Yesterday I came home from an afternoon out to find my post had accrued 70+ comments. I think it's because some people thought I was speaking of one specific incident—I wasn't, I was observing a trend not just on Livejournal but across the internet—and so got distracted. So I guess I'll clarify that now: This was not about a specific incident; even so, I don't think "He started it by acting like a jerk" is a valid excuse for "So I'm allowed to act like one back, he was asking for it!"

Let me make this part completely clear also: I hold views that would get me dog-piled just as quickly and just as cruelly. And in fact, many people I like and read, here on Livejournal and on blogs elsewhere, have used language that inflammatory to describe people like me. I don't flame those people back because escalation doesn't accomplish change. It creates a conflict from which it is harder to back down from. Plus, I think you have the right to think people like me are obstructionist, backwards, ignorant, evil [insert cursewords here]... so long as you don't come find me and try to beat me up... virtually or in person. Which is what I believe this whole internet mob phenomenon is. Yes, you disagree with someone. If you see that 100+ people have already expressed issues with someone, a few of them reasonable and most of them violently, why do you have to be #101? Hasn't the point already been made? It's like walking past a room where 100 people are trying to shout down one person all at once and thinking, "Hey, that girl needs more help changing her mind."

I think it's appalling and unnecessary. I think it prevents discussion and debate. I think it is the enemy of getting anything done... most particularly the thing you want to accomplish.

I think our society confuses tolerance with acceptance. People claim to want the former when in fact they seek the latter. It is not enough that people disagree with you (perhaps even vehemently) but allow you to do what you will. They must agree with you, approve of you and support your actions.

I don't hold with this; I think it's unreasonable. No one is entitled to that from every human being around them. The very concept of diversity is at odds with this aim. And when you try to beat agreement out of others, you do not change their hearts and minds; you do not win them to your side. You often set them more against you. When they cease to fight you, it's not because they wish to compromise or have come over to your opinion; it's because they have put down their weapons in exhaustion. Those swords are close at hand; they will pick them up another day.

Some people speak of changing the world and mean "I have changed the law so that people must do as I think is right, though they seethe with resentment and their hearts are set against me. But I have won! Now they must do my will, even if they hate it!"

To me, changing the world means, "I have changed someone's heart, and now they are my peaceful neighbor, maybe my ally... perhaps even my friend." This is the slower path. But I think it is the one with longevity and power.

Hate begets hate... not love. Anger begets anger... not compassion. One must consider carefully one's aims before choosing one's tools.

I joked yesterday that when I wrote stories about transgendered aliens with identity issues, I was in good shape with the SF world. Now that I write quietly dutiful aliens with traditionalist leanings, I am far more at risk. Will someone defend me when a mob comes to "change my mind" or "express disapproval" of something I believe? Will someone stand up and say, "I think this person's wrong, but I don't think that makes how you're expressing it right"?

I like to think so... even though I look around me, see the name-calling and the casual dismissals, and I am not so sure. If there is tolerance here, it is not for unlike people. The definitions of "unlike" have merely changed.



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Tags: life, manners, philosophy
Current Mood: disappointed
Current Music: Don Maclean - Castles in the Air

I really, really dislike the phenomenon whereby someone links to a post, says, "Doesn't this person suck?" and legions of their friends, followers or readers pile onto the offending person's virtual lawn and egg them. There's no dignity in it. There's no human compassion in it. There's no considered thought in it. It's just a bunch of rowdies ganging up on someone else and saying, "YEAH ME TOO!" It's one of the worst kinds of adolescent behaviors, that courage in a crowd, a ton of people being brave enough to stone a single person.

You can disagree with people. You can find them offensive. You can even let them make you angry. But your behavior when you feel these things is your responsibility. And there's nothing virtuous about beating someone up. And if they go so far as to apologize or admit they're wrong, not acknowledging that is also disappointing.

You want to make a real difference in the world? Live your life as an example to others. Be the person you wish other people would be. It's inevitable that other people will do things you disapprove of, but as Cicero said, criticize by creation. This is much harder work than throwing stones at other people, but the dividends in self-respect and a peaceful heart will more than compensate you. It's work worth doing.

Be the change you want to see. Anything else is chaff.



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Tags: life, manners, philosophy
Current Mood: disappointed

Fiction brings us many stories of people discovering something amazing about themselves and being transformed... or even something painfully denied, the truth of which sets them free to re-invent their lives. Which is great... these stories are a lot of fun to read. They tell us that you can become someone new and start new things and it all works out for you. The peasant becomes a dragon-slayer. The outcast discovers an entire subculture that agrees with him. The geek no longer has to hide her geekdom, but is praised for revealing it.

But you know, I'd kind of like some stories where the truth about someone would wreck their lives and they have to choose between following their heart and destroying everything around them, the lives of people who care about them, their own perfectly acceptable situations. Where the cost to expressing a facet of your inner self—an important enough facet that it hurts you to hide it—is so high that the choice to change is a real choice, and not as easy as "I left my home and parents behind, and I missed them but... hey! Shiny sword! New life! Awesome!" Where the choice sometimes isn't "Let's give up everything we have for what we don't," but rather "what I have is enough for me, even if it's not how I imagined things would end up."

Somehow I think this is related, particularly in genre fiction, to the cult of adolescence. When every story is about someone coming-of-age or finding-their-place, of course there are fewer repercussions to remaking yourself in a new image. But if you're older, already settled: an adult with responsibilities, a parent, someone with community ties, etc, you can't do that sort of thing. And I think it ties in neatly with Monday's link about restlessness; even our fiction tells us there's a great life we could be living if we could just figure out what it is and go do it.

Where are the stories that deal with that kind of choice? Have you read some? Tell me about them!


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Tags: culture, philosophy, writing
Current Mood: wondering

Having discussed the problem of mental playlists crammed with inappropriate songs, it's time to... change metaphor.

Think of the mind as a soft green meadow, suffused with sunlight. Thoughts, good and bad, waft in on a gentle breeze, and are too light to land... instead, the wind carries them just as lightly out.

This is the mind of Jesus, Buddha... possibly the Dalai Lama or Mother Theresa. This is not the mind of a normal person.

So, for the rest of us... think of the mind as a fortress. We are its commanding officer; in fact, we are its sole officer, patrolling the battlements, spear in hand. Good thoughts and bad attempt to enter, and we can either lower the drawbridge and open the doors for them, or we can shut them out. Often, bad thoughts come in such numbers and strength they overwhelm our solitary defense. If you have one of those pervasive negative playlists, that's where you are. Those bad thoughts are intruders and they need to be found, grabbed by the scruff of the neck and booted out.

The most important step of mental hygiene, the one without which no other step can be taken, is to realize that you, and you alone, are responsible for the eviction of bad thoughts. It doesn't matter where they came from, who put them there or how they got in. Don't stop to blame others for them. Don't stop to feel guilt for being weak enough to let them in. Concentrate on the important part: The only person who can get those thoughts out again is you.

And you can. You're not the victim of your own bad thoughts, nor are you powerless against them; you are the only person with ultimate power over them. On any one day you may be too tired or weak or sick to kick out the bad guys, but you will not lose the war so long as you decide, right now, that you are the only one who can win it.

Without this one act of agency, this one act of self-empowerment, this one act of love... no advice, no suggestions and no external aid will ever help you.

So today, I want to know... what does your fortress look like? What's your favorite weapon of choice? Imagine yourself however most pleases you. It's okay to imagine that you are bloody, wounded or limping. Just remember to put that grim spark in your eye, the one that says, "I may be hurt but I'm not defeated."



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Tags: health, life, philosophy

All of us have a mental playlist. This playlist consists of all the thoughts we repeat in our own heads. Some of us have a single favorite song that we put on Repeat: "I'm a loser." Others have hundreds of songs they shuffle depending on mood and situation; they play the "Of course I messed that up, I always mess things up" song when they fail, then move on to "no one will ever love me" when dating, etc.

Here are some common "music genres" for our Playlists of Fail:

Self-Destruction: We limit ourselves by defining what we are or are worthy of.
"I'm worthless."
"I'm stupid."
"I'm messed up."
"I'm damaged goods."
"There's something wrong with me."

Self-Sabotage: We cripple ourselves by predicting our own downfall.
"I'll never be able to do it."
"I mess up everything I try."
"I always fail."
"I can't."
"There's no point in trying."
"I never finish anything."

Self-Betrayal: We listen to other people's negative assessment when it's clearly not meant as loving help.
"She's right, I suck."
"If I wasn't such a loser, he wouldn't be doing this to me."
"She just gets angry sometimes."
"It's not abuse, he just doesn't know what he's saying."
"I deserved that."

In the same way that music affects your mood, your mental playlist affects you, your ability to cope with life, succeed at challenges and reach a state of contentment. The first step of mental hygiene is recognizing these thoughts at all; some of us have used the same playlist so long we don't even hear it anymore. It's like walking through a store and ignoring the music they're playing in the background.

So, step one: listen consciously to your interior monologue. Write down your mental playlist. Number it. Give the songs appropriate titles. If you recognize the thought as having come from someone else in your life (or from TV/the media/messages you've taken from the culture), then list that influence as the song-writer. Otherwise, ruthlessly list yourself as the author.

Don't make any excuses. Now is not the time for, "But this thought is accurate!" or "I thought this was a valid criticism!" Just get every negative thought about yourself down where you can have a look at it. After that, you can start making decisions about what to do about those thoughts.

Here's one of my playlist's hit songs: "I'll never be safe," a thought that virtually guarantees that I will never relax no matter where I am. I'm the author of this song, but I remixed it from society's messages to women. I'll talk about how I handle it when I get to my next post about mental hygiene. In the mean-time, if you're comfortable sharing, tell me about your mental playlist... do you know about it? When did you learn you had one? How do you cope?


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Tags: health, how-to, life, philosophy

“If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.”
                                             —Peace Pilgrim (1908-1981); pacifist, peace-activist

I was about 12 when I realized that no one in any of the books I read had brown eyes. All the heroes who got to befriend dragons, quest for a crown, meet aliens and go to special psychic schools had blue or green eyes, or light brown or hazel or purple or... well, not brown. The few people who did have dark eyes were "exotic," and while I dearly wanted to be thought exotic that term only seem to apply to Asians, or people with much darker skin than me. And even they didn't often have brown eyes... they had eyes so dark they were black. Where, oh where, were the adventurers with just plain, dark brown eyes? Morose, I thought that even if I ended up in a fantastical world, no unicorn would show its face to me.

...which is when I got upset. In a moment of unhappy defiance, I looked in the bathroom mirror and said, "Brown eyes are beautiful!"

The next day I did it again.

And from then on, most times I looked in a mirror, I stared myself right in the plain, boring eyes and said to myself (firmly!), "Brown eyes are beautiful!"

Now, please note: I did not at all believe myself. This was not the anger of a kid trying to convince the world that they're all stupid and wrong. This was the lonely upset of a young girl trying to convince herself that it didn't matter that no one thought she was pretty, she didn't need them anyway. I kept saying it because I didn't want to face the fact that it did matter that no one thought a sword-wielding heroine could look like me. It was an advanced form of denial.

But I was stubborn, and very sensitive, so my mirror and I went through this ritual many many times.

Three years later, my mother took me to the optometrist for an exciting opportunity: my first pair of contacts. While the optometrist was setting out the samples for me to try, he mentioned, "Oh, we have color contacts, too."

Cue the thrill of excitement. I looked up at my mother, who nodded, and I eagerly asked for every color he had. At last! Blue eyes of my very own! I popped the first set in and had a look at myself.

...and then I tried the green. And the hazel. And the lighter brown. There was a lavender-y blue... I tried that too. I went through every color he had, looked at myself in the mirror, and thought, "Something's wrong." And at the end, before I could censor them, these words came out: "I like my eyes the way they are."

...and it was true. No other color was right. No other color fit. I was a brown-eyed girl, like chocolate and coffee and fertile earth turned in a new garden. Like good things. I had reprogrammed my own beliefs... just by telling myself something I didn't even believe was true when I started. Even as a fifteen-year-old, I found that sobering and a little scary.

Think about all the things you think every day. All the messages you consume from the outside world; all the media and information you choose to take into your head. Think of all the things you create inside your head, the messages you tell yourself, the thoughts you dwell on. Think of all those things subtly becoming your beliefs, simply through repetition and exposure. I believe that mental hygiene—policing these influences and inner dialogues—is one of the most important duties and challenges we have, because it shapes us and how we interact with every other part of our lives. Start with a (mostly) clean head, and you're at a far greater advantage than if you hamstring yourself with negative thoughts.

So, for the beginning of Mental Hygiene week, I'll ask you: Have you ever had an experience where the way you thought about something changed you? Let's hear your stories!



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Tags: health, life, philosophy

The day I joined the gym, a trainer showed me a basic work-out and instructed me on using the machines. She was worrying about liability issues (as she must)... so of course, her advice was to "take it slow" and make sure I didn't hurt myself. Accustomed to thinking of myself as a lightweight, I too worried about hurting myself and let her advice influence all my work-outs from then on out.

Six months later in a fit of frustration after a measuring session, I put anywhere from 10 to 60 extra pounds of resistance on all those machines and didn't hurt myself. I did, however, get a useful work out. Finally.

As for the aerobic segment, it should have been a warning that I thought the elliptical felt like power armor because power armor is designed to make things easier. I don't need easy, I need hard. A half hour on an elliptical is like taking a pleasant walk while a friendly robot suspends your weight off suspenders. So I hunted around and tried the arc trainer, and two minutes of that thing has me sweating my shirt wet. Two minutes.

I spend half an hour on it and hate every minute of it, but by God I do it.

So. I no longer enjoy going to the gym... I kind of dread it. But in a good way. It's no longer a for-fun activity, but a test-yourself activity. We live in an age where it's very easy to avoid hard tasks, or to take on only the hard tasks that we want to do. I can tell myself that producing a painting a month on my shortened schedule is a challenge, and it is, but it's the kind of challenge I'm comfortable with and know that I can probably handle.

We need challenges we don't know if we can handle. We need not just the opportunity to fail, but the close-breathing in-your-face about-to-happen possibility of failure. And yes, we need to fail also. What good is success if you can never fail? How can you ever know what you're capable of if you don't push it?

I am not at all comfortable with the kind of challenge that involves pushing my body past its comfort levels. But that's why I go. Because when I leave I am exhausted, but there's a pleasant silence in my head, as if some inner snark has been silenced. "Oh wait," some part of me thinks. "You can do stuff that flabby geek-mom-artists don't do. Whoops, didn't mean to generalize there."

One of the books I just finished reading about boot camp talks about the drill instructors shouting that every day that doesn't involve testing yourself is wasted. I think of the gym as one of my tests.

We'll see how I'm doing in a month.


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Tags: health, philosophy
Current Mood: determined
Current Music: Suedehead - Morrissey

I wanted to say a couple of things here, because they may not entirely be clear:

    • I am not a professional artist/writer.

    • I am not a starving artist/writer.

These two things have in common that they link money and artistic validation, which is an attitude I find personally poisonous and which I'm trying to move away from. But even beyond that, I wanted to say that I'm not in desperate need (or even minor need). elusivetiger makes enough money for us to be comfortable. I use the money I make from art to... buy more art supplies, or take the baby to breakfast because I'm tired of cooking, or to give money to charity or buy little presents for people.

If I was ever seriously in need of money, I would go get an 8-to-5 job. This is not a reflection on anyone who uses their talents to make a living; it just means that I, personally, no longer want to put that burden on the creative work.

I never object to money coming in, because I like it when the art pays for itself, and I like it when other people cook while I color on placemats with my daughter and talk about lemons ("Ewwwwwwww, that's sour! Blech!" "mmm, YUHM MEE!"). But if I gave anyone the impression I was in true need, I apologize. I'm not. If you pay me, I don't want it to be because I've accidentally twisted your arm with pity or fear.


I've been thinking a lot about the death-grip money seems to have on creative endeavors. It's sad that this topic feels too controversial to discuss. We have tied up too much the notion of talent with monetary recognition; to deny the latter often makes people feel as if you're implying things about their talent. I am still and often a prisoner of this programming... but more and more I am trying to leave it behind. I hope doing so will help people who patronize my art feel like patrons, rather than consumers, customers or friends giving loans to someone constantly on the edge of starving. :,

Anyway, that's all. -_- Feel free to ask any questions, though, if you have them.


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Tags: art, life, philosophy
Current Mood: regretful

A few weeks ago, Forbes Magazine ran an article on the business secrets of the Trappist monks. I got through one-fourth of that article—okay, slightly less—before the absurdity drove me away. It was the section on Service and Selfishness where it became laughable. Here was someone trying to extrapolate business rules based on the activities of monks. It was obviously wrong-headed. Even when monks run businesses, they're not doing it for the same reasons businessmen do.

But I bookmarked the article, and I didn't know why... until this weekend, when I was forced to confront the whole "art should be a hobby" thing again. Then the article sprang back into mind, because it illuminated a missing concept from modern society.

We have hobbies still. And we have careers. But we no longer perceive vocations.

What a blind spot! We can recognize a leisure activity and we can recognize an activity done to pursue money... but we no longer talk much if at all about callings... about doing something because you feel you must, because it's a part of you, because you feel it is a spiritual duty.

No wonder there are so many miserable artists (in particular). If you are a successful artist, then you have a career, which means you must make money. If you don't have a career, then you are relegated to the status of a hobbyist, who does such things for leisure. So the only way you can be measured a fulfilled and successful artist in this age is to make money. And as everyone knows, measuring your self-worth by whether you're making money at something is a tiffy proposition, particularly in artistic pursuits where (rightly) everyone has their own opinion on what's good and what's worth buying.

(You see? The language has snuck into me also: 'worth buying', as if that's the only metric by which you can gauge the worth of something.)

The limp, non-spiritual definition of vocation is worthless (and in fact, came over a hundred years after its first, religious definition). What we need again is to respect the concept of a spiritual calling to an action... yes, even in secular circles. As long as there will be people, there will be people seeking spiritual fulfillment. You can't take that need out of human beings.

For a very long time, I tried to treat my art, my writing, all my talents as the focus of a career. I had a good path for it: there are commercial industries to support such a road. But the more I tried, the more miserable I became and the less money I made. Part of that was out of my control... but the parts that were under my control I flubbed also, because to treat your art as a career you have to make good business choices, whether or not they're good artistic choices. And I refused to make those sacrifices.

But when I started treating my art as a vocation—and much like the monks, seeking money only as a byproduct of that vocation, as a way to support myself and my own instead of draining their resources supporting me—I started making comfortable money. I became happier. I no longer had to compromise.

Is this a way to make a living? I don't know. But that's not my goal anymore. And that's how it had to be, because if the art is a calling putting any other goal before making the art will sour it.

(I know there will now be artists who have chosen the career path who will argue that they are not compromising themselves artistically: to them, I say: Good! For now, what the industry has selected to sell is what you want to make. I hope it remains that way for you indefinitely. But if it doesn't, you will return to the choice between art and commerce, and you can only have one master.)

So there you are. I have a vocation. And if that's how you feel about your work, then I encourage you to call it by its rightful name, and be free!



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Tags: art, controversy, language, philosophy, writing
Current Mood: tired

I'm sure that even Monet and da Vinci had to start very simply when they learned how to draw... Michelangelo, Picasso and Van Gogh all had to know how to draw a line... —Stevesongs

I love incense. I love the way it smells, I love the gorgeous trails of smoke it drapes in the air... and most of all, I love the sense of history. My favorite incenses have been around for thousands of years. When I sit beside a censer burning crystallized lumps of frankincense or myrrh I think: "Human beings have been doing this for more generations than I can easily hold in my head."

It's very rare for me to feel that connection to history. I have known people who can walk backwards through time just by hearing an anecdote or reading about historical events, but I've never been one of those people. Things that can give me that sense are precious to me.

Last week Stephanie Law's painting walk-through sparked a discussion of historic pigments. The history of pigment is colorful (no pun intended) and crowded with fascinating stories and strange occurences. So many pigments were toxic, hard to find or expensive, and yet human beings throughout the centuries have always tried to expand their palettes. It makes you really feel the lie that culture tells us these days. If art is a superfluous frivolity, why did we grind up mummies and pay a pigment's weight in gold for ultramarine when it was still made of real lapis? Why did we ship pigments from Cambodia and Afghanistan, or grind them out of colored glass?

But I digress from my epiphany of the weekend. I've discussed several reasons I prefer to work in real media (yes, personal reasons, please don't read any global condemnation of computer art into them). But one of the reasons I never articulated or even noticed was that it helps me form that connection. Just as with burning incense older than the Bible, working with pigments as old as the Renaissance (and one or two as old as the Greeks and Romans!) makes me feel part of history. When I smell linseed oil, I think that Raphael knew this smell. When I struggle with lightfastness and color changes, I can laugh a little because I share this frustration with thousands of artists throughout time. I feel their ghosts. I imagine their avarice at the choices I have today. We've been making synthetic pigments since the Egyptians invented Blue Frit... I'm sure they'd be delighted with my quinacridones and my yellows-not-based-on-arsenic!

Even as something as simple as using a brush evokes that sense. I feel a part of the unbroken line of artists from the beginning of time who smeared red earth on a cave wall and thought, "Curse it, I need a darker value or that will never pop!"

I guess that's why the children's song I linked above makes me sniffle a little. Here is one place where I not only belong... I'm part of a tradition. I feel it every time I pick up a brush, a sense of context that no convenience will ever be able to replace. Art can be frustrating, difficult, even a drudgery... but in the end, it's a devotion, a spiritual fulfillment... a way of placing myself in time among other human beings, nameless as well as famed. A confederacy of makers.

I suppose that's one of the reasons why it will always be more than a hobby to me.



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Tags: art, philosophy
Current Mood: tired

"...but that's not the most terrifying prayer I've ever heard," my art advisor says. We're on the couches in the chocolate shop, where I've abandoned any attempt at working in favor of just flopping on some of the cushions.

"What's that?" I ask with a great and inevitable calm.

" 'Thy will be done.' "

"That's my favorite prayer," I say with a laugh, because I knew what he would say.

"Somehow I'm not surprised. I have nothing but respect for the people who say it and mean it... but the people who say it from rote? Do they even know what they're asking? 'Thy will' might not be your comfort."

"Of course not," I say. "But sometimes we don't need comfort. We need the test."

"Sometimes we do," he says. "But still, that's pretty serious stuff."

I smile, then say, "Well, maybe it's not my favorite prayer. But it's my secondmost favorite."

"What's your first?"

I rest my head on my arm. " 'Make me your vessel.' "

He says, "Ah. That makes perfect sense."


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Tags: life, philosophy
Current Mood: calm

I had about an hour and a half to paint tonight; I was right in that this piece absolutely needs natural sunlight to be worked on. Fortunately the days are getting longer! And I'm pleased: I think this time I'm going to pull it off.

On the way home, the sun was just beginning to set and oh... the luminous colors of the sky!

The first time I failed this painting it was because I didn't leave any of the paper unpainted. With gouache, I like my lightest values to be the unpainted paper, because it gives a sense of depth, as if you can look through the page. I was thinking of that when I was looking at that sky on the way home... that the reason why I've never seen a painted sunrise/sunset that approached the beauty of a real one is because of the luminence of the sky beneath the colors. I think that light is the unpainted portion of the masterwork, and the thing we see through it, the medium that's being painted on, is God's presence... a divine Love that we see shining through the layers of color.

That's why sometimes I cry when I look at the sky. What a canvas. It is to be humbled, and to find joy in the humility.


Today my daughter sat on my lap for almost an hour, coloring with crayons while I held down a piece of paper for her. Tomorrow morning I'm taking her to a pre-preschool art class. I wonder what it will be like.


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Tags: art, life, philosophy, photos, progress
Current Mood: contented

I've spent about a month and a half doing desultory exercise. I try to make it to the gym three times a week, but I've been sick, the kid's been sick, the kid now wails if I try to leave her in the daycare... so, let's call it two hours a week now that I have to steal time from all my other after-hours activities.

A weekend ago, we took Wigglet to the zoo... and she spent some of the time in her stroller and a lot of time in my arms. We were there an hour and a half, and I'm not sure how long she spent up in my arms, but it was quite a bit. At 18 months, she wears 24-month-old clothes... she is not a little child.

I realize a week later that I did it, though. At no time did I think "I can't carry her, my arms hurt." I just did it. A month ago, I had trouble keeping her in my arms for ten minutes, much less intermittently up and down for an hour and a half. I was a little sore the next day, but that was the only price I paid.

I guess I might be losing weight, though I haven't weighed myself or checked my measurements. But my primary reason for going to the gym—to be able to carry and keep up with my child—is already working out for me. And it only took a month and a half.

Part of success and your ability to keep working at things has to do with whether you feel like you're getting anywhere. And that involves choosing what you want to measure. If you're currently doing exercise and feel like you're getting nowhere, maybe you just need a different metric. Try to think about... whether you would have been out of breath doing the same walk up the stairs to work a month ago. Or whether you can carry more grocery bags than you used to be able to. Maybe oblique goals can keep you going when your existing ones don't seem to be growing any closer.

I guess this applies to anything in life. Take it, then, if it will help.


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Tags: health, life, mom in spots, philosophy
Current Mood: tired

Every day I'm in Chicago, I swim. Drifting through the long waters of the pool, sliding into the whirlpool to soak, head cradled in my folded arms. I go from one to the other, letting the coolth accentuate the heat, the stillness contrast against the air-shot currents. The air in the swimming room is as warm as arms around me.

Saturday night I help a friend into her dress for the dance. I am half-asleep but I see how the buckles work anyway, pulling them taut across her back. She has smooth skin the color of cream; she is solid and warm, not emaciated like a lot of women seem to want to be. It is companionable, to help her dress in the middle of the night, in the slowly falling mist of perfume she brought with her. It's good to touch other people. We forget how important it is, to touch. To be normal together.

Every day I swim. The pool is twice as long as the one I swim in at home which has been too cold to use for months. As I paddle from one end to the next, the muscles of my chest spike fire from my breastbone out to my shoulders and my diaphragm heaves. Swimming wants all of me: wants every muscle to know every other, to trust one another. As I soar through the water, I imagine this is what flying must be like: divine effort, grace under pressure.

I haven't been up here since 2006. I come to see people I've been friends with for years; for over a decade; for well nigh on fifteen years. Every year we are all older; every year we are more constrained. Our jobs. Our responsibilities. Our flesh, thickening with lack of proper care, with inevitable health failures. Our energy drains, and we retreat... coming out only on occasion to remember what it's like to be part of a larger thing. Only on occasion, like this occasion.

I feel it too. I am spreading outward, remembering what it's like to be part of a greater human body.

Every day, I swim. But on Friday when I slide into the whirlpool, it's cold. I go in anyway, because I feel like soaking and a cool tub will do. While there, another con-goer and I end up talking to one of the maintenance men: the whirlpool is cold because they had to drain it after having caught a couple of youths in flagrante delicto. I think of what it must be like to be young and away from home and finally among people you feel safe around, people you think you can actually connect with. I feel more regret than disgust.

This year I am tired. I am pleased just to remember who I am in relation to people I care about. It was enough to swim, to re-acquaint myself with the self-who-has-other-contexts.

Next year, though, I think I might dance. Look out fursuiting ravers... I wear long skirts!


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Go often to the house of your friend, for weeds soon choke up the unused path. — Scandinavian proverb

It is not some great revelation that relationships require maintenance; anything you want to receive something positive from requires investment. No, what I was reflecting on earlier was that the people who most need good relationships, help and positive return from other people are usually the people who have the least energy to give, the people who are depressed, afraid, abused or angry. Sad irony! And yet these people usually will have one or two people in their lives who will be there for them no matter how poor a maintainer of the relationship they are. We're used to thinking of them as the healers, the givers, the lights in the darkness.

But the real story here is that those givers are capable of these missions of mercy because they themselves are supported by loving and supportive relationships, by the steadfast people who never allow weeds to choke the paths to another's heart. And so, by their own love and support, they make it possible for their beloved to float people who are incapable of any positive return.

We all have our depressed, angry, afraid times, sometimes lasting years. We all have times when the human web is supporting us. We all have times when we owe so much to strangers we will never meet, who make it possible for the unexpected kindness or unwavering love to be extended to us in times of need.

It is good never to forget that.


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