I'm reminding myself

I'm trying to be happy. I'm reminding myself to decorate my walls with photos. I volunteered in a research study on depression where they zap your brain with electricity while you identify and remember the emotional expression on people's faces. I volunteered in another research study on depression where they played me Youtube videos through a VR headset and had me recount what I saw in detail. 

I'm trying to be happy. I'm reminding myself to say hello to the doorman the first time I see him on his shift. Good morning. Hi. Have a nice night. The doormen start expecting my greeting and preemptively wave. 

I'm reminding myself to read for pleasure sometime. To watch a movie on an international flight. 

I returned late at night to my parking garage. I parked on the third floor and sat for a while. Two men in a sparkling SUV joked and hassled one another in the row behind me. I got out of my car and crossed to the elevator. When I hit the down button it lit up and then went out. I tried again, and the elevator would not come so I took the stairs. Behind me, a man dressed in all back descended from the floor above. We went slowly, me sore and limping from the basketball games I had just played, him keeping his distance. 

The steel steps let out onto the down town sidewalk. I waited and held the door for the man as he exited. "That's so nice." He said to me. 

Serenity Prayer

I talked Joe's ear off yesterday about makeup. The basic female condition of makeup and botox and carting around huge suitcases full of clothes and hair dryers and straighteners and creams and scales. I don't like it. I almost fear it. Maybe I do fear it. 

Nobody Panic podcast did an episode on how to get a wax. I have never managed my pubic hair apart from trying to maneuver a razor to clean up the crease of my upper leg. I feel unsophisticated in this. But I've been satisfied with my sex life so far. I haven't minded wearing little board shorts as swimsuit bottoms. And I've grilled each man who's seen me in the buff, at knife point, as to whether he thinks it's okay. So far I've gotten the all-clear. (Although, I tend to only hook up with men who are nice, possibly in part because I don't want to hear the true answer to this question.) 

Stevie, NP podcast host, says that waxing is painful and expensive and she feels unfeminist for doing it, but if she doesn't get it done she feels dirty. The mental struggle over it has gotten very boring, so she just gets it done. My mental struggles around the point have not been enough to inspire me to action. 

I would like to occasionally give myself a new face. That seems like a big benefit of makeup. I could signal to everyone, Oh, fancy Amy is out tonight. Or edgy Amy. Or #girlboss Amy. Or just Amy who's taken this night seriously. But that shit takes time and makeup and experimentation. People figure out their look over the course of years. 

Getting older brings the spectre of more extreme procedures: botox, fillers, laser treatments, and whatever they think of next. It feels like penance for the crime of aging. You're doing something morally wrong by rounding into your 40s. 

I was telling Joe about my sense, even at a young age, of getting away with something by rejecting the work of trying to be beautiful. It felt, it feels, like breaking the rules. The core of it came to me -- less noble than feminism -- something that you could needle point on a pillow. I like to think of it like the serenity prayer: 

Lord, may I experience love and affection throughout my life without having to do anything too expensive or uninteresting to me. 

Single Gals

This has been on my mind. I went home to Colorado for my friend, Jessica's wedding. I grew up with Jess as part of the camping group, a group of around seven families that would go pop-up camping together every summer. We've gotten to the stage in life when some of the parents in the camping group have started to die. Glen Hoit died last year of pancreatic cancer. His wife, Terry, is one of the matriarchs in the group, maybe the matriarch. She's tough and brassy and, more intimidating than that, she's funny. Glen's death and absence is felt deeply by everyone, but especially by Terry of course.

She had to have someone sell Glen's truck when he died. She re-did the entire inside of her living room. She's an honest person and hasn't hid her feelings of grief. (Although anything she says usually has a laugh or a joke hot on its heels.) 

The camping group, like my parents, doesn't really believe in divorce. Only one couple of the seven got a divorce, and that was late in life, once the kids had all gone to college. I am going through something of a divorce. I went home to Colorado and was around the camping group without my husband for the first time. Terry pulled me aside. She said, 

"Have you noticed that, as a single gal, there are all these men waiting in the wings ready to help you out? They just come out of nowhere, dying to fix your problems." 

The attention is different. I have noticed that. But the thing that stuck out to me about what Terry said was that she put the two of us in the same category. "Single gals." She lost her husband to cancer. I've sort of aimlessly squandered mine. But she put us on the same level. She said, "You're with me." 

7/23/23

I am driving myself from Los Angeles to Fort Collins -- ALONE. It's been fine so far. Whenever I feel fine, though, I have this ironclad optimistic sense that I will feel fine forever, and when I have another one of my spirals it takes me completely by surprise. This morning, in a hotel room in Beaver, Utah, I was reflecting on how it's going to be important for me to keep doing the things I do in crisis mode to make me feel better. Keep getting enough sleep. Keep stretching and exercising. Keep free writing or blogging. Keep working on my projects everyday to keep me grounded and distracted in something outside myself. The work to stay well is kind of a drag, even when it's nice. But yeah... I'm going to go back into the dark places a lot. So I can't just assume I'm free and clear and drop all the things that seem to help. 

The other night, like I talked about in my last post, was a bad spiral. At one point, I was crying and lying in bed with Joe. I had felt a little better, but I could feel my mood crashing again. That feeling of the bottom dropping out invading my chest and the lightheadedness in my um, head. I spasmed and grabbed onto Joe. (The spasming sometimes happens, like an electric shock has run through my body.) I was on my way down. Joe said it was okay. I could hug him as hard as I wanted, that he was going to lay there and I could do whatever I wanted to him. I hugged him tightly. And then I thought about kneeing him in the balls. Would that help, kneeing him in the balls? I had never kneed anybody in the balls before. I asked him about it, "What about kneeing you in the balls?' The thought of it was cheering me up. It made me laugh. It was actively pulling me right out of my downward spiral - the slapstick, the forbidden. I forget what he said about it. I kneed him in the balls. 

I tried to trust the triangle.

I feel terrible today. I hit a crying jag last night. I didn't know it was coming. I felt like my whole life had been pointless. Like I really made a bollix of everything. Of everything! (Bollix because I've been reading a lot of Roddy Doyle books.) I had to get to a research study at UCLA at 8am this morning. So between waking up early and staying up late crying, I feel horrible today. Like shit. 

The research study was for PTSD. It was one of the ones that pays alright. $245 all in. All you have to do is tell them about your traumatic history, your symptoms and then come in for a lab visit. They took some blood and some pee. They gave my arm a sonagram while using a cuff to contract my blood vessels. (The study is about what stress over time does to your veins.) Then they followed my eyes while I looked at different faces with different expressions. They definitely didn't hire actors or photographers to get those. I didn't believe the people's emotions for a second, and the lighting was shit. 

Lastly, they hooked me up to a bunch of wires. An ECG and another thing -- FRM maybe? -- that measured my heart rate, my movement (breathing, eye twitching) and the sweatiness of my palms. They put headphones on my ears-- I keep saying "they" but it was a lovely woman just out of undergrad named Kim who had immaculate eyebrows. Anyway, Kim put headphones on my ears and a camelback on my front. The task was a "startle" task where they unexpectedly played a loud sound in my ears. Mostly the screen was white (I was sitting in front of a computer monitor), but sometimes a blue square would show up on the left side of the screen. Other times it was a maroon triangle on the right. Part way into the first session a poof of air was shot at my neck. (It was like an intense version of being in the Indiana Jones ride. Or it was like getting hit in the face with a squirt gun.) It wasn't very painful, but it wasn't nice. 

What was happening was that every time the blue square showed up, I'd get shot with air. When the triangle appears, no air. The weird thing was that I started to resent the triangle. I mean, don't get me wrong, both shapes were absolute cunts. But the square at least had the decency to be a mean bully to my face. The square was consistent, always shooting me with air. The triangle never did, but I was always waiting for it to. The triangle could change its mind and turn on me at any moment. The triangle was shifty. At least with the square boy, you knew what you were getting. 

I mean, the way this ^ maps to my relationships -- or relationships in general -- is... you know, bad. The poor person who never does anything wrong but gets leveled with heavy suspicion because other people in my life have been cunts. (Again with the reading Irish author Roddy Doyle. Now I say the c word, I guess.) Towards the end, I was trying to actively trust the triangle. Like, I was consciously trying to relax my body, open my throat to the air shooter, to show it that I was capable of being loved. 

7/13/23

Yesterday, I walked in the evening over to the Alamo Drafthouse. On the way, a group of men were causing a commotion on the sidewalk. I crossed the road in the middle of the block in order to avoid them. 

Two or three men were yelling at another, who was sitting on a low wall attached to the fence around the park. They were middle-aged, 30s-40s, maybe homeless or if not just in the position where you take care of your business out on the street. The sitting man was not shouting back, just sitting there. One of the aggressors grabbed a bottle of Jameson and started to walk back over to the sitting man. One of the guys in the group, part of things but on the periphery, took the bottle out of the man's hand without saying a word. The man returned the bottle a bag some steps away from the conflict. 

The man gave up the bottle without protest. It was like he was considering taking things to the next level. The level where someone gets beamed with a 750 ml glass bottle. The kind of thing where someone could die. The deescalator made no big deal of it. He was just like, "Nope, that's not what's happening." I wonder how many lives have been saved by some small action like that. 

Photo 2

I was in the B-studios at SMC, hastily reshooting a beauty assignment. Tal, one of my classmates with clear skin and striking bone structure, had agreed to be my model. 

"How are your assignments going for Steve's class?" she asked me. 

I was shooting her for my digital Lighting for People class, but we were in the Photo 2 Film Photography class together. 

"Oh, I'm actually dropping it." I told her. "I'll go tonight because I'm here, but my schedule's too busy, and I figure I can re-enroll later." 

But somehow I didn't drop the class. The lecture that night was amazing, and I realized it was the stuff I was learning in Steve's class that I was thinking about throughout the week. 

Last night, I finished my Photo 2 class. I dropped the other class instead (even though lighting/shooting people/portraits is exactly inline with my interests). But Steve Moulton, our Photo 2 professor, was blowing my mind. Here's some of the stuff he talked about:

DATA PROCESSORS

Steve sees people as data processors. Your photographs should present the world in a way that people don't usually see it. The camera angle shouldn't be at eye level. The focal length should be outside the normal range (not 35 or 50mm), as those mimic the human eye. The depth of field should either be very shallow with the background obliterated or sharp as a tack, where the foreground is in focus and you also can see for miles. The shutter speed should be so fast that it freezes motion that would usually be a blur or slow enough that movement is softened and becomes ghostly and whooshing. If you don't do this, you're giving your audience pictures of the world like they already see it. You're giving them data that they've already processed, and it's easy for them to move on.  You're feeding them chewed up food. 

I think this applies to writing as well (and definitely filmmaking). Present something recognizable in a different way. Stories, relationships, characters, experiences outside the way we usually view them, outside the way we usually understand them. 

SUBJECT MATTER

One of Steve's first lectures included an admonition for us to shoot subjects that were meaningful to us. He gave us assignments that were designed to strengthen our craft, but he didn't want us to shoot anything just to appease the assignment. He asked the class, "What are you passionate about?" Someone said photography, and he said, "No. If you're passionate about photography, you'll become a collector of cameras and gadgets." He said every important photographer cares deeply about the thing on the other side of the camera. If you don't care about your subject, how do you expect your audience to? 

This really blew my mind. I've been a studious collector of skills. It's been important for me to master a discipline. I've wanted for years to become a good writer. I've not thought a great deal about what I want to write about. This is absolutely insane behavior on my part, in retrospect. I feel like my overarching assignment, now, as an artist, as a person, is to figure out what I care about. What I want to spend ages digging into. What I want to show again and again in different ways. 

Our final project was to shoot one subject in as many different ways as possible. Steve listed out 13 shooting variables we control as photographers: camera angle, subject size, subject placement, focal length, shutter speed, aperture, background, light quality, light direction, light ratio, on camera filters, camera type, film type. Each photograph, ideally, implemented different variables. He explained that style is when a photographer uses the same variables over and over. So this was a kind of anti-style assignment. 

Tamara, one of the other students, presented her final last. She photographed her daughter as her subject. She said that her daughter is autistic, which has made it difficult for them to connect, and she thought she'd use the assignment as an opportunity to spend time with her before she left for college. The assignment was to shoot six wildly different photographs. Tamara shot 22 and they were all beautiful. 

OTHER QUOTES

"All the people you've ever heard of are the people who finish their ideas." 

"Keep shooting: you might not have taken your best photograph yet." 

Steve said we were the best Photo 2 class he's ever taught. He's nearing retirement, and he said our class made him energized to teach more Photo 2s. We didn't get a whole class photo, because we thought of it after people had left, but here are a few of us: 

Otherwise You're a Bastard

I've been volunteering occasionally with a group of friends who cooks and distributes how breakfast and lunches in MacArthur Park. Sophia Benoit, who I follow on Twitter, retweeted an event flier for it. I don't know Sophia. I don't know if Sophia personally knows Eva, the contact for the group, but MacArthur Park is near my apartment downtown, and homelessness is a heavy feature of this area. I signed up. 

The group isn't even organized under a name. Eva said they're just a group of friends helping out. Eva does this as her full-time job, getting support on Patreon for her living expenses. She looks young, in her thirties, but she has a teenaged daughter, so she might be older. The group feeds hundreds of people every week, and does special events -- with hair cuts and first aid supplies and the like -- once a month. 

They started by just doing a meal-swap thing amongst themselves. They were really proud of the food they were making and were making it in big quantities. They started to figure, why not just make it in huge quantities? 

Eva told me she grew up in a cult. She didn't elaborate and I didn't ask her to. Although, of course, I'd like to know more. They got out of the cult, and her mom used to take her into town when she was working. She'd buy little bottles of booze and cheap cigarettes and hand them out to the people who couldn't afford them. Her attitude was something like, "They shouldn't have to be poor and miserable." Eva was raised that if you had the capacity to help someone, you had the obligation to help them. Otherwise you're a bastard. She said she's just trying not to be a bastard. 

She also started talking about how the problem wasn't going to be solved in our lifetime. For her, that was the reason to do something, not not to do something. It reminded me of how cities used to build cathedrals that would take multiple generations to finish. The lack of immediate result not being an argument against its execution. There's an anti-hope to it. An anti-optimism. You do it because it is the thing to do. Nothing guaranteed. 

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Moving Out

It's the last week of living at 10544 Santa Monica Blvd. On Saturday, my husband is going to take my cat and get in a UHaul and drive to Seattle. I'll move in with my friend down town. We're going to really try this thing out. 

On Sunday morning, Annie and I did a tarot reading over Facetime. Just one card and then some journaling and then sharing with each other what we thought. I pulled the Lovers card, which was apt (maybe too apt for revelation). Annie pulled the Emperor, which is also her birth card, and it was interesting to hear her reflections on it. Both she and Noelle (who I'm moving in with) aren't sure whether pursuing a partner is worth the hassle. They're both successful and largely at peace by themselves. I wonder if that's what I'll find going into this next season. I may or may not get the chance to find out. 

I moved my books and my fancy glassware into Noelle's apartment (some of my favorite possessions for sure). It felt good to get part of myself in there. Like I'm making it real. I'll be all the way in by the end of the week. It's terrifying and sad, but also the new adventure of it is like a siren song. I can't wait to see what happens. I think I might be able to make a lot out of it. Stretch my legs. Create my world and my story. I'll miss my husband at night, I think. I almost feel guilty for not missing him more -- but maybe I will. 

Oh, we had our apartment cooling party on Saturday. It was pretty good. I set up stations -- leave a message of advice for the newly separated, untie the knot, separate the sand. I was amused by it. Several people asked me if I found the idea on the internet. No, man. In my brain. 

Self Defense

I took a self defense class yesterday because I'm moving downtown, and I'll coming home late at night, and that's a way more spicy place than I've lived before. I've bargained with my anxiety late at night, telling myself that I will do what I can to mitigate the situation. One of those things (one of the only things I can think of) was a self-defense class. They're offered for free at UCLA on Wednesdays. 

We learned and practiced some strikes and a few escapes. One of my biggest hurdles, though, is that I do not want to hit anyone. Being in a situation where I have to hit someone already seems traumatizing enough. I want to avoid that. I want to avoid it so badly, that I'm afraid I wouldn't hit someone even if I needed to. (And imagine owning a gun. Imagine having to shoot someone.) 

The second thing is that I can't imagine being able to fight a man (or men) off. I feel like I would need years of dedicated practice in martial arts to stand a chance. I tell myself that all I need to do is be enough of a nuisance to get them to leave me alone. The other thing I need to do is to train myself to do anything in that situation. To run, to call for help, to scream, to fight back. Every time it's come up in the past,  I do nothing. I play nice. I pretend to be asleep. 

I feel like I'm being born into a brand new and much more dangerous world. When I'm out walking on the street, strangers wouldn't know whether or not I'm married, and yet it feels like my marriage covers me somehow. I'm taken. I belong to a man. Now I belong to myself and I'm up to myself and I feel like that's a weakness that people will be able to smell on me. 

I'm athletic. I'm fairly good sized for a woman -- not the most petite person out there to be sure. But I'm so fucking nice, by training not by nature. I feel terrified of making a fuss. Horribly ashamed of calling for help in a dangerous situation. It's so hard to shake the feeling that I asked for it by being female, by being single. Here I have this perfectly good husband, and I'm letting him go to face a horribly dangerous and sad world alone. That feels crazy. 

I'm hoping it turns out to be not so bad. That I can fend for myself somehow. I won't know until I try, but my body is screaming at me. 

Assertiveness Class

I'm taking an online assertiveness class through West Los Angeles College. I'm on the second lesson (already behind), and I figured I'd do part of the exercise here. After doing the first lesson, I thought of how my dad is aggressive (in the passive, aggressive, assertive spectrum). I'd talked with my husband about how maybe my dad is autistic, but the aggressive idea fits better. Aggressiveness as a compensation for some shyness in speaking in front of groups, in compensation for not being very traditionally masculine -- despite being a big guy, my dad is more into socializing and computers and sugary drinks than sports and cold stoicism. 

Anyhow, I'm tired. Let's do this: 

Create a picture of yourself

When you are completely relaxed, create a vivid picture in your mind of how you would look as an assertive person. Create the picture of being assertive that you want. Visualize a setting and people with whom you want to be more assertive. See the colors of the surrounding and the clothes you each have on. Hear the sounds and sense the smells of the surroundings. See and hear yourself saying assertive sentences starting with "I think," "I feel," and "I want." Hear the clear, strong, steady tone of voice you are using. Hear the confident thoughts you are thinking to yourself. Visualize yourself standing in an assertive manner, comfortably but firmly balanced on both feet with your hands held loosely at your side. See yourself looking the other person straight in the eye.

This has gone better lately, and kind of out of the blue. I took photos at a fancy comedy event and didn't feel intimidated (like usual) by attractive wealthy-seeming women in stylish clothes. I went to a backyard screening and supported my friend. I went around with her to talk to people and mostly said nothing, but I stood there without feeling uncomfortable. 

I think the picture of me as an assertive person doesn't mean that I always am dressed just right. It doesn't mean that I always have something funny to say or the most insightful question to ask. It means that I show up, in whatever mood or circumstance I find myself in, and appreciate and approach other people as fellow human beings. I feel like I have a place there, that I am worthy of their time (as much as the next person). That they're their own psychological mess right below the surface, just like me. That we can chill. That it can go well or badly. But whatever happens it won't be a referendum on me and my worth as a person. It'll just be a time and one with maybe some exciting possibilities. 

Oh! I do my best to be clear and to be prepared and game and interested in the people who are there. But that's all bonus! That's not my price of entry, that's just me trying to do my best. 

I Don't Envy Your Situation

I always saw him from a bit of a distance, growing up. He was my best friend's older brother and her favorite person. He was so cool. He could make a whole room laugh by saying the unexpected thing at just the right time. He made it look easy. He was all light. He bounded across a room, even when he was just walking. Big strides. One hand holding his pants up because this was the late 90s/early 2000s. He was one of those boys who has that effortless masculine build and athleticism. All genetics and no training. My friend and I tried modeled ourselves after him, we tried to be as daring as he was.

I at no point in my youth told a boy I liked him. I either didn't have the confidence or hadn't developed the ability to notice if I had a shot with someone. I found out much later, after I went to college, after I was married, that my friend's brother had had a crush on me too. And at that point, he was still beautiful. 

Last weekend, I went over to my friend's house. She had just come home from the hospital where they removed her ruptured appendix. Two months ago, she gave birth to identical twin girls. I told her and her husband and her brother -- who was there, as he had been helping watch after her older son -- about my separation. I knew it was going to be a difficult conversation. I had been putting it off. Of all my friends, telling my best friend about my relationship choices has always been fraught. 

When I got my first boyfriend in 8th grade, she teased me so relentlessly that I broke up with him. (His name was "Gentry" and she howled with laughter and called him "Dentisty." Dentistry! Dentistry! It wasn't my fault he had a dumb name.) She was so upset when I got married that she cried her fake eyelashes off as she stood next to me during the ceremony. When I had an affair, she was hurt that I didn't tell her about it sooner. "Don't you trust me?" She asked. "I'd never judge you." 

Her brother, a beer in front of him, wanted to know why I wasn't drinking. "Are you one of those sober California people now?" He had gained weight since I last saw him, and he commented on it. "Stop calling yourself fat," my friend told him. "This might be a mom thing to say, but you look skinny, " he told me. "Sorry, I probably shouldn't have said that." He followed up. I told him it was fine. 

I feel like I'm being cruel -- although accurate -- like, hey look, here's a time where I came off better than someone else. I guess that's what I am doing. But it's not nice to see the beautiful boy I revered in a state like that. Saying, unprompted, that people shouldn't judge him for his drinking. Saying that he's the failure of the family. Saying that he doesn't have very many friends and he doesn't do very much. I feel like he was saying, "Look at us. Look at you, and look at me." And I was looking. And he wanted me to hold that maybe. 

When I got home, he messaged me on Instagram saying that he still has feelings for me. He and his wife have been trying to have a baby. 

My friend -- a different friend -- from college got divorced. Shortly afterwards, people kept coming out of the woodwork, confessing their love for her. One of the most notable was her ex-husband's closest friend. Over dinner, he said he'd been in love with her for a long time. She turned him down. He moved to Florida. My friend's ex told me that he moved there with his girlfriend, who has three kids that he's helping to raise. My friend's ex said this guy's feeling really isolated and alone. 

Christianna, my Greek basketball friend, (last friend I'll mention, I promise) told me that she doesn't envy my situation. That wasn't the main point of whatever she was telling me, it was just a one-off comment. But it struck me as strange. My situation has seemed good to me, like a thousand steps in the right direction. Although, I am getting tired of feeling sad. 

When you go through a difficult time publicly, people tend to show you their pain. They do it directly or indirectly. They say, this is what I'm going through, but I'm soldiering through. And you tell them that that is fine. It's admirable. They don't have to change anything just because you are. Others ask if you'll catch them if they jump -- away from their situation, away from what they're tired of, away from their felt loss of control. And you say you're sorry but no. 

It was great to see you too.

Salon

Went to a Tea with Alice salon today, and it was really nice. 

Communion

I've been thinking about Christianity a lot since being home. I think -- pretty sure -- my brothers are evangelical Christians now. They go to non-denominational churches. I don't know if you'd classify my parents that way. They still go to First Pres, but that particular church left the mainstream UPC because it ordains gay ministers. (And only gay ministers! mu-ah-AH!) 

My mom's worried about me in regards to Christianity. She has been for years. I think she'd be happy with whatever I did with my life as long as I had a relationship with Jesus. It's tough because I don't want her to worry. I want her to feel proud and comfortable and good about herself and her parenting. She's a world-class mom. But I can't pretend to be a Christian if I'm not. I can't pretend that I talk to and have feelings for Spirit Guy. 

I wonder if belief really isn't that important. The way I understood John talk about it (a friend from college who became a Lutheran pastor), Jesus saves us. It's in his hands. It's up to him. Belief is a gift. (Is it a gift? Honestly, when people talk about waiting for God to tell them what to do in their life, they sound nuts. Like God speaking directly to them? What? It's nonsense. Both because God is not real, and if he were real that would be a very silly way for him to conduct his business.) 

I don't know how to reconcile my lack of Christianity to the central role it plays in my family's life. I don't mind them being Christians at all. I think the church community greatly enriches their lives, and without it they might be hard pressed for friends and support. But I'm worried that my non-Christianity will be the only thing they see in me, the only thing they talk about with me, the thing they fixate on. I mean, fair enough if they think I'm ruining my life and ultimately going to hell. I get it, but it's annoying. And not an enriching dynamic. I want better than that for us. I'm not sure how it will shake out. 

At church last Sunday, the pastor was saying lots of stuff I don't believe in. I was participating in a community and culture that wasn't mine. I like the collective singing even if a lot of the songs are corny. I like to hear somebody talk about something they care about. But it wasn't a space for me. And it wasn't a space where, if I stayed for long, I could flourish. 

Then the pastor called people up for communion. "If you believe, you can partake in this table," he said. If you believe. I don't believe, and I'm trying to be more open about who I am, so I could have forgone the communion. But a very strong feeling kicked into gear -- No, communion is God's gift to everyone. I felt very sure about that. I had a birthright to that communion. God's grace belongs to me. 

I don't believe in God, but I'm secure in his promises. 

"I don't believe in Jesus, Mom, and He's fine with it." 

Fear of Flying

I had a thought about my anxious attachment or whatever you want to call it, my preoccupation with my romantic relationships. (Although, as I write that I think... uh, that's like the whole thing with romantic relationships, right? You think about them and stuff.) I mean what seems to be unhealthy, unwarranted levels of fear over being abandoned, over not being good enough, or being good enough but not seen. 

My thought was that my partner also wants the relationship to work out. This is obvious/not obvious. Of course, sometimes people are on their way out of relationships -- hoping they'll end, working towards their conclusion -- but for the most part, both people want the thing to work. Both want to be loved and to love, they want to have their needs met and they want to bring pleasure and companionship to someone else. They want to have that partnership box checked. Both people want the relationship to work and be good. 

It reminded me of anxious flyers. I'm not one. I know we could crash, but I look at the pilots and the flight attendants and think -- they want to survive as much as I do. They're going to use all their intelligence and will to make sure that doesn't happen. I guess I'm pretty okay at turning over my life to other people, if they're professionals and their own life is in the balance. So, it's like that. Relationships are my airplane anxiety. And I can over come the fear of flying in an airplane, so maybe I can logic myself into more confidence in relationships as well. 

January 16, 2023

I went to church with my parent's and my brother's family yesterday. The pastor was the same man who married my brother and sister-in-law. I didn't like him much then because he kept using all these sports metaphors. "Tackling" everything, etc. He has a hint of a southern accent. In his sermon yesterday, he mentioned not liking Joe Biden. He talked about trying to lose weight for your new year's resolution. ("Triggering," I thought.) He preached about John the Baptist, said he was considered great. He talked about other great people throughout all of history. He mentioned no women. 

He talked about how David Hume, philosopher and proclaimed atheist, would travel hours to hear a contemporary preacher preach. When someone asked him about it, said "Hey, you don't believe in this." He supposedly answered, "Yeah, but he does." Meaning the preacher believed what he was saying. The point was supposed to be be on fire for God. Believe what you're saying, and you'll be attractive to other people. Which is true, in general. Be excited about and committed to your own shit, and people will find that attractive. But my takeaway was much stronger the other way -- I want to be like David Hume. I want to travel to listen to people I disagree with just because they believe what they're saying. I want to have that kind of curiosity, that habit of seeking outward. 

January 15, 2023

I'm realizing that a separation, a divorce isn't exactly a rebirth like I was maybe thinking it was. It's felt like my marriage was a mistake -- even at the time I made it. Not that Mitch was a bad person to marry or that I was destined to be miserable or abused. Just that, it wasn't how I wanted my life to go. I didn't recognize myself in the story. I didn't have the right feelings. I wasn't sure I could ever have the right feelings, and I wasn't sure what the right feelings were, but I also was just like - this isn't it. This isn't excitement. I also just didn't have a reason why were getting married. I couldn't get my head around it. At first I justified it by saying we'd go to Russia together. But why get married to go to Russia? Just to have the blessing of our parents. It was all messed up. 

It wouldn't have mattered, our beginnings, if I had shaken that feeling later on. Is it a kind of emotional dysmorphia? Is it the result of trauma? Is it just myself knowing that that wasn't it for me? 

I've gotten a kick, a boost, out of getting out. I feel like I can rewrite my story to be what I want it to be. So that I can see myself. But... my 12 years of marriage isn't going away. Now I have this fractured life. An era of a marriage I will have a hard time explaining to people -- both why I was in it and why I left it. 

Other people have long relationships in their past too. I need to remember that. Someone will have grace with my story just like I would with theirs. Someone will see it as an asset. Everything is permanent, lasting forever all at once. Everything passes, more fleeting than you can imagine. 

January 11, 2023

If I were to get a tattoo -- tattoos -- and you know, I think I can -- I'd get a cicada on my upper thigh, a magpie on my upper arm, the garden of the gods on my ankle. Is that how you're supposed to get tattoos? The cicada would be from the memory of going to Missouri on family reunions growing up. How some summers, that one summer, the cicadas were everywhere. Flying drunk into your hair. Slamming themselves against sliding glass doors. Offering themselves up to the fish in the lake for food. (The fish got tired of them.) 

The bird would be for myself. My bird animal. The one I'd want of myself on my cousin Becky, who gets birds for close people who have died in her life. A blue heron for our grandfather. A blue jay for her sister Angie. I don't think I can ask for a spot myself on her skin (maybe to be reserved like a plot in a cemetery), but I could get myself one on myself. She does birds of others. Is it telling that I would get a bird which means myself? 

The garden of the gods is obvious. It's for where I grew up. That familiar arrangement of rocks, jutting up straight out of the ground where the tectonic plates crashed into each other. A place to ride my bike. To remember that even though I tell people I'm from flat boring Colorado Springs -- the place without any springs -- that I'm really from somewhere else. A tiny town making bank off of taxing the county's weed. The one with actual springs: Manitou Springs. 

January 10, 2023

I'm reading Abandon Me by Melissa Febos. Once I finish, I will have read all her books. I think I read them back to back all in a row: Body Work, Whip Smart, Girlhood, and Abandon Me. No, that's not true. I read Bad Sex after Body Work. Give me memoirs lately about love, relationships, sex. 

I've never read straight through an author's catalogue before, although I've liked the idea. (I think I could have with Tana French, but it would have ruined my life for that span of time. I would have gotten nothing done for months.) Febos' mind seems to work like mine. (I flatter myself.) She loops back and back on things. She's obsessed with relationships, with love, with trauma, with herself. She's a secretive person who wants to be known. In Abandon Me, she talks about feeling like a wild animal in her desires. I relate. She wants love the way I want love, bodily, from a wound, from strength. 

Reading her makes me feel like I know myself better, from finding which words strike a chord in me and which do not. (For example, she's struggled with hating her body - disciplining it harshly - and I feel that I luckily have not.) When she talks about her experience with her beloved, she winds through essays about her parents and her brother. Of course. I feel all those things connected in me too. She seems exposed to the world and like she's overcome it. (Although, even from a place of success -- like being this good at writing and working for the Iowa writers workshop and being married -- who knows if she's really triumphant. She seems to be in a good place, though.) 

Reading her makes me feel more accepting of myself. That my desire for love isn't shameful. That the way I struggle doesn't make me a pitiful thing. That you can write and write and expose yourself and come away understood. If not understood, maybe a little seen. That you can mend your story through the telling of it. 

Lightning. Hot sauce. 

January 9, 2023

I was thinking today about the trolley problem. How I think I'd pretty easily choose to save a loved one and doom a trolley full of strangers. I think I'd even pull the lever (as opposed to the scenario where I just leave the level un-pulled). I think I could look each doomed stranger in the face and read their bio and still save the person I loved. I'm not saying it's ethical. And I think if I were elected president or something -- had accepted an office of authority, with others explicitly in my care -- then I might have to act differently. But as just me, now.... 

I thought about having the friends and loved ones of the people in the trolley looking on, begging me not to pull the lever. They'd all hate me. I understand! But maybe the family of my beloved would be there too, us all personally relieved if morally horrified. Then it became like that: my beloved on the tracks. 

Think of the tension that would put on our relationship. The bar for fulfillment would be sky high. I killed all those people for this? I would say to myself as he half listens to what I'm saying. 

January 8, 2023

I was a guest on Tea with Alice today. I've been helping Alice produce season two of her podcast, and Guy Branum missed his initial recording time. So I stepped in. I'm not... um, obviously not as successful as Guy, or anybody else who's going to be a guest. And I talked about my separation. What a mix of things. I'm also listening to Melissa Febos's book Abandon Me. It's the last of her books I'm listening to (because it's only available on Audible as opposed to from the library), and it was the one I was most eager to read after finishing Body Work. I've liked it best so far. Which brings me back to knowing what I like. I think I will not like living at Noelle's because of the danger I will feel coming home there late at night. I think I will feel like the space is not mine. That I'm intruding. That I won't be able to relax. I hope I am wrong about those things. 

This morning I thought about doing yoga to a youtube video near the poles. The morning light coming in. I've also been thinking about what she said about the loft - how it opens creative potential. How each year she's found herself able to manage. To continue on and in ways that are exciting and fulfilling. 

I think I will miss Mitch's body at night. That familiarity we've built up over years. And even from the beginning how we were able to sleep together in a twin sized bed, curled up like kittens. That was always home to me. 

January 7, 2023

Yesterday, I dropped my husband off at the airport for our first day of official separation. Meanwhile, my lover spent his first night in a trailer in the desert by a poisoned empty sea. (Please excuse this blog post. I've been reading Abandon Me by Melissa Febos, and it's affecting me.) 

 

January 6, 2023

Last night I had fears about leaving, that I was a leaver. I left my family straight out of high school. I went out of state for college. I never moved back. Even now when I visit Colorado, I go to the Fort Collins house. It's nicer than the one I grew up in, and there are fewer memories. I watch other kids from the camping group leave the state, rebel against the rules and beliefs of their upbringings, to eventually come back. Some come back home physically, while other seems to return to their parents' life choices or ethics. I keep going. I don't want to return. I go out and out. I keep thinking of a science fiction story, barely remembered, about an astronaut who is going out into the universe forever. Straight into the unknown, never returning. I feel like that. When will I want to return? When will the appeal of what's out there what's next fade for me?

I'm worried about leaving my husband. What's to stop me from leaving everything? I want to have a home. I want my commitments to mean something. When will I learn to stay? Is it a lesson worth learning?