Turning neuroses into new approaches

I have always been a pretty intense person, and I have always tended to go full-throttle at any problem. I am that delightful type who evangelically pursues every new lifestyle, trend, or practical solution. This can be a blessing, because I learn a lot in each new exploration, but it is also a curse. I can be a perfectionist about each new thing, and if I don’t do it perfectly, I throw in the towel. Watching myself move through many different life paths, I am finally seeing that my perfectionism has caused me to miss out on some great opportunities for self-expression. There is a false belief silver bullets hidden behind this tendency. I believe that if I just find that perfect answer, be it a religion, a diet, a political party, an exercise plan, or an art form (in which we are naturally and effortlessly gifted and never ever need to practice), we will be relieved of all of our daily troubles and worries.

This may be a folly of youth, as well. When we are young, we don’t have as many tools to cope with stress, and (if we are lucky) we are sheltered from stress by our caregivers. Maybe that is what all those grown-ups mean when they say that growing up sucks! Forever young? Please?

I think the late 20s/early 30s are all about learning to cope with the world as it is, not the idealized world we were shown as kids. I’m sure that being in this stage of life at the beginning of a Trump administration is adding to the stress. We are coping with the end of a forward-thinking, progressive administration (though Obama was no saint), and we’re coping with the conservative backlash at a time when we are looking ahead. For those of us planning to have families, the despair is even greater. Will I be raising a child in a fascist nation? Will the resistance be powerful enough to overcome a Trump administration? Is there hope for future generations? Is it even worthwhile to give a shit, or are we seeing the end of the world as we know it?

The questions are endless, and the truth is, we only have control over our part. As painful as it is to not know, it is reality. We move forward in our lives through the uncertainty, doing our best to find a middle path. Part of that middle path is not being swayed by every new trend, every new lifestyle, but tapping into what makes us truly happy and doing it. For me, that has meant more writing, more walking, more classical music, more geekery, and more quiet time in nature.



The child in us wants an immediate answer because, as we say in preschool, waiting is not easy! But guess what: even if it’s not easy, we can slow down. We can wait, so just do our best to cope in with the shitstorm that is life while we wait for the answers to unfold.I’m not sure where my life will lead, and I’m grateful to know I don’t have to answer all these questions today. I can pause, look at some trees, and just do my best to move forward every day. Thank goodness I get a little older every day.

Awkwardness and gratitude

Textures

Shy

The pointe

Context

Local color

Frame

Talking about mindfulness, gratitude, and meditation always feel socially awkward, but it gives me so much joy! I guess I just scrape by on the hope that people think my thirst for life is endearing and not freakish. Here’s to hoping I come off artistic and poetic, not bizarre and myopic….

Storm sessions

Post-trump amerika

Companionship is enough

You put it in wrong, but just forget it….

Abandoned by the skin of its teeth

Scrappy fuck

Not nearly asymmetrical

Crystaline

Harsh

Decor

Belly fluff on fleek

Saturated pigmentation

New teeth cutting

Potential

Peach and periwinkle

Pubes

Vigil

Ladder to nowhere

Pussy riot

Alice Walker Blue

This week has been busy and full of overwhelming emotions. Grief, confusion, anxiety, despair, love, joy, peace, numbness, alienation, obsession, and peace have all overcome me in waves. This phase of life is not easy. You’ve lost some of that brand-new-penny shine, and you resent that pesky rust you feel is destined to overtake you. People who defined your childhood identity recede in so many different ways– distance, disease, disappointment, distraction– and you’re left wondering who you are and if you’re headed in the right direction. You’ve read enough Kundera, Butler, Walker, Silko, and Erdrich to know that there is no right direction, but you’re still plagued by the fairy tales subconsciously imprinted from college radical feminism, 90s TV teen romance, and Facebook. Erickson’s Ego Integrity is always just out of reach, threatening to ditch you with Despair at the last minute, leaving you clammy, flushed, and begging for another shot. How does anyone ever survive life? It’s fucking hard!

Perhaps the greatest lesson one can learn is that a life well lived leaves you with the silver medal, reading, “World’s Okayest [whateverthefuck].” When I was in my twenties, my goal was to have a small, quiet, peaceful, and happy life. What they don’t tell you is that it won’t look like “Antonia’s Line,” no matter how hard you try. There is no magical little community filled with delightfully quirky-in-all-the-right-and-not-fucked-up-ways people who are just odd enough without ever tipping the scales into full-blown asshole. This magical land where you can be as neurotic, navel-gazing, egocentric, and individualistic– and people love you for it– is just a fiction, the mutant offspring of the WB and third-wave queer feminism.

I am trying to remind myself on an hourly basis that, while 97% of what I do feels like a complete and utter hurricane of humiliation, the world sees only the blatantly average and obvious 3%, which is approximately as okay as any other person’s 3%. There is a comfort in entering the stage in which you realize you are just as unremarkable as every other person in line at Rite Aid, and that, while each person is a world unto themselves, it is a small and merciful miracle of the universe that we are only burdened with one personhood per lifetime. None of those other line-standers have had it any easier, harder, or mentally stable than any other, on average….

Ecology, Community, and Self-Care

A family of native, invasive, and cultivated plants working together to feed the pollinators and the soil.

During this period of my life, when it seems like the stress is never-ending on every front, I have been taking solace in my neighborhood walks. It seems that the years of mindfulness practice are bearing their fruit; I am able to slow down, look around me, and get connected to myself, nature, and other people. Today, after a long, grueling day, in the middle of a long, grueling week, a leisurely lunch-break walk, listening to the amazingly talented Juana Molina and Sigur Ros, I experienced that peaceful feeling of clarity and flow we all strive to achieve. I am grateful to be a nurturer– especially lately, when so many people in my life need support and love– but being a nurturer demands lots of self-care to sustain. Today, rather than running to medication, unhealthy eating, compulsions, or a mental break-down, I consulted with colleagues, expressed gratitude to the people I love, photographed some amazing plants, and am trying my hand at writing about it all.

I am finding some common themes throughout my life, for which I am grateful. Everywhere I look in my urban neighborhood, I see signs of connectivity, interdependence, and the delicious, ecstatic glee of imperfections.

Above, are some discoveries I made of those juxtapositions between the welcome and unwelcome influences on life. We see examples of the native mixed in–and sometimes overwhelmed by–the invasive. The garbage, the rejects, the obscene, are entangled with, and sometimes indistinguishable from, that which is beautiful, welcome, and cultivated. None of it is perfect, and therein lies its divinity. Even as I proofread, I struggle with that inner perfectionist, wanting every word to be cultivated, intentional, appropriate, and necessary. But fuck that! Sometimes life’s messes and imperfections are part of its beauty. So here’s to loosening our belts, taking off our makeup, deep breaths, and grammatical errors!

Breaking Ground

Here it is. A place in the world to document all that I see that is beautiful and good. Nervously I am stepping out into new territory: I am writing something completely outside my comfort zone of academia. Wish me luck.