of American individualism. You also see this drive towards individualism in the angst surrounding whether to get married (something my generation is more hesitant about). It is written in signs at Occupy Seattle declaring "radical individualism", as though Thoreau was there living in a tent. What about Toms Shoes, which have become so popular for some reason?

I think Deresiewicz misreads hipsters. Sure, everyone is polite to each other. He is writing from Portland. If that city is anything like Seattle, and I hear that it is, then everyone is nice to each other, at least superficially. That's not a hipster ethos, that's a Northwestern thing. He neglects to note the reason hipsters are frequently loathed: that counter-culture is associated with a caustic pretension. (I do think all pretension is caustic, but hipster pretension is particularly so). He is ignoring the important of exclusivity and being "in" on what is going on. You know the "You probably haven't heard of it" jokes? That is making fun of hipsters, and it exists. There was an unknown, underground venue that was just shut down in my neighborhood and part of the allure was its secrecy. That is the opposite of the affability and marketing that he attributes to the subculture. I also would challenge his idea that "hipsters" have been around for 15 years, unless he's using that as an umbrella term for emos, goths, and punks of the early 2000s and late 1990s. Perhaps I am misreading those as separate subcultures - they all wore Dr. Martens, after all.

I think the recession is downplayed in the cultivation of entrepreneurship too. The reasons that starting a business have appealed to me at various times are economic: a scarcity of decent jobs means that creating your own has a lower opportunity cost. I am glad that Deresiewicz wrote the article, and not just because I make disagreement a sport. I think he is onto something, but it is bigger and more general than what he describes. Part of the problem of cultural stories is that they have to be at least a little bit myopic to make a point. In any case, who wants to start an eco-friendly, recycled shoe store with me?

Conflicted (Quebec Student Protests)

2011-11-11T09:29:00.001-08:00

An acquaintance of sorts who lives near Montreal, Quebec posted some coverage of students demonstrating for a tuition freeze on facebook. They are proposing an increase of $325 a year for five years increasing yearly tuition at institutions such as McGill from $2168 to $3793.

My eyes widened and my jaw dropped when I saw those numbers. To compare to the state institutions a bit to the south, State University of New York tuition is around $14K a year. In addition, my years in Buffalo cultivated a certain fondness for Canada. I lived fifteen minutes from the border, consumed their media, and vacationed in Northern Ontario. An former boss of mine in Seattle called me "Almost-Canadian" when I told him I moved here from Buffalo. Some of my shock resulted from the fact that I had no idea that Canadian state university tuition was so low. How did I avoid finding that out in all of the education protests and rallies that I was involved with at SUNY Buffalo?

I was further shocked when a friend of mine that I knew from Buffalo, who moved to Toronto, told me that her international student tuition was not much higher than that at York University. What? (This does not appear to be true at McGill.) That means that they are heavily subsidizing all student tuition, not just those of the taxpayers. (SUNY does not do that. Part of the reason that SUNY Buffalo recruits so heavily for international students is because they make a lot of money off of them.)

Beyond experiencing disappointment in the violence at McGill (I abhor all violence), I was kind of conflicted about what I thought. I believe that higher education should be accessible to all, especially because it has become a prerequisite for living wage jobs (though it does not always deliver). My generation in America is heavily saddled with debt and its affecting our ability to start families. Most people wait for their financial situation to be settled before marrying. (Andrew Cherlin argued in a lecture given at the University of Washington that kids are a different story because they are too important not to have, and there is a biological deadline on those so people have kids even if their lives are uncertain. There's more nuance to that, but that would turn this post into a 30 page discussion). So, on one hand, GO CANADA! You are doing yet another thing better than US.

On the other hand... you are protesting that your tuition is going to be $3800ish a year?! My summer job at Wegmans used to net me most of that. That was at $8 and hour and 35ish hours a week, Quebec's minimum wage is $9.65. You still have to live and eat, of course. Using McGill as my reference point, it appears that there are lots of fees piles onto that to make the current out of pocket expenses $3800, so future ones would be out of the summer-earnings category. I suppose my frustration stems from the fact that in most of the United States, it is impossible to work off college tuition while you are there. Unless you come from a wealthy family, or you receive lots of grants and lots of scholarships, debt is generally inevitable. The tuition increases they are protesting do not invite the debt burden or other problems experienced elsewhere. Part of me, especially the part married to someone with student loans, wants to yell at them, "SUCK IT UP. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW GOOD YOU'RE STILL GETTING IT."

That gut reaction inspires this sense that I am betraying my ideals and associates. I imagine my old GSEU friends looking at me going, "Really?! Come on, Chris!" The ideal university system would be free.

I suppose that I am getting jaded in my older age.

Protests

2011-11-10T16:51:00.001-08:00

I heard students are protesting at Penn State. The protests on Wall Street and elsewhere continue. They are both controversial protests, since the former involves sexual abuse and potential cover-up, and the latter involves a piece of divisive politics.

My facebook and twitter feed are filled with people who do not understand why this incident, which they perceive as trivial (a football coach filling out a year's season feels trivial when compared to structural, broader injustices continuing everyday, they say) sprouted and reportedly became violent.

Part of me wonders if the reason for the sharp backlash in Penn State is that it feels close to home to them, or if it feels like something that they could actually be efficacious in? The problem of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that it's too big. It's trying to solve all of the problems, and the solution is far from someone's grasp. Or perhaps it's a simple issue of everyone's friends took part in it, so they did too.

Perhaps it is something entirely different.

Pardon the dust...

2011-11-09T09:41:00.001-08:00

I am trying to figure out a way to make this blog less ugly. Wish me luck, I suspect it will get worse before it gets better.

Occupy Seattle/ Occupy Chase Bank/ Occupy Powerlessness

2011-11-07T10:24:00.001-08:00

I was chatting with a fellow who works as a teller at the Chase Bank on East Broadway Ave. In case you're not a Seattlite, or not paying attention, that branch of Chase was "occupied". It got a bit violent, and people were arrested. I told him that I was sorry to hear that happened. Sure, Chase is evil. Certainly the tellers, who have little say over the company and make very little money, were the wrong people to target. The CEO was in town, but why not protest outside where he was?

He looked back at me and told me that he completely sympathized with the protesters. He said it was surreal, to go to your job, then watch as your building is surrounded by people protesting, and to see the police clashing with protesters outside the glass doors. Then he looked at me and goes, "It's what they want." He continued with how the police are just union jobs, they are not rich, and they are part of the 99%. Police and protesters should be on the same side. It's a page out of Marx, where the proletariat fight each other and never make the change they seek.

Communal Sunrises

2011-11-04T08:32:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school, we had to be out to the bus stop before the sun rose. This was a winter phenomenon, courtesy of the short days. Syracuse winters are cold, windy, and deep with snow, so the colors served as a pleasant distraction from the fact that I was shivering on the side of a road. Oranges, pinks, reds, and purples on textured clouds. It was quite beautiful.

My eyes would stay fixed on the colorful sky as the bus rode down the street. I would admire it against the shadow of the high school, occasionally lingering outside to soak in a few more seconds of the scene. Every sun rise is different, so ignoring it represented a loss.

I had not thought of these days for a long time, until my father, mother, husband and I were watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. My father brought up how much he loved watching the sunrise on his drive to work. His appreciation and awe radiated from his voice as he described it, as though it was something simultaneously obvious and in need of being told to everyone. It was the also first time it occurred to me that these were like celestial gifts to everyone in Syracuse, and that all of those times that I was watching it, he was too.

Digging Deeper by Peter Weissman

2011-10-26T08:43:00.000-07:00

I finished reading Peter Weissman's Digging Deeper: A Memoir of the Seventies. Full disclosure: his daughter, a friend of mine, recommended the book to me. (I swear not all of the books I read come from my social networks, really.) This book takes place in the time after a year spent as a hippie, a time he writes about in another book, I Think, Therefore Who am I? This book is about how he reintegrates himself into society, struggling with some of the same things that everyone else does: how do I survive and live a life of meaning simultaneously?

His path includes struggling with mind numbing and frustrating jobs, supporting his wife through art school, the struggles of a committed relationship, friendship, being a New Yorker on the West Coast, and trying to find time and energy for his passion: writing. Each chapter is a brief vignette (like in Justin Torres' book) of that time in his life.

I had few expectations about plot or content. My friend simply told me that her dad was "a good writer" and since she is an author herself, I took her at her word. For the record, she's right. Otherwise, I expected this book to be more about the seventies. I was anticipating some sort of generational, cultural difference that would make the protagonist (Weissman) different than me and difficult to relate to. The opposite happened. The pages turn because main character makes so much sense and is so easily to related to, that I am curious and care about he does next. I see myself, my husband, and my friends in many of the things and people he describes. The book ends with just the right amount of closure, and that is all I will say about that.

Instead of being a memoir of a decade, I see his book as a Coming-Of-Twenties story of sorts. It's worth the read.

Fresh Starts

2011-10-24T10:58:00.000-07:00

I ran out of pages in my private journal last night. It was a red book with natural paper, supposedly made in Nepal. My thoughts are documented in verse, mostly to keep from boring myself with my delightfully dull life. The new book was a Christmas gift from my sister. Again, it has natural paper from Nepal, but a black cover with white peace signs and significantly stronger binding. I opened it, wrote a few hopeful stanzas on the first page, and went to bed, feeling renewed.

I am surprised by how much this new book feels like a fresh start. It is as though I woke up on the other side of a canyon, when in truth I'd been walking through it all along. This transition is arbitrary - if I had written more frequently, incorporated higher word counts or used bigger handwriting I would have finished the book sooner and this sense would have arrived already. Yet, the events of my life would not be any different. I did not drop my memories when I closed my red book. That journal is heavy. I had started it several months before moving to Seattle. Its pages document the struggles that came with that season of life, which has been over for awhile now. The black book is mostly empty and feels spiritually light. I put my red book it in the wrapper that the black book came in with the packet of silica gel. It is somewhat sealed up. I am not sure why that felt right.

Sometimes I think about taking this blog off the internet. It is not that I want to stop writing. It is just that fresh starts are awfully appealing, especially as I see how poorly written the previous entries are. I sometimes feel overexposed and wonder what is known about me that I forgot I shared. Sometimes I hear "fresh starts" cited by gals who change their surname upon marriage, people who spontaneously decide to move, or change jobs. The thing is, the "fresh start" is just a continuation of the same journey. The traveler changed the lenses in their glasses so it looks different. Maybe they changed their shoes so walking the path feels different but it is still there. It is all in how you see it. The rituals help it along. How we cope and create them reflects how we cope and create our lives. We create the rituals too. I mean, I'm UU; I know how arbitrary rituals are. And so, I sealed up my old book.

On that note, life is happy right now. I am grateful for that.

Life and Death, Take Two

2011-10-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

Rev. Victoria Weinstein is fielding a request from a college student who wants to know about UU views on death. Check it out. I doubt I have many readers who do not also reader her blog, but hey, why not.

My reply was pretty much this: if you don't believe in life after death, then this life is more precious. Death is more tragic. Beauty is more wonderful. Life is the most fleeting and worthy entity on earth. It is also stark how messy this planet it, how chaotic and problem prone so many places and people are. The obligation and duty to do something, to help others with this precious gift and to alleviate the suffering that comes with injustice, intensifies. There is no do-over. There is no, "Well, God will make it better later for them" panacea to all the life lost to hunger, war, poverty, or inconvenience.

I saw a facebook post a couple days ago that broke my heart. Be warned: it features a picture of stacked cat corpses in a freezer and the letter is about what happens to animals who end up in shelters. Here's a hint: they have an awful existence and then die. This is not new information to me of course. If you follow SpaceManatee's twitter feed (common among vegans) you see a lot of retweets of a facebook page devoted to getting animals who are on the New York City Animal Care and Control's death list adopted before they are killed. The center does not have the space for the hundreds and thousands of animals that go through their doors. So instead they "destroy" the animals, extinguishing that precious fire of life hundreds and thousands of time over. The essay was supposedly written by an anonymous animal shelter manager in North Carolina. Who knows if it actually was. I do not doubt that there is a fair amount of truth to the note. It is not that the people who run the shelter are evil. It is that we live in a cruel world and a harsh society that is very flippant with life and death. You see it in our movies, our foreign policy, and national politics. It frustrates me to no end.

So I read these notes and know there is not much I can do for those animals, in the same way there was not much I could do for Troy Davis. I can yell and shout and tell you it is wrong. I can vote, write letters, and take what I can spare and donate it to those who can lobby. I think coping with powerlessness is the struggle of the empathetic atheist. It is realizing that no matter what you do, in the words of Mary Oliver, the only life you can really save is your own. That does not justify indifference to everyone else's, of course. It is easy to get overwhelmed and not see the necessity of contributing small pieces though the tragedies continue.

That, and wondering why others do not do more. Can they not see that this world is messed up? Will says that everyone looks away - it's too hard. He's right, of course. All we can do is live our lives in a way that protects life the ways we best know how and accept how limited the scope may be.

Why do I write?

2011-10-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

Heather Christensen (aka Nagoonberry) noted that today is the National Day on Writing. She commemorated the day by answering the simple question, "Why do you write?"

I write for the same reason that I eat or sleep. It simply feels as though I need to.

I never joined "The Mrs. Club"

2011-10-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

When I was planning my wedding, I joined a fantastic community of women on a wedding planning forum. We'd offer each other support and advice planning the ritual of transition known as a "wedding". It was incredibly useful. In any case, there is a phrasing on this forum that once you married, you're part of the "Mrs. Club". For example, "welcome to the Mrs. club!"

It is a club I never joined.

Will and I have been married for over two years. I am not a "Mrs", as I chose to keep my surname and my husband chose to support my choice.

We celebrated our anniversary about two months ago by getting our motorcycle endorsements together. Allow me a bit of a tangent regarding motorcycles: If you live in the state of Washington, I highly recommend checking out the Evergreen Safety Council's classes. The instructors were fantastic. One of them, Jesse Murphy, apparently does private lessons. The other, Monica, should because she was excellent. We went from never operating to doing it just well enough to pass the state's test. We need more practice, but the fact we did so well so quickly is a direct result of the fantastic instruction and feedback we received.

We took the class on because after lots of discernment, going over our goals and means, and a little bit of whim, we decided that having a motorcycle or scooter makes some sense for the lives we'd like. Cars are very expensive. We have a zipcar membership should we *really* need one. Bicycling can be dangerous. Walking is slow. Metro is a form of dependence that is a great spiritual practice but slows down our life a great deal. Truth be told, the jury is still out on whether or not we will commit to acquiring one. We've adapted well to our lifestyle, and our friends are generous (though I never want to take them for granted or make them feel taken advantage of). Opportunity cost and limited funds and a mutual bias towards caution keep this an open topic.

I have always wanted to have a motorcycle, as I have very happy memories sitting on the back of my father's. Motorcycles are common in Will's family too. So, why not try the class? We both passed, and left each day with a tired enthusiasm. Motorcycles are kind of awesome. Needless to say, we are both very glad that we did it. The next step is the slow, patient accumulation of funds and knowledge to acquire one, if we choose to. Will's a foot taller than me. Finding a good fit will be a bit more challenging, because neither of us want a motorcycle that requires one of us to take a back seat.

We did not want a model of marriage that would do that either.

I remember experiencing some angst around the time that Will and decided that yes, we'd like to spend our lives together. Why not? We were young and inexperienced and we've been dating since we were 19. We get along well, why not try this? In those days, my doubts were not about my desire to have Will as my life-long companion. It was this sneaky suspicion that marriage was designed to change women more than men. Enter the same process of discernment, assessing goals and means, and whim. How many of our images of family are whimsical and quick to forget the struggles of reconciling multiple independent people happily?

There is the surname change. There are assumptions that married women are distracted employees. The discomfort I experienced that an awful lot of religions (fortunately not my own!) call on men to lead their family, pre-supposing their qualifications by what exists between their legs. Is Will a good leader for our family? Yes, but he's into democracy, just as I am. Essentially, my discomfort stemmed from all the things about marriage that feminists have critiqued. Some go so far to say that marriage itself is oppressive - but then again, they've never met my spouse.

The surname issue really struck a nerve for me because it epitomized all of the discomfort of marriage that I had.

There is the issue of family. I love my name. I am very grateful and proud that I grew up in my family. I adore my father; he is a fantastic person. (My sister and I have talked about the things we look for in men are pretty much the same character traits of our Dad. I have a husband who is a hard worker, kind-hearted, and loyal man - just like my dad.) Marriage, to me, was best as an additive function, not one of subtraction or substitution.
There is the issue of occupation. I had worked and met people and made a slew of professional connections with my birth name. I was afraid of being disassociated with myself.
There is the issue of perceived connection. My husband's surname is one of the 10 most common surnames in the US. There is no reason to presume that two people with it are connected in any way.
There was the issue of identity. I did not like the implication that anyone that I did before I was married needed to be dissociated with the person I am after I am married. Men do not do that. It is a statement on how we view women's lives - so different that they require an identity shift. Will was not marrying me because he wanted to change me. He loved me as I was. I loved him as I was. I did not want him to change either.

So I never took my husband's surname.

Two years later, I still think that was the correct choice. Our lives have not been overly complicated by not having a unified name. No one mistakes us for not being a couple - if you meet us, I think it is pretty obvious, with our rings and intertwined lives and mutual struggles. I have only needed to provide proof that we are married once - it was to my insurance carrier at the University so I could cover Will. That is it. My husband and I briefly worked at the same company, and it allowed him to operate less under the shadow of my reputation. He's a hard worker. He is really smart. He is also much easier to get along with than I am, and so it is better that he gets to be this way. Granted, Will's surname is so common that there would be no reason to assume that we are related... but that also defeats the purpose of taking his name.

I still think it was the right choice. Though the continuing controversy around this subject, and around marriage in general, suggests to me we're all still a bit uncertain about the social arrangement, around commitments, and in general about life. What do we want? How do we want our companions to be? What does it/is it supposed to (for those who scare or tire of wide open definitions and fields of existence) mean to be a wife or husband or domestic partner? How much do we want to be independent? These are all unanswered questions for our generation. I am interested to watch how we answer them.

Sweet Seattle, You Make Me Soft.

2011-10-15T21:15:00.000-07:00

There's peace, there's love, there's work, there is beauty, and many other wonderful things.

I live in a place that reminds me of the beauty of the world. It is because I stand in a place of privilege. To walk out of my apartment is to walk into the view of mountains. I can see skyscapers that constitute the downtown of the nicest place I have ever lived, surrounded by some of the nicest sites I've ever seen, in an abundance of food and a nice place to live, people who are wonderful, and a vibrant community.

I live here in a context of protest and strife, though it is not necessarily mine. Fortune is not evenly enjoyed, and that is not a comment on other people's capacity for gratitude. It is a consequence of the reality of this world. It's not fair. It was never designed to be. We do not have sight on a world where it can be, short sighted on possibilities in the now. Work is hard and slow to change it, and if you spend your time on the edge where things are relatively best, you can forget that the job is not done. The places behind, in a social justice way, in an environmental justice way, in a spiritually fulfilling way, seem so much more urgent to drag up to the forefront and drag up to speed. Maybe they are. It is easy to forget.

May I not lose sight of how unique my good fortune is as I live in comfort.

It'll be alright. (Dentist visit)

2011-10-14T13:15:00.000-07:00

I received good news of health and a lesson about faith today.

I went to see the dentist, blessed with awesome insurance coverage and stinging with a bit of guilt - I think it's been five years. That's right, I cannot remember exactly when I saw a dentist last. I walked over while bracing myself for what I would be certain was news of my first cavities. I imagined that I must have lots and lots of them. Swiss cheese x-rays, and a receptionist that would wrinkle her nose at the sight, though unsurprised. She'd seen it before, I am sure she would tell me, It happens. My mouth would then need to be filled with metal. Ugh. It happens.

Nope.

The dental hygienist and dentist, who were both very friendly, expressed surprise with the strength and good condition of my teeth. No cavities. There was a general lack of major problems, and even the staining from coffee was mild. The dentist noted that Syracuse must heavily add fluoride to its water, and told me that if I keep up cleanings and appointments, he expects I'd be good for the rest of my life.

Wow.

So rarely do such long lasting words of reassurance, words of "everything will be alright" are uttered about anything. The world is so uncertain. The prediction was not a promise, of course. It is rare for me to really believe that, yeah, everything will probably be alright. I would not have believed it had this expert not told me so, and in this case, that's wise: I am not a dentist. At the same time, it does seem like another life lesson about the wastefulness presume a poor outcome all the time.

And a lesson about maintaining good oral hygiene. Brush! It's good advice!

Occupy Seattle and Wall Street

2011-10-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

It is raining in Seattle right now. Not mild mist, but heavy rain. That means it is raining on the Occupiers of Westlake Park.

I reported this little bit for The Next Great Generation, meant for last week but published today:

The Occupy Seattle Protest started Saturday in downtown Seattle’s highly visible Westlake Park and continues despite controversy and arrests. Attendance has fluctuated, as not everyone can be at the park the entire time due to jobs and other responsibilities, notes David Warren. “I work two jobs, today’s my day off.” According to those at the park today, the high point of the protest saw 120 people camped out, with tents covering most of the park. While the mayor of Seattle, Mike McGinn, expressed support for the protesters, he also told demonstrators they needed to leave the park. Seattle has a no-camping rule for city parks. Twenty five people were arrested for refusing to leave their tents Wednesday. According to one man, who identified himself as Scott N., 24 Jakpaks, a jacket/tent sleeping bag combination, were donated to the protesters in response to this development. When asked how long the protesters would remain, he said, “We’re going to be here till they roll tanks through the park.” Mayor McGinn seems willing to facilitate that, as he arranged with protestors to allow overnight camping in both Westlake Park and City Hall Plaza for two weeks. With another protest being organized by MoveOn.Org for Sunday, it seems that protesters will continue to occupy Seattle.”

In response to a post that argues "Occupy Wall Street: Gen Y Against It" (something I do not think can be said about ALL of millennials due to lack of data), I wrote:

[...]I agree that this protest is frustrating, because unlike other protests, and the norms and expectations that we have for protests to have very neat and tidy goals that can be captured in soundbites, this one’s narrative is essentially “This is Effed Up.” Things that are Effed up include a lack of social responsibility as practiced by corporations (dollars are valued more than people. This is pretty stark in the state of Washington right now, for instance, Working Washington’s work regarding Chase Bank) and the increased resemblance that we have to Brazil in economic class inequality.

Will most of the protesters be able to articulate that? In my experience chatting with them, no. The protest is an expression of frustration at general powerlessness. The Have-Nots know they have little ability to alter anything because power is concentrated in the Haves. I understand a bit of context because I am privileged enough to have more education that I ought to need to get by in the world and I study this stuff. Grassroots organizations are going to be full of people who look around and understand that the world doesn’t make sense – they may not be able to get why. Experts cannot fit our country right now, so I think I can forgive the rank and file for not knowing either. [...]

The difference in power might not be so offensive to people except that we are in a democracy. Being a citizen gives one the right to vote, and that right to vote is supposed to permit one a piece of determining our country’s fate and future. But because other things, money, determine what happens before, after, and during that process, others are disenfranchised. The frustration against corporations, I suspect, is because they are where the wealth is and perceived source of power. It’s not coming from any sophisticated economic analysis.

Inequality tends to be tolerated when it doesn’t hurt as much, or when the oppressed groups are completely dominated. It’s starting to hurt. That’s why we see protests. I’m interested in watching what happens next.

When I was down in Westlake Park I was struck by the energy more than anything else. Keep in mind, I live in Seattle. Yesterday there was a protest to abolish Columbus Day. There was a concurrent anti-War protest on the anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan... protests here are ho-hum. Common. This city is pretty liberal, so much so that you get soft, thinking that everyone agrees with you. Perhaps that is just my experience. There are canvassers and political signs everywhere.

The people who were there are opposed to general oppression, at least, the ones that I spoke to in order to write the blurb for TNGG were opposed to all things oppression, the main culprit being wealth. There was a particular joy in feeling united against something that needs changing, like this could actually do something when otherwise we occupy ourselves with tolerance towards being disenfranchised. I suspect knowing that people are paying attention for once may keep the protesters there longer, despite the lack of a clear goal, and therefore, a clear end.

This movement does not have a message that fits into a neat and tidy package. It reminds me of consciousness-raising in that way. Occupy Wall Street has been accused of being vacuous. Unitarian Universalists get accused of having a lack of substance too, we also get accused of having no beliefs or message. In that way I suppose I feel as though we're kindred spirits - trying to make something better, even though we may not be completely certain how.

Making It Up, or diving into experifailing

2011-10-07T18:41:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine and I made an agreement last night: Next Saturday night: Deadline. We will not talk to each other if we do not have some fiction written that we can be happy with. I have started, and it is already occupying my spare thoughts.

We also decided to jump on National Novel Writing Month too. I'm not the only UU blogger to be partaking such an endeavor. (Here's looking at you, Matt Kinsi!) It's super exciting, in the way that you can become excited about a project before you have any idea what is involved, what you are doing, or how much work is involved. I write - prolifically, constantly. Fiction is a new beast for me, though I have ideas. So there is an overwhelming sense of "I have no sense of what I am doing" because my writing has, to this point, relied on observation, research, reason or logic. How do I just make it up? We'll see.

Oh, did I mention that she's a bit of a professional at this? You know, formal training, experience, and she's been published?

DAUNTING. I mean, she's my friend for lots of reasons, and these include not being a pretentious, intimidating person (quite the opposite!). So it is with a sense of fun and some support that I am diving into Experi-failing. It is a sort of non-harm risk. My family well-being, survival, and so forth should not be threatened. I am accustomed to trying things I think I can do well. Here, I am trying something that I am uncertain about. My skill and talent in this area is completely unknown.

So, here goes.

I am also announcing it to you all so that when week 2 rolls around and I realize how hard it is, cowardice and insecurity do not motivate me to quit.

FreeCycle, Zipcar, Public Transit and Gratitude for the Interdependent Web

2011-10-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

I am typing this on a not-remotely-new but newly acquired sleeper sofa. The quietness of my apartment is punctuated by the sounds of a not-new but newly acquired coffee maker brewing the first cup of non-instant coffee I have had in about a week. To get the coffee maker, Will and I hopped on a King County Metro Bus to meet with the fellow who gave it to me (thank you!!!). We used a Zipcar Toyota Tacoma to bring home the sleeper sofa, and we tied the sleeper sofa down as the man who gave it to us beamed as he told us about his four kids (thank you!!!). We met these people through Seattle's FreeCycle community. I am corresponding with a woman now to give her some buttons. I gave my neighbors the lilies that I had to pull out of a bouquet.

Seattle is good for collaborative consumption. Everything we did yesterday reflects the benefits of being part of an interdependent web that acknowledges itself, and helps each other. Public transit, Zipcar, and giving away unneeded things to others are all pieces of that. Take that, capitalism. I think it can be tempting to use money as a form of security, when perhaps we could rely on each other a bit more.

Unexpectedly, the exchanges were warm. I was anticipating awkwardness - let me go to a stranger's home, take something of theirs, and leave. It was not like that. They were happy to give us what they did, I got the sense that they were friendly people in general, and it was nice meeting them. I left with a warmth that comes from a sense that the universe is watching out for you, that particular form of joy that arises when you are helped unexpectedly. You know what I mean?

In other news, I had a moment akin to when I was very happy about having overtime. "I guess this means I am an adult." I am stoked to have a piece of furniture that lets us entertain visitors more comfortably. So far, in our year in Seattle, we've been lucky to have my mother in law and a friend of hers, my parents, a close friend of my husband's and mine, and my cousin visit us. They've slept on either air mattresses or our couch. Our couch (a super nice one that we bought from a graduate student in my program) is beautiful, great for sitting, but lousy for sleeping. Air mattresses are hard on aging backs. I am so grateful for the sofa, though we need to slip cover it (Four kids! It's worn!) and add some padding to the mattress... we can entertain people! Our form of taking care of others, I suppose.

The Different Autumn

2011-10-03T13:26:00.000-07:00

Saturday evening I was biking home from a friend's apartment in southern Capitol Hill. I left a potluck early because I felt sick, probably too sick to be trudging my way up a hill on a bicycle. It was quicker than the 45 minute walk, or the 30 minute bus ride, so bicycle it was. I figured the less time in transit, the sooner I'd be in my bed. It was also chilly, crisp, and clear. The sunset was absolutely stunning, though the sun was sneaking away far too soon.

It felt like autumn. Of course, it is autumn, so this should not surprise me. That's not the autumn I am talking about. It felt like Syracuse and Buffalo autumn, the one I am native too. Where the cold air fills lungs that I can feel expand and contract with every breath. The type where I am looking for the leaves to change, watching the sun set too soon from a bicycle, because it's not yet snowed.

It won't snow though, and the leaves will be green for quite some time. This is Seattle.

I did not realize until we moved to Seattle how much the seasons defined my understanding of time. It is as if time was experienced not as the ticking of a clock's second hand moving, but in the transition from warmth to crisp, cool weather, and to the eventual blanket of snow. Like Zemfira, I live from winter to winter. I found myself last year waiting for a winter that never came. A winter came, but not the one I knew. Seattle's winter is dark and misty. It is a winter I do not understand. My body kept waiting for the snow and cold to remind me that time was moving on.

A former co-worker, native to Bellevue, Washington, told me that "Wait until you get a mild winter and a mild summer. The entire year will be overcast, and unchanging." Seattle can have that illusion of perpetuity. I miss New York State on days like these. I still feel very far from home.

Change (I quit my job)

2011-09-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

I quit my job. It seems that it is the season for such things. I enjoyed the work, the pace of life, the setting, the continuity of it all, and I was very grateful for the income. I really liked and respected my coworkers, particularly the team I was on. There seemed to be a good mix of work ethic and light-hearted goofing off. I worked with a lot of very interesting, awesome and chill people. Lunches on the roof were fantastic not only for the great views of city and Puget Sound, but the company and conversation. I went to happy hours because I wanted to spend time with the people there. I am scheming reasons to invite them over for stuff as we speak. As a result of this work, I learned that there is a subculture with My Little Ponies, of new authors, and of many things of Seattle and beyond. Life stories from honest people are a gift, I think. It's kind of delightful. In addition, the last three weeks I worked there, my husband did too. Morning commutes, lunches, and evening commutes are so much better with him there. It was fantastic.

My co-workers and supervisors sent me off with a plethora of kind words and hugs. They overwhelmed me with their warmth. One supervisor found a suitable place (aka vegan-friendly) for lunch, and my team's lead treated me to a delicious falafel wrap. A friend gave me an assortment of fabulous (and short lived) vegan chocolates. I brought in some of my chocolate trail mix fudgies, which were widely enjoyed. I wrote how-to manuals for the two positions that I had in my brief stint there. And it was done. Goodbyes are easiest, in some ways, when they are on good terms. You could say it was not really a good bye. I have cell phone numbers and facebook pages for people I have no intention of loosing track of, and my husband still works at the company. It is not over.

I enjoyed working there, but the season was finished. One, it was a summer job. Two, it was time for me to go back to what I am supposed to be doing. The moment had arrived for me to resume my calling. It was not possible to do both occupations simultaneously. In what was an unusual act of maturity on my behalf, I accepted my limits, and I left the job. It seems that I left it at the moment I was meant to, as other transitions were happening around me. A friend of mine was promoted into her dream job the day I left. Two co-workers moved, one to Kirkland and another out of a hotel. The job description itself was shaken up. It was as clean a break as you can get.

There is a sign in Goodwill, "Jobs Change Lives." Well, duh, I used to think. If you do not have one, it's hard to eat. It's harder to secure shelter. Besides, being broke bites. My reflection on that, until this summer, was superficial. Then I realized something else - by the nature of the time sink that work is, your job also defines your life in other ways. It is a social circle. It is an expression of expertise. It is a contribution towards society, in that every business weaves a piece of the interdependent web (for better or worse). There are also Marx's thoughts, but let's set those aside for the moment.

For me, it also signaled the ending of a personal winter. It stopped my drifting. It added some discipline. It gave me something to focus on that was not the sum of human suffering, and it kept my mind clear. My employment marked the first time that I felt like I really lived in Seattle, that I was really a part of this community. The extra income helped me to relax, to ease a financial hyper-vigilance that happens with low wages. I spent the summer basking in the warmth of gratitude for the fact that something I really needed to work out, did. It continues to.

Yesterday morning I woke up anxious. I rolled over, hugged my husband and asked, "NOW what am I supposed to do?" The wide openness of graduate school can be daunting, especially after finding some comfort in the narrowness of my previous work. But that is OK. Change is OK. I have found some faith that I will find my way, and be OK too.

I had a very happy summer. Now it is time for autumn.

We The Animals by Justin Torres

2011-09-25T22:20:00.000-07:00

I write about getting through life, love and purpose in this blog.

If you like reading these themes, allow me to introduce you to my faux-cousins's book.

Why do I call Justin Torres my faux-cousin? Especially because as far as I am aware, this perception is one sided? Let me tell you a story that takes place in a faraway land called Syracuse, NY. Sometimes it is better described as "Liverpool". Other times the name "Baldwinsville" has a more comfortable fit. In any case, it involves our mothers, who were very close friends. I grew up calling his mother "Aunt", and really thought she was my aunt. My father had to explain to the very small version of me that no, she's not my mother's sister. Yes, they resemble each other a bit. Yes, they clearly love each other very much. That love is the source of the title, not a blood relationship. I remember being confused and not believing him at the time. His mom is also the god-mother to my sister and brother, and as far as she's concerned, me as well. This may not exactly correspond with the Catholic Church's records, but is close enough - in the same way that the exact details of being called "aunt" are not fulfilled, it is close enough.

He and his brothers were much older than my siblings and I, as his mom had a near-decade head start on having children from my parents. So I do not remember him well. His mom is our connection. This bond is sufficiently close that I picked up his book from the same source of loving obligation that one does favors for any extended, if distant, family member.

I do not usually read fiction, that's all.

Sometimes it is good to venture into uncommon territory. The writing is fantastic, and the images draw you in. Knowing that he likely drew inspiration from Syracuse, reading the book, for me, had tinges of nostalgia. I easily recognized some of the congruence to his life (such as his own mother also working nights at the brewery) by virtue of knowing the family. But that is it. Most of it is really, truly, fiction. Great fiction. I finished the book a week ago and it is still with me.

The only point of contention I have is with the ending. As far as the work of literature is concerned, it seems to come out of no where, like there are three chapters missing. You will have to read it to see what I mean. Perhaps this is partially a desire on my behalf for a neat, tidy story with a neat, tidy ending. This book does not have one. Neither does life, neither do most families. It is fictitiously authentic in that way.

Check it out. I highly recommend it, almost-family or not.

The Revolution Cannot Stay On The Fringes, Nor Should Our Political Methods Put Everyone There

2011-09-24T20:19:00.000-07:00

East Coast radical is your West Coast dull. The vegan, eco-conscious lifestyle that made me a touch offbeat in Buffalo makes me very mainstream in Seattle, and in some regards obsolete. If I describe my father-in-law as an "aging hippie" on the East Coast, you arise at a mental image of a man very close to the Quaker that he is. If you describe that on the West Coast, the image is different. More drifting across the country, more instability, and less adherence to society. Not just a liberal person who is fond of nature and incredibly open minded and so forth.

When I first moved to Seattle, there was a wave of destructiveness perpetuated by some of the local anarchists. The reasons cited were generally some thread of police-imposed oppression, or solidarity with anarchists elsewhere (I believe the location was Chile). These were expressions of anger taken out against the capitalists of the neighborhood - shop owners and such. I was left with the impression that the faces were lost. The individuality was lost. Perhaps empathy went out the window too, or the realization that the broken windows were going to hurt the shop owners in a tough economy, or perhaps a casual neglect of the fact that capitalism is the leading way that people ensure survival out here. I am not saying that capitalism is the best way, or the most desirable. Y'all know me better than that. What I am saying is that actions like those establish an "us versus them" mentality which widens the division and changes very little.

Our national political scene appears to be taken a page from this divisionist perspective. This idea that the ground one stands on is so right, that even tip-toeing away from it others you beyond membership. I am watching this happen with the Republican Party right now. Being a good leader in a democratic society means that one must compromise. Yet these patterns of compromise are being used to paint Mitt Romney, for instance, as weak on his conservative credentials. I am not a Republican, therefore I should note that some of the nuance is lost on me. It appears the politics of ideological purity are at play here. It amuses me, because that same logic can be read in revolutionary politics - the people on the other side of a perceived divide become foes of sorts. The trick is considered defeating them.

That cannot be how it works.

The way to get something to stick is to convince the dissenters that it is best for them. Yes, Marx and others have argued that this is the way oppressive systems persist: the exploited really believe capitalism is their best hope. Those who argued "United We Stand" recognize this too. We are forgetting it. We are forgetting to be less dismissive of the people that we do not agree with, to listen to them instead of listening to the caricatures painted by those we listen to, presuming we'd agree with them. If I want socially progressive policies to take over, I need to listen to the concerns of those who don't want to and either 1) change their mind 2) change their hearts or 3) change mine. The thing that strikes me the hardest is the extent to which people preemptively do not listen to each other. They have already decided that whatever the other is about to do is wrong.

You can find this in religious discourses too. That is another post for another day, because while it is the same system, the consequences are different.

The divisions are deep, filling with water and becoming ever more difficult to cross. I think this is a place where UUs are particularly suited for the task at hand. We need to rise to the challenge of building the bridge and filling in the river. We have a faith that involves accepting differences and the different view points that inform them. Better, we accept the different people. We need to become better at being the change we wish to see, and that will happen by creating community with those who we disagree with.

Of course, we struggle with this too, being merely human.

What our country needs is a collective decision that we care more about each other by virtue of being people than being right. We need to stop treating disagreement as an invitation to endless adversity. We need our leaders to stop being such terrible examples. We need to be the changes we wish to see in the world.

Troy Davis and Lawrence Brewer and Death

2011-09-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

As I type this, Troy Davis died seven minutes ago for a crime that an awful lot of people, including myself, are not so sure he committed.

I saw a small byline on NPR today that told me that Lawrence Brewer was executed today as well.

I'm not the only person who has noticed this coincidence, and how different these cases are in facts and circumstances. Two people are being executed for crimes committed against someone of the opposite race. For all of the support that the late Troy Davis received, Brewer received none. There are lots of reasons for this. Davis has always maintained his innocence. Brewer took pride in his gory, grotesque guilt.

For Davis drama was long, drawn out, and ineffective. The country waited for the broken system whose error lets people be convicted of crimes they do not commit to figure out if it had failed. It did not fail - it did what it was designed to to do. To quote Dessa and Sims, "It's not vengeance. And it's not blood lust. Justice is just the rule of law."

Just rules. All of those courts, and all of those people, were just trying to see if the rules were followed appropriately. It did not ask if the rules were fair. It did not ask if the system is broken. It did not ask (though we all were screaming) if the death penalty is fair, desirable, or worthy of a civilized nation such as ours.

No. It does not work.

If the death penalty worked, then James Byrd would still be alive. As Timothy McVeigh did, Brewer reveled in his fate. The death penalty was something both men accepted, because they were unrepentant in their crimes. The existence of this statute does not make us safer.

All three crimes and trials have something in common for me: they play up to my childhood fears.

I was twelve when James Byrd was dragged to death. I cannot even think of that crime, it is too horrific. It was so scarring as a child. If innocence is lost in pieces, as realizations that the world can be horrible, well, that case did it for me. The same thing with the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh is also from upstate New York (he's from Lockport, NY), meaning that the term "Homegrown terrorist", a favorite of the Buffalo News, stung that much more. These were cases where the perpetrators did terrible things. Ultimately, Brewer's and McVeigh's death do nothing to undo the horror imposed. Frankly, I feel no more healed.

My childhood fears rest more with Troy Davis' fate than the deceased police officer, Mark McPhail. It occurred to me that people are fallible, and that 12 people could be fallible too. I remember praying vehemently as a child that innocent people would not go to jail. "God, please make sure that NEVER happens." If they did, well, I could not feel safe in a system like that. The childhood version of me realized in terror that an imperfect system meant that I could be convicted of a crime even though I never did anything. Realized that the existence of the death penalty meant that innocent people probably died. I was terrified, because I also recognized how powerless I was to stop it.

I still feel equally powerless to prevent these miscarriages of humanity, be them perpetrated by state governments or by human beings. Having the death penalty around does little to minimize this sense of terror. We need to change the system. We can never make it error-free, we can only make it most merciful in its errors. It seems that having the death penalty does nothing to make the world safer; it just makes it a little more dangerous.

Even then, the Bible told me that killing is wrong.

If the Internet and I had a relationship on facebook, it would be "Complicated"

2011-09-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

If you have emailed me recently (in the last five months), you may have noticed something.

It took me awhile to get back to you.

If you have also emailed me prior to that, you would notice that this is a change. I used to be quick with my notes, turning them around within 48 hours and some of them were quite long. In fact, my blog used to be updated more frequently and my general internet presence was stronger.

Two things happened:

For whatever reason, my cell phone stopped sending pictures to facebook. As a result I stopped thinking about it.
My job involves extensive computer use, and I decided to avoid it in my off-time to minimize eye strain.

Then something else happened. I came to realize that in many ways I do not know how to use the internet in a healthy way. I am savvy and literate, but it is akin to being adept with a hammer. You can understand the best ways to fasten things, but you still need to discern what actually needs to be fastened, and if the hammer is the best tool for the job.

If the internet is a tool for finding information, I am a master. This is why I was hired by the data mine that I work for. Outside of my professional life, the internet has facilitated trips to the East Coast, the drive to the West Coast, purchasing the tickets to the concert I am attending tonight, finding out bus routes, hours of operation and paying my bills. I have some very rewarding friendships as a result of membership in online communities, some of which also exist offline now. My position as a graduate student requires that I check that email regularly. It is not just intractably tangled up with my life, it is become an unavoidable aspect of being in the modern world. Especially if you are a resident of urban Seattle. That comes down to a web of privilege, of the first world, class, wealth, and education. Even so. It is the world I exist in.

That does not mean I know how to "be" in it constructively for my own health and that of my family.

My focus scatters whenever a browser window opens. My cats and spouse fight a battle for my attention that can be very difficult to win. We do not need a television to drain the minutes from our lives. There are blogs, twitters, websites, news, ideas, ideas and more ideas. I keep a "dumb phone" because I find myself addicted to the distraction. There are positive things too - long lost family members and long lost almost-family member, friends and people that I am grateful to stay connected to.

Whenever something is new, there is an adjustment period. We do not know how to best use the change. This has been true of things as different as electricity, nuclear weapons, and sexual liberation. The internet is likely in that category. We are merely human, and often lousy judges of how things affect us. I imagine the books written about the first few decades of the internet will be fascinating, fifty years from now when we have our first taste of distance and objective study. I look forward to reading it, should I be sufficiently lucky to live that long.

In the meantime, I will keep trying to find the best balance between "pure abstention" and complete surrender. I suspect a mindful stewardship is somewhere in between, aided with microwave timers.

Doing "God's Work", Whatever That Means

2011-09-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

I was recently included on a list of lay UU bloggers. I think you should check out that list. A bunch of my favorite writers are there, or hosting the list. They stand out on my Google reader because they inspire moments of "YES! Exactly!", "Well, I never thought about that" and the ever useful "Hmmmmmm." It's not that ministers do not inspire me, because they do. For instance, the ministers at my church inspire me every week. The minister at my previous church was instrumental in why I am UU. Most of us Unitarian Universalists are not in ministry, that is all. We have more common experiences that way.

This divide between ministry and laity reminded me of a voice that has been talking to me my whole life. It speaks a language that I have either embraced, dismissed, or mis-translated, depending on the phase of life. "Do God's Work." As a Catholic, this is easy to understand. As an atheist it is dismissed as folly. As an agnostic I find it cryptic and hard to understand.

This voice is still talking to me, I just do not know what it means.

Part of my current job is to go to university websites and catalog all of their degrees. More accurately, it is to ensure someone else cataloged it correctly. My team is now well versed in nearly every type of degree that is offered. You take notice, and sometimes even interest. Every time I see a master of divinity, I pay attention. Especially when it was the MDiv Meadville Lombard or Seattle University. The Voice told me to read carefully, and then concluded I am not remotely qualified. This is fine. I have a lifetime ahead of me to get there, if that is the path to go. Then again, does it have to be?

I struggle with this idea of "God's Work", whoever or what God is (omnipotent entity? idea? inspiration? goal?), and the world surrounding me. The secular equivalent appears to be ecological and social justice. This leads to the next question: what constitutes "justice", anyway? It seemed so clear when I was younger, before I started to learn how messy the universe is, much less this planet. Everything is so complicated, that it appears the best effort is the one that makes the best mistakes. But how?

A woman I work with told me that I was "going places" around the time I first started my job. This comment was not about the position I'd started. It was about my graduate work in sociology. She lamented that she was doing data-entry, when she'd rather be saving the world. She expressed that she was glad that I would. The comment seemed mis-specified. You need to understand this: she was fresh off a teaching gig in an underserved school. She'd been an Americorp VISTA for two years doing similar work. Her work actually did something. It didn't unravel capitalism, but it was something. It seemed that her words came from a place of lack, like she felt she had not done enough and wished to do more, feeling restricted. Yet here she was, a social justice activist, while I just play it on TV with my work towards my PhD. Sociologists do research. I read the journals, wondering if the discipline is full of people hoping their work can make them the next Doug Massey with the reach and world-changing influence, reaching to tie the abstract and the concrete together in the name of something sensible and useful before academia burns them out. Perhaps I am reading my own burnout into the discipline. If this is divinely inspired, it can be hard to see in the bureaucracy and intellectual political world that we've created.

Going into ministry seems like the obvious thing to do because it is the ultimate do-good occupation. Perhaps an occasional minister can claim fame and fortune, but this occupation usually guarantees a lack. You join to to serve God/Nature's/Insert Higher Calling Here. I am reminding myself that there is certainly room for lay people to do this as well. What is this work supposed to be? How big? In what discipline, what path, and in what way? What will you do if you hear this call?

This is truly a Unitarian Universalist blog because I come to you with all the questions, and none of the answers, and challenge you (and myself) to make peace with it in hopes of getting somewhere, though we may never get to the destination.

The September 12th Post (Reflections on 9/11)

2011-09-12T18:41:00.000-07:00

A year ago yesterday, I remember thinking that this year would be the tenth anniversary of September 11th. I thought to myself, "Wow, that will be a long time." I remember last year feeling disconnected from everyone else's connection to the event. Granted, my head was all over the place, and I was in Buffalo seeing friends before I would complete the transition on the plate: graduate school at a new university. A year later, now settled, I still feel a bit disconnected.

I read somewhere that once you can think of something without it stinging, you've healed. The event does not become less awful. It just becomes a fact. I am not so sure that is true here. Granted, I was not very close to the circumstances. I was in Syracuse, not New York City. My grandfather was an NYC firefighter, but had retired 12 years before the attacks. I did not lose anyone close to me. I remember not being shocked at the events. I'm pretty sure the Oklahoma City Bombings and Bosnia did enough to traumatize my 9 year old self that evil in the world felt normal. I did feel sad. I prayed for everyone involved. I actually thought that the first plane crash was an accident. That's the work of TWA Flight 800 for you. The fifteen year old version of me lived in a world that, as she perceived, evil and tragedy were commonplace. The terrorist attacks were sad, but not shocking. I remember feeling disconnected from our country's sense of shock.

So, like ChaliceChick, I am not terribly surprised that the tenth anniversary of the terror attacks feel distant and disconnected again. That in some ways, personally, it is more of a marker to where I was a year ago to where I am now. It is around half a lifetime ago that the attacks happened for me. Ten years ago I was in high school. I'm a married graduate student now. I do not remember much of the pre-9/11 world, and the things I detest now which resulted from it (war, divisionist politics, a general lack of peace and prosperity) have existed all of my adult life.

People died, and that is terrible. People continue to die, and that is also terrible. We're going by way of the Soviet Union, dumping our treasure into the military to the point that we cannot afford it. This, too, is terrible. We have a blind definition of heroism - it seems to be applied to nearly anyone involved. If you were a first-responder, sure. If you kept the plane from crashing and killing more people, sure. If you died by circumstance of being the victim of wrong doing, that is terrible. I hear people refer to those in the towers as heros, as though being American in of itself became heroic. That feels strange. The things that sting about September 11th is that it never really ended after the buildings fell and the rubble cleared. So the 10 year anniversary seems weird to commemorate - it is the start of the present, right? The present never left us.

It doesn't sting, but it doesn't feel good. It's not that 9/11 was not my tragedy. I am American. Always was. Always will be. So it happened to me too. It is not that the after effects are somehow removed from me. My society, my responsibility. The beauty of being in a pluralistic society is that the mainstream won't make sense to everyone, and not everyone will be able to relate. That is just as true of ideas, politics, as it is politicized memorials to terrible things.

May everyone rest in peace. Including the living.

UU Evangelism, Young Adult Ministry, And This Blogger's Asymmetric Action

2011-09-01T20:43:00.000-07:00

Today I had a meeting at the University of Washington. This means the work-to-U shuffle, leaving work to hop on a bus. Generally it feels rushed; however, an early morning meant an early exit, and I arrived at the U with plenty of time to spare. I decided a walk to the roses and fountain were in order, mainly because Mt. Rainier was both visible and beautiful. Instead of walking left towards Savery Hall, I walked right.

I was stopped by a couple gals, one from Switzerland and one of African ancestry (I didn't ask where in Africa and I kind of wish I had). They asked me if I was a student and if I'd been around UW long. I replied that I was, and I've been around a year. They invited me to their Bible study. They are affiliated with a church that I'd never heard of before, and doing explicit ministry. I smiled and declined, I DID have a meeting after all. We had a very pleasant conversation for about 15 minutes about Christianity and Unitarian Universalism and our respective paths to them. I have one of the gal's emails. I may invite her for coffee - why not?

That experience is a rarity in that I do not often talk about my faith. Well, that's not completely true. Being UU played a role in my decision to become vegan, and my as-cruelty-free-as-possible lifestyle does come up quite a bit. It is the evangelical form of ministry that lays low and keeps quiet. The, "Hey, here is something that's made my soul rich, and I want to share it with you" elements of ministry. I am not hiding my faith. I do not hide the fact that I participate in activities at my church. We live in a society where people rarely speak of religion.

I believe in the importance of ministry, and it breaks my heart to see how our numbers dwindle while I hear the news of a local megachurch with an aggressive pastor expanding its reach. Where are we going wrong?

At the same time, I am a bit nervous about doing the actual work of ministry. 1) I am not sure what I am doing and 2) it is not an easy task. A few gals in the young adult group and I will be discussing a budgetary request for a spiritual retreat that the Young Adult Group is hosting with the lifespan coordinator.

Uh, I am nervous.

1) Our group exists, and is visible, but its institutional support was transitioned into the campus ministry group. By that I mean that they tasked the "young adult" coordinator with UW ministry only, but then wisely changed his title to campus ministry coordinator. When that happened, any budget our group had disappeared. We have no official contact, as far as I know. Unofficially, there is a fellow who works his tail off despite having an otherwise busy and crazy life and has become the liaison of sorts, but if someone looks at our order of service and was wondering who to talk to, well... they would not know. So we're not sure what type of meeting this will be.

This has been highly functional because the group is pretty cohesive. People have stepped in to host potlucks, send invitations out on the list-serve, and my primary friendships in Seattle are with people from this group. People transition in and out all of the time, but it's still tight. So that's cool.

2) We do need financial support to do this. Most of our events are self funded, be it in the form of going out after church to the coffee shop or hosting potlucks and so forth. In the past, our budget would have been used to pay for this, and we'd contribute the rest on our own (or so I've been told). Well. About that budget. Right. So there is the nervousness of "I really want to be successful".

3) I am personally nervous because I am going mainly because I care, but not because I am intimately familiar with the planning. About four other people have formed the committee. I volunteered to go to the meeting because I get less nervous and because, as a friend kindly stated, I can articulate the reasons for requesting the support. Ignorance, in this case, is an easy problem to fix.

Which leads me to the next point. I sometimes feel more like a UU in places outside of my church than I do inside of it. One piece is my fault: I've taken a minor role in its leadership. I could contribute more. At least now that my life is in order, that I feel like my personal winter may actually be melting and I have been around long enough to know the ropes a bit (a year). A combination of personal troubles, being new, and being inexperienced caused me pause. In retrospect, that was wise.

I thought it was ironic that I take more ownership for my Unitarian Universalist faith and practice outside of my church rather than in it. Perhaps it is because I feel more at home in the community of bloggers? Perhaps it is because it takes time to put down roots? Perhaps. Time to change.

Missions. Purposes. Origins. Uh...

2011-08-24T18:43:00.000-07:00

I am typing this outside, on the balcony of my fourth story apartment. I took a picture to show you what drew me outside:

Clouds. It's an unusual pattern for this neck of the woods, and it is beautiful. There is also sunlight, a perfect degree of warmth and coolness, and my balcony is covered in plants. I am so happy to be here, and I feel like I belong here.

Why do these things make me happy?

Uh, I dunno.

I could invent some ad-hoc reasons. I grew up in a land of snow and dreary weather. If it was nice out, I would go outside. If it was not nice out, I would go outside too. I regularly walked to university when I lived in Buffalo, rain, snow or shine. This is noted not because I wish to declare myself tough, because I actually liked it. Especially if it was snowy. I appreciated that I could walk the forty five minutes in the snow, as people would do before cars. Is it in my nature to like being outside? Perhaps a predisposition to appreciate simple things, inherited from my father? Is there a God that made me this way?

Yep. I still do not know.

Feeling akin to the outdoors is a minor piece of my life. What about my calling, or what gives my life meaning? Since I was a little girl, I felt called to do "God's work". This has meant improving the world in some way. A higher calling than just ensuring one's own profit. At one point I secretly considered becoming a nun. I decided against it, because I also felt called to have a family. Since I eventually left Catholicism, I'm certain that was the correct choice. Elsewhere I have written about how the road that took me to Unitarian Universalism was paved with a desire to find truth and meaning. Of course, UUism welcomes you into a place that validates the need for the search. It provides a forum for ideas. It never pretends to have the answers. We never really, truly know.

Who or what was calling me? I do not know, but I care about these things. Like Matt Kinsi, the inspiration for this post, I know my mission but I do not understand the reason for it. I also feel a passion for doing good, for making the world better. The world is filled with people like us, to the point that it is a cliche. A delicious cliche, one that improves the world but that's another post for another day. I have a passion for social betterment, and that led me to my graduate program in sociology. I study people. I study social problems. These are all many human questions - and I am not sure what inspired me to ask it. I am equally uncertain where to pour my foundation to build this betterment off of.

What drew me to sociology was the social theory. I remember sitting in a social theory class taught by Dr. Jorge Arditi and feeling like I was seeing the world in a new set of colors. Sociological theory, as he teaches it, draws heavily on critical theory and an emancipatory tradition of the Frankfurt School. It was one of those classes that made me realize how much of what I knew was on a foundation of assumed, shaky ground. After my disillusionment with Catholicism, and now with science and knowledge, it was time to go elsewhere.

I spent approximately a year diving into philosophy in search of this. A former friend in Buffalo and I would get together around once a week, and we'd argue. It was a weird relationship, in retrospect. We saw eye to eye on everything and on nothing at the same time. I learned a lot about academic philosophy, but I also learned through this experience that you can reason your way into anything that you want. That is why we have law as a profession, and lawyers are expected to argue all points. Thinking can lead you to nearly any truth you find reasons for. This really did not work out for me.

If religious institutions are suspect, and secular reasoning is also questionable, what is left? My gut? My heart?Yes, I am meandering towards some sort of proto-faith. I often go through my days as if there is a God watching me, caring about me, and supporting me. This lifestyle brings me peace. There is a voice in my head that tells me that God's made up. There is nothing there. I am deluding myself. It says more words to that effect.

What does it matter? Can I ever really know?

I am afraid of doing this, my life's calling, wrong. My calling feels like a path on a river, sweeping me away and guiding me along. Yet I find myself I trying to find the source of this river because I want to know if the water is pure, if by drinking it I am ingesting good or not. I have led myself astray before, to great peril, and my preference is not to go there again. I think that part of the 20's is learning to acknowledge that we do not get to really know. We can believe what we wish to believe, but ultimately we must make peace with the uncertainty and take a risk. It is always a risk. We live at our peril. Rationally, I know this. It does not stop me from searching. Maybe I am wasting my time trying to find the source of this river, when I should be digging it a better path towards the sea. I do not know. I am too young to get it yet.

Interruption

2011-08-23T18:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was going to write a response to a really thoughtful post that Matt Kinsi wrote. I read it in the morning as I got ready for work, nodding as my eyes scanned each successive line. My mind was occupied with it for much of the rest of the day. There were a lot of things that resonated with me, and he asked many of the same questions that bother me. I was delighted to take part in the conversation. I still will. But not then, and not quite now.

So I left work with the intention to get writing once I ran an errand. I needed to take a bike part back, and it had to be done then. I went directly to the place I purchased it so I could get it done, and settle in to write worry-free. I chatted with the friendly gal at the register as I signed the return slip. In the middle of the conversation the lights flashed on and off. The customer behind me, who to this point was loudly discussing the particulars of cable combination locks with a friend, suddenly stopped. "Is the power going to go out?" she asked us.

Wide eyed, the cashier replied, "I don't know." She laughed, "I mean, if it does, I get to go home early." We laughed a bit and I wished her well as I turned to go. Home. To write. It had been raining, like the serious, heavy rain that we do not get too often in Seattle. It was still misting when I left Velo, and so I decided not to cut through Cal Anderson Park on my way home. Instead I crossed East Pine at Broadway. I waited for the red hand to disappear and the white man to show up, both of whom were present and accounted for. The traffic signals were operational. Life as usual; I thought nothing of it.

Until I headed into my section of Capitol Hill, that is.

It was quiet. There was something missing, but I was not quite certain what. Things were weird. A neon sign was not operational in a nearby used book store. There was a firetruck outside of an apartment building. People seemed off a bit. There was the lack of sound. You could hear cars and people's voices, but it still seemed quiet. I walked into my apartment building, and the emergency hall and stairway lights were on. I did not even need to walk into my apartment to know the electricity was out.

My apartment was silent, except for the meows and purrs of my cats at the door. They knew something was up. Their approach had more urgency than normal. There was no hum of the refrigerator, something I generally tune out but now noted its absence. No noise from the other apartments. The lack of sounds seemed loud.

Well, so much for replying to Matt's post. I wrote a letter as part of vegan letter writing project I am participating in, and walked to the post office to drop it off. The walk continued as I scope out the outage, reporting my findings to twitter. Will and I texted each other about potential dinner plans. A friend of mine texted me updates about when the power would be back on. A man sat outside an apartment building with a djembe, shouting to a woman in a nearby building about the outage.

I was back in my apartment when Will got home, and we continued to chat about potential dinner ideas. We have an electric stove, an electric microwave, and not enough propane or stupidity to try to use our camping grill on our balcony. Will didn't like my idea of brownies for dinner. The estimated time of restoration was 10PM, so we were using the daylight to find our candles and flashlights, thinking about places to walk to for dinner purposes. And then we heard a beep. Yes, a beep, the sort of one that your microwave sings when the power comes back on.

"Ohhhh." Will sighed in light-hearted dismay. I laughed, because I felt the same way. I was disappointed that we had electricity again! I did not realize it initially, but I had felt free from technology, free from the routine of life, and exempt from much obligation. I cannot reply to emails if I do not have the internet. I do not feel as though I must stay up to work if it's dark out and we do not have light. At that point, the apartment was still well lit courtesy of the Pacific Northwest's long summer days and our very large windows. Our well-being was not threatened by this event. We were fine. It was just different.

The power outage had felt like a gift. This present came in the form of a few moments' vacation from banality. It struck at something so fundamental to all parts of our lives that we had to stop and rest. We just had to be. Electricity is ubiquitous, and I certainly do not think to disconnect myself from it, nor do I usually feel like it is a tether to all the things that can make life feel chaotic or empty. At least not until we lost power.

We ultimately made dinner on our electric stove and then ate by candlelight, watching the daylight dim. The best of both worlds. Thank you power outage for giving me something new to consider.

Making it through Doomsday

2011-08-19T07:18:00.000-07:00

I was in New York City in a heavy coat and my Dr. Martin's. The shopping mall was underground, and I was trying to find the subway. Finding it was not the problem - it was closed due to unrest caused by the collapse of the economy, the credit card markets and what seemed like instant poverty. Walking through, I had to avoid certain areas because there were riots. I was OK. I played it cool, like I was not worried, like I knew where I was going. I was trying to find my way to the street level, onto the snow, so I could walk home. It would be a long walk, but it was the only way and I had faith in my ability to accomplish it. My cell phone did not work and no one's did. It was shut down to quell the unrest.

Around me were the frightened and the predators. People were running, because they had to. It looked silly, and I reflected on my silly my quick pace probably seems most of the time. Not now. I'm cool. I'm collected. These are precisely what I wanted the people around me, eyeing me to assess wealth, to think. It worked. I was fine.

I get to Macy's, and they have a wall of windows and an entrance outside. It is nighttime, and I can see the red lights reflecting off the snow, and the distance I have to walk. It looked like Buffalo. I see something else - my husband walking towards the entrance, trying to call me. He had walked all the way to meet me, because he did not want me walking alone. I was so happy and surprised to see him, and a voice in my head goes, "Of course." He has cash and some provisions for the walk back. He really thought it through. And of course, he is there. He has been there for me a lot.

We buy some socks (as I wasn't wearing any) and a bag to carry our provisions from hesitant Macy's cashiers, uncertain of the unrest. It was fine, as long as we did not use credit cards. As I laced my boots up, we were still being eyed by the predators around. But no worries. We're cool. We're going to get out. And we'll walk that long road together.
----
I woke up feeling so much at peace. This dream reflects that I am listening to too much NPR and my marriage is a happy one right now. I am writing this more for my friends in Buffalo, who used to hear my crazy dreams all the time and I think this is the first one about the apocalypse that had a happy ending.

Has it really been a year?

2011-08-12T07:21:00.000-07:00

I was walking home from work via 4th Ave. A crowd of large, tattoo covered men were walking along side of me. They weren't locals, but desperately wanted to find one, turning to everyone around and asking, "Are you from Seattle?" The answers from everyone was, "No, I'm from [faraway place] and just visiting."

Being that they were a large group, and I'm one small person, I figured I'd wait until addressed to see what they wanted. The moment came when the loudest of them turned around and started walking backwards, facing me. "Are you from Seattle?" I replied, "No, but I live here." I gave them directions to a bar/restaurant that I figured they may like, one nearly started a fight with a homeless person as I looked in horror and another one gave me an offer of a dinner date. I held my left hand up and declined, and the loudest one started to say something rude about me being married but another started to deck him.

I wished them well, and crossed the street, in a passive-aggressive, indirect manner of escape that is more akin to a Seattlite than a Buffalonian.

For once I knew more about the city than the people surrounding me. I found myself horrified by the way the one guy told the homeless man to "F--- off" instead of the standard, polite (if insincere) "Sorry." Instead of jaywalking, more often than not I wait for the light to change. I wear skinny jeans and tights with the knee-high Dr. Martens that I acquired in Buffalo - both elements of attire I never saw myself wearing.

I am starting to go native.

Will and I were sitting on our balcony last night watching the moon and enjoying the few stars you can see. Our balcony has a nice view of downtown and a glimpse of the sound. These long summer evenings, though they are growing ever shorter, has been quite conducive to our new evening tradition. We shut the computers off, try to disconnect from whatever is eating our mind, and chat. We've both been working long days (though I'm back to a forty hour work week... eight hours felt so brief today) and it's been nice.

We got chatting about how things are probably super different in Buffalo now. The roads and buildings are mostly the same, but people and relationships are different - either be it new or lost, there are changes. Circumstances being the ephemeral things that they are. We would go back to a new order and a different lifestyle. Of course, it would have been changing while we were there too. We just would not have noticed it as much, being part of the change.

Will noted that we've changed too. It's true. Last year's version of me was more open-hearted, but not in a wise way. I am a bit paranoid these days. The company I keep is different. Some of it is geography, of course. Last week I helped people move that I did not know a year ago, declined an invitation from other friends who I'd had yet to have the pleasure of knowing last year because I was not yet so embedded here. Not all of it is location based. Some of it is intentional. I have pulled back from a few people, feeling unable to be the people they needed and work out my struggles at the same time. Or I just let go of others. Case in point, a year ago I wrote a "Happy Birthday" email to someone that I'd see and speak to maybe two more times total, and then never again. (That is part of the reason I'm thinking of year to year changes. Today's date feels familiar. Why is that? Oh, wait...) Last year's me had different ways of telling stories. Her ways of feeling connected to the universe were different. She wasn't employed. I am. I am more isolationist and more cynical, if more street smart. Change. It's happening.

Last year, I never would have been mistaken for a native Seattlite. Now I am wondering how long before I claim the title. Next year, let's see how I have changed then. May it be intentional and positive.

I should help the homeless, but I often don't.

2011-08-08T23:06:00.000-07:00

I gave an elderly homeless man the rest of the bag of trail mix that I had. He was sitting along 4th Ave and Pike Ave, gaunt though clean, with white hair combed into a ponytail, next to a backpack. His voice sounded weak and I felt bad for him. He asked for food, saying he was hungry. I walked on by, as is my custom to do with all solicitors, be them canvassers, men wanting my attention, salespeople, or panhandlers.

I stopped at the edge of the street, waiting for the traffic signal to change. It occurred to me that for once, I actually did have food on me, it was trail mix, and the loss would not hurt me and might help him.

I turned around, fished it out of my purse, walked over, and told him, "If you're hungry, sir, you can have my trail mix." He looked up with weary eyes and said, "Thank you." He looked away.

I turned around, saw the red hand replaced by a white man on the other side of the street, and walked towards it as fast as I could, embarrassed by the whole thing.

I felt dirty. I felt like I did something wrong. I felt like I should have ignored him, that I failed somehow by helping him at all. I talked myself down in Westlake Park, as I continued towards Capitol Hill and home. "I did not do anything wrong. I did not do anything wrong."

It may seem confusing why I, as someone who does actually care about other people's well being, who advocates social change in face of the injustices of capitalism, and who is a Unitarian Universalist for crying out loud, would feel so conflicted when it comes to helping people on the street. It is contradictory that someone who feels so firmly about the worth and dignity of all people would hesitate to engage them, perferring to consider them dignified from afar. I remember reading Victoria Weinstein's article about stopping for homeless people feeling as though she was coming from quite the place of privilege. It's a good article about being present for other people. She does write about homeless people and the downtrodden with the liberal bias to exalt them, which is better than the alternative. One of the homeless men tells Rev. Weinstein that people are just afraid. Yep, pretty much.

When I first read that blog, my husband and I were in a place where every single dollar needed to be counted, accounted, and allocated perfectly if we wanted to keep food on the table, the lights on, and rent paid. At that time, I could justify not helping those on the street because my family comes first. This would have made me a terrible disciple of Jesus, though a somewhat-half-way-decent wife. Well, I have a job now. I am far from rich, but also now far from desperate. No excuse there.

The other part of privilege is the privilege not to live in fear. I am regularly subjected to harassment on the street. The traits I have to thank for it are my perceived youth and tiny size. I do not know anything about Rev. Weinstein's dimensions, but I trust that she does not feel inhibited by them. I look like the sort of person you could harass and get away with it. I might want to deck you, but I became aware that I am likely to lose and now we both know it. I've become wary of most strangers as a result.

I do try to address everyone who addresses me. Often it's a "sorry sir" to a panhandler who wants change, and often I really do not have any cash. Often it's a "Have a good day" to the canvasser who says hello to me, because I know stopping for their pitch would waste their time since I won't give it. Being in a city, though Seattle is the same size as Boston, has dulled my senses. Rev. Weinstein is right when she says that averting one's eyes to human misery gets exhausting.

I also know, from personal experience, that trying to save the world is also exhausting. Particularly if you are ill-prepared to handle the task. This is why social workers emphasize "self-care". They are among the first to forget it. Walking to work often feels like an exercise in reminding myself how disempowered I am in the face of long standing traditions of human suffering. I have an empathy problem: too much. It burns me out and my candle dies. I walk the streets staring straight ahead, not feeling up to seeing what is around me. It is a terrible thing, really.

It is a balancing act. So here comes the solicitors for charity and panhandlers. My resources are not so flush, and my responsibilities not so light that I can afford to be an unwise steward of what I have. I feel a pressure to make sure that every sacrifice is wise, because I am making it on behalf of my family too. I cannot know if it is. It would rob someone of their dignity to give them a survey to make sure they are legitimately in peril. To ensure it's not a scam. Distributing a survey prior to any offering to ensure that someone's victim's tune, so to speak, is coming from a flute of truth robs both of us of our dignity. I can vet charities on the internet in a way that I cannot on the street. There are institutional methods. A lot of them work, at least a little bit.

Ultimately, all help comes from a place of risk. Risks are tricky things. It is harder to be willing to take one on, to be made the fool, if you've been there and done that before. I have, and it hurt bad. In addition, I think our culture places this emphasis on acting right, on having the best information and taking the fewest risks. We would not have Google Maps or Yelp! or any of those sites be so successful if we did not. I know that I can be terrible with uncertainty. I suspect because I am in a student of "figuring stuff out", failing might bother me more than the average bear. Maybe.

So the guilt, tinged with a bit of painful history, a little fear, and the every day experience of being overwhelmed by witnessing suffering colored my interaction with this man on 4th Ave. I cannot help but wonder if others carry similar baggage with them, through the street, weighing themselves down as I do. If we all are a little bit afraid of strangers, a little bit overwhelmed by the world, or if it is just me.

I really hope you all are better than me. I'm working on it.

I hope he liked the trail mix.

Learning to Pray

2011-08-03T07:14:00.000-07:00

I've been praying lately. I think. It is a strange practice for a person who does not exactly believe in an explicit God. It is not like I have any confidence that there is someone listening to my prayers, much less someone who can do anything about them. Once or twice I interrupted myself with this idea, stopping because I felt like I was doing something wrong, or maybe futile.

As a girl, I would talk to God in my head. I never heard a reply back, of course, though I never expected to. It was something I just did. I had faith in the stories that were being told to me about God, Jesus and the saints were true. That I need not worry about not hearing back, because God was still listening.

As I became older, and learned a bit more about people and human nature, and the universality of religion, I began to doubt those stories. There are two ways to approach the fact that every society has had a spiritual component to it: we made it up or it must be true. I am weary of human universals, and I see it more likely that we came up with these systems because life's rough. With that being said, I would not mind being wrong.

About that whole "life being rough" thing. Yeah, life can be rough, the world is as ugly as it is beautiful and I find myself sort-of praying. It kind of... happens. I see something awful (which happens a lot in a city), be it someone sick or on the streets. I am not in a place where I can help them, so I pray. It feels like praying though it does not fit the description. First, they are wordless. These are not explicit petitions, like "God, please help this homeless pregnant gal." Nor is it, "God, thank you for this beautiful day, this beautiful sound with beautiful mountains in the distance I get to look at nearly every day." It is more like a petition of hope, or a sense of gratitude, wordlessly sent to whomever has access to my mind.

It might be no one.

Somehow, that seems OK. I have written letters to people that I never sent, just to help process something difficult. Writing unsent letters is a fairly common practice, from what I understand, but praying among atheists and agnostics is not. My prayers may be unanswerable, little messages that never leave the bottle, but that does not feel too terrible either. Not everything I do needs to be completely productive in a direct sense.

I find it to be productive in an indirect way. I stay present. It helps me accept the suffering around me without feeling completely overwhelmed. It helps me take a step back and be mindful, to take perspective. The guilt that comes with a good day stays away. I feel more connected with the world around me, partially because I am trying to be. As a UU, I do not feel like I have to walk with the pride of being somehow wiser or better than theists, so adopting some of their practices, even if I am unsure about the whys or hows, feels OK. Praying, if that is what I am doing, makes my life a little richer.

And I wore leggings to the interview.

2011-07-29T22:02:00.000-07:00

I have found myself in a zeitgeist, Seattle-specific experience. I wake up to a well-lit morning, which is the summer gift of the Northern latitudes. My husband gets hugged, my hair gets washed, breakfast is eaten and I am out the door. I walk, sometimes hopping the bus in the ride-free zone, to listen to a fellow play sad songs from the 1970s on his guitar in Westlake Station. Other days I walk the entire way, down the hill, one foot after the other, never ceasing to be amazed at the steep grades or the elevation differences. I live towards the top of Capitol Hill, and my job is not too far from Occidental Square, in downtown. No matter what my route, I weave around other people rushing to their buses and jobs, or homeless people sitting on the sidewalk or hawking a newspaper, shouting, "real CHANGE! help the homeLESS!" Pioneer Square has just as many older homeless men among the older trees lining the street in the morning. I pretend to ignore them, but I see them. Just like everyone else. It is kind of a terrible thing. There is a lot of homeless or transient people in Seattle, and on occasion some of the younger ones hassle me because (I think at least) I am all of 5'1.5 and too light to give blood to the Red Cross. In other words, an easy target if you are sick of feeling small and rejected. I never used to be nervous or afraid, but now I am wary of the people I see on the streets. I live in a larger city now, and use aloofness as a defense against solicitations. Just like everyone else, everyday, on the way to work.

A key fob lets me through the glass door and I am in a hip old building that houses hip brick offices with old wood beams that Microsoft once dwelled in. Some of the former tenant's logos adorn a few of the offices. Giant windows let in light to most off the rooms. If I look around the wide and open office, I can see that no one is dressed professionally. We're all clean, well groomed, and fashionable, but there is not a tie in sight. In fact, I wore leggings and a dress to this interview, and was hired the next day. I work for a very young company with fresh ideas and interesting problems, because we are trying to do something that has not been done in quite the way that we are doing it. There's free coffee; it's good coffee, and the machine that makes it is a congregation area complete with puzzles and notes left with sharpie and masking tape. Email threads are friendly, and often end with a thread of frivolity or internet memes. The company is around 100 people in size, and most are under 35 with some of the strongest work ethics I've seen at any job I've ever had.

I really like it here. My coworkers are good people, the work is getting better (I am doing different work than what I was hired for... better work), the environment is crisp and laid back. I read things about culture shock between the older generations and mine, and because my company is nearly entirely Millennials, we don't have that. My employer was accommodating of my family being here, and I feel like I have a life though it makes my grad work harder. All of the computer tips I've struggled to have embraced at other places are done automatically. The hierarchies are flexible, though certainly exist. There is a mutual respect that I really appreciate.

The reason it feels like a Seattle specific experience is because the setting, the vibe, and the company itself would not exist anywhere else I've ever lived. I cannot imagine a company like it finding anyone in Buffalo to invest in it. The laid-back air is a West Coast characteristic. The hip building would be harder to come by, at least in the well maintained form, the vibrant city would not surround it, and the coffee certainly would not be as good. I am very grateful for the job because it is work, but for what I see as a particularly culturally and temporally located experience.

You can take the woman out of sociology for a bit, but you cannot take the sociology out of the woman.

Why do we live in Seattle?

2011-07-29T07:22:00.000-07:00

My parents came to town to visit my husband and I. They live in my fine native city. It was my mother's first plane ride since the late 1970s, and both of their first trip out West. My husband and I did what we could to be excellent hosts and tour guides, knowing that the trip was a big deal and because we were really excited to see them. We're much better guides now that we've lived in Seattle a year. In fact, my parents arrived on the day of our "Seattleversary", if you will.

It was a fantastic visit.

My husband is a logistics wizard, and managed to get free-upgrades on rental cars and perfect hotel rooms. We drove to Mt. Rainier in a brand new (18 miles on the odometer) Chevy Impala that had a sun roof, perfect for viewing the mountain. We drove to Lake Quinault, and then to the ocean, where my husband found a room with a balcony from which we could watch the sunset, sipping wine. Good travel companions make a trip, and I was so happy to be seeing my parents. I am close to them, though not geographically. As we showed them all of the beauty of Seattle, for once I really felt like living here was pretty cool. My father has a well-refined sense of awe, and thoroughly appreciated the Pacific Northwest's natural beauty. My mother loved the ocean, and seeing her "grandcats". A fantastic trip with fantastic company.

And then we drove them to the airport.

We hugged, smiles abound, and I told them how much I loved seeing them. They reiterated how glad they were to come out. We departed, Will and I in the zipcar, and my eyes welled with tears because I already missed them. Seattle went from feeling like this promised land to an island of isolation.

Why do we live in Seattle?! We're so far away from our loved ones!

That's the conflict of living so far away. On a lot of levels, moving out here was a good move professionally, personally, and for our marriage. Yet we miss everyone we love in New York State every day. We worry about raising children away from their (very awesome) grandparents, the fact we'll never be able to do the things that help raising kids out here (buying a house, for instance) because it is too expensive, but there's no jobs back East. We look. Regularly. There is this question that remains - do the reasons we moved out here still apply to wanting to stay here? The answers are often yes, but we moved out here presuming that the job market would be better, and we did not expect to be living at a lower standard of living than we were in Western New York. We are more broke than we were as undergraduates (and yes, we were working and paying most of our own bills), and much more so than being graduate students in Buffalo. We figured we'd be able to afford to go back more often than once a year. Instead we miss the weddings of everyone we know, all the family parties, births and small kids growing up. It is a mixed bag.

The good news is that we do not need to have all the answers tomorrow, and there's always the chance that things will get better. Now that people see how nice Seattle is, I think we'll probably get more visitors too.

My family is in town...

2011-07-26T15:01:00.000-07:00

and I love having them here.

I'm not really sure what to do with Google+

2011-07-14T18:09:00.000-07:00

I have a Google+ account now. Instead of continuing my usual kids-these-days-and-their-smart-phones boycott, I activated it when my husband and a friend both invited me nearly simultaneously. Oh, OK. Google has all my information all ready, why not. You can add me if you would really like.

After setting up some information, I clicked around. Encircled a few people. I scratched my head, wondering who some of Google's suggestions were. I shook my head at some of the other suggestions. I had Will take a half-way decent (but not more than half-way) picture of me that is internet presentable.

And then I stared at it.

...Now what?

I have a locked-down facebook account that I use to share private pictures, and a uber-public twitter account to share weird things I see. I write in this blog, I prolifically text my family, I write very long emails to friends, and I even write letters. My social life is already so entangled with the connecting fibers of social media that I cannot conceive of a purpose for this new service. I imagine that Google is trying to replace Facebook, and that is why they created it.

At the same time, facebook and twitter come with very different internet cultures surrounding them, and people already learned how to use them. Even so, there is also a lot of redundancy (case in point, I sent this tweet to facebook too). I see it like this: there are a few coffee shops around my neighborhood. Becky (howdy!) and I could decide we have not seen each other in awhile, let's get coffee. We then figure we could meet at Peet's, Caffe Vita, Stumptown, Espresso Vivace or Starbucks. We wouldn't meet each other in ALL of these places - all have coffee, we'd be providing the same stories, it just would not make sense. That is how I feel the internet is: it is a place, and you do not travel unless you are seeking something. Stimulation, connection, information - there is something that a website is giving you that you lack otherwise. If Google+ is a place of redundancy, and my habits are ingrained to go elsewhere for them... well. I am not sure it will work.

Or people may decide they like Google+ better, Google+ replaces facebook and twitter, and proceeds to take over the world. We'll see.

In any case, feel free to add me. Be forewarned: I avoid videochat like the plague and instant messaging even more.

Congestion Reduction Charge in Seattle, WA

2011-07-13T05:26:00.000-07:00

If you make a habit of walking along 3rd Ave near the King County Courthouse around 6:00PM, you would have noticed a line of people snaking around the block. We were there to leave a comment on the "Congestion Reduction Charge". Don't listen to KIRO, who makes it sound like there was some controversy among the people in the line. Every single person I ran into supported the CRC. You don't stand in line for four hours because you don't want to pay $20.

That was the line at 5:45PM, the hearings started at 6:00PM. According to the Seattle Transit Blog, they did not conclude until nearly 10:00PM. The line was also long due to the security check. Nearly everyone there had a backpack to be scanned, which took longer. Why? They had come off the bus.

Will and I sold our car when we moved to Seattle. We use Metro to get to everywhere we need to go, and it is sufficiently reliable that from Capitol Hill that we can apply for work in most places of King County. A good public transit system is the sort of thing that makes a city appealing to my generation. We're likely to want to live in dense areas. Cuts to public transit happen because it is subject to the public coffers and seen as somehow a secondary way of getting around. To presume a norm of driving is, IMHO, not acknowledging generational change for one. For two, Seattle really can't hand much more traffic than it already has. For three, let's not cut the environmentally friendly alternatives, alright? It'll be another few years before we have a subway going some places. I would be willing to pay the extra $20 if it maintained service and I have no car.

If you were not there and would like to submit written testimony, go here.

EDIT: A good friend of mine sent me a link to the Transportation Choices blog because it features my husband and I, holding a sign. Check it out here.

Yes, blog readers. Now you all can see for yourselves: I support the CRC.

Yep, I'm not very tall.

A Gainfully Employed Syracusan in Seattle.

2011-07-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

The first day of school (grade school, college) used to come with anticipation, hope and excitement. I would wake up with butterflies in my stomach, feeling eager, like a piece of destiny in some youthful way. Well, today is the first day of my new job and I feel none of that. It feels like another appointment; just another piece of my life that will occupy my time. This job is another notch on a belt of responsibilities I need to tend to. That is fine.

I now have a 9-5 at an internet marketing firm. The acquisition process was a whirlwind - apply Tuesday, interview Wednesday, receive an offer Thursday, find work-appropriate clothing Friday-Saturday, and reflect Sunday. Another sign of adulthood, along with the wedding band, shorter hair, and bills in my name: employment is a means to an ends, not the ends itself. I am looking forward to the paycheck more than the tasks, though I am confident that I will do a fine job and I will work hard to ensure I do.

I used to see work as one's life purpose, and I understand that is a common perspective among Millennials. My aspirations are to contribute to this planet in a way that improves it, and so my intended profession (sociology) was chosen with that in mind. My resume, thus far, suggests I am a save-the-world type - the implication is accurate. So here I am, about to start a job in the grinds of capitalism instead of some lofty purpose. It never crossed my mind that I am "selling out" (at least not until reflecting on it on Sunday), because it is now more important to have enough to pay rent and eat. We were in a place where the project of day-to-day living was sufficiently exciting to take a toll on my ability to maintain peace and was quite stressful. It is funny how much a former version of my self was so much more idealistic, enamored with the unconventional, and so much more inclined to extol living off the grid, or on the margins of normal society for hopes of living "purely". No, seriously, I am laughing at myself right now. On the other hand, I had often said that I could be happy as long as ends were meeting. Work is not the only facet of my life, and I also see the world in a broader way. I see purpose differently. That is another post for another time.

I woke up on my own at 4:30am to the sun rising, and then I watched the sunlight reflect off downtown in its beautiful gold glory. I laid in bed until around 5:40am. My next order was to make coffee, then I showered, drank the aforementioned coffee, ate breakfast, woke my husband up (his alarm did not go off), did my push-ups, checked email, started this blog post, and put my dress clothes on. It smells like an emerging routine. Routines can make life boring but I am welcoming the potential stability. It has been awhile.

This is the first time I am employed by a non-university entity since I finished undergrad, when I resigned my nearly seven long stint at Wegmans. It means I am working two jobs, since I am also working for my advisor, which is another way this feels like undergrad again. Consequently, this blog will be a much less frequent endeavor. Or maybe not - if I feel that my work does not fulfill me, I may write more often. We shall see.

In any case, I need to go to work.

Recipe: Poor Woman's Soy Crumbles

2011-07-10T19:44:00.000-07:00

Want the texture of soy crumbles but don't like the price? Left over chickpeas and half a block of tofu in your fridge? Well I've got a recipe for you.

Try this:

1/2 block (8ish oz?) extra firm tofu, shredded with vegetable grater
1/2 cup cooked chickpeas (preferably ones you rehydrated yourself), ground with fingers
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 tsp chipotle chili powder
A couple tbsp of vegetable oil for frying

1. Mash all the ingredients together
2. Let sit five minutes.
3. Saute the mixture until it is a bit ~~burned~~ crispy.

Makes enough to make about six taco tortillas. It's not going to fool anyone, but it is tasty.

How I Became UU

2011-07-08T08:38:00.000-07:00

I think I've mentioned that I contribute to The Next Great Generation. It is a millennial interest blog, with all of the contributors under 30. They are trying to be the voice of my generation; I am not sure what that really means. In any case, they are doing a "Not your average theme" Week, and I submitted an essay about becoming UU:

I grew up Catholic, but I’m not anymore. It’s a common enough story. That I went back to religion is rare. That I went back to a religion that’s losing people is rarer still. (Read More)

I wrote it not so much because I think my story is particularly unique or interesting; it is a pretty common story among UUs. I swear that half the congregation at my beloved former church, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Amherst, were former Catholics.

I wrote it because it is uncommon among millennials. We are drifting away from all sorts of institutions, be it marriage, stable employment, or religion. I think UUism has a lot to offer my generation, if we would find it in the first place. So I am hoping that maybe my story would help out someone else in my generation find that ever-elusive direction. Again, my verbosity ensured that the article was edited a lot (for instance, my last post was 1800 words... if the TNGG editors have worn out delete keys, I am probably responsible) but it is true to my submission.

Let me know what you think!

The Grudge, Part II

2011-07-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

All grudges are the same.

This occurred to me when I realized that my life reads like a novel, with parallel story lines, symbolism and foreshadowing. Stories seem to repeat themselves around me. Granted, human experiences are not that diverse. We often make the same mistakes and have the same successes. Similar things bring joys and sorrows; we truly are in an interdependent web. I find myself lost when the plot of my life goes onto new territory. A grudge was not new territory, if the story surrounding its inception was.

I can write about grudges in vague terms because while the origin of one is kind of a crazy, ugly story, and the origin of another a trite and banal one, the broader elements are the same. I am writing about a particular situation, but this grudge was just like all the other ones I have had.

Awhile ago, I was corresponding with a former acquaintance via email. He was describing some bad blood he had with a close family member. This was someone who repeatedly had tried to reach out to him, but he always pushed them away. He was hurt and angry with this person for a lot of reasons, and could not, did not want to, or even saw the use in forgiving them. It seemed like it was really eating away at him, and having a harmful effect on his life in other ways. I argued that he should just let it go.

I wrote, among other things,

"[Person], hate will eat you alive. It might take awhile, but it will devour you. I'm not trying to say that your feelings aren't valid - they are. Or that you don't have a right to them - you do. It's just that it strikes me, on a human condition level, that letting go of one's hate is best for their sanity and well being. It's draining, you know?"

He replied,

"Maybe, maybe not. If it's the case, I hope hate likes condiments."

My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. (I probed for the meaning, because I felt his phrasing was confusing. Essentially, he was arguing that if hate will eat him alive, then he would rather facilitate this than let the grudge go.)

His active resistance stunned me. On some levels, I should not have been so surprised: it is foolish to presume a world view that makes so much sense to me would be shared by others. Particularly considering that his view of the world was notoriously different than mine, and his ways of being and functioning in it were also quite dissimilar to me. The same could be said for anyone else: we are coming from different places. Even so, I remember feeling shocked that someone could, and would even want to, continue to hold onto something that was (so obviously, it seemed) causing them harm.

In my mind's eye, he was tightly clutching ninja-stars, the sharp edges continually and deeply cutting into his hands. The defense he had developed in response to the initial wound was injuring him further. Dropping them, it seemed, would be the only way to allow healing to start. He did not see it this way. This was a part of him, the pain was a part of him. Why let that go?

Cue the irony...

He would become the person that I begrudged. In the interest of repeating story lines, we, like he and his family member, are not speaking. Perhaps the silence is for the best with his family. It certainly was, and is, for me. I suspect it is for him.

All grudges are the same. They involve expectations unmet. Maybe the expectation was help, trust, non-harming, showing up to a birthday party, recognition, keeping your city/product safe, not hurting a loved one or keeping in contact with your mother. The details do not matter for this discussion. I had an expectation. Several, in fact. The important ones were unmet.

I felt so justified in my anger. Maybe I was. Maybe I was not. A grudge's existence is not necessarily based on any objective reality, just the emotional logic of the bearer. I do not think that any justification or lack thereof matters much these days. It is not my reasoning which is on trial here. The point is that my bitterness did not alter anything about the grudge's origin. My indignation will not change the past.

"Hate is drinking poison, expecting the other person to die."

There I was, clenching the ninja-stars in my fists, feeling them cutting into my flesh, but afraid to let go. It felt like this grudge was protecting me somehow, like I thought these weapons that were doing me quite a bit of harm were necessary for my safety. Protecting me from going back, protecting me from inviting further harm from these unmet expectations and the harm done to my loved ones. Meanwhile, this grudge was devouring me and digesting me ever so slowly. I cannot say I did not know better: I had given the advice I was struggling so much to take!

A book I read suggested that if you cannot forgive a person, or let go of a grudge, then release them and it to God. Thanks, self-help book. Now I need to go find God. I settled on my faith instead, and sought out some wisdom. Rev. Nate Walker refers to clutching an "ever fashionable grudge bag" in his argument of Unitarian Universalism's need to be a saving faith through an innovative morality. OK. Lynn Cox refers to forgiveness as "The Final Form of Love". If you are bitter, you are not really interested in love, but she makes some good points -

"Forgiveness does not mean allowing a harmful situation to continue. Forgiveness does not mean pretending that an act caused less harm than it actually did. Forgiveness does not mean continuing a relationship as if a harmful incident never happened. Relationships continue, but they are changed in the process of hurting and healing."

In my case, the relationship "change" became "termination". Rev. Cox goes on to argue that's not the way to go. That throwing someone back to the universe means I am denying their humanity. Um, no. I can owe up to our human commonalities, which there were many, including my heavy contribution to fault, and decide that coexisting in the world without contact is the best for everyone. I can apologize (as I did), I can forgive (as I have been trying) and still need to keep my distance if that is what is best for me and my family. So when Rev. Kirk Loadman-Copeland argued that, "Forgiveness need not result in reconciliation in which the relationship is restored," I nodded my head.

Rev. Loadman-Copeland paraphrases Marilynne Robinson's quote that understanding is a form of forgiveness. This makes sense, considering so many things are the result of misunderstanding. I was in a place where I knew this person well enough to get it - to give him very charitable interpretations of his actions, and I was privy to a lot of his pain. We were close. So, I can say that everything makes sense. Understanding made it more painful. Understanding does not undo the damage done.

It took me awhile to realize that the "making sense" on the path to forgiveness was a reliance on logic. Forgiveness is not a rational act. It is something you do for your health, your sanity, for the sake of the world, not because you "should" or are obligated to.

Slowly, my grip on my ninja-star-like grudge relaxed. I had help. My husband is a saint. My friends and family are loving, understanding, grace-giving people. Will and I moved to Seattle. We acquired new, more pressing problems, ever-more unrelated to this one as time passed. We learned to cope with them. We acquired new friends, new experiences, and dare I say it? New frustrations and new ways of being wronged. Fortunately, these are easier ones to forgive. Some problems got solved. Others felt more tolerable. Time went on, and it became clear that life does too. My heart began to acknowledge what my mind already knew: my white-knuckle grip on the past bleeds on my otherwise fine present. Being present became easier. I am starting to find my old self again, the one who is spiritually unencumbered and the one that feels effective and happy.

There is another piece to this, too big to fully describe here: self-forgiveness. I have a lot of culpability, and thinking of my contributions to it is painful. I described this to a Christian writer that I admire, who replied with, "Don't you know that you have been forgiven?" She was referring to the grace of Jesus Christ. She could have been talking about the people in my life. My husband, friends, family, and so forth. Like usual, they are better people than me. My inability to forgive myself for my role has served as extra knots in rope tying this grudge against the other to me. The struggle to extend that human compassion to this other person has also been a fight to give some to myself, and my own high standards. I wonder if this is a piece of all grudges, a piece of self-blame towards one self for a failure to prevent or foresee an event, or simply wishing they had behaved better in face of it. Letting anger against the other go means that I have to cope with the anger I have towards myself.

I am a work in progress. Part of the progress is dropping the grudge, forgiving those who wrong me, and moving on in the world. Life tests you before it teaches you, and even when you knew better sometimes you still learn the hard way.

And so I learned the lesson of how heavy the weight of carrying a grudge really is, even though I already knew it.

A Blog for No Audience?

2011-07-06T17:20:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like I am a writer with no audience.

This is not true. I have readers. You are one of them. If you are a typical one, you either know me in real life, followed the link from UUpdates, or Googled "Seattle Sluts" and ended up here. This leads me to believe that finding more readers is a simple question of making more friends, joining a religion with higher membership, or writing more frequently about sex.

But, what is the point?

Frankly, I do not write for readers. Not in the interest of acquiring more, at least. When the cursor blinks on a blank document, the motivation for my fingers is not "What do people really want to hear?" I opt instead to write what is burning on my mind. That is the way of art - it is about the artist and their expression. I am not claiming to be an artist, so much that I am copying their work ethic. It is the opposite of capitalism, or service, which focus on the needs of the consumer or needy and give them what they want. The good artists happen to touch on something that other people relate to. The capitalists are doing it intentionally. Both motivations are self-serving in many ways, and so neither feel that ethical.

Good blogs have a theme, or a purpose. This one is all over the place. What is the theme? What do I chose to write about? It is a mash of millennial angst, social justice worries, Unitarian Universalist spirituality, veganism and vegan recipes. They are intertwined, for instance being UU led me to veganism. The mash mean that this blog files uncomfortably in any category: too much spirituality for a vegan blog. Too many recipes for a blog about transitions.

I could cater my subjects to those my readers want to hear. The obvious question follows: what is that? I have a small queue, provided mostly by a wise friend of mine, of UU related topics that I just have not had deep thoughts on. I contribute to a lifestyle site for millennials, and that is writing on demand.The ideas come from an editor. You would think that a contributor to a zeitgeist website (zeitgeist is one of my favorite words) would have a sense of what is burning in my fellow millennial's minds. Um... not really. I live a great deal of my life under rocks, in caves, or out of view. I do not listen to the radio and I do not have a television. Most of the media that enters my awareness was invited. That is not the way to know what is going on around you; on the other hand, there is so much pollution, it seems the way to keep life meaningful.

So now what? What do you all care to know?

Promotion is another issue. I follow a couple people who have great blogs on twitter. I would link them, except that this next comment is kind of scathing, and it is not about them but their technique. I can describe the technique without talking badly of them as people, and they do write fantastic blogs. Their twitter feeds are their promotional and networking tools. They link their posts frequently, a few times a day, and cross reference each other. Consequently, their twitter feeds end up being a sea of self-publicity. It comes off as narcissistic, particularly when the promoted posts are over a year old. The other thing is that they are really good at writing hooks, so I get annoyed when I find myself at the same post three times a day. A good rule for life is not to do things that bother you in other people (my adherence: imperfect), so I would prefer to avoid that technique. At least to the extent that the example bloggers deploy it.

Twitter is another conundrum for me. I read the posts of other sociologists, other bloggers, Doomtree and my beloved family and friends. So my own tweets are a combination of serious academic, spiritual concerns, and general goofballery. In other words, wildly unprofessional and sort of unfriendly. I am figuring that out. This blog ultimately ends up being an op-ed or story telling. (Let me tell you this story about how I moved to Seattle...)

This is all part of that quarter-life, what I am, what-role-do-I-want-to-play in-this-world self-introspection that I am starting to think never ends.

What do you think?

Independence Day

2011-07-04T17:40:00.000-07:00

Today is the Independence Day for my country. Twitter is filled with people who swell with an all-accepting patriotism or people who swell with shame from our historic and current failures. Americans are lousy with grays, being drawn to black or white. I do not think that Independence Day should be characterized that day.

It's like a person's birthday. You look over the year, you see good things, you see failure. You look over a lifetime, and you see examples of moral failures and of shining character. You can choose to define this person with one or the other, but that is not particularly objective. You choose to see what you choose to look at.

The United States is neither completely good nor completely bad. I am glad to be here, and I am comfortable with my ethnic identity as an American, with my citizenship, and that these come with membership in a society that has a lot of problems and evil things. I propose that we use Independence Day as a day of reflection, to be grateful for what is good and not blindly overlook what is not. It would seem healthier that way.

Equal Rights Amendment

2011-06-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

I contribute to The Next Great Generation, in their "current events" section and sometimes for the special weeks.

I wrote about the Equal Rights Amendment here. It's not completely my work, as the articles go through an editorial process (which makes it a bit more readable, IMHO). Readers of this blog know that I am nothing if not verbose. I write there to practice making my writing more readable, because my academic inclinations make me feel like I am a failure if I do not include every nuance, and TNGG is ultimately a pop-culture site.

So let me know what you think, if you feel so inclined. :)

Syracusan in... Key West

2011-06-27T06:53:00.000-07:00

I am on vacation.

My husband's grandfather and step-grandmother have a house in Key West, with a guest house on the property. He's generously allowed my husband, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and I to stay in it. It's an inexpensive vacation, as far as vacations to Key West go. Getting here and feeding ourselves are the only expenses.

Key West is like going to a city in a tropical area. My previous trip to Florida was to Cayo Costa with the University at Buffalo Outdoor Adventure Club, and that was an uninhabited, natural island.It was quiet, peaceful, and beautiful. I had similar expectations for Key West, and that's not what it's like. There is a lot of people pleasures and the natural areas have litter. It is still nice - we don't get this heat in the Pacific Northwest, and it's super chill to spend time with family that we do not see very often. The climate is nice because it is only for ten days and thus has lots of novelty.

We're cooking lots of vegan/vegetarian meals for my husband's family and that is delightful.

Sexuality, Sluts, and Skin: Slutwalk Seattle and The Solstice Parade

2011-06-20T11:58:00.000-07:00

I showed up to Slutwalk Seattle late. Who misses the "Walk" part of an event entitled "Slutwalk"? I do. I think I mentioned that I was at my beloved church playing in the Intergenerational Orchestra for the service, and so time constraints with bus travel and such did not align it very comfortably. Fortunately, I showed up at Westlake Center to join a huge crowd standing at the beginning of the rally.

I looked around. The crowd was beautifully diverse: ages, sexes, genders, manners of presentation. Some were dressed like me: pants, shirt, jacket, most skin covered. (It was my "usual": black on black, only with some giant hoop earrings, which constitutes my version of "edgy"). I would argue that I was on the bottom of the provocative scale. There were some creative outfits, some barely-there outfits, filled with people who felt free. This was the second time that I was at an event that featured usually-taboo exposure of flesh: I saw the nude cyclists at the Fremont Solstice Parade. It was amazing. It was one of those days where I love living on the West Coast, I love being in the Pacific Northwest, and I appreciate the way the hippie culture still exists here, in the undertones. Slutwalk, unlike the Solstice Parade, had a purpose of highlighting a problem.

I'm not too big to pretend that I was not a bit taken aback by exposure in Slut Walk in ways that I was not at the Fremont Solstice Parade. This is counter-intuitive, or at least suggests that I have an instinctual reaction that is not correlated with the amount of flesh exposed. Was it the manner of presentation?

I think it was the emphasis on sexuality. Those clothes are sexy, and they are designed to demonstrate that the wearer is sexy. (Of course, being sexy never means that one wants sex, or that it's there for the taking, or that they are somehow relinquishing the sovereignty over their body. Sexiness does not excuse rape.) This applies to both men and women - I am not singling out the ladies for demonstrating sexiness because men were doing it too. Dressing "sexy" is ultimately socially constructed, as this author points out, "sexy" means different things to different people, in the same way that "fashionably appropriate" means different things to different people or to different generations, cultures, and coasts. (I'm pro-leggings, by the way.)

There's a lot of controversy regarding the use of "slut" in Slut Walk. Some say it's satire, and I imagine that's true. At the same time, satire is effective when people "get it", and I am not so certain they do. I don't particularly identify with the term. I guess being married makes me feel like the world is disinterested in labeling my sexuality, even though I know that's not true. So showing up to "Slutwalk", while I agree with all the tenents, felt like I was at a party that I was not invited to.

I agree wholeheartedly with the concept of not penalizing women for having or expressing sexuality. It is part of the human experience, and denying that is denying women some of their humanity. At the same time, I worry that sexuality, in its consumerist, socially constructed glory, has too much power to define us overall. That is the struggle of being a woman, isn't it? Being beyond what society tells you that you are, and so so so often it is an object of male gaze. The emphasis on beauty and sexiness is a factor in the devaluing of older women (relative to younger women) It does not matter what you are wearing for that definition to take hold. I have been cat called, stared down, or otherwise harassed on the streets in everything from a skirt, men's shorts and a t-shirt, loose jeans, tight jeans, tank top or loose long sleeves. I get harassed on the streets a lot. Probably the result of my small size. It is all about expressing power, and I worry when sexuality gets tangled with power. I also fear that the "I have a right to be sexy!" (true) becomes playing into a trap. I want to be presumed more than my sexuality. I learned the word "pornification" today. I think that sums up what I am worried about.

What I would really love to see is a violence-free world where sexuality is just way of practicing consensual intimacy and other consensual, healthy, social relationships. Not a tool of violence, not as providing a toolkit for defining others people's identities or worth, or establishing social hierarchies.

Essentially, I want a social situation where we do not require Slutwalks or the conversations surrounding them.

EDIT: I think the other element of this, is that the celebration of sexuality was so predictably conforming the mainstream ideas of what "sexy" means, that I feel it encourages some oppressive ideas, rather inadvertantly.

Of course, the message of Slutwalk is worth repeating. No means No. Always.

How does your hometown look from far away?

2011-06-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

I was at SlutWalk Seattle, well, the rally portion, because noon on a Sunday doesn't work so well for a church-going, carless gal, who was playing in the choir today. So the rally - needed, great and moving. That's a different post for a different day.

On the walk back, I got into a conversation with a couple gals, asking about the details of their signs which involves sexual trafficking of minors. Through the course of conversation, I found out they'd been there awhile, and we got chatting about gentrification. (This is what happens when a bunch of progressives get together. It's the natural course of conversation, obv.) I told them that I had moved from Buffalo, where gentrification takes a different shape than in Seattle because it's co-existing with depopulation.

"Oh, like Syracuse?"

My eyes widen. "Yeah, like, I'm from Syracuse!" It turns out that she learned about the effects of de-industrialization at school, and Syracuse was the textbook case of how a community can be devastated by the loss of industry.

Well, I'll be.

Happy Things (A Bulleted List)

2011-06-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

Time to count blessings (a good way to stem anxiety)

I have a phone date with an old friend from my fine native city either tonight or this weekend. My husband encouraged me to call him; he reminded me that I miss him.
I have a phone date very soon with an old friend/former bridesmaid of mine that has been WAY TOO LONG since I talked to! I am looking forward to that.
I am getting the first hair cut I'd ever paid for tomorrow. Thanks Living Social!
I found another focus group that'll take me and cover some expenses.
The upcoming solstice means that the days here are long, very long. I really love the extended sunlight, and the ability to forget that it is 10:00PM. I woke up at 4:00AM this morning, and the day was breaking.
The upcoming solstice means that there is a parade on Saturday. I'm looking forward to it. The parade looks great and it ends at my favorite park in Seattle.
I spent this morning on the phone with a cousin I haven't seen in YEARS. That was wonderful.
I'll be seeing that cousin, her husband and children, sister, brother and mother in a couple weeks! I am SUPER EXCITED.
I am seeing them because Will and I are going to Florida to visit my mother-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law and uncle-in-law. The trip is an exercise in poor budgetary planning, but I think I will not regret it. We'll be eating peanut butter sandwiches on the beach and enjoying ocean and warmth in a way that the Pacific Northwest does not have.
I'll be seeing another cousin the next day, for the fourth, if I do not see her this weekend.
Did I mention we're seeing Will's family?
My Kindle is inexplicably damaged (I have a suspicion, but the timing is all wrong and it was fine directly afterwards), but after a very pleasant phone call it looks like that shall be resolved at no cost to me.
A friendly conversation with a Comcast service broker may mean that we don't necessarily need to disconnect our internet. (Yes, we are considering disconnecting the internet from the apartment to keep costs lower.) The fact that disconnecting the internet does not feel like the end of the world if we do.
The Seattle Public Library.
Being mostly caught up and mostly happy today.

Vegan Soul Kitchen

2011-06-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

While I am lauding my friend, the Seattle Public Library, I have to share this book that I was fortunate to be able to check out of the Capitol Hill Branch.

Vegan Soul Kitchen.

It's a cookbook of the vegan take on soul food. There are lots of combinations and ideas that I had not considered (and I'm mainly a triage cook, accustomed to putting unusual things together). The book is dripping with delicious ideas, and it starts out with the score for a blessing song. There are no illustrations, but the text is sufficiently interesting to be inspiring. I cannot wait to try some recipes.

In somewhat related news, I saw a cyclist yesterday wearing a Dinosaur Bar-B-Que T-shirt. I shouted to him that I liked it; I think he was confused. The restaurant itself is a sort of vegan hell, but their barbecue sauce (or, as they call it, "Sensuous Slathering Sauce") makes for absolutely delicious baked beans, tofu scrambles, and a plethora of other recipes. And - it was a little bit of Syracuse in Seattle. You know, homesick nostalgia. In more related news, I have officially become a Syracuse ex-pat: I asked my mother to bring some Dinosaur sauce when she comes to visit.

On Craig Groeschel's Weird: Because Normal Isn't Working

2011-06-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

Craig Groeschel's book Weird: Because Normal Isn't Working was reviewed on a blog that I sometimes read. The review was glowing, and the snippets were interesting. Curious, I consulted my dear friend, the Seattle Public Library, which has four copies. It is a super quick read. Overall, it makes some great points, and the author deftly synthesizes wisdom from the Bible in a way that is relevant to our era. With that said, because it is a Christian book, and because it holds a Christian tenant of one truth very strongly, there are many parts that I found less useful or offensive to my ethical and moral sensibilities.

The take-home message is that "normal", which Groeschel describes as burdened by lifestyles of overspending, taxed relationships, over-extending schedules, and drifting values, does not work. He advocates being "weird", which he equates with living according to a Christian outlook, but really, one's sense of conscience. He argues that the ways of the world are not the ways of Christ, and as Christians, one should think beyond the world and orient their life to God. I am not Christian, but I found the message useful in that striving for an improved world (even if my ideal does not correspond to his) requires being rooted and brave.

There were a few points of contention that I had with his assumptions: is the lifestyle he describes really the norm? There was little data (only six footnotes in the whole book) to back it up. For instance, I take issue with is his adultery statistic. He cites (on page 147) the Journal of Psychology and Christianity in saying that 65% of husbands and 55% of wives will commit adultery. That's way too high, unless their definition of "adultery" is incredibly liberal. He does not tell which article it is from, so I cannot verify how they came to those findings. Statistics that I am familiar with, though outdated, say that 50% of husbands and 38% of wives commit adultery, and the stats floating around on the internet (cited as "Associated Press") are even lower, 22% of husbands and 14% of wives. This, and the other lack of empirical support, brings the definition of "normal" into question. He's a pastor, not a social science researcher, so it does seem appropriate to be a bit generous with the standards of social truth. In any case, I struggled with the idea that his definition of "weird" is actually out of the ordinary.

I think his chapters on money are the best in the book. He describes how sheparding resources for a greater purpose is weird, how saving is weird, and how treating money as a tool you have to improve the world is weird. While his idea of improving the world is to glorify God (and Groeschel would likely cite Jesus and deride me for my love for the world and concern for it), my idea of having money as tool and purpose for betterment for the planet really resonated. Especially as an eco-conscious vegan, this notion that what I own should not own me is useful. It made me feel more comfortable with my meager resources.

I think many UUs will wince and cringe with Groeschel's condemnation of homosexuality. I certainly did. He also sees sexuality as only proper in a married relationship, which is another point of contention. There is married sexuality and sin, and no in-between. This brings me to another point: the book presumes that a socially conservative way of life is the proper Christian one, so the liberal religious may find themselves doing a lot of ignoring. Everyone is presumed to have children and a family, or to be orienting their lives in that direction. The depictions of men and women fall in line with very normal, old fashioned ideas. In this way, it seems that the audience he is aiming for is more "normal" than "weird", given the heterogeneity of family types. I think most UUs would pick up on that fairly quickly too.

This book may be interesting to open-minded agnostics and atheists who are comfortable with agreeing to disagree, and translating "God" into whatever relevant meaning the word has for them. For example, wherever he said "God" I took to mean a purpose beyond myself. Consequently, this, like many non-fiction lifestyle books, will not fully resonate with those who do not accept or believe Jesus as their personal lord and savior, or see the Bible as anything short of the written word of God. Fortunately, the Bible, like all UU sources, has a lot of wisdom in it, and I think Groeschel really pulls from the most relevant in this book. Lifestyles should be intentional. Fear is not a great way to live - he argues that faith in God's should stem fear. Being that I have no belief in an explicit God, I took this to mean "have faith" - the useful self-delusion that the scary world will somehow be less scary for yourself.

Many of the struggles Groeschel describe could be applied to anyone or community: people pleasing, struggling to raise children, balancing work and family, values drifting, being welcoming to others in a community, money, and being effective. Even if the "normal" cited does not reflect "normal", the message of Weird is useful. I would recommend this book to someone that is comfortable with being challenged and does not expect to agree with everything they read, and can be forgiving of intolerance. I think the bigger picture is compatible with most. I recommend taking it out from the library rather than purchasing it because the book drips with heterosexism, and my version of "weird" does not support that.

I was hit by a bicycle yesterday and knocked to the ground.

2011-06-07T09:02:00.000-07:00

Yep.

I was walking to Savery Hall at the University of Washington, along side of Kane Hall. I had come off the bus, and I was lost in my thoughts regarding an Internal Review Board application I needed to get submitted (essentially, how the University ensures that we are not hurting people when we do our research.) I heard a bike coming up behind me, so I turned to see and jumped back, and the cyclist either was equally in his thoughts as I was (it IS finals week over here), or swerved to miss me in the direction that I jumped. They cyclist, a young male undergraduate whose bike and equipment configuration suggested "infrequent rider", was going quite fast. I don't remember how he hit me, but I can guess how I fell by assessing my injuries. I remember being stunned by the force of the bike, the speed which my body kept tumbling, and my sheer powerlessness in all of it. The cyclist was thrown from the bike, but he was OK too.

I hope you've never been hit by a bicycle. I think people presume it must be trivial because they are much smaller vehicles. While people can and do die from bicycle impacts, that is usually true. Now I can say that I have been hit by both bicycle and car (though I was biking in the auto incident). The car hit my bike's back tire and I went flying, but the impact was not direct. I am more injured in this incident with a bicycle because of that directness. But not badly injured.

Despite yesterday's warm weather, I was wearing my thick black (skinny) jeans, and a thick fabric jacket which acted like a second skin, keeping the scrapes minimal. Had I worn the dress I had intended to, I'd be covered in scabs right now. The impact itself hurt like Hades, and today my neck and shoulder and legs are all very sore. I iced my knee yesterday so that seems bruised, nothing worse. The cyclist was very contrite, wanted to know if I needed to go to the hospital (no), if I was OK (uh, give me a second to collect myself... I think so), and there were two other people standing around. I appreciated that.

I did not report it to campus police on account of my relative lack of injuries. My instinct was to forgive the fellow. He told me his name, but I forgot it - it's an ethnic Asian name that prior to meeting him, I'd never heard it. It was an accident. He clearly wasn't out to run down pedestrians. Reporting it would not undo the incident, I did not need anything replaced, why bother? Though not being hit would be preferable, I am not angry at him. I wish it did not happen, but I have no grudge. Life's rough sometimes.

More than anything else, it was scary. I am not too proud to pretend that I was cool, calm, and collected. The bicycle slammed into me a reminder of my powerlessness. I have expressed to my husband and friends that I am struggling with a changed world-view from let's say a year or so ago. It's like whether you see omnivores as not-vegan or as potential vegans. They are harmful to your cause as not-vegans, but they just haven't seen the light yet if they are potential vegans. The second view is much more charitable and optimistic. So you can see the world's problems as doom-and-gloom, or as things that just haven't yet had the chance to be improved. Somewhere in the last year my perspective and sense of truth shifted from the world as potential to a world full of danger. I used to feel more empowered in it to affect change. These days I feel powerless in the face of the ebb and flow of society's social processes and institutions.

Hmmm. That seems overly dramatic. I do not mean it to be dramatic. It just is what it is. I am wondering if it is the artifact of a few life events or the big one: aging. I strongly suspect it is the latter, though my millennial friends (and older!) will have to confirm that one. Is it natural for that wide-eyed sense of wonder and idealism to melt into cynicism? A sense of safety and security to dissolve a little bit, realizing that there is a risk you will not be able to provide for yourself or those who depend on you? That things will happen to you that you cannot control, prevent, or fix? Well, that's a bummer.

The long story short: I was hit by a bicycle yesterday and it reminded me of my place in the universe.

A Year Later. (The Grudge, Part I)

2011-06-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

I have been fighting a grudge over the last year. "Bearing a grudge" does not seem like the right phrase. I really want to let it go, I recognize it as a form of poison, and I regard it as an enemy. People talk about letting grudges go like it's a simple as if you toss it overboard. I've found it to have some tether and anchor-like qualities. It's a terrible weight to my spirit (if I can be so bold to say I have one), and I find it hard to carry, but unfortunately harder to throw off so that it's completely severed.

"Why are you so angry?"

Silent questions. Not that anyone would disconnect from their headphones long enough to notice that I was speaking to only myself. Not that someone talking to themselves, singing to themselves, or shouting at the wind is all that unusual here. I live in a strange neighborhood, yes. No matter what social conventions I buck or forget, I am not the craziest person on the street. Normality is like a slide, and there is freedom sliding off the end of it, into the rest of the playground. However, I decided about nine months ago to avoid these races to the bottom. Sharp, splintered wood-chips and a desire to grow and grow up provided sufficient incentive to be critical of deviant behavior. It is also normal to have a grudge. But this is not behavior I care to conform to. I need to let it go.

So instead, I talk to the clouds in the way that one silently prays, pretending it is a conversation with the universe and all its parts. Imagine being a cloud for a moment: wispy, bright orange, covering everything and with a killer view of the beautiful land below. I am a sucker for a view, a sign that my acclimation to Seattle has not been a complete failure. I am a force of nature, a different type. The things with forces of nature is that they contribute to balance or they destroy. Grudges are not balanced. There's more to this task than self-reflection in the shadow of sunsets. I have been reading books, talking vaguely to friends, writing long, bummer emails to other ones trying to process this grudge, trying to let it go.

The situation surrounding this struggle has highlighted, to me, the weaknesses of my religion as well as one of its strengths. I do not have the prejudices against Christianity or Christians that would have kept a former version of myself from reading up on their advice. I do not believe any ancient books hold the Truth, but that has not stopped me from reading them, remembering that they are instead a source of wisdom. We affirm so many contrary sources of wisdom, looking at greater goods without always keeping an eye to the down-to-earth struggles. Unitarian Universalism, sometimes, it seems, is too head-in-the-clouds to deal with lived problems. Broad and wispy, covering everything and nothing all at once. Like the clouds. I felt like I fell through these clouds trying to figure out what to do, and how to cope with the particular problem at hand. I needed direction. Like this walk through the city - UUism has no set path. There are common ones, but you can wander as you please. Some find this liberating. I did for awhile. However, stuck in a place of "I-have-no-idea-what-to-do", I found the directionlessness as frightening as the bad situation. So then what?

Logic. Truth. Statements of fact. I remind myself that the bitterness is silly: I do not know them anymore, and I do not want what I think they have. I reiterate these, to myself, advancing step by step. Isn't that what we UUs do, comfort ourselves with what we perceive as facts and reasoned intellectualism? I can give you twenty reasons I should not bear a grudge. Why I am better off than the other party. Yet, the anger remains. Why is "truth" so ineffective in comforting me?

I realize that I am trying to walk away from this problem, as if I could have left it on the sidewalk somewhere near Safeway, on the street, under a generically lush tree next to a generic brick building in a generically hip neighborhood. Hidden, like I am, in a sea of anonymity. The failure of the plan is that my problem is not capable of being dropped. It has been become entangled with the fabric of my being, like all elements of my experience. How do I unwind it? I could tediously pull these threads out, with the cat hair and other loose strings. The threads are like circuits connected to my spirit, so how do I untie them if they are directing my energy so? How to learn to disconnect that bitterness from defining my day-to-day existence?

More spiritual questions on corporal matters that a questioning religion gave me few answers to, where the questions felt like more burdens. Day to day, these threads felt like fuses to a explosive. That is how a grudge can be. I am impatiently trying to put out a fire, one fueled by memories and conjecture of a faraway place. The fire is usually not even embers, often staying cool in the face of a strong wind. Yesterday it was just a gentle breeze that put it to blaze, again.

I am slowly learning that this grudge does not wash away. Like the radiation in Pripyat, it decays in half lives. Each and every day that passes, each day filled with happiness and love and hope is sand covering and smothering the remaining embers, which are dissipating into something more harmless.

So how was I to know? Oh yeah, lived experience as a source of truth. This is how we do it. Learning things the hard way, as is the way of life, is so much more painful than reading some letters in an ancient book and trusting that it is right. Or trying to use ideas of logic and fairness to dismiss your feelings of anger and figure out how best to behave, avoiding the rage to have to deal with it later. So trial and error teaches me that fuses are finite, that time will ensure it eventually burns out. And it will.

As a young UU, what will I do? I'll keep counting my blessings. I have yet to run out of them. I'll keep returning to the couch in my living room to watch a beautiful sunset over downtown Seattle, even if it's a sunset of cloudshine. I'll keep reading books on Christian spirituality, secular self-help books that range from useful to terrible, and letters from people who love me, all piled on the table next to me. My own sources, if you will, sitting in my inbox and in a pile of note cards. I will read my UU intellectualism, grateful that it gives me permission to look and permission to disagree, even if I wish it remembered spirit a little better.

I'll stay grateful for my food, my shelter, my potential PhD, my husband and my cats and my friends and family of origin and marriage. The past is in the past. Cats shed. I will too, new things will happen, more is woven into me, and life goes on.

(edited 07/08/2011 reason: language)

Home in Many Places

2011-05-31T10:17:00.000-07:00

I read a poem by Charles Bukowski that has me thinking a lot lately.

It makes sense to me. No need to write if you have no passion or story. If there is nothing you wish to tell the world, to get off your shoulders, mind or spirit. It also reflects a lack of long emails to friends. My stomach isn't burning so much these days. The world feels more peaceful.

I am also trying to discern exactly what I am writing here for. The original purpose of this blog was to write what was on my mind, on my plate, as I am a long way from home and lacked people nearby to tell stories to. I can admit that loneliness motivated this blog, and my gut used to burn a lot.

Home can be a blurry thing. I saw Eve Ensler speak in 112 Norton Hall at the University at Buffalo. I think it was three years ago. Don't quote me on that. I remember that I saw her outside of the room just before she spoke, clarifying some logistics with one of the organizers. Eve Ensler could have walked on water in some regards, based on the role her works play in the culture of feminism. (With that being said, The Vagina Monologues is one of those things I do not quite relate to, that affirmed this outsider-ness that I often felt. I helped with the production because I believe in feminism but never read a monologue because it did not feel right; it is written in a different language than the one my spirit speaks. It took a long time to figure it out.) Of course, as she was discussing the microphones, it became clear that she put her pants on one leg at a time, and in her speaking her humanness and earthliness were very obvious. She spoke of not having a home anymore - that she sold her house and travels all the time. That it is crazy but she highly recommends it. That you feel at home everywhere.

I thought about that, at the steering wheel of a U-Haul making our way across the United States from Buffalo to Seattle. Will and I were not homeless, but between places. In the midst of traveling, I felt like I belonged to the land within eye-sight and below the tires. The experience was super intense. There was a paradox of fresh-and-new and a sense of always-meant-to-be. The dashboard was the only reference point of familiarity. Meanwhile, woods and lakes and desert and nothingness, rolling on by. Traveling broadens your horizons; in this case, quite literally, as we pushed ours ever-westward.

"Home is where the heart is." The phrase does not preclude a sense of being at home on planet Earth, anywhere. Does nailing down a single (or several) reference points reflect a limit of human perception, reflect a tendency for possession, or an inclination to "other" people and places? A reflection of the truth that the world can be a nasty and scary place? I do not know. I suspect we call those who do not have stable shelter "homeless" for a reason. Do the homeless folk that Will, a friend, and I saw sleeping under a tree at Cal Anderson park feel that home is everywhere? What about the panhandlers on Broadway Ave East? I have never asked someone in the know (so to speak), and I think reasonable people would understand my objections to gaining first-hand experience.

Is Seattle home now? I thought of this, sitting in the passenger seat of a friend's car as she drove over the Aurora Bridge, with my husband behind me. The view, even through the suicide barriers, is stunning. We were going to Green Lake Park to toss a frisbee with a few other friends. For a place the still feels new, I was basking in a comfortable familiarity among my companions. This, after I finally convinced my parents to come out to visit. "I really want to show you my new home! Seattle is such a cool city!" I spent the morning with my cell phone in one hand, mouse in the other, travel website on the computer screen, booking tickets for their visit. Words cannot express how excited I am that they are going to be here for a week. It is not that I invited them on part of a long trip. I invited them to my home. As much as I sometimes do not understand the West Coast, here I am.

It is not that Syracuse will ever stop being my home. It will change, and I will start to feel like an outsider. Unless they drain Onondaga Lake, there will always be a reference point for me despite the changes. I suppose I am adding addresses to both a life history and a sense of belonging. At the moment is seems that home is where you come from, and it can be where you are.

In other news, I have a million other things burning my gut regarding Unitarian Universalism and identity, and when the quarter is over, they'll probably show up.

A Brief Treatise on Gender and How To Deal With It

2011-05-25T08:16:00.000-07:00

This article was posted on a forum I read.

Parents Decide to Keep Child's Gender Under Wraps

I wrote the below in reply to the thread.

I think the parents are on to something, but I am not sure that this is the way to go about it.

I mean, differences between the sexes, especially before puberty, are way overblown. (Sex= physiological difference, gender = performance of social role assigned to sex. It differs by culture). I agree with the parents that a person's sex should not matter in defining who they are, because the differences are society imposed more than natural. Heck, "natural" masculinity in Russia (and from what I understand, the Middle East too) comes off as "naturally" homosexual ways of being in the United States. It's socially constructed, and a lot arbitrary. If it wasn't... then there would be no outrage over what they were doing. People would not feel threatened by not knowing how to relate to the child, nor would they worry about the child's well being. If gender were something that happened naturally, the parents' decision to notify the world would not matter. People could figure it out, based on how the child is behaving. There are a lot of social institutions built on a myth of natural gender, and I think a great deal of the outrage comes from challenging that.

Not all elements of one's identity need to be exposed for the world to see to have a defining role. Religion would be an example of this: you cannot guess someone's religion by looking at them (religious jewelry aside), because of the heterogeneity of religious affiliation among ethnic groups. But things like expectations of races, which are imposed, are famously limiting. Students of psychology probably remember stereotype threats.

Kids are perceptive. As someone who studies sociology, I wonder if Jazz's problems and desire to be recognized as a boy is because he perceives that men are more respected and have higher status than women, and wants to be in that category. I mean, the standards of what makes a good human (rational, strong, stable, ambitious, independent) are traits that are culturally-typed masculine. The ones that are devalued (emotional, intuitive, unstable, weak, nurturing) are culturally-typed feminine. I mean, I've felt that way growing up. Think about it: it's OK to be a bit masculine if you're female, it's seen in some places as a good thing. It is almost never OK to be feminine if you're male. If gender did not create a hierarchy of person value, this would not be the case.

I get it. I was someone who often has NOT felt comfortable with the social expectations of girl/womanhood, or that they were somehow contrary to my ways of being, that they were spiritually and emotionally confining.

So I respect that they are trying to let the kid figure out who they are, free of those constraints. And what they are doing is probably what the end goal would have to look like if we are to be free of gender-based oppression: either the dissolution of gender, or its irrelevance to a person's identity beyond what a particular subculture (like the role being a religious Christian or a Goth or a resident of the West Coast) plays for identity.

But...

Is it not common practice for kids to run around without their clothes on occasion, because kids also don't understand modesty? On a practical level, I see the secret not being kept for long. Yes, gender is different than sex. But people will discover the sex and assign the gender.

The other concern I have with this practice is that it fits very neatly into a common parental practice of shielding kids from the evils of the world. But when you shield kids from the world's problems, they do not gain skills to deal with it. A five year old is probably ill-equipped to understand that social institutions are oppressive, and kids are impressionable. So on one hand, not challenging gender norms at an early age is setting the stage to have them reproduced, which are against the parents' beliefs. Once puberty starts, the kids are going to be put into a box, and they may not know how to resist it. Or I could be wrong, and they will be fine.

I had to learn how to resist other people's expectations for me and be myself, especially when girly things often don't feel naturally. It's made me stubborn and stronger. My folks totally raised me as a girl, but because my mom's a feminist (though I'm not sure she'd label herself as such, but in practice she is), all of my aptitudes were encouraged, despite prevailing ideas of what's normal. Because we're not in a post-gender utopia, I think that might be the better technique. (I certainly like to think that I came out reasonably well-adjusted, and I feel as though I am true to myself without being socially violent.) You have a gender, people have these expectations, but instead of pretending they do not matter (because they will to most other people in the US), learning how to subvert them may be the best way to get around their oppressive tendencies.

In conclusion, I respectfully disagree.

Religious Identity as Youth, Or Why You Should Read This Other Blog Post

2011-05-21T19:59:00.000-07:00

I know this gal in person. She's wise.

And here she explores youth and religious identity in our church.

I've got a few ideas too, but they need more digesting.

But you know, her post, well, it's too good not to share.

Nothing Deep Today, just Life

2011-05-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

It's "Ride Your Bike to Work Day", an example of holiday observed by people who are likely already predisposed to be practicing the commemoration. But you should do it anyway, if it is feasible. Fridays are my "work-from-home" day, so I am not really certain how that would apply.

Seattle is a very bike friendly city. Though that is not what many of its residents will tell you, especially if they are former residents of San Francisco or Portland. Former residents of the Rust Belt disagree. Then again, dissatisfaction with the status-quo can be the fuel for improvement. Perpetual dissatisfaction = perpetual efforts for improvement. It also means constant disappointment, an unpleasant experience. I guess this calls for balance, eh?

The weather is perfect, not a cloud in the sky. Seriously. If you live in Seattle, you know that's rare, and rarer yet is the fact that this is day three of such weather. The absence of posts is the result of the absence of the post-writer, who is generally found outside lately.

Admittedly, I have not been biking as much as I would like. It is no longer the result of Seattle's topography. I get up the hills fairly easily, relative to my lack of strength when I moved here. (I was also probably about 105 lbs, but fortunately I solved that problem ;) Vegan food is delicious, exercise is useful, and thus I am heavier. Mostly muscle, uh, really, uh, I swear). It's that mechanical problems have plagued my sweet chariot. Most of the problems are expected for bikes of its age and utilization. I think the bearings in my crank are slowly dissolving. The pedals move side-to-side in a way they really should not be. Funds are tight, and the problem not yet dire, so I'll live with it until the problem is dangerous or money is a little more fluid.

It is amusing to me, on the level that I am treating my bike like a old jalopy car, only... it is a bicycle with significantly less expensive repairs. Graduate school is like a game of managing small numbers. That's OK, as long as it is not permanent. I am still grateful for my bike and for a bike-friendly infrastructure. Today looks like some reading will be done in GasWorks.

So that is life at the moment. Please, GO OUTSIDE!

Repost from "SparksintheDark" UU statistics

2011-05-17T09:07:00.000-07:00

I like a little bit of demography in the morning. So this post was a treat for me, in which Ogre calculated the demographics of churched versus unchurched UUs. He finds that privileged UUs are more likely to be members. I shot him a message to figure out exactly how he did it (because I find this stuff REALLY COOL). It is interesting because, as he notes, UUism has been accused of classism, of overt and insidious types. This could be seen as evidence for the insidious variety - such that we may be making our own feel unwelcome at our place of worship. Or, this could reflect a lack of UU congregations in poorer areas (rural areas, etc).

Birthday, Apartment Party, Transitions

2011-05-16T10:25:00.000-07:00

We stayed home on Sunday. We woke up too late to go to church. Rather, I was too enthralled in my conversation with my mother to notice the time ticking by - Will was too asleep to notice it. Oh well. I call my mother every Sunday. It's a ritual that I am loathe to delay or give up. We forgot church. It is OK.

The night before we filled our apartment with a bunch of friends, for the purposes of celebrating, passing time, and eating. Preceded this was a two-day long bout of cleaning and organizing. We also nailed and tacked pictures on the wall and reorganized a few things. A friend of mine, who a one point had keys to our apartment, said that it seemed bigger. Our kitten has grown too. Our balcony is tidy. In the same way that having house guests inspires cleaning, so do celebrations. Though in a week we'll be hosting my cousin.

It was Will's Birthday/He Finished his Master's/Apartment warming party (never mind we've lived in our apartment nearly 10 months). I remember thinking our apartment in Buffalo was small, because relative to many of our friends who rented flats in houses, it was. That did not stop us from hosting potlucks fairly frequently. We moved to Seattle and stopped. Our space was poorly set up for entertaining. Slow changes fixed that. 12 people sitting in a circle in our living room, helping themselves to sushi or the absurdly delicious cupcakes Will made (raspberry tiramisu!). Everything was vegan: hummus, pita bread, pretzels, tortilla chip, salsa, stuffed cucumbers, stuffed tomatoes, and mango-pineapple-orange-lychee punch. I even met a couple people, friends of another friend who shares a birthday with my husband. It was excellent.

We stayed up way past our bedtimes and slept in the next morning. After breakfasting on the evening's leftovers, we meandered in the rain to the Broadway Farmer's Market. It was dark and cloudy, though downtown returned from its earlier cloudy hiatus. Not much to see but vegetables. There were enough plants to make me covet a P-Patch or a yard or just a little less concrete surrounding my building. We got back to our apartment and curled up on the couch, showing each other the pictures we'd taken with our cell phones. Did some work, which meant editing a friend's fascinating master's thesis on the development of aircraft carriers (though that's not what they call them) in the Soviet/Russian Navy. I went to the library to print a Living Social voucher and picked up a trashy self-help book, because the library lets you read them for free.

Walked home, there were twice as many drifters on the street today. The knowledge that alone I cannot help them keeps my eyes away. That and an empty wallet - no cash, no change, the voucher closest thing to money in it. I worry that my heart is hardening to the suffering around me, that I am growing accustomed to this feeling of powerlessness and that it is breeding apathy. More on another day. There were women on the street, and not just the usual ones. A man curled up, hidden opposite a placard on the sidewalk startled me when he came into view. He was smoking. Sometimes it seems like Broadway is littered with bodies, when there are lots of people sleeping and all are very still. A fellow slept under a tarp, likely to protect himself from the rain, but it was eerie - they cover corpses that way.

Will and I went out to eat and talked about how we're trying to figure this out. We moved to Seattle, and it has been a bit rough. This transition from being idealistic, to the real world crashing in. Constraints feeling more like they are defining life than defining boundaries. Such is the way with capitalism. I admitted that I dream regularly of moving back to Syracuse and buying a big house in the city. Filling it with a few kids, and having lunch with their grandparents every Sunday. Drawing out the pleasures of the simple life. Will reminded me that I have a good thing going here. As much as we're struggling, it would be foolish to step away. I have a good position and a couple great supervisors and I am in a great program. True.

We talked about how sometimes we both feel like we are lacking adventure in our life. On some levels, it feels constraint-driven. For instance, our decision making has meant that we're not in a place to pick up and go to Nicaragua for seven months, as a friend of ours did a couple years ago. Other constraints are a matter of preference. We both like having a stable patch of Earth to go home to, preferably with a stable roof over our heads. It would be possible to buy an RV and travel the country. We could sell our possessions and try to live abroad. These options feel romantic, but mostly mutually exclusive with other desires, such as starting a family and taking care of aforementioned kids. We were talking about why people make the choices they make. It was a very interesting conversation.

We have been here ten months and it still feels like we just moved here. At what point does being in Seattle feel settled? At what point does the state of transition get replaced by a sense that this transition is a form of normal? Hosting friends helped this feeling considerably.

In other news, Happy Birthday, Will. <3