No More

Oaxaca, Mexico

No more maneater

No more ice queen

The resurgence of the in between

No more ardent lover

No more violent hater

All the more serene

Maybe this is called authenticity

This is a surfboard unsinking

This is what it is to own energy

She’s keeping her silence now

Less and less apt to feel the need

To fill the space

No more tough girl act; defense machinations

No more external validation

Who’s really the one keeping track?

No more drama unnecessary

No more over controlling

Live and let live; give get and give

No more people pleasing

No more overly friendly

Oh the beauty of boundaries

She’s more careful these days

She’s more thankful these days

What’s hers is hers alone

No more clinging to definitions

No more unchallenging the latest version of me

Ode to finding simplicity within complexity

It’s much less sexy

When you’re no longer the life of the party

But how enchanting to know where you’re going

No more clinging to ideals

No more holding onto all that is fluid

Finding the light and love in uncertainty

Letting the universe hold me

Surrendering

Being

I Want to be a Hindu Cow, Dammit!

Perhaps it’s not experiencing every single type of hell to taste the heights of heaven for only a moment that makes life worth living.  Perhaps the answer lies within the in between spaces…

See that mellow look in that cow's eyes, that should be me doing yoga.

You’d think I’d be as clear and as calm as a Hindu cow with all the yoga I've been practicing lately, but instead here’s this anxiety riding, self-obliterating person who has been a complete asshole –mainly to herself.

The past few months have resulted in an over-stressed, over-committed, ambivalent being that has been focusing far too much on everything that’s wrong rather all that is perfect and right.

Then something happened.  I was in class trying to get into virasana pose (this pose is also an asshole), visibly getting frustrated as I moved props under my knees and still felt too much pressure.  I shifted back into baddha konasana and watched everyone else meditate in perfect virasanas.  Then judgment: I was yelling at my knees in my head then wondering how on earth is every goddamned person in this room in this pose?  It’s not like I see each of them in class week after week or day after day in the studio...

By the third pose my teacher took a moment to come up to me and look me in the eye.  She said, “I need you to practice compassion for yourself today.  I need you to be patient with yourself and be kind to yourself.”  She touched my solar plexus area before saying, “You’re beautiful.”

I kept my composure and kept nodding my head up until the “you’re beautiful” part, at which point I started crying and proceeded to cry throughout every subsequent pose in class.

In yoga they say that one goes through the process of self discovery that sometimes is not always smooth sailing.  This process is called Dukkha.

The only way out is through.

In the Heart of Yoga by T. K. V. Desikachar it says, “Someone who is searching for clarity always sees more suffering than someone who is not.  The awareness of suffering results from greater sensitivity.  The person who is not searching for clarity does not even know what brings him happiness or sorrow.”

Desikachar says that “through the insightful percept of problems and confusions we move toward clarity.”

When people wonder why I continue to practice yoga and want to teach it I say this: I’m not there yet, but I feel more like myself than I've felt in a really long time.  This clarity, while not always pretty – is worth it all to me.  This same clarity is what keeps propelling me further into living purposefully, fearlessly, transparently and BOLDLY.  I’m not afraid of myself anymore and perhaps I’m not sold on believing that I’m beautiful yet, but I’m getting there.  As my other teacher always says: slowly, slowly.

It just takes practice.

The Mirror

I haven't been a nice person lately...to myself anyway, possibly others.

There are 8 limbs of yoga: yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi.

The yamas generally mean abstinence or restraint and the niyamas have more to do with observance.  Together the yamas and the niyamas form a sort of code of conduct for yogis, similar to the 10 commandments for Christians.

The first yama is ahimsa: non-harm or non-violence. 

Yoga is a mirror

In yoga, we attempt to bring our practice from the mat into the real world. We allow the experience on the mat to be a mirror to our experiences off the mat.  

Ahimsa is not harming your own body for the sake of perfecting a pose i.e. not pushing your knee when it’s in pain.  Yet, as with everything in yoga, it’s much more than the physical practice of not being violent.  As powerful beings we are able to cause much harm by our words i.e. bullying.  Even our thoughts can cause pain and violence, especially to ourselves.

In yoga we always start right from where we are.  Ahimsa teaches that even right now, from where I am sitting in my chair writing this I can choose to practice or not practice ahimsa.    If I slouch I am harming my future self.  Taking it a step further I could choose the way of ahimsa by having compassion for myself, not judging my failures and treating myself with kindness especially in my thoughts.  When I compare myself to others it harms me.  When I am critical of others it is also self-harming – it is but a mirror to how I think of myself. 

When we are trying to change habits, like learning not to slouch or think violent thoughts about ourselves it is helpful to remember that each moment is one we've never lived before.  Right now is a fresh moment to start practicing.  

Ahimsa is important because we must have compassion for ourselves before we are able to have compassion for others.  The same goes for ahimsa, if you can’t practice ahimsa in relation to yourself, you cannot practice it off the mat or in relation to others.  

Don't we all want to be a little kinder and nicer, starting today?

Mastering Me

"If you want to learn something, read about it. If you want to understand something, write about it. If you want to master something, teach it.” 

– Yogi Bhajan

 “I practice [yoga] to deal with my own bullshit so that nobody else has to.”
 – Callie Munson, yoga instructor

Callie’s words resonated with me as I walked out of class last night.  In less than two weeks I start my yoga teacher training.  Much has been written about the benefits of yoga such as the meditative aspects to reduce stress or the physical fitness obtained from regular practice.  I come to yoga for those benefits too, but they aren’t what drive me to practice.

I keep coming back to the mat because I learn something new every time I’m on it.  I consider it a self study both physically and emotionally.  In the best of states, I am the quiet observer of my mind during a challenging pose; witnessing my thought processes as I struggle to hold a pose.  Am I kind to myself?  Am I playing a tape on loop that’s unkind to my body?  Am I a perfectionist?  Am I settling for less than the best? As I breathe deeper into the pose I ask myself: why?  Why am I unkind? Why am I rushing through the moment?  Why am I not fully present?  Why am I not giving myself this moment to be the best version of me through the struggle and the challenge?

My practice builds character.  It allows me a glimpse into my inner psyche so that I am armed with the knowledge to be a better person.  I practice to become a noble woman; one who takes responsibility for herself fully so that my issues don’t become someone else’s.  I practice to honor my divinity so to witness everyone else’s divinity with graciousness and humility.

Yoga challenges me to be accountable.  It pushes me to work harder to get past my ego.  It teaches me how to maintain tranquility in moments of calamity.  It shows me how to be grateful for the small things: your leg lifting a centimeter higher than it did the week before, holding the pose for eight breaths instead of six, or that cool breeze hitting your face as your sweat hits the mat.

My practice reminds me that my personal success doesn’t have to be measured in milestones, but rather in the day to day; like giving my lunch to the man I saw digging through the trash or not playing that same soundtrack in my head when things go wrong that is wrought with guilt and violence towards myself. 

I practice to have mastery over myself.

Namaste 

Your Next Bold Move

I was walking down my block after yoga class and I knew.  My bike had been locked up right in front of my house and immediately I thought I needed to lock it up in back.  I took a few steps closer and felt it – I knew it was gone.  Sure enough, as I approached my house it wasn’t there.  It was the final sign for me.  It was time to leave.

I guess I started contemplating moving a few months ago.  I had wanted to change around my apartment – something wasn’t feeling right.  Then I gave up on that idea and opted to just not come home, staying out late, events, drinks with friends or yoga every night etc.  I didn’t notice much considering that it’s not rare for me to be hyper-involved in various activities until I spent the weekend at my parents’ house and my mother made me an offer.

“Yenni, why don’t you come home so you can save money and be with the family?”  She asked.  Last time she made me that offer I laughed and said, “Are you kidding?  We’d kill each other!” Yet, there I sat, considering it for the first time in ten years.  The stolen bike was the last straw. 

I think I’m actually mature enough to move back home with my family.  Odd as that sounds, I really think I had to go through some intense growth to be able to feel excited at this prospect. 

I left home at 18 years old.  My mother and I both couldn’t wait for me to leave the house.   Between college, travels, boyfriends, jobs and adventures I managed to move 10 times in the past 10 years, finally settling in Pilsen, where I’ve lived alone for the past two and a half years.

In the decade I've spent away from home, I’ve howled with wolves in New Mexico, trekked the land of my ancestors, endured heartbreak, and climbed rungs of the business ladder among other amazing things that continue to fill me with a never-ending thirst for adventure and a smile. Today, I find myself in a different phase; one where I’m seeking a quiet self-exploration, but without the solitude I used to prefer. 

I’ve been attempting to incorporate more honesty into my life, especially honesty with myself.  As difficult as it is for me to admit: I need the support of my family now more than ever.  In these past ten years, I’ve seen a headstrong, idealistic and independent teenager grow into a full grown woman that thinks it might be nice to not have to work so hard to maintain her autonomy.  I want to spend time with my family.  I want to save money for my future adventures.  I want to come home to people that love me and care about me especially as I look forward to an arduous yoga teacher training for the next six months.

I’m really excited about moving back home.  I’m looking forward to reading all those books I’ve been meaning to in the backyard shaded by trees.  I can’t wait to spend nights throwing popcorn at my brother as we watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended version of course) in succession.  I don’t think I’ll mind the dog jumping on the bed every morning to wake me.  I’m excited about all the home cooked meals my mama will make and am definitely looking to have some deep philosophical conversations with my father about life on some long walks through the forest.

My favorite LoTR character.

I believe this stage, this layover, this stop, this step, whatever you choose to call it, is necessary, and like most opportunities that present themselves in my life I will come through this a better, more inspired, happier and more peaceful Jen.

I still, however, really really miss my bike.  

Maybe...

Maybe she started eating meat after 13 years

Maybe she sold all of her furniture and the paintings too

Maybe she gave up coffee except for sometimes

Maybe she’s not who you thought she was

Maybe she gave away everything she worked hard to obtain

Maybe she understands that no one can really ever own anything

Maybe she’s ready to leave














Maybe she decided to get serious in the joyful way she’s serious about things
Maybe she’s really sorry for the damage done
Maybe she’s got her eye on the prize with a laser-like focus
Maybe she would still love to sing you to sleep
Maybe she knows moving forward means letting go of everything behind you
Maybe she thought of you while packing old pictures
Maybe she’s been feeling selfish lately
Maybe she wants to keep each moment to herself
Maybe she’s felt overexposed
Maybe she won't return your calls
Maybe she’s ready to put her Midwestern work ethic to the test
Maybe she’s breathing in life’s lessons

Maybe she’s learning to be patient
Maybe she’d be really happy to know you think of her sometimes
Maybe she needs to be alone for a while

Maybe she’s been feeling so damn grown lately
Maybe she’s done fucking around
Maybe she’s craving sobriety
Maybe the mountains did better for her than she thought
Maybe she had a moment of clarity
Maybe she’d forgive you

Maybe she’s been humbled
Maybe she could really use the support

Maybe she’s ready to be loved in ways she never let herself before

Maybe she’s learning to be honest with herself
Maybe she seeks truth in her actions
Maybe she’s learning honor and respect as verbs
Maybe she’s so different
Maybe she’s still the same, just evolving

The Chicago Project: Validation and Humility

This past weekend I went to King’s Spa with some girlfriends of mine.  King’s Spa is a Korean spa so for the first part of the experience you get completely nude in a room full of other women to enjoy a steam room, showers and hot tubs.

King's Spa 

My girlfriends came up naked and we all looked at each other for a moment before one friend said: look at us; we’re beautiful.  We – as a whole – not based on this superficial notion of beauty but based on our willingness to share this experience with each other.

That set the tone: validation.

My friend has this tattoo on her arm: it says: do not seek outside of yourself in Latin.  I pondered this as an array of different bodies walked past me.  Body-positive experiences are something I’ve been intentional about having lately starting with the naked bike ride and taking my next steps with my yoga practice.

Throughout the evening I pondered the notion of validation within our society and seeking it from external factors.  I’m very guilty of this – as we all are.  I seek validation from the men I keep in my back pocket to make me feel attractive or the books I read to prove my intellectual prowess and the social circles I maintain to show some sort of status. Still, I keep coming to the same conclusion:  when you lose the ego you feel no need to be validated by others.

Humility is honest; it’s vulnerable and damn it, it’s scary.  It’s sitting naked in a hot tub and feeling at peace.  It’s telling the truth even when it hurts you to do so.  It’s smiling at a stranger on the street with no expectation of receiving a smile or recognition in return.  It’s walking into a room with quiet confidence knowing you have nothing to prove. 

It’s also very hard work as we fight against our conditioning in this society.  The ego likes to keep one safe.  The ego keeps my sunglasses on as I follow the beat of my heels hitting pavement attuned to my ipod making no human connections walking down my street.  The genuine me, however, wants to be honest, vulnerable and notice how lonely everyone really is and say, it’s okay, look at us; we’re beautiful.

Taking the Leap: Leap Year 2012

“People have (with the help of conventions) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult; everything alive holds to it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition.  We know little, but that we must hold to what is difficult in a certainty that will not forsake us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it.”

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Full excerpt here.

I’ve been meditating on Rilke’s words a lot.  People do have a tendency towards the easiest path.  We tend to like what we are good at and build up those strengths while neglecting our weaker skills and compensating with our strengths because it’s easy.

Crow Pose

I’m horrible at yoga.  (I know, I know, how can anyone be horrible at yoga?  It’s the most noncompetitive form of physical activity in existence, but I am!)  I’m awkward and completely lack the grace that most yoginis have when flowing into poses.  Sometimes I still confuse my left with my right, I fall out of balance and my crow has repeatedly kissed the earth and not in a good way.

So, clearly, I should become a yoga teacher, right?!  Totally!

I can never just wade into the water and gradually go in; I’ve got to dive in each time.  As such, I just handed in my expensive nonrefundable deposit this past week towards a yoga teacher training certification program – equivalent to getting a Bachelor’s in Yoga and now there is no going back.

Back in February, I thought about how 2012 is a Leap Year and then I stumbled upon this Leap Year project site and wanted something to contribute.  I think this is it.  My training begins this September and goes until my 29^th birthday in February.  I’ve done some pretty wild things in my life from living with wolves to fasting for 40 days to being a full time solo wanderer unsure of where I’d lay my head the next night, but I have to say I think this is the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

I’ve never been much of an athlete and my relationship with my body, though it has evolved thanks to my yoga practice, has been a tumultuous one.  Committing myself to teaching a physical practice to others is incredibly intimidating and scary, yet I absolutely feel it is the next step in my own personal evolution.

I’m diving into the difficult, wrapping myself around my weaknesses and hoping to come out of this a better human, or in the least, knowing my right from my left.

The Good, the Bad and Enjoying the in Between

It’s amazing to me how many people call to check on you when you behead your ex-boyfriend in one of your poems (like you’ve never done that?)

As a writer, you draw on the sadness or the discontent because for many of us, writing is a way to get those negative emotions out of you.  No one wants that festering inside of them.  It’s important to remember that hurt, sadness and anger are all nothing more than a moment in time.  Once I put things down on paper I feel lighter.  It’s a meditative exercise in letting things go (even if you behead people in the process).  J 

We are all just moments in time and moments shift.  Each one is different and as such, we are different.  I am not my past; I’m far too present for that. 

I was watching a Louis C.K.  stand-up bit how we constantly expect good things to happen to us.  He jokes around about some guy who spills coffee on himself and how the guy’s reaction to this extreme anger and then this victimization like  "how could this have happened to me?!”  He goes on to discuss how it's absolutely ridiculous that we expect ONLY good things to happen and then freak out when the bad happens.

As a society, we have a tendency to EXPECT that only good things happen to us.  It’s natural of course, no one says, “I hope that I fall off my bike today.”  No one wakes up one morning thinking: “I hope I get into a shitty relationship.”  No one says, “I hope my friends all abandon me and I lose my youth and beauty and end up living alone with 20 cats.”

Instead we say, “It's going to be a gorgeous day and I'm going to bike along the lake to enjoy it."  We say, “I’m going to find the one and we’re going to be in love forever and it’s going to be amazing.” We toast to all of our fine friends, “To our splendid future!  Friends forever!”

When things don’t go our way it’s devastating for many of us.  Yet, I wager we wouldn’t be half as happy with the good times without the bad.  How would we even recognize the difference?   Would we be as strong as we are without having to struggle?  Would we appreciate the times when we are able to relax and let it all go if there weren’t points where our muscles were tense and sore from carrying too much on our shoulders?

All moments should be taken in stride from the joyfulness to love to heartbreak to depression because for better or for worse, it’s a moment and it will be over before you know it.

<3 

The Evolution of Beauty

“Youth is beauty, money is beauty, beauty is beauty sometimes…”

-Ani DiFranco

We are brought up in a society that values the physical beauty of a woman sometimes more than other attributes such as intelligence, sensitivity, artistic ability or athleticism.  Often times women who are first or second generation in the U.S. fare worse with this because our active mother/father cultures tend to be more misogynistic. 

But you knew this.  You went to high school and you remember who the pretty popular people were, right?  They weren’t super cool because they had a bad case of acne.

We all know that story so I won’t tell it here.  What I do want to share is this: I am less concerned with being pretty; I want to be powerful. 

I’m not talking power in the western sense i.e. political power.  I’m talking the power of knowing yourself and your own merits without having to have anyone else validate them.  I’m talking about the power to know that your legs will carry you through rough roads because you’re strong and finding the beauty in that even if it doesn’t look like a postcard.  I’m talking about evolution. 

Know thyself, friends.

The Yoga Project: Calming the Monkey Mind

I was going strong having done yoga for 13 days straight but I was going crazy.  I hadn’t been able to see my boyfriend or friends for more than a week (and I live alone – so when I say going crazy, I mean it literally – all work and no play make Jen Jen cray cray).  I was getting home at 10 each night and leaving by 7:30 a.m.  I felt exhausted.

It dawned on me that the point of yoga isn’t to drain your vitality but rather to replenish it.  In conclusion, I’m planning on doing yoga as much as I can without burning out or losing the point of this exercise which was to integrate more yoga in my life and develop a regular practice.  That being said, I’m planning on practicing at least five times a week or so.

Now that the technicalities are out of the way, let’s get to what it’s been like on the mat for the past couple of weeks. 

I’m learning and relearning so many things like what it is to really breathe or how to sit up straight to remembering promises I made to myself as a child that are no longer useful to me.  Engaging in a yoga practice so aggressively (bet you never thought you’d hear yoga and aggressive in the same sentence, huh?) is no joke.  There are days where I just can’t get with it – the teacher says left and I go right, my downward dog looks like a pathetic panting puppy and I’m not feeling so zen towards my instructor. 

Then there are other days where practice seems to flow so gracefully.  I do a pose I’ve never been able to do before.  My breathing stays consistent with my movement and shivasana (corpse pose) feels as though I’ve entered into a magical realm between dreamscapes and reality while conscious.

Last night, I would not allow myself to enjoy my yoga class for whatever reason.  I was having a really off night.  During these off nights I feel as though I learn the most about myself and my old thought processes and patterns.  For instance, you decide you’re good at hip openers but bad at core work so you avoid the core work and at some point you realize that you are deciding it all and not allowing yourself to be open to the experience.  Instead of opening up, you then become your mother’s voice in your head telling yourself that everything you do sucks and that of course you’ll never get into the poses that the tiny girls right next to you get into and of course you’ll never be strong enough to sink that knee fully into Warrior pose then you REMEMBER.  You remember that you’re in control, and that you love yourself and your body and are thankful it can take your knees halfway in warrior and that you can get into that one bind that you couldn’t do last week. 

Yoga reminds me of Aztec danza – for every step to the right there is a step to the left and they call themselves warriors, not because they participate in bloodshed, but because they battle themselves in the danza.  I often feel as though I am battling my mind on the mat and I wonder: which half will win tonight?  The overly critical dark half that leaves me wounded and crying or the compassionate light half that allows me to feel the joy within my body and accepts me always as I am.

More to come on my yoga journey.

Namaste

The Yoga Project: The Beginning of my Destruction (Day 4)

Something happened to me in class tonight.  Yoga happened.  (dun dun dun – insert melodramatic orchestra here).

I left class crying and feeling defeated.  It will take more than a simple blog-post to fully comprehend what is happening to me.  I believe it's transformation.

The word “transformation” seems to be this ethereal new age term that cannot be explained in a pragmatic manner.  That is precisely how I feel about my strong emotional reaction to a physical practice.  Yoga is hard, much more difficult than many things that I’ve done and emotionally, I’ve barely scratched the surface.

There is a saying about destruction being necessary in order to rebuild (rebirth).  I believe I’m currently in the destructive phase right now.  I can only hope the plans I lay out after this phase are better than what I am currently in the process of destroying.

Through this I am realizing what yoga really is.  It is a challenging practice.  It is rigorous for your mind and body.  Yoga is a mindset, it is not a destination, it is not a competition, and it is far more than I understand right now.  It is powerful.

There’s something to be said about finding your breath through the discomfort of this process and being able to hold the pose.  I feel as though I am going to be here for a while. 

The Fast: 40 Days - Retrospective Reflection

I know, I know, I’ve been way to busy eating to blog.  Just kidding!

I successfully completed 40 days of the fast.  Breaking the fast was quite uneventful to be honest.  It was almost like food was the one thing I had longed for, built up in my head, desired, craved, wanted and became obsessed with for 40 days and at first bite I couldn’t help but think: this is it? 

Don’t get me wrong, I love eating, but I guess it’s like anything else you build up in your head after abstaining from it.  The reality of it is usually much less than the expectations you had built in your head.

As you may know from my last blog post, I have become a vegan.  I bought all of these vegan recipe books and I have to say that after fasting for 40 days, it’s not that hard.  It’s pretty easy to convince yourself of things like: cheese?  Oh I don’t eat that.  Does that have cream?  I don’t eat that. Etc.  I’m thankful for being able to easily transition to a vegan lifestyle (except for my Camel hair coat and variety of leather boots which I have no desire to be rid of).  The best thing about going vegan has been that I have been able to sustain my weight loss from the fast quite easily.

In 40 days I lost about 25 pounds.  Since completing the fast I’ve gained back about 3 pounds and maintained a 22 pound loss.  If you remember, prior to fasting I had lost 20 pounds by exercising and eating better.   This means that since April of 2011 I am down a substantial 42 pounds.  Not bad, still some to go. 

Here are the less tangible benefits of the fast that I would like to share:

Cleansing = forgiveness: it seems that I was carrying more than a few extra pounds including some pretty heavy baggage that didn’t really belong to me from some ex-lovers.  Around the fourth day of the fast I did some intense meditation, wrote some compassionate letters to myself of understanding and forgave me, him and them for some hard-earned scars on my heart.  Three days later I met someone pretty amazing (who I’m hoping won’t read this blog).

I can have a great time (shocked face) WITHOUT booze:  I know, I know, it’s crazy.  I actually like hanging out with friends without drinking.  Most of you who know me in person know I love a great Malbec or Pinot Noir and of course some whiskey or scotch on the rocks but guess what?  I don’t need to drink to have a good time (it helps tho) but not necessary.  I find myself meeting up with friends for tea or doing other things that don’t include drinking.  It’s pretty awesome.  Also, I save money.

I feel better about myself: physically, mentally and emotionally.  I feel…dare I say, happy.  I’m proud of my accomplishment and it was hard and I’m happy that I stuck through it.  I proved something to myself and let go of the need to prove things to others.  Of course, my body feels a lot better after dropping significant weight and consuming healthy foods.  I also feel more secure, like I don’t need so much validation from the outside world in my endeavors because I know what I’m doing.  There’s a quiet confidence in knowing you can do whatever you want to do.  Also, I have less patience for those individuals that have nothing but excuses, particularly because that used to be me.  I guess it’s like Herman Hesse once wrote in Demian: “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.” 

That being said, I'm looking for my next challenge.  I kind of feel like: Okay, I fasted 40 days, now what? 

Any suggestions?

Obama, Osama, Yo' Mama and a Llama

Something wasn’t sitting right with me when I woke up to two text messages from friends and a BBC news alert on my phone this morning. It’s not just that I had been having nightmares for the past two weeks. I’d gotten used to waking up startled and examining my body for bullet wounds or bites from wild animals. This morning was different; I didn’t wake up to a nightmare, I woke up what many would call “justice being served,” ten years late.

Justice is such a tricky little word. It means so much to so many that its meaning begins to become this diluted version of righteousness before your very eyes. All across my social media feeds my fellow countrymen and women were rejoicing at the death of Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. 9/11: a date weighted so heavily in our young history. We all know where we were when it happened. For me as well as for many of my generation: it will be a story we tell our children, our grandchildren...

Examining everyone’s reaction this morning I finally see that we weren’t just a country in mourning in the months that followed the attacks. We were a country in defeat. 3,000 deaths no longer meant grief, instead it meant: how could some third world countryman outsmart me? I’m American. I come from the best country in the world!

And so we sent out our troops, invaded countries with no REAL basis for being there. It was like watching doctors provide temporary pain relief for the external symptoms without ever addressing the disease. All this happening, while folks paraded in the streets trying to be appeased by a little monkey’s plan for retaliation against mysterious forces that were as intangible as they were hidden.

America, I thought we were making progress, truly. I watched history as a black family moved into the most prestigious white house in the country. I saw little instances of change slowly but surely, reaffirming a recovery from eight years of hell that forced me to hide my passport while I was abroad.

I was even back on the road a couple of months ago proudly telling everyone that I was an American, a Chicagoan; a Patriot.

This morning: all of a sudden, I’m back in 2002 and there are these bloodthirsty people chanting “America! America!” I know I won’t be of popular opinion today, but there was something very disturbing about all relishing in the death of someone; not just death but what we could assume to be the brutal killing of someone. I could follow logic quite well; an eye for an eye; tooth for tooth, but this isn’t the logic I am partial to.

I am not in mourning for Osama Bin Laden.  When you participate in war there are consequences and casualties. That is a reality for everyone: whether you are in the military, love someone in the military, are in Senate seats signing bills or just some plain patriot like me.

I won’t, however, parade around touting the American flag today. This is not a victory I want to celebrate. It doesn’t bring back 3,000 lives; there is no closure to some wounds even ten years later with the death of terrorist. Just ask the survivors of concentration camps if the death of Hitler made them feel better about what they've experienced.

The only upside to this is that my tax dollars won’t go to funding ten more years wasted to “bring justice home” and I won’t have to listen to the same people asking, “whatever happened to Osama Bin Laden?” as an easy critique of any unpopular administration. At least politically, we can let this one rest in peace.

Existential Crisis #75

“What’s the meaning of life?” I asked Angel over breakfast.

He laughed so hard he had to excuse himself from the table.  I started blushing, partly out of embarrassment for having asked such a “loaded” question and partly because there was so much truth in that moment.  The moment where I ask a question that philosophers dedicate their lives to, human beings try to grasp even slightly so that they can feel some comfort in knowing their lives are worth something, or the question that monks meditate over their whole lives on and my Mayan friend is away from the table on the beach just laughing at the joy and absurdity of it all.  Is that an answer in itself?  It might be.

He returns to the table holding his stomach and says, “It just is.  It’s this…” as he opens both hands and lifts his arms over his head gesticulating to our surroundings.  Okay, fine.  I can deal with the meaning of life being eating fresh fish on this gorgeous virgin island with the sound of the ocean and the warm sand caressing my feet forever, but let’s face it, I live in Chicago.  Does that mean that my meaning of life is trying to get from point A to B without freezing off appendages and constantly cursing myself and my family for living somewhere so cold?  That sucks!

“I can’t tell you the meaning of life because each life has its own meaning.” He says.  I nod, slightly annoyed.  “It’s just that I came here and it’s been amazing being here and tasting life in paradise and a part of me really doesn’t want to leave.  I feel happy here, but then if the meaning of life is to find happiness then why do I feel so obligated to go back, like this type of life is too good for me?  Or like I have to go back to the real world because this isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.” He says.

Neither do I.  

What do you think?

P.S. Of course we eat fish for breakfast in paradise because it's paradise and the fishermen bring in their bounty in the morning so its the freshest way to start the day.

I think we need a break. It's not you, it's me...

I miss your sexy little curves
the way you're so sensitive to my touch
God I love you in your sleek little black ensemble
and the noises you make are enough to make a girl
jump right out of her seat and to your side every time

But this my love, this is just too much.
I start to dream of your sounds, just ringing in my ears
I envision myself pressing all your buttons just right
and we go on for hours until you're out of battery..
Oh how it devastates me when you turn off for the night

I know there are others, but they don't know me like you do
they don't know all the things I like to do
or who I talk to at odd hours of the night.
They don't know my preferences for black and never white.

Why can't I leave you alone?
I'll admit, I am obsessed.
It's like when you're in the room
no one else exists

You are no good for me, no good at all
but you're ringing louder and louder
oh dear God, please answer my call.

I forgot my phone as I was leaving my apartment a few days ago. I was carrying five bags of presents down two flights of stairs and into my car wearing a lovely dress and snow boots. I guess the phone was a minor detail. I remembered that I had forgotten it about a mile away from my house and decided that perhaps it was the Universe’s way of telling me to disconnect for a little bit.

Last time I tried to do that I went to this cabin in Wisconsin with no reception on my phone and on the drive back to the city I got a voicemail from a journalist at NPR who wanted to interview me about my response to the 20-something article New York Times came out with. Hopefully this time no one called from the New Yorker after stumbling upon my blog for a one time spot in the next issue or anything.

So I didn’t have my phone (I still don’t have it) and I can’t help but feel so present and in the moment. I’m not standing around mid conversation with someone a slave to the beeping on my phone telling me I have a text message or playing chess while I could be listening to real people around me.

It’s been good to be with people and wholly fully be there. Present and center. I start to think about how I need to change my relationship with my phone. I should turn it off more. I should put it away if I’m with other people and instead be present and in the moment. Why is that so hard?

I start to rethink how much power my phone has over me in waking life. Any message could be a missed opportunity to meet up with a friend who is in town for one night only or maybe that cute boy I met the other night has finally decided to call.

Then I realize that nothing is more important than being here now. This break with my phone has been good, somewhat accidental, but good. That is, if no one from the New Yorker called. :)

My Life as a Bear

My grandmother will be 90 years old in June. She was telling me this over the phone yesterday and I could sense her fear of turning 90 and thought about how many steps her feet have taken over the span of her life. I thought about her growing up in Cuba and Spain, getting married and having a family then watching her only son leave his country. I thought about her moving to a whole new world in Miami – leaving her country behind too.

I asked her if she ever wrote. She said she didn’t much anymore and I told her that she should write all the lessons she has learned in her 90 years down. I was hoping to someday read them and learn about my great grandmother curing colds with fresh eucalyptus leaves or about a country brewing with revolution and then struggling with despair in the aftermath.

I think it’s human nature to not know what you have in front of you until it’s not there anymore. Youth is fleeting. I keep thinking that and trying to convince myself not to waste any time and then I feel exhausted from thinking about all the things I should be doing with my life like returning to Miami, building my own legacy professionally, listening to my elders’ stories more so not to lose my own history… I start thinking about how tomorrow isn’t guaranteed and why I am not living the life I need to be living now?

I may feel like I need a pause from the madness of the unimportant things I give significance to only to realize that nothing else pauses. That while the bear wants to go into her cave and hibernate during the winter there will be a different forest in the spring. The winter may have killed away some decay, some dying trees and the newness of fresh buds and baby insects buzzing await outside the cave. Life does not give one the luxury of pausing so that you could figure out its purpose. It’s a forest of challenges you to keep moving out of necessity. The only option is movement.

I am an animal, always. It will always come back to me being that bear in the woods responding to her environment. Animals don’t have existential crises about the meaning of life – they see a branch in their path and they move past it, they track their prey and they eat, they meet someone and they mate. They take what they need to survive and then they procreate and die leaving enough of this world for their offspring to enjoy for generations to come.

For now, there is no rest, there is only movement. Eyes focused on my prey with the vision of a better world for humanity’s offspring in my mind’s eye and I take the leap.

The boy, the bus stop and me...

She had a moment while sitting on a bench waiting for the bus.  One of those moments that twinges on those lost memories at the beginning of a long love affair: the flirtation with ambiguity, the naivety of her youth, the newness of every single little freckle on her lover’s body.

She didn’t run to catch the bus today and instead waited.  She had forgotten to look around all these years because she was running after the bus and now she waited and wished she could sit there all day in the winter’s brisk, fresh snow just to watch. 

She had played the game so well these past few years.  The city looked like a handsome boy smiling and turning away only to look again and smile at her while her face blushed so bright she couldn’t help but smile back.  He would never speak to her though.

All of a sudden she was eighteen years old again, new to this city, these buildings like these giant enigmas filled with strangers.  The pigeons on the street peck at crumbs under the lights on Michigan Avenue.  She is enamored with each begging squirrel, each lingering look from a stranger or the ones that shift quickly by hoping not to be seen.  She is in love.

She is faced with uncertainty all of which is surely leading her away from her lover, Chicago.  The city: the one who nurtured her sweetly in all those bars she nursed a whiskey or a broken heart, in all of those apartment buildings and alleyways.

The city: the one who showed her through mazes of endless streets, brick buildings, steel bridges, wrong directions on the way to finding someone, maybe something new today, maybe herself.

She kept an array of little notes friends and lovers had written her from stupid drunken conversations to times of desperation. They seemed so insignificant at the time but they were like the pigeons now, another extraordinary ordinary moment she’d forgotten to notice.

Her drawings were gateways to periods in her life.  She sat in the living room of her mind remembering the friends that had come and gone, the neighborhoods she had known so well.  They were little snippets into her history – like playing a song from your childhood that would leave you uncertain as to Now’s time and place.

She didn’t get on the bus and instead went back home.  She put on a record and began the process.  The cardboard boxes each categorized so neatly: Kitchen, bedroom, books, bathroom, office…  She sat sorting through drawers and putting new labels on the boxes: Christopher, 2809 N California Ave., Summer ’06…and each item in the box was a familiar pain to the heart, a tinge of anxiety then release, like a needle entering a vein delivering instant relief.  She knew her anxiety hurt her more than the prick of the needle.

She took a deep breath and found a vein pumping her blood back to her heart.  She plunged the syringe into herself of too many late nights, loves lost and friends loved and began to feel the relief. She let go and allowed her tears to rinse the blood off her arm.  Her work was done here.  

Engine Oil and Feminism

I had a dream that my car had run out of oil and I was left stranded on some highway with the engine fuming.  I remembered my dream when I started to smell a burning on Interstate 55.  I freaked out and jumped lanes getting off at the next exit and heading to the nearest gas station.

I walked into the gas station stylin’.  I had started to feel sick this morning and spent the majority of my day in bed reading and drinking tea.  I was wearing my 17 year old cousin’s red hoodie, black pajama pants and purple slippers.  I hadn’t even bothered to put on real shoes.  I picked out some motor oil and waited in line.  The gentleman in front of me started a conversation with me as he gave the numbers he wanted to play to the attendant.  I asked him what he was planning on doing if he won.  He replied he would come and find me and take me out some place nice.  I laughed gesturing at my slippers.  He then told me not to worry about what I was wearing, that he’d get me out of my clothes first.  It was then that I responded, still laughing at this dude’s nerve to say something like that to me, that this conversation was over.  I paid for my oil and went back to my car.

One of my close guy friends accused me of being too flirtatious and then getting angry when someone crossed the line even though I had provoked that sort of response (please read here for more background).  He said it as though I had somehow “asked” to be treated with less respect than I thought I deserved.   I disagreed with him and even felt angry that he would think that.

My experience earlier this evening isn’t so unique or even interesting other than I had an epiphany while pouring oil into my engine.  Human beings learn from each other.  We learn from interacting with different people from different walks of life and engaging them in conversations or discussions.  While this man started a conversation with me, I wanted to participate.  People play the lotto all the time – but why (aside from the obvious reasons)?  I wanted to engage this man, curious of what his dreams were.  I wanted to participate in dialogue with the community around me.

If a man had asked the same question to this guy maybe they would have realized that they both want to buy the Chicago White Sox team or that they both want to invest in lobster boats or maybe this guy would have told him that he has always wanted to live in the north of Spain or something.  Maybe there would have been dialogue, maybe there would have been a connection – not as a race, not as a sex, but just as humans.

Feminism isn’t about praising women as these creatures wiser and nobler than the other half of the world.  It is not about superiority or control.  It’s about being seen as a human being and not as a gender or sex.  It’s about equality and egalitarianism.  It’s about freedom: the freedom to engage new people in conversations, the freedom to learn about the world around you and the freedom to participate actively in it.

I'm not angry about what men say to me; I'm angry because I can't participate as fully as I'd like to  in society because of the limitations that my sex carries.

Growing flowers to understand dying

I went to the cemetery today to visit my grandmother. While I was at the cemetery, amidst the feelings of sadness and sorrow watching my family pray over her grave, I thought of death. 

Wandering past tombstones and the ghosts of children and veterans lingering in the gray cold of fall’s first chill I couldn’t help but read the tombstones of the living.  I stood there wondering about these living ghosts’ current lives.  I wondered if having a headstone with their names on it in some cemetery was cause for them to wait for death instead of celebrating life.

To have your tombstone readily engraved while alive was an idea that baffled me.  When you’re young you don’t think much of dying. 

Beloved Mother, Beloved Daughter, Beloved Wife, Boring, Boring, Boring…what will my tombstone say?  What legacy will I leave behind?  Will I be one of the many Beloved Daughters?

To my family reading this, please PLEASE put something creative on my tombstone – better yet, put something funny.  That way when people walk by, they’ll know that I ENJOYED life and am probably enjoying death (if that is possible, I have yet to find out).

I kept praying in my mind, conversing with my grandmother’s soul, asking for guidance on my next steps in life, wishing there were some sort of manual saying, “please proceed to this destination for the next two years…”  Then something happened.  Through some odd epiphany of sorts I felt that this is it.  This is such a time of beauty and uncertainty I’m only going to dream about later when the path I’m carving through cluttered forests becomes cemented and far too easy to trace. That’s when I’ll sit back missing the wilderness of unchartered territories and missing what I have now.

I have choice now – I can choose what path to walk, what terrains to venture into or stay out of and how to do it. 

Out into the wilderness I go!

Gracias Abuela!

P.S. If I die and my tombstone is one of those run of the mill beloved daughter, beloved wife titles to showcase who I was in life I will haunt my loved ones until they change it.  So if some months after my death you experience odd occurrences such as finding your work files in your refrigerator or your toothbrush in a cereal box you obviously messed up. 

My final act will be to make people leave my grave laughing instead of crying.  How would you feel if every time someone came to visit you they just burst into tears?  Thanks for the flowers and all, but damn, is the thought of me that much of a downer? 

P.P.S. You all know how much I love all animals so you better bring your pets, I don’t care what the cemetery rules are – it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission (Mayor Daley quote – can you tell I’m from Chicago)?

P.P.P.S. I just found out that there are elephants buried in the same cemetery as my grandmother and that little fact, my friends, made my day.