I am mourning the end of my last spring break for a very long time hard core tonight. It's way too late, and I have to get up way too early tommorow morning (What kind of twisted professor gets in a serious car crash, and somehow cons IT to wire the classroom and his hospital room?!) and I have accomplished way too little for this week to be over.
It's so weird to even think this may be the last "vacation" I get for a while. The last of a lot of things I get for a while. And even weirder to think whats coming. I spent a good deal of this week looking for work, printing out job applicaitons, filling out job applications, begging people to write me reference letters, begging hiring managers to look at my paperwork even though its like five months before I want to be hired. I'm happy to report, however, that I'm two for two so far with semi-complete applications and interviews. I even got an unofficial offer from a YMCA outdoor school/retreat center in Western Massachusetts. I'm not entirely sure that I'll take it, just given some of the specific responsibilities of the gig. But at the very least I'm not gonna be a transiet come September 1.
More on that later, 'cause I could go off on my not-so-super secret live in a secluded New England village fantasy. It'll be tough to turn down a year in the Berkshires, particularly given the fabulousness of a lot of aspects of the job and logistics, and my supreme and utter distaste for being in limbo. It is so tempting to say yes just for the sake of having everything wrapped up and pinned down. It would be a great plan B, should it come to that, and I'm working really hard not to convince myself it should be my plan A.
The semester is winding down, but I'm still waiting for crazy to kick in. I'm never quite convinced, though I'm pretty much having a blast wrapping things up. This week was a pretty rad mix of relaxation and hardcore thesisizing and I'm pretty OK with the outcomes. I had hoped to get a head on a research project I have due a week from Monday, plus this biology midterm thing that I cannot shit upon as I did with the last one (but seriously, cannot believe I didn't think to study at a brewery before?!). But its never enough, not till May 11 that is.
I've been sort of homesick lately, which is a huge shock and sort of not entirely unexpected. Every time I've lived away for long periods of time I make it through all the initial periods of heartsick adjustment just fine. I don't really feel it until its about time to leave, which is almost worse then, because I'm homesick in all directions. I will miss Portland, alot, though I'm fairly sure it'll be a so long and not a permanent good bye come the end of May. The part I can't quite make sense of is missing my family. It's entirely out of character, and really hard for me to admit that maybe it's time to live a day's drive away from family.
Weird. So Weird.
This week is gonna be killer, it's totally stairing me down and growling. I'm a bit apprehensive about heading up to Spokane for Percussion Festival on Friday. They're making me drive a 15 passenger-van full of kids for eight hours, which could be fun, unless shit goes down or kids start drinking. I'm more than apprehensive about the whole boy situation, 'cause it would break my heart if we couldn't be friendly, particularly while performing.
Ah, well.
Some more Mary Oliver, my new academic crush du jour, and then bed and impending reality:
Peonies
This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers
and they open--
pools of lace,
white and pink--
and all day the black ants climb over them,
boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away
to their dark, underground cities--
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,
the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding
all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and theire it is again--
beauty the brave, the exemplary,
blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?
Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,
with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The Speech I Didn't Have the Balls to Give Tonight
P. S: It's the second half of spring semester senior year, expect lots and lots of postings in the near future...
I was asked recently to speak tonight at the Office of Multicultural Affairs Year End Banquet. This is auspiciously an honor, bestowed on graduating (!) seniors who've had some part in diversity on campus. I guess its just funny, because while diversity is extremely important to me, particularly in a setting like this one where I am so very privileged, I don't really feel like I've been a part of diversity at Lewis & Clark. Maybe thats because I'm a white woman from a relatively well off background. Maybe its because I feel like diversity is so ridiculously self-explanatory and transparent. Maybe its because no matter how many meetings I attend, how many seminars I listen to, how many classes I take, how many all-college forums I sit in the back of and rage quietly about yet another horrifying transgression on campus in which we should have known better, I feel like its never enough. I could have always done more. At a place like LC with so many good intentions and well meaning people, and great opportunities it's never enough. There is still so much work to be done.
I think the biggest thing I've learned about diversity during the last four years of my life and of college, and in particular through my however tangential involvement in OMA activities, is that diversity isn't a matter of getting it right, or of doing enough. It's a matter of listening and sometimes knowing its ok not to speak. It's a matter of truly opening your eyes and opening your ears and struggling to understand, more than just paying lip service to the progressive ideas that most of us have been hearing since grade school. Diversity at LC for me has been the revolutionary act of not assuming I'm as enlightened as I hope to be, of listening, of showing up in support and solidarity, and of learning to become an ally for the causes and people that I care about.
Though I found the homogeneous nature of our college community stifling, and nearly transfered at one point in search of a more transparent and open community, I made the decision to stay and make a commitment to creating space on this campus which is vibrant, open, inviting, supportive, and inclusive. Two and a half years after that decision, I've seen and taken small parts in the creation of the ethnic studies minor, the opening and doubling in size of the LINCs program, the sometimes divisive and all the more necessary dialogs in the monthly Speaking on Diversity series, the sadly now defunct white privilege discussion group, great strides in recruitment of students faculty and staff of color, and the creation of the Ray Warren Multicultural Symposium.
We have made great strides towards social justice on this campus in the four years that I've been here, but there is still work to be done. I'm hear tonight to thank each and every one of you for the things that you've taught me, the hard lessons which you've guided me too, the chances to confront my own inhibitions and biases, the space and the place to ask questions, and the chance to learn about difference and privilege in my life.
No, it's never enough, but you have to start somewhere.
I was asked recently to speak tonight at the Office of Multicultural Affairs Year End Banquet. This is auspiciously an honor, bestowed on graduating (!) seniors who've had some part in diversity on campus. I guess its just funny, because while diversity is extremely important to me, particularly in a setting like this one where I am so very privileged, I don't really feel like I've been a part of diversity at Lewis & Clark. Maybe thats because I'm a white woman from a relatively well off background. Maybe its because I feel like diversity is so ridiculously self-explanatory and transparent. Maybe its because no matter how many meetings I attend, how many seminars I listen to, how many classes I take, how many all-college forums I sit in the back of and rage quietly about yet another horrifying transgression on campus in which we should have known better, I feel like its never enough. I could have always done more. At a place like LC with so many good intentions and well meaning people, and great opportunities it's never enough. There is still so much work to be done.
I think the biggest thing I've learned about diversity during the last four years of my life and of college, and in particular through my however tangential involvement in OMA activities, is that diversity isn't a matter of getting it right, or of doing enough. It's a matter of listening and sometimes knowing its ok not to speak. It's a matter of truly opening your eyes and opening your ears and struggling to understand, more than just paying lip service to the progressive ideas that most of us have been hearing since grade school. Diversity at LC for me has been the revolutionary act of not assuming I'm as enlightened as I hope to be, of listening, of showing up in support and solidarity, and of learning to become an ally for the causes and people that I care about.
Though I found the homogeneous nature of our college community stifling, and nearly transfered at one point in search of a more transparent and open community, I made the decision to stay and make a commitment to creating space on this campus which is vibrant, open, inviting, supportive, and inclusive. Two and a half years after that decision, I've seen and taken small parts in the creation of the ethnic studies minor, the opening and doubling in size of the LINCs program, the sometimes divisive and all the more necessary dialogs in the monthly Speaking on Diversity series, the sadly now defunct white privilege discussion group, great strides in recruitment of students faculty and staff of color, and the creation of the Ray Warren Multicultural Symposium.
We have made great strides towards social justice on this campus in the four years that I've been here, but there is still work to be done. I'm hear tonight to thank each and every one of you for the things that you've taught me, the hard lessons which you've guided me too, the chances to confront my own inhibitions and biases, the space and the place to ask questions, and the chance to learn about difference and privilege in my life.
No, it's never enough, but you have to start somewhere.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Musings on Radicalism
After taking part in this past weekend's World Without War Protest and Rally in Portland, and being sort of kind of untenably disappointed for reasons I only hazard to understand, and sitting through an hour and a half lecture today on radical environmentalisms, I've sort of come to the conclusion that my life is pretty well worthless because I'm not planting pipe bombs and hacking the power grid. And definitely, my little outdoor education and social justice project seems entirely futile, I mean really, save the world by playing outside?? Come on. Direct actions, as opposed to symbolic protest mechanisms sometimes seem like the only way to avoid supreme and overarching cognitive dissonance. Knowing that you're truly working for radical and revolutionary change, I mean, really who can argue with that?
And yet, call me a fence-sitter or whatever, but I can't quite find the balance in truly radical modes of protest. Maybe I still believe too strongly in the power that connections and coalitions can make towards social change, that the human to human network is still a force for a lot of good. I agree with a lot of the philosophy, the necessity for wide and sweeping changes in order to fight oppression and protect habitats in ways that don't simply perpetuate the problem in the first place.
However, I have a really hard time justifying violence. Really hard time. I like to call myself on good days a pacifist, and on even better days somewhat of an activist, but I think thats a line that I could never cross. Me, personally.
But thought provocation is always preferred to, well, the opposite extreme. Thats one of the biggest things that the rally this weekend left me thinking about...sadly nothing to do with the conflict or ensuing disasters. Five years of war, where was I five years ago, and every year since marking this date? Last year, I was on crutches, though I disparately wanted to be in town, at what apparently turned into the biggest anti-war rally in the nation that year. Sophomore year I had some vague knowledge that people were angry and shit was going to go downtown, but it was the semester after I was in Russia and I was working the brunch shift in the Bon and couldn't make it down in time. Three years ago, as a second semester freshman, I had no energy or space left to even think about being angry about a war being perpetuated in my name across the world. I couldn't even deal with the wars I was raging with myself that spring. Senior year of highschool and the second anniversary of the invasion I don't really remember, that whole year was so weird and disjointed. I have some vague recollection of going to DC that March to mark the day with my parents. Five years ago, however, I was raising hell in Prague prior to the invasion of Iraq. I have some ridiculous pictures from a march I was at, me a bunch of expats and the Czechslovak Anarchist Alliance, marching through Old Town Prague. At one point I climbed one of the statues on the Charles Bridge, and looking in all directions across the river all you could see were angry people protesting. It was pretty amazing to be a part of it, marching all through the city. At one point when we reached the American Embassy in Nove Strana, and massed outside of it, that I had the premonitions that at some point I'd look back and know that that very moment marked the beginning of my FBI file. And then the whole me almost getting kicked out of the country because AFS bans active protesting basically...but thats sort of besides the point.
What is the point, though, is the question I'm trying to raise? If all of our methods are basically useless except burning shit down, why bother? Why try? What's the alternative, if society as we know it is coming to an end anyway?
Not advocating, actually, not entirely sure where I stand on the matter. Just curious.
And yet, call me a fence-sitter or whatever, but I can't quite find the balance in truly radical modes of protest. Maybe I still believe too strongly in the power that connections and coalitions can make towards social change, that the human to human network is still a force for a lot of good. I agree with a lot of the philosophy, the necessity for wide and sweeping changes in order to fight oppression and protect habitats in ways that don't simply perpetuate the problem in the first place.
However, I have a really hard time justifying violence. Really hard time. I like to call myself on good days a pacifist, and on even better days somewhat of an activist, but I think thats a line that I could never cross. Me, personally.
But thought provocation is always preferred to, well, the opposite extreme. Thats one of the biggest things that the rally this weekend left me thinking about...sadly nothing to do with the conflict or ensuing disasters. Five years of war, where was I five years ago, and every year since marking this date? Last year, I was on crutches, though I disparately wanted to be in town, at what apparently turned into the biggest anti-war rally in the nation that year. Sophomore year I had some vague knowledge that people were angry and shit was going to go downtown, but it was the semester after I was in Russia and I was working the brunch shift in the Bon and couldn't make it down in time. Three years ago, as a second semester freshman, I had no energy or space left to even think about being angry about a war being perpetuated in my name across the world. I couldn't even deal with the wars I was raging with myself that spring. Senior year of highschool and the second anniversary of the invasion I don't really remember, that whole year was so weird and disjointed. I have some vague recollection of going to DC that March to mark the day with my parents. Five years ago, however, I was raising hell in Prague prior to the invasion of Iraq. I have some ridiculous pictures from a march I was at, me a bunch of expats and the Czechslovak Anarchist Alliance, marching through Old Town Prague. At one point I climbed one of the statues on the Charles Bridge, and looking in all directions across the river all you could see were angry people protesting. It was pretty amazing to be a part of it, marching all through the city. At one point when we reached the American Embassy in Nove Strana, and massed outside of it, that I had the premonitions that at some point I'd look back and know that that very moment marked the beginning of my FBI file. And then the whole me almost getting kicked out of the country because AFS bans active protesting basically...but thats sort of besides the point.
What is the point, though, is the question I'm trying to raise? If all of our methods are basically useless except burning shit down, why bother? Why try? What's the alternative, if society as we know it is coming to an end anyway?
Not advocating, actually, not entirely sure where I stand on the matter. Just curious.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Salutations
"Listen to the salutation of the dawn, look well to this day. For it is life, the very life of life. In its brief span lie all the verities and realities of your existence, the bliss of growth, the glory of action, the splendour of achievement. For yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision, but today well lived makes of every yesterday a memory of happiness. And of every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day for it is life. This is the salutation of the dawn. "- Sanskrit Prayer
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Failing Faster
I couldn't do it.
Should of never allowed myself to even entertain the notion...
I sort of feel awful for raising his hopes, and in the process my own expectations.
I just can't be with somebody that I'm not attracted to.
Which is a shame, really.
But my gut instincts have rarely failed me.
I am fine, drained, and in search for inspiration this week.
Should of never allowed myself to even entertain the notion...
I sort of feel awful for raising his hopes, and in the process my own expectations.
I just can't be with somebody that I'm not attracted to.
Which is a shame, really.
But my gut instincts have rarely failed me.
I am fine, drained, and in search for inspiration this week.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Ecopyschology--why I want to be a Wilderness Therapist
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
published by Atlantic Monthly Press
© Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
published by Atlantic Monthly Press
© Mary Oliver
Spring Fever, or alternately titled Fail Faster
I think I'm somehow suddenly in a relationship. For the first time in four years. And I'm not entirely sure how that happened mysteriously, nor what I happen to think about this whole train wreck waiting to happen. The details don't really matter, truth of the matter is this: I happen to be with a great guy who I've been friends with for a very long time, who has a lot of the qualities that I theoretically look for in a partner. We've been through a lot in the four years that I've known him, which is neither good nor bad, it just is. He has been a great friend to me, for which I'm more than grateful. He is legitimately one of the kindest souls I've ever known, one of the biggest hearts, and one of the most sort of impish personalities I've yet to encounter.
The only catch is, I'm not sure I'm physically attracted to him.
I feel horrible and shallow to be even having this internal monologue with myself, for allowing this to even be an issue. Though shallow might not be the correct word, because lord knows I've been involved with enough great guys over the years with non-traditional aesthetics to know that physical nature is not high up on my list of things that I look for in men. On the list, yes, but buried below the fold for sure. I do know, however, that there has to be some element of physical connection between me and whomever for a relationship to work. There has to be that spark...its part of what makes dating so magical and ethereal, that something unexplainable that just pulls you to the person.
I have to believe, I really do, that maybe you can find the spark. That you can coax it into a thriving flame. That maybe it just takes a good breeze, or a few good blows. That the physical passion that I'm so disconcertingly not feeling right now can be discovered. I have to believe that otherwise there is no hope for humanity. I have to trust that I have the potential to be surprised by people, otherwise life is just this big soup of bitterness and discontent. I have to hold on to that hope.
I wish I could be gungho about this, about him, really. I cant decide if I'm so disturbed because I'm behaving so far outside of my norm, because its him, or because I am so obviously lacking that undeniable all-consuming intensity of being entirely infatuated with someone. I don't know if not feeling that complete passion is disconcerting me because its missing, or because I am following a complete unknown. Lord knows my norm isn't the most healthy archetype to mold myself around, because either total avoidance of any and all sexual appetites unless I'm wasted is clearly the way to go... I'm entertaining this because it is the polar opposite of the faceless boozy hookups. Because even though I saw this coming from miles off, and had my let him down gently speech all prepared in my head, something stopped me. I cant explain it, which is I'm sure part of the uncertainties. Something stopped me from ending it before it even began, and I'm pretty sure I would have regret it.
I'm looking for that passion, I really miss it. I really miss falling passionately "in-love", because failing all the gut-wrenching experiences that go along with those blissful early days, at least you have certainty. You know with all of your being that you are in the right place and the right time making the correct albeit incredibly impulsive decisions because anything else would be denying God. I question what I'm feeling right now because it pales in comparison. Blame it on maturity, or realism, or chemistry, or being hurt one too many times (like there is anything but?!), but I cant make myself get completely goopily worked up over this guy, great as he might be.
I'm waiting for the universe, for this arguably wonderful person, to convince me. Maybe it's futile, but I'm really attempting to put my faith in the knowledge that things happen when they're meant to happen. If this is meant to be, than I've just been gifted a truly wonderful moment in time. If not, I can say I gave it a good shot, right?
My ultimate fear is giving it a good shot for a few weeks or so, and still feeling exactly the way I do sitting here tonight. Blank. Empty. Uninspired. I don't know which would be worse about that, that I'd be giving up the chance for an intimate relationship with a great and sincere human, or not being able to quiet the voices in my head that tell me I'm just not cut out for that kind of all-encompassing entirely possessing passionate love for another person.
Maybe I'm being entirely selfish in giving this a go at all, maybe I'm subliminally channeling my need to prove to myself that I can love and be loved in return. Maybe I'm leading him on, though I've been blatantly and explicitly honest about everything which I've written here. Maybe I'll be swept away. Maybe I wont. Maybe he'll decide he's really not into me...
I do know for sure that I have no idea what I'm doing. But regardless, I wont regret passing on the chance.
The only catch is, I'm not sure I'm physically attracted to him.
I feel horrible and shallow to be even having this internal monologue with myself, for allowing this to even be an issue. Though shallow might not be the correct word, because lord knows I've been involved with enough great guys over the years with non-traditional aesthetics to know that physical nature is not high up on my list of things that I look for in men. On the list, yes, but buried below the fold for sure. I do know, however, that there has to be some element of physical connection between me and whomever for a relationship to work. There has to be that spark...its part of what makes dating so magical and ethereal, that something unexplainable that just pulls you to the person.
I have to believe, I really do, that maybe you can find the spark. That you can coax it into a thriving flame. That maybe it just takes a good breeze, or a few good blows. That the physical passion that I'm so disconcertingly not feeling right now can be discovered. I have to believe that otherwise there is no hope for humanity. I have to trust that I have the potential to be surprised by people, otherwise life is just this big soup of bitterness and discontent. I have to hold on to that hope.
I wish I could be gungho about this, about him, really. I cant decide if I'm so disturbed because I'm behaving so far outside of my norm, because its him, or because I am so obviously lacking that undeniable all-consuming intensity of being entirely infatuated with someone. I don't know if not feeling that complete passion is disconcerting me because its missing, or because I am following a complete unknown. Lord knows my norm isn't the most healthy archetype to mold myself around, because either total avoidance of any and all sexual appetites unless I'm wasted is clearly the way to go... I'm entertaining this because it is the polar opposite of the faceless boozy hookups. Because even though I saw this coming from miles off, and had my let him down gently speech all prepared in my head, something stopped me. I cant explain it, which is I'm sure part of the uncertainties. Something stopped me from ending it before it even began, and I'm pretty sure I would have regret it.
I'm looking for that passion, I really miss it. I really miss falling passionately "in-love", because failing all the gut-wrenching experiences that go along with those blissful early days, at least you have certainty. You know with all of your being that you are in the right place and the right time making the correct albeit incredibly impulsive decisions because anything else would be denying God. I question what I'm feeling right now because it pales in comparison. Blame it on maturity, or realism, or chemistry, or being hurt one too many times (like there is anything but?!), but I cant make myself get completely goopily worked up over this guy, great as he might be.
I'm waiting for the universe, for this arguably wonderful person, to convince me. Maybe it's futile, but I'm really attempting to put my faith in the knowledge that things happen when they're meant to happen. If this is meant to be, than I've just been gifted a truly wonderful moment in time. If not, I can say I gave it a good shot, right?
My ultimate fear is giving it a good shot for a few weeks or so, and still feeling exactly the way I do sitting here tonight. Blank. Empty. Uninspired. I don't know which would be worse about that, that I'd be giving up the chance for an intimate relationship with a great and sincere human, or not being able to quiet the voices in my head that tell me I'm just not cut out for that kind of all-encompassing entirely possessing passionate love for another person.
Maybe I'm being entirely selfish in giving this a go at all, maybe I'm subliminally channeling my need to prove to myself that I can love and be loved in return. Maybe I'm leading him on, though I've been blatantly and explicitly honest about everything which I've written here. Maybe I'll be swept away. Maybe I wont. Maybe he'll decide he's really not into me...
I do know for sure that I have no idea what I'm doing. But regardless, I wont regret passing on the chance.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Ten Pages, Two Heart Attaches
First major thesis deadline tomorrow--and I have to admit I am damn near to ten full pages of print. I hate to think about how much more difficult the next ten pages will be, now that I've successfully churned out the early easy fluff parts of the project...
Heart Attach No. 1) Brett's shrunken head in the Sietz Lounge Microwave. I swear to Christ.
Heart Attach No. 2) Daydreamed I left my travel mug...somewhere. That maybe the single best reflection of my chaos right now, that being without my portable coffee mug was the best my subconscious could come up with to kick me back into gear.
Thanks brain, really. I owe ya one.
Heart Attach No. 1) Brett's shrunken head in the Sietz Lounge Microwave. I swear to Christ.
Heart Attach No. 2) Daydreamed I left my travel mug...somewhere. That maybe the single best reflection of my chaos right now, that being without my portable coffee mug was the best my subconscious could come up with to kick me back into gear.
Thanks brain, really. I owe ya one.
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