Observations From Inside

I feel a doll sized effigy of myself padding around in the room of my chest.
Pacing
Wall to wall to wall to wall to wall.

Mourning doves fly back and forth between the swollen trees outside. One flutters to perch. Soon, the other comes to join it. They sit for a while. The first is restless, relocates. Soon the second follows. Repeat.

You want to be alone, but when you imagine being truly alone, you thank the Stars for the dove that won't leave you be.

Why is isolation at home hard, I think to myself? It's not very different than my regular life, in ways. I needed the break and the sleep. My natural sleep pattern is unveiled as considerably different than the one I've inhabited for years now.

When I look outside, the shine of the sun can seem wretched. I know I'm not the only one. When I went outside to be in the sun once, it made my throat tight for hours, I don't know why.

I keep thinking about what I remember of the accounts of prisoners in solitary confinement. How its inhumane, how it's used as punishment. How prisoners lose their sense of time and reality and sanity.
I'm not in prison. Isn't it strange how much of sanity is just habit? How quickly lack of habit becomes unnerving. How forced relaxation doesn't feel the same as voluntary relaxation. The steps are nearly identical, the dances alien to one another.

I take my wedding ring off. I look at it. I put it back on.

Imagine if you didn't live with your most beloved ones and had to weigh whether it was essential to see them. What kind of love is safe? Killing for love. Imagine it.

When I surrender to the urges of my emotion, I lay on the floor. I used a box of Rice R Roni as a cushion while my husband pet my shoulder. Someone called me tightly wound one time, and I'm still smoldering about it, giving my well grounded excuses and explanations whenever it comes to mind. Imagine me unwound.

(by Sara Hagale @shagey_)

I don't know how to read the curve graph. I haven't really tried and I don't want to you to explain it to me.

I'm biting my tongue at almost every opportunity. I'm trying not to tell my kids to be more quiet. Now and always, because I don't know why quiet has to be so important to me all the time. I don't want that to stick in their minds about me.

I wonder if I'll be different after this. I don't think it's been long enough yet. I think the cement in the me-shaped mold is stiff already. It hurts when the edges are chipped. So far, I still worry that I'm not doing enough. So far, I still want normal (the Before version) life to be slower. This time feels like holding a breath, and when we let it out, it will be a dream soon forgotten. I speak for myself that I know.

How tiresome the encouragement can become. How hollow the jokes. How irksome the "could be worsers", the "check your privilegers". Of course. Of course. Go away. Put your mouth in isolation. Is what you meant to say, "I'm scared too?"

My Grandma in a Snowglobe

Written September 2019

Some creatures slowly leave out the hardest parts when they tell stories over time. The memories become artificially sweetened, but it tastes like the real thing. Some are merciless in the retelling, building monsters in the hard drive.

My grandma Patty died in March, so let me retell as I know how.
My memories of her are only sweet, but memory itself is a monster.

I have always relegated "prayer for my ailing grandparent" into the category of least honest prayer requests because everyone has an ailing grandparent and none of the rest of us know those people. Of course God does not scorn the prayers of worried grandchildren, and my rancor in my opinions about the hierarchies of prayers worth praying is part of why I wasn't chosen to succeed God whenever he's dethroned for not answering his texts (heresy).

My grandma loved me and I miss her.
I miss the security of knowing she was near.

I didn't ask anyone to pray that she would recover. The week or two leading up to her death and her death were nearly as smooth as one could hope. Following a day spent with her children, eating and chatting, something in her body broke and she never woke up again until she was ready to go a week and a half later.

It felt better then than it does now. At the time I felt like I'd said a good goodbye and the time with other family members was healthy and appropriately wrenching, but hopeful. I was able to realize things about who she was and what I loved about her in a way that seemed like softly accepting a matter of fact rather than getting swept out to sea. I think that's what it means to say a good goodbye, but I'm not sure because if it is, it's the first time I've done that.

I was even able to see that my grief was less tragedy and more tiredness. In ways that I'm too tired and distracted to fully explore yet, I'm learning that my body does most of the emotional work that my head denies. I respect and resent my body for it.

I didn't finish the first rambling obituary I wrote about my grandma because I knew that times had changed, I had changed, since the way I used to do that for other grandparents. This one is more about me than the others were. Last goodbyes are more about those left behind. Of all people, my grandma will not hold this against me.

I wanted to write down every memory that includes her, but they begin to blur into the mundane, and besides, it's a futile exercise. Even as she deteriorated, over the last few years to be truthful, I tried to reach out the arms of my mind and gather everything I could about her. I created a space sheltered somewhat from my own degrading memory reel to put the things I know about her in a little globe so that I can visit it from time to time. A sort of do this in remembrance of me.

Of course, I know that the more I visit her there, the less she will be herself and the more she will be
a figment of my creation. A photo negative rubbed into oblivion with repeated touching. It's a great frustration of life, but perhaps also a blessing. It's how we become either sweet or merciless retellers of history. Usually I'm very aware of people's faults, but I can't think of anything I didn't like about her.

It was hard because I didn't know her very, very well, and the knowledge that I would never know enough kept me from giving myself wholly to the project. Although I didn't do it very well, it seemed better (and safer) to be with her when I was able than chase her memory before she was even gone.

Even so, I tried to ask her detailed questions when I could, trying to hear stories I hadn't heard before. I asked her about a ring she wore and the vase in her living room and prom dresses. I got her personal notes on the family taco recipe (which is all wrong if you just follow what's written in the original recipe). She would drop alarming tidbits about her life as if they were the simplest details, and I skirted the nagging voice in my head reminding me that those stories would soon be locked out of reach. Of course I know stories die every day. Of course I know it.

In San Diego at my youngest brother's college graduation, we sat on a dizzying ledge above the amphitheater pit, too far away to recognize my brother at all. I bought popcorn that we shared. That weekend, she told me about her dad, one of three brothers. Two died in or as a result of WWI, killing Germans who were less than a generation removed from being their kin. Her father was never deployed, but after the war he found work on a banana boat off the coast of Florida where he learned Spanish from the crew. Later he ended up in El Centro where my grandma grew up an only child in the first integrated class in her school.

(This photograph of her is from March 1958, in Avenal, CA. She was 22.)

In the past few years, she nodded to herself more and more, and it felt like breaking her away from her own thoughts when you spoke to her. My grandpa Ron died in 2012, and her charisma faded noticeably with each time I saw her after his death. They were married for over 50 years. I am relieved that she no longer has to live with him missing from her life. Despite her losses, she was never far from her big, easy smile.

What most struck me as I began to process her being gone was that she made me feel unconditionally loved. It's a thunderbolt the few times in life that you can recognize that feeling. She not only loved me as a granddaughter, but I am convinced I was liked, too. Approval isn't everything, but now I'm realizing how rare it is to feel that someone is truly in your corner. I can not remember her ever speaking a harsh word to me or betraying even a hint of annoyance, and I surely went through many an unflattering phase in her vicinity. I am in awe that someone could leave that sort of feeling as the overarching characteristic of their personality. To me she seemed a selfless giver of love, and if I can ever make someone else feel like that someday... I don't know how to finish that sentence.

My impression is that she made many people feel as if they were her conspiratorial favorite, and not only her family members. More than anyone else I know, she was diligent about maintaining friendships. She traveled to visit people, she kept yearly appointments with friends from when she was in elementary school, she attended every baby shower, piano recital, or important football match for her grand kids, and she was a faithful letter writer. Not only did she keep old bonds strong, she consistently cultivated new ones. She welcomed each new neighbor and babysat if they had young children. She tried new foods as her neighborhood became more ethnically diverse. She kept up with the politics of the countries her friends were from so that she could be more aware of their worlds. The last time I talked to her, she had called me to ask about my experience having my wedding dress made in China because her friend's daughter was thinking about going that route. She never seemed to tire of this level of engagement.

People often seem to get stuck in the social norms of their youth, but she was largely immune to that. Sometimes older people seem to disdain new iterations of political and social correctness, but I never saw her struggling with that because I think that fundamentally, she was kind and cared about people. Not only did she care about you, she was interested in you. Because she cared more for people than circumstances, she didn't seem wrung of compassion in new and surprising chapters of history. I don't know how she did that. Even with her priorities straight, she stayed deeply interested and engaged in current politics. She told me she hoped Millennials could turn this ship around and I said I don't think we can, but I'll carry that baton for her.

She didn't lack fire. She just didn't make her passions about herself, at least not by the time that I was around. She told stories of her own forceful will when she was much younger, demanding that my grandpa go back to school, or leaving their car to walk down the highway alone after they had fought. He spent several hours looking for her. Here, I can't tell if my memory is sweetening her or if my own age now recognizes that sometimes getting out of the car isn't a weakness in character.

My most vivid impressions of her are from times when she took special care to be with just me. She took me to lunch for my birthday one year, I was probably 9. We went to the Oaks mall and ate at the Cheesecake Factory, and then she took me to Claire's and let me pick out several pair of earrings. One pair were silver-colored cats with tails that dangled and the other were flowers made of blazingly blue rhinestones. I hope I still have them somewhere, but I'm afraid to look in case I don't. She was not one beholden to "stuff" (much to my chagrin, at times), so I don't have many heirlooms to remember her by or "big gifts" that I felt obligated to keep. In fact, while this wasn't really of her own volition, she told me several times that her wedding dress was gone because her mother gave it to a cleaning lady.

She did leave me things. Newspaper clippings, personal writings that got lost in a folder between the time I was 10 and now. I will read them closely when I no longer feel the absence of a birthday card from her. She gave me the last newspaper clipping over a year ago, and the fact that I haven't read it yet feels like a continuation of life with her near by. Not reading it is a way of saving the last page of a book I was enjoying too much to want it to be over. I can not say goodbye just once, all at once.

My grandma Patty and me, c. 1991

She hadn't done much to her house since the 80s. That's just the way a Grandma's house should be, because it's always the same. The vent to the drying machine let out right in front of the front door and she always used the same products, so it was a smell I'll always associate with her home. The living room always smelled the same too, but I'm not sure what made the smell. I can tell when I smell it elsewhere, though. I don't think that matters to anyone but me, and I feel myself building snowdrifts in my memory globe out of increasingly unrelated, "unimportant" things. My heart, you are a shaky devil.

My favorite memory of her is from when she was driving me to an art lesson one afternoon, I think it was right after we moved back to the US, so I was probably 16. I grew up on the other side of the world from her, and I felt like I didn't know her very well when we first moved back. I often worried that I was inconveniencing her, which is funny, because if I can think of anything I knew about her that could be considered even a minor flaw, it was that she was maddeningly deferential at times, and it was hard to know whether she was deferring because she truly didn't care about something or because she thought your needs were more important than her own, but was secretly displeased.

We were driving in somewhat awkward silence to this art lesson when we stopped at a red light next to a monster truck blaring rap with the windows down. For as long as I can remember, my grandparents had gold-colored boat-sized sedan cars, always clean inside, always with a box of tissues, always playing classical music. My grandma rolled down her window and cranked up her classical music and howled with laughter the rest of the way to my class. That was so characteristic of her. Gentle and riotous. I think I was embarrassed at the time, but it was truly funny and surprising, and I admired her confidence in herself and her lightheartedness. When I picture her in my mind's eye, at any age, she's always in the spirit of that moment, open-mouth smiling, almost lurching forward full of her own enthusiasm.

She loved music. She had what was - to me - a very "grandma-y" way of humming, where she'd put her hand in the air a bit like a conductor, with several fingers pointed and sort of draw music in the air while worbling "la dee da, hmm hm hm". It was one of those things that only Grandmas in movies do, or Fred Astaire, except she was completely sincere. She loved the performing arts, stale black licorice, Mary Cassatt, Diana of Wales, buttered rolls, steak and red wine, watching My Fair Lady, playing and watching tennis, and watching figure skating. Beside red wine, I enjoyed all of those things together with her. She didn't hold back in times of celebration - eating out, Christmas, laughing.

We tried to get her cooking, but she hated it, and it makes me smile. She was a lifelong learner, but sometimes you just aren't that into some things.

Two years ago for Christmas I gave her Paul Kanathi's book When Breath Becomes Air, and she said it was the best gift she got. I have a copy but I haven't read it yet, I'm sure it will make me cry. I find myself wishing I knew what her favorite flowers were and what her favorite book was. I know she liked roses. She read a great deal, as most wonderful people do.

She was always cheering me on. Telling me I was gifted, born for this, pushing me to go for the things that set me aflame, clipping magazine articles to that affect and giving them to me, emailing me. It's pretty rare (especially for me) to feel like someone's base feeling about you is "proud'. I'm lucky to have a lot of people love me, but you can tell when someone is acutely aware of your faults. My grandma didn't dote, but I never felt my faults around her. That breaks my heart as I realize it, because where am I going to find that again this side of eating buttered rolls with her when my breath becomes air?

Tattoos of the Saints

I don't have any tattoos yet. I always thought that maybe I'd get one to commemorate a tragedy, though I don't think I expected one to happen to me. My last several pieces of writing have explored both a great sea of sorrows I've found myself afloat in and a sand storm of doubt. Neither are fun, but I've been through the sandstorms before and I know that they come and go. I think the sea goes on forever, but sometimes the water is deeper, sometimes more shallow. Sometimes there are sandbars. 

I've been building these designs in my head, one for sorrow, one for doubt. Part of me is hesitant to get these tattoos because what if I have the opportunity to come out of sorrow and doubt sometimes and don't want a constant reminder of them? Maybe I'll balance it out with a sibling tattoo of the Rat King (or Queen) to lighten the mood? 

I'm accustomed to doubting, if not comfortable with it. 
My faith feels like something I can't shake in spite of my best efforts at times. 
I have never found my faith to be something very compelling to share because I don't know why I have it or why someone else would want it. 

Recently our church family was discussing this and how several of us who grew up with very rigid parameters of what is right and wrong within faith struggle to step over the hurdles of the twisted parts of our faith culture and focus on the person of Jesus Christ. 

Our friend and church leader Mikey gave some really good advice that I've been mulling over. He said that some people want to fight about what Christians have done wrong and others will try and counter with all the good things done in the name of Christ. I struggle to see past the wrongs and hurts inflicted by Christian people. Focusing on that as the hallmark of Christianity is ultimately not a convincing argument in favor of Christianity (this I have realized fully) and is to miss the point of the Gospel entirety. It's not the good of Christians that saves me, it is the blood of Christ. Nor is it the faults of the church that damn me. It is what Christ himself has done for me that saves me and my own flesh that would rot me. 

My faith is not in the church for it can always fail me in the end. 

Mikey's council was that in conversations about faith that begin to veer into how being a Christian doesn't make life less painful (one could argue it makes it more painful) or veer into the faults of Christians throughout history or in modern times, to always refocus on to the person of Jesus. As I've thought about that, I've realized how much I don't know Jesus as a person and how much I don't know how to get to know him. I want to get to know him more because I believe he's a real being, but I also think it's a more stable foundation for faith. 

If I don't know why I follow him or why someone else should, why do I believe at all?

Part of my doubt is confusion or lack of understanding, part of it is chafing against some of the more difficult to reconcile truths. I love Jesus for protecting a space for doubters. I love him for loving me and for giving me assurance that I am safe and accepted in my doubts. This is not the most poignant of analogies, but I imagine myself as a cat on a leash. Tending to wander, but connected by a lifeline. 

In light of doubt and sorrow, here is what is shaping these tattoos I envision. 

Apostle Thomas the Doubter, Missionary to India
Matthew 5:3
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Thomas is forever branded "the doubter" because he was the one who literally inserted his fingers into Jesus' resurrected and pierced body to convince himself that the whole shebang was not a mirage. I love the visceral way in which Thomas doubts. I don't know what the actual scene looked like, exactly, but lots of paintings depict Thomas just jamming his fingers into Jesus' wound. Maybe Jesus' resurrected body was beyond pain, but still. Even so, I respect Thomas' quest for proof. As I was researching a bit more about him I was moved by the other things he's recorded as doing and saying (mostly historical records outside the Bible). 

[From Wikipedia] "Thomas first speaks in the Gospel of John. In John 11:16, when Lazarus had recently died, the apostles do not wish to go back to Judea, where some Jews had attempted to stone Jesus. Thomas says: "Let us also go, that we may die with him.”(KJV)^[13]"

Having read the previous verses, I'm not sure whether Thomas means "die with him (Jesus)"
or "die with him (Lazarus)." I think the first would show beautiful and fierce loyalty to Jesus, especially as he is also encouraging his friends to join in in this possible death mission. This seems to be the connotation of the commentary above and I defer to other scholars, assuming that is the meaning of the text. 

The other possibility I see only makes (some) sense in light of verses 14-15. 

14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”16 Then Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Jesus is explaining that because Lazarus is dead, the apostles are about to witness something that will strengthen their belief. So it seems to me that Thomas could be saying, "in that case, let us also die so that we can witness even more truth." 

[From Wikipedia] "Thomas speaks again in John 14:5. There, Jesus had just explained that he was going away to prepare a heavenly home for his followers, and that one day they would join him there. Thomas reacted by saying, "Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?"^[14]"

And this I ask in my deepest heart coils. How can I know the way to a place (his side) when I don't know where that is or what it looks like or if it is simply the result of my brain chemistry and a need for belonging. Lord, I have not jammed my fingers in your side, how will I recognize your face? 

In verse 4, Jesus has just told his followers, "4 You know the way to the place where I am going.” You know the way. You know the way. Even a cat on an impossible leash knows the way because Jesus guides it. And yet Thomas is the details man. Jesus has just said, "you know the way" and Thomas is like, "yeah, but HOW?" And thank God for the apostle Thomas. I'm envisioning my tattoo of him with his two flesh-digging fingers in the air (you know the saint hand pose!) covered in saving blood. 

[From Wikipedia] "Thomas is traditionally believed to have sailed to India in AD 52 (but there is evidence of his being in Taxila in AD 43,^{[citation needed]} where he did not have success) to spread the Christian faith, and is believed to have landed at the port of Muziris, (modern-day North Paravur and Kodungalloor in modern-day Kerala state) where there was a Jewish community at the time.^{[33][34][better source needed] [1][4]} The port was destroyed in 1341 by a massive flood that realigned the coasts. He is believed by the Saint Thomas Christian tradition to have established seven churches (communities) in Kerala."

Thomas's ministry in India seems well documented, but there are specific details that I love. First, it seems that he was sent with Bartholomew who a) has a cool, underused name and b) yay for the buddy system. Secondly, Thomas supposedly deigned to go to India twice after getting Indian when the apostles drew lots about where they would spread out. Finally, Jesus had to appear to him in a vision to convince him. In this vision, Jesus reportedly said, "Fear not, Thomas. Go away to India and proclaim the Word, for my grace shall be with you", after which Thomas was like, "nah, I'm good" for the second time, and I believe a picture of Thomas is beginning to emerge. It gives me great hope for myself. I want to meditate on that phrase, "fear not, my grace shall be with you." 

I also love that his "failed" time in Taxila is mentioned because, my god, missions is just not always a "success". Taxilia was likely Pakistan (a city there shares the same name to this day). Here's another fantastic tidbit: 

"Remains of some of his buildings, influenced by Greek architecture, indicate that he was a great builder.^{[citation needed]} According to the legend, Thomas was a skilled carpenter and was bidden to build a palace for the king. However, the Apostle decided to teach the king a lesson by devoting the royal grant to acts of charity and thereby laying up treasure for the heavenly abode." 

I think Thomas should be relieved of his title of Doubter and instead be Thomas The "I Have a Better Idea". Thomas was eventually martyred in India. "The records of Barbosa from early 16th century inform that the tomb was then maintained by a Muslim who kept a lamp burning there.^[43]:237" India even issued a stamp in 1964 commemorating his work!

I keep a lamp burning for Thomas the Doubter. 

Our Lady of Sorrows (Mary, aka Dolores, aka Lola) 
Matthew 5:4
4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Sorrow is easier to talk about than doubt in some ways because more people of faith recognize (or at least verbalize) their sorrow than their doubt. I have long been fascinated with Jesus' mother and sometimes identified with her as a young mother. Less so her earth-shattering belief. But anyway, there's this traditional image of her that always grips me, with 7 daggers in her heart. In this depiction, she is called Our Lady of Sorrows and there are churches and festivals dedicated to her in this role in several places around the world, including Santa Barbara. 

She bore so much pain and when I looked up the 7 sorrows I was and am moved more than ever. 

1. The prophecy of Simeon. (St. Luke 2:34, 35)

34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.

My son, a sign spoken against. The revealer of hearts. The source of the piercing of my soul. 

2. The flight into Egypt. (St. Matthew 2:13, 14)
Displacement. Running in the night. Real men with weapons hunting your son. 

3. The loss of the Child Jesus in the temple. (St. Luke 2: 43-45)
So often I have seen this story of Jesus preaching in the temple as an adolescent as funny. But I can not question that it was a dagger in a mother's heart. Not only because she lost him in a vast crowd with no internet or phone or carrier pigeon for over 24 hours, but also because this event marks the point (in the Bible at least) in which Jesus first sets himself apart as something other than a child. He is preaching to preachers, teaching his teachers, parenting his parents. There is a shift in the relationship, and every parent grieves those. 

4. The meeting of Jesus and Mary on the Way of the Cross.
I think this is the most heartwrenching of the daggers to me. I can not imagine the depth of agony in this scene for Mary. Did she understand what was happening and the ultimate beauty in the midst of watching her son stumbling, spit on, beaten? 

5-7. The Crucifixion, the taking down of the body of Jesus from the Cross, the burial of Jesus. 
Blow after blow after blow. We know this part of the story well, but where did she go home to on the nights following his burial? Was she granted sleep? Was she granted peace? Understanding? Comfort of any kind? Dagger after dagger pierced her heart. "A sword will pierce your own soul too." 

In an interesting connection between Thomas and Mary, some people believe he was teleported from India to be the sole witness of the ascension of Mary after her death. Crazy, but crazier things have happened, just sayin'. 

Sorrows, Doubts, Gospel, Saints, maybe Tattoos. 
The end. 

(artwork in order by Itsuko Azuma, Akiya Kageichi, Qistina Khalidah)

A Letter to Catch Up

How long is a season? Traditionally, in terms of weather, perhaps three months. Winter feels longer, like it might never end, but if you've been around the sun a few times, you recognize that feeling and know that it is but a season. The good parts of summer always seem to fade too soon for my taste. We also talk about seasons of life, and it seems to me that "a season" usually refers to a less than pleasant circumstance. It also occurs to me that we don't really know when these seasons will end, or how long they will be, no matter how many sun revolutions we've weathered.

Since I last wrote to you, a small lifetime has elapsed. My grandma passed away after a short illness, I got two new jobs, our nephew died horrifically and we may not recover, we visited New York and I decided I want to be a career artist after all, we're moving within our city and moving into official ministry with that physical move, one of our children is in a particularly difficult phase, several of my soul sisters have been bobbing for apples in buckets of heaven and hell, and I am splashed in joy in pain. Last we talked, I was having an existential crisis (before all of that other stuff), but sometimes big questions get railroaded by careening situations and I don't know if that makes questions go away, or if they'll just visit again on a rainy day.

My heart started out slow burning, became engulfed in flames in a giant crush of sleepless nights and crying on the phone, expanded again with unforseen strength and lightness, grasping oxygen from the air in an unchaperoned effort to stay alight. I felt invincible, but it gave way to feeling fogged in.

I want to write out each event for my own processing, but I have not found the time or felt enough urgency to do them each justice. Some things are too fresh, besides. I have been thinking about how when I can return to writing more regularly, I will have grown a great deal. I think this makes me a better writer, but I also have less to say sometimes because I might be growing out of trying to control my own narrative. I think my spirit is both more resilient and more exhausted. My words evaporate into the atmosphere before they can be solidified, like perspiration into humidity.

It struck me with curiosity - at what point does one's life become a tragedy? Sometimes, after someone has died, we might refer to their life as a tragic one, but I don't usually think of lives as tragedies. In a narrative sense though, what amount of sadness tips a story from being a story with sad elements to being fundamentally tragic? Remember in the movie Stranger than Fiction when Harold Crick is trying to find out what kind of story he's in? Maybe it's foolishness or maybe it's faith or maybe it's story telling, but it seems to me that a tragedy is only a plot twist away from hope. That no story need remain a tragedy.

I recently met a young man who is working in the ER as a trauma surgeon at age seventeen. He washes dishes at the restaurant I work at for extra cash since the ER is too intense for them to allow him to work very many hours. He was telling me that he recently stuck his finger into someone's aortal bullet wound on the sidewalk in our city. With his finger in a heart in shock, the team discussed what they had 30 seconds to do to hopefully save this person. He pulled his finger out, they did their thing, and.... .... .... a heartbeat.

The hardest thing with bullet wounds, literal and otherwise, is whether there's an exit wound. If it's a clean break, you're good to go, but if the bullet gets stuck inside, it can put pressure on your vital organs and kill you. I'm no surgeon, but sometimes I think I'd take the literal bullet and my chances with a clean exit over these conceptual bullets that seem to lodge against the organs.

I mourn the end of summer every year because it's my favorite season. I am at my best in the warm air, the freedom from a fuller schedule, fewer clothes, the abundance of produce. But I don't hate fall as much as I used to, because back-to-school is a new kind of release from what invariably becomes a chaotic lack of routine. I was trying to prepare the boys for the possibility of switching schools away from friends, and I was reminding them that although they might leave some good things in an old place, there would be things in a new place that they will love, just like they've grown to love things in the past. Of course, I was talking to myself too. All I did as a kid was say goodbyes and hellos, and choosing goodbyes, even with the hope of new hellos, is something like open heart surgery to me.

(painting by Gail Potocki)

I am not an easy crier, and when I see people who do process externally, I think the way I handle grief is just so clunky. I am confident in so many ways, many of which are purposefully a departure from the norm, but I've spent a lot of time believing that other people's inner lives are more "right" than mine - others seem to ask fewer questions that result in ripping up the concrete of your own life every few years, others cry through their pain instead of being like a teakettle that heats all the water but then only sputters and scalds when it boils, others seem to have this spiritual life that is more intimate, more personal, more calming. My grief is so stubborn. But after aspiring to what appears to be a clearer path in others for so long and trying to bend myself into that shape (or not trying, but just feeling like it's out of reach for me), I'm starting to believe that the contortions of my heart are by design. Isn't that intense and frustrating? I mean, it's life-giving too, but it means that I was made in a shape that I don't yet understand, and maybe won't ever be comfortable with. Certainly some of the things we struggle with are the result of trauma or decisions, but things that are broken can be mended, if not fully restored. And the things that aren't broken are actually on purpose. Maybe I was meant to knock down the pillars of the temple I'm standing in, even if it crushes me.

God does not fail.
Nothing he does is by mistake.

I think about myself, I think about the ones I love, near and far. I think about the ones I don't know at all, but that I read about and see pictures of and I think this season is so long. 

Mirage

July 6, 2018. Likely the hottest day this year. My car, the one without AC, says it’s 111F outside. We race down the highway, trying to take off from the blazing planet like a bird. We’re up to illegal speeds, all the windows down (except the broken one), hoping the rush will create a breeze. Instead, it’s a motionless heat blanket, hotter than hot. So hot you can smell the wild fennel bulbs baking in the dirt on the side of the road. So hot that a deer carcass we pass looks blacked, like an honest to god barbeque. I’ve never seen that before.

I half expect the grasslands to spontaneously combust before our eyes. Every truck we pass smells like melting tires. Everywhere that skin touches skin feels like swampland, but every time I resettle a sweat-slick limb and create something like a stirring of the air, it feels like glory hallelujah. I expect to see the tiny metal lotus of my necklace searing a brand into my flesh, but reality denies me all the comforts of drama. I can feel the acid in my stomach beginning to simmer, making me sick. I want to get out and run in a panic circle, shouting the adult version of “fuuuuuuuuudge” like a wild animal that’s suddenly realized that its habitat is not conducive to life.

Instead, I drive on, afraid that if I stop the heat will be worse, an oppressive punch to the jaw that won’t let me up again. But I have two kids in the back seat. I pull off the freeway and park. I feel dizzy as the car slows. I step out, sway to the left, sway to the right. Yell at them to put their shoes back on. Why is it always the shoes? We make it inside where all I can say in answer to “how are you today?” is a demure, “toasty”, as the gal might be startled if I told her the truth.

For the first time in my life, I feel like I might be paying less than Starbucks is worth. Yelling is forgotten as I regain my humanity and we pretend we’re explorers in the Sahara. We make it the last 20 minutes home, where it’s a tepid 86 degrees. But the grande cup of ice we just got is pure liquid.

[artwork by Bjoern Ewers]

Diary of a Sad Lady

Despite my hopes for instant and wild fame as a result of blogging, it's always been something of a personal journal. A journal is a place where you don't have to have all the answers, you won't be graded on how well you argued your point, and it's okay to not have a point at all. I don't have bullet points today, and if I don't feel hopeful at the end of writing it, then I just won't end on a hopeful note.

I do love it when people give glowing reviews of whatever I have to say or I get praise for being "so honest". But it's not an achievement for me. There's always another layer I haven't reached or shared yet, not because it's too dark or too personal, but just because I'm a work in progress. In my mind - most days - I Have Arrived. The way I am is the culmination of everything I've said and felt and been and done up until now and I can't be any more than that. But I forget that tomorrow will add to that and I never really Arrive at the final version of myself. I've had everything worked out since I was 5, and it's a continuous irritation that I'm just not developing according to my master plan.

Rather than having arrived at Butterflyness, I think I'm more like something freaky emerging from a chrysalis. And my hips are stuck. I went in fuzzy and I'm coming out... still fuzzy. I'm beginning to realize that my butt just might not look at all like what I'd imagined. Figuratively speaking.

I'm sad. And I know it. And I don't know how to go through it instead of around it. Even if I knew how, I don't want to. Most of the time I'm not sad, but sometimes things happen that I can't prevent and that makes me recognize that little by little, I've made choices to insulate myself from feeling sadness. When that insulation gets chipped or threatened, I get a little twitchy. A lot twitchy. So twitchy that I've started to recognize that even though I don't know what it is that I'm suppressing or why it's there, it's something that I'm afraid of letting it out because I certainly recognize its magnitude.

In my waning ability to control this thing, I've noticed that I'm manifesting some neurosis, and that startled me. The most notable thing is that it's become increasingly difficult for me to drive. I've never been in a real accident, but my inability to control other drivers while I'm driving or the idea that anything unexpected could happen at any moment makes me extremely jumpy when driving, and I get sweaty and feel tingly. When I reach my destination I feel an inflated sense of relief. I've even begun to avoid some travel because I'm too stressed by the journey to get there. I think I will actually just get a little too sad right now if I explore how my must-control-my-environment coping mechanisms affects how I relate to my children. Sometimes I don't let them talk in the car.

Unresolved sadness upon unresolved sadness has built up into something that feels insurmountable. My family often asks me why I "bottle up my feelings" and I always deny that I do, because I certainly don't do it consciously. I have a lot of feelings and I express plenty of them. I recognize that "bottling" is not a good thing to do, and therefore I would never willfully ignore something that needed to be dealt with. But I guess that's the whole point - somehow I fake myself out of thinking the hardest things are worth dealing with, and that is by nature burying it.

If you're wondering why I'm sad or how I got to be cripplingly sad, I couldn't really tell you. I loved my childhood, but it was a never ending cycle of ended relationships and I was not in control of when I got to say goodbye. Or if I wanted to say goodbye. It's no ones fault, but it was sad then and it's sad now. There wasn't any use in fighting it and no one who deserved my wrath, so I never fought it and I didn't take it out on anyone. But fighting is part of grief, and since I never grieved, I guess I just skipped all the emotional work that's necessary when you experience something sad. Now, when I experience something sad, I don't know how to accept the sadness and it leaks out of me in other ways, like my control issues. And there's so much pent up sadness that is pushing against the back of my eyeballs whenever something even a little bit sad happens that it would be a disaster to let it all out over something that isn't worth a tsunami of feelings over. Sometimes, I've wished someone (no one in particular, calm yourself) would die so that I had an appropriate occasion to really lose my shit all at once.

I never really understand that whole "Instagram looks so perfect, but don't believe that perfect life" refrain. I'm not covering up a dark secret with images of my beautiful life. My life is actually beautiful a lot of the time and I'm not trying to pretend that I don't have problems. But then when I get to a place where I can even consider that I might be detached from part of my own being... well, how does one casually bring that up on Instagram or otherwise. Flower photo, vintage outfit photo, cooking tip, my kids looking cute, more flowers, oh by the way my mind and body are conspiring against my commands as a result of Unresolved Grief. Do you like my dress? I do.

In acknowledging that I have some emotional trauma buried that I need to process, I've had several people recommend that I develop a compassionate inner voice. I'm trying not to blow that off as the bougiest thing I've ever heard because the whole point is to acknowledge that maybe I am repressing something and I'm aware that I'm not currently equipped to handle the exorcism. Therefore, logic would dictate that I might need some new tools to help me. I have a few, but I'm not ready to use them yet. 

Am I mean to myself? I mean, not that I know of... but on the other hand, would a she-devil that's always been a she-devil know that there was any option out there but attack with fangs? As ironic as this is, I don't really want to bad-mouth my inner voice because she is... me. My inner voice chamber is where I don't have to filter the way I encounter the world in order to be polite. Yeah, inner voice can be sassy and ruthless, but so is reality.

I want to tell Inner Voice not to tell me to be nicer, because when I'm in pain, I don't want to be nice. And I don't want to feel guilty about having that space where I get to lash out without verbalizing my most wretched desires and dreads. I like a place to contemplate crimes without having to commit any. I also don't want Inner Voice to give me any bullshit about how the blackness of my heart will eventually come out of my mouth because that's what the Bible says will happen. Inner Voice right now to hypothetical Inner Voice telling me stuff I don't want to hear: "I know, dumbass, I can read." She's rude and mean. So am I. But she's also as honest as she knows how to be and recognizes when things suck and it sucks to feel them. And I don't want to nicen that up. I rely on cynical, angry voice to help me process things that I don't like. I guess I just don't know how to tone it down when I get past the angry phase.

I also don't want the internet to think that I don't have "real friends" with whom I can discuss these more troubling things with. I do have wonderful in-person friends. But sometimes I don't talk too good out loud and I have to wait for someone else to respond and Inner Voice has to be tamed for the sake of human relationships.

When I think about the idea that internal stress that I don't acknowledge affects me physically and in some really strange ways, I just want to watch myself as a bystander. I mean, how WEIRD is that driving thing?! If it was someone else telling me that, I'd think they were making it up or making a rather far-fetched connection, though it must be said I'm notoriously bad at connecting causes and affects related to my body. I just don't have the time to figure out if cheese makes my stomach uncomfortable. Even if it did, I'd still eat it. Things that don't fit in to my personal logic structure just get relegated to "must not be real".

I only experience one reality, personally, but I'm much more open to the idea that there is no such thing as one static "reality" than I used to be. I have my own reality, but the more I think about it, the less it worries me if someone else who is "crazy" believes they're communing with aliens and stuff. I mean, who am I to say they aren't? It's real to them. And I really can't prove that it's not real. Imagine how frustrating it would be if you really were an alien and no one believed you. Anyway, that's tangential, but being that this is my journal and all, I can acknowledge any number of realities that I want to. Who knows what other weird stuff I might do in the future as a result of... I don't know...anything?! The more I recognize my own illogical, inexplicable self, the fewer assumptions I make about other people's "crazy" behavior. I'm not sure why I even value "having it together".

Relying on an environment I can completely control is I think partly why I've stopped writing very much. It's too draining for me to process other people's responses or to second guess my own thoughts and feelings about things. I don't want to explain myself any better than I already have. I don't know if it makes sense, and if it doesn't make sense to someone I don't want to work harder to explain myself. I am releasing myself from explaining why I have the urge to share everything on the internet too (thanks, Sweet, Sadistic, Inner Voice). It's because I'm a really gifted, brilliant, funny, mostly always genius and right writer, okay. And the world deserves to have my sparkle rub off on all its peasants.

It seems to me that most men have a sense of self assurance. The other day, I heard a man praised as "someone who never second guesses himself". I was starting to envy that belief that one is always right, until I remembered that it takes a lot more courage and work to consider that you might be wrong. Someone who never second guesses themselves can never listen to criticism. But I listen to all criticism because I believe other people's words (usually) have value. I think that's mostly a good trait, but it becomes deafening sometimes.

I've been reading Pearl S. Buck's autobiography (My Several Worlds) for a long time now, and this passage really stuck out to me:

"[I was sent several pages of blistering rebuke over The Good Earth because] I had been so frank about human life... The worlds in which I have lived and grown have made me what must be called a controversial figure, as I have been told often enough, and this is because inescapably, by experience and nature, I see the other side of every human being. If he be good, then there is that other side, and if he be evil, there is again another side, and if the ability to comprehend the reasonableness of both seems confounding to those who are content with one dimension, to others as to me, it is an endless source of interest and amusement and opportunity for love and life. We have no enemies, we for whom the globe is home, for we hate no one, and where there is no hate, it is not possible to escape love."

This perhaps proves that my Inner Voice needs a makeover, but the only person I can't argue both sides for is myself, to myself. My own dualities can be so destabilizing that I end up feeling confused and even angry with my inability to figure myself out. I can't help but encompass everything all at the same time. I don't view myself as controversial, I'm just a giant umbrella that is inexplicably compelled to present you with every option you haven't thought of every time you open your mouth. I'm not mentally unstable (well, not very), I'm just too small a vessel to carry all the things that I've absorbed and if you don't understand that innately, it makes me overheat in an effort to HELP YOU SEE BEHIND THE CURTAIN. I'm a sad, confused droid that wants to help people but only knows how to communicate in droid-speak. So kind of like a not-very-helpful thing that wants to be helpful.

I don't like this. I am a strong, grown-ass woman who is usually proud of herself and is good at things and I'm not happy that part of my own team is sabotaging me with it's crazy psycho drama that is part of me but also not listening to me and YOU WICKED DEMON SADNESS MONSTER JUST STAY IN YOUR BOX. I've been doing quite well telling my feelings when and where to feel, and I have no intention of letting them run the show. This is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship. My subjects are getting cocky with their insubordination and their feeling coup d'états. 

Are there rehab facilities for sad people? Where you can go and kill stuff, followed by a quiet soak in a scalding bath in a pitch black room? With dessert afterward? Maybe a Japanese mafia spa.

Inner Voice says I am not brave enough to get my weird fuzzy butt out of this chrysalis.

{images: Picasso, Priscila Furtado, unknown}

Writing in Zero Gravity

I want to write, but I'm having a hard time.

I've been questioning why I write and should I write and how can I not write and sometimes what I should write. I start to write frequently, and then it's not good enough, and I throw it away and I try again.

I am a writer, but I'm not the best writer, and I hate this. I know that I will never be the very best, and that doesn't bother me so much as knowing I'm not as good as I could be and hopefully will be eventually. I know that between me and her, there is a lot of writing, but I hate that too.

I don't want to write fiction, I want to report and hypothesize and discuss and chastise and repent, and then repeat. But this is hard. Sometimes people don't like you or say things that hurt and make you question, and that is hard.

I want to write so well that no one can argue, but that will never happen. And that's probably a good thing. I want getting better to be enough and I want doing my best to be enough, but right now it's not. As soon as I make it half way through writing something, I hate it. Start over. Throw it out. Start over. Hate it. Start over. What am I doing. Start over. Who cares. Start over. It's pitiful. Start over. Trash. Start over.

What if I'm not brave enough to be a writer?

I read an article on writing by a renowned author recently who said, "writing is what you've done after you've thought." Which is lovely and ludicrous as a job description. Another writer wrote about how fundamentally, writing is a very selfish profession, always asking everyone to pay attention to your view of the world, to what you have to say, and why they should listen to you.

I wouldn't even bother writing if I didn't care deeply about what I have to say, and that's what makes it so hard to weather criticism - I put my guts on the line, and sometimes people hate it. It's difficult not to take it personally. Sometimes people mean it to be personal.

If writing is what you do after thinking, and my writing isn't always good or right, then perhaps my thinking is wrong. I'm sure that it is at times. In fact, more and more I question my thinking. I think I am changing and beginning to see that a lot of the ideas and beliefs I have are only a reaction to a previous set of ideas and beliefs I had which I decided weren't good enough. I imagine this happens continuously throughout anyone's life, but there is zero gravity in between. Who am I if I don't know what I think? And how can I write with confidence if I can not think with confidence?

I want to write, but I'm having a hard time.

{image source unknown}

Inspiration & Anxiety

I feel a little stuck right now. These are two things I've been pondering.

Anxiety seems to be the vogue ailment these days, and I don't say that to belittle people suffering from anxiety, but these terms do seem to trend, which is kind of odd. At least in my circles, people are less depressed or gluten intolerant than they were 10 and 2 years ago respectively, but there's a lot of talk of anxiety. I find myself describing myself as anxious too. It's true, there are things I am anxious about at times.

For me, anxiety is this foggy feeling of unease. I'll have this urge to go through the files in my brain and put my finger on everything in my life that might be causing this unease, so that I can feel a moment of acute awareness or remembrance or pain. If I can hold it, then maybe I can resolve it.

Perhaps anxiety is just the new way of saying depression?



It's the knowledge that things are changing without my permission, but I don't know the details yet.

It's the feeling of not quite fitting in.

It's the feeling of wasted time, in the midst of business.

It's the feeling of being far away, and not being sure whether I want to exercise my way back into the sunlight.

It's the feeling of wanting to be different, but not caring enough to grow.

It's teeth on edge.

It's the feeling of finding out things you knew along, but don't like.

It's a romance with a phantom.

It's my soul flame threatening to snuff out. "A mouth full of blood."

As melodramatic as it sounds, it's the feeling of summer turning into fall.

I get this picture in my head of the Native Americans, and how in tune they were/are with nature. They probably would have thought it completely natural to have your body and psyche become ill or have an uncomfortable shedding of the skin as the seasons change and the world dies again and the skies storm up but never rain. It's the time of year in which I'm most aware of my emptiness.

If you'd told me 8 years ago that it would take me 10 years to graduate from college, I'd have punched you in the face. I'm pretty sure I will manage to finish by the end of 2017, and recently I got hit with a bit of senior, uh"anxiety", for lack of a better word. I suddenly feel like I'm running out of time to figure out what to do with my life. Not that that has to be decided all at once (I'm a firm believer that it shouldn't be a one-time decision), but none the less, I'm walking around under a bunch of question marks.

When it comes to Inspiration, I'm not sure whether it's really separate from anxiety to me. Or rather, the presence of one is the absence of the other. Nothing feels interesting to me right now. None of the things that I generally feel passionate about seem able to call me or grip me. I like that almost manic state of having your head full of too many ideas to focus on. Instead, I want to pour myself into something but can't seem to find anything that makes me want to get up. Cooking and getting dressed are two things that are often really fun for me, but recently, they're just chores.

Isn't this picture strange and beautiful? Someone was selling it as part of an album on Instagram a while ago and I didn't buy the whole album, but they kindly sent me a scan of this one because it sunk its teeth deep into...something... in me. I have so many questions. I want to write about it but I'm afraid that whatever I can make up will not do it justice or will stay unfinished forever, like most of my work.

I know this post is a little bit dark. Feelings pass and circumstances change. Philippians 4:6-7
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The weirdness of the world entangles me, but the Peace of God, when we uncover it, transcends all understanding. Strange things. Beautiful things. 

Garden of Eden - The Skinny on the Schooling

(part 3 of 5. image details here)


Dear Art, please don't think I'm cheating on you; you'll always be a cornerstone in my heart....


As I gear up for Middle Eastern Studies, I've struggled at times with "leaving" art behind. I've pretty much always been moving in that direction and I know I'll never stop being an artist, but it was beginning to gnaw at me that art doesn't... save the world. Sometimes I disagree with that statement, but I was frustrated by how much art there is in the world and my own tendency to brush by it or appreciate it for a moment and then forget about it. I want to be part of something with a larger impact, and when it comes down to it, I know that art will always be a thread in the chord of anything I choose to do.


I have been noticing that as soon as I got serious about going back to school, I suddenly found a lot of other things to occupy my time. I feel like I'm savoring my summer, even though I haven't been in school for what feels like ages (roughly a year and a half).

I realized this summer that all my peers were done with college, and some are moving on to their Master's degrees. All of a sudden, I felt left behind! I feel simultaneously like I've been in school for ages and that I've never been to "real" school. My schooling history is a little bit "kittywompus" - I'll skip the early years (you're welcome) and get right to the fall of 2008, when I started attending Allan Hancock College, a junior college here in Santa Maria. After 3 years there, I'd finished my general education and didn't have a plan for what to do next. In 2009, I had been accepted to the Savannah College of Art and Design with scholarships, but still didn't have enough money to go (and didn't want to leave Jonas). Toward the end of my time at Hancock, I was gearing up to start a 2 year apprenticeship with PCPA (Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts) in Technical Theater, but backed out of that too, knowing that I wanted to marry Jonas and not wanting to try and start a marriage right before or get married in the middle of an 80-hour week program. I'd be lying if I said it isn't frustrating at times not to be further in my schooling or career, but I wouldn't trade my husband for any of it, and that was the right choice for me, both then and now. It was also really important to me not to go into debt, which was another hang-up. I've been working part time (sometimes full-time) for 3 years now, which has gone a long way to saving up for school.

The first thing I can ever remember wanting to do "when I grew up" was be a doctor, but by the time I was actually looking into college, art had sunk its' nails into my heart. My first ever intended major was Fashion, then Graphic Design (quickly moved on after job shadowing someone), then Painting, then Journalism (discouraged by the death groans of an industry, though I do believe it is simply in the process of rebirth), then Culinary school, then Mixed Media & Installation Art / Technical Theater (also didn't like it after getting a little bit of experience), then Fibers, then Urban Planning (too technical and I got tired of explaining what it was - maybe I didn't really know myself), then Costume Design. I was talking with FIDM (the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising) in L.A. when I found out I was pregnant. I quickly realized (after crying a lot, haha) that I didn't want my schooling and career to interfere with raising a child (costume design is an all consuming industry built for workaholics). Then I was miserable for a few months, with no idea what I wanted to do (and very disheartened with I realized that in academia, studying "Literature" means getting a degree in English, essentially) and then put two and two together with my growing fire for human rights and my old love for my other home. Thus, we arrive at Middle Eastern Studies.

If you haven't inferred as much thus far, it's hard for me to stay passionate about the same thing for very long.  I realize more and more that I am a big-picture person, and it's really difficult for me to stay motivated through-out an entire process to see the end result, let alone slog through all the trial and error that it takes to make truly great work. I know I need to become more balanced when it comes to my style of working. Not that it's bad to be an idea generator and a grandiose dreamer, but I know that at some point, to succeed, you have to put the leg work in.

Ok, now for some details about the school I'm actually planning to attend now. I don't actually know for sure when I'll start - I've started the orientation process, but haven't completed the financial assessments and am not sure what my schedule will look like after our son is born. I may end up going at a snail's pace, but that's better than going nowhere.

Middle Eastern Studies is actually not a very common major, all things considered. And the way things are now, we need the benefits of Jonas's full time job, as well as for me to be able to continue working part time and be home a lot to take care of our son. I started looking into online school because I don't want to put our son into daycare and Jonas would be working too much to be available to watch our baby if I were taking classes at a psychical campus. In fact, we'll probably end up living in Santa Maria for longer than we had initially planned (we were talking about moving to L.A. after Christmas) since we won't be moving closer to a school just yet. Once I finish school, somewhere over the rainbow, Jonas will go back to school and finish up his degree (which is Illustration, most of the time ;)). Studying art has always seemed to me to be something you need to do in a psychical setting, as a side note. Hopefully we can find a way to pull that off when Jonas goes back, and that's yet another reason that I've finally moved away from the fine arts as a career (for now at least - I see myself as one of those people who will have multiple careers).

All that said, pretty much the only option was American Public University. As excited as I am to have the show on the road again and have a vision, this choice is kind of humbling to me (sorry, APUS). I love being in a classroom (I did most of high school on line) and I take stock in the name of a school. I've always turned up my nose at schools who advertise on Facebook, etc., and cater toward students who are in my situation (though APUS is legit and well accredited, for the record). I know that that is wrong and foolish, but there's part of me that wants to make excuses for not being at Berkeley or SCAD or Reed or Harvard. I wanted everyone to see that I could make it in schools like that and I wanted businesses to be impressed when they saw where I graduated from, and I guess this path that I'm on instead is taking me down a notch. It's funny when your life doesn't turn out like you imagined. I guess it probably never does.

Furthermore, APUS was started by the military (I'm doing the civilian branch) which is not an affiliation I ever imagined myself adhering to. I don't mean these confessions on my part to be disrespectful to the military or anyone who goes to school online or goes to a school that doesn't have a fancy name. My mom is getting her master's degree on line in a very rigorous program and I'm really proud of her and I'm very grateful for the men and women who serve our country through the military. These circumstances just wouldn't have been my first choice, I guess. I'm still trying to change directions in my heart and mind toward making raising my son my number one priority. 

One aspect of studying MES at APUS that I'm very curious about is the fact that they teach things like "Weapons of Mass Destruction Preparedness" and "Terrorism Studies." At one point, I saw those types of studies categorized with MES rather than Asian Studies, European Studies, etc. I'm a little nervous about being taught through a lens which I'm studying MES to try and eradicate, but the courses look standard, so I'm not panicking yet. It should be quite interesting, one way or another. Some other random facts; 1. Although the school is exclusively online, their offices are in Virginia and West Virginia. 2. I will almost definitely be learning Arabic. I don't know how I'm going to do that online with no one to talk to. Ok, well, that was 2 facts, haha.

Hang with me, I only have a little bit left to cover here. Mainly, people have been asking me what kind of career I'm planning to have with a major in MES. First off, at this point, I'm not really interested in living in the Middle East later in life. My focus is really more on the U.S.'s opinion of the Middle East. That said, I'm sure that an adequate understanding of Middle Eastern culture does require time spent there and I won't shy away from that. I'd particularly like to visit Morocco and Istanbul, from a tourism point of view if nothing less. But fear not (or fear highly, perhaps), I'm into trekking the back "woods" of Pakistan and Afghanistan and what not. With my husband and my baby. God loves those people and those places and so do I. And so should you. Two blog installments from now, I'm going to try and not be political or confrontational and tell you all about what I love (food, fashion, landscape, customs, etc.) about this magical and eons-old region.

As for what career options a MES major could lead to, I haven't officially looked that up, but to me it seems endless. The main categories in my mind are consulting (being a cultural guide for businesses or governments or organizations that deal with the Middle East), human rights (immigration, refugees, foreign aid, state-side politics/community education, non-profit organizations), writing (reporting, memoirs, freelance) and awesome stuff (cooking, crying, art, being in a righteous rage).

If you've made it down this far, I appreciate it. Especially since I usually skim over other people's personal ramblings. I'm writing this partly to answer questions people ask me, but perhaps even more than that, to give myself something to look back on and ground myself with why I care and why I'm doing what I'm doing and to laugh at how foolish I can be and congratulate myself on any progress I may make. It's crazy to be young, wouldn't you say?