movement and repose

: “I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of...

“I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the…

You and Beeta are reading the things I need to be reading. The words that are in my heart, but can’t come out.

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Bookworm

I keep a highlighter in my purse and by my nightstand. Reading on-the-go and in bed, highlighter near by. Tonight I realized I must have misplaced my nightstand highlighter and moaned as I dragged myself out of bed to my purse. I cannot let a good passage go unmarked.

Is it time to go?

The loveliest people in my life tell me it is. My heart is bound to this state, to this land, to these people. But if they are telling me to go, if they know it is time, I should listen. But I hesitate to leave. How can I leave people who love me enough to let me go?

But, I won’t ever really be without them.

Mama, Dad and Kelse. My aging grandparents, who fill me with love and wisdom. My closest lady friends, who empower and encourage me. They won’t ever be far from me.

Even when they’re gone, they’re never really gone.

I won’t stay here another year, it is time to move.

My response:

You know what’s mature? Not posting creepy shit like this on craigslist so my co-workers can show it to me. You know what’s “out of line”?- joking that a woman you don’t even know is out of line because she hasn’t noticed your leering eye, joking that it’s out of line for me to be with “another man” because you… what? Like my hair? My makeup? You don’t even know me! Ugh, it’s kind of condescending and slightly misogynistic/objectifying, even if it’s in jest. So what you like my hair and makeup, I don’t do it for anyone else besides me. Also, who the hell comments on someone’s weight like that? Wow. You noticed I lost weight? I wish you would have noticed I’m not the type of person who thinks this kind of stuff is cute. No, we’re not both adults here. One of us is shallow, juvenile and thinks they’re real funny. P.S. I have no idea who you could be, I really don’t, which makes me uncomfortable. I know I should probably take this lightly and I usually would, but I figured I’d take the opportunity to let you know that not every woman finds this stuff cute. I just don’t think it’s going to “work out” because I don’t find this flattering at all. So here’s me sounding like real frosty bitch, which I assure you I am not, but I just really don’t like this kind of stuff at all, it’s uncomfortable. And don’t even bother telling me I should just chill out and be flattered. I don’t have to be, I can feel how I want to about it and I feel like you should keep your thoughts to yourself instead of posting it on the internet like we know each other. Did you take into account, while you were taking the time to craft this message, that this might make someone feel uncomfortable at their job? Seriously though, this kind of attention makes some people very uneasy, me being one of them. Just think about it.

—-END—-

I began dealing with anxiety my sophomore year of college when I was stalked by a messed up dude in one of my small English classes. He followed me home, tried to get into my house, went to my neighbor’s house, wrote disturbing comments on my writing (it was a poetry workshop). He was seemingly normal. I have never been more afraid than I was when I told him to leave me alone. I was afraid of retaliation and him harming me. I couldn’t go to class for weeks, I had to meet with the Dean of the English Dept., but they couldn’t do anything about it until he was caught trespassing (by the time my room mates called the cops, he was gone) or until he actually physically harmed me. I couldn’t go to class without feeling horrible anxiety and sitting there while he stared at me for 50 minutes. I made friends walk me home so he wouldn’t follow me.

Craigslist missed connections are supposed to be cute, whatever, that’s fine. But you don’t know how that is going to make another human feel. You don’t know them. You don’t know their experiences. I feel comfortable and safe in this town and chances are this is totally harmless and this man would never actually do anything like this guy did to me in college. But take into account that you’ve now made me feel uncomfortable at my job, where I work, the place I feel safe and happy. Think about it. Say something to me in person, tell me you like my hair, introduce yourself, etc. But don’t pretend you know me and don’t jest about being ‘out of line’ by having a boyfriend. It might not seem like a big deal, it’s supposed to be funny, but it’s telling me that somewhere deep inside of your brain, subconsciously, you feel like I (or women in general), exist for you, for your pleasure. And when I’m taken and you can’t “get what you want” from afar, it’s my fault and I’m out of line…that’s weird…it’s unsettling, it’s not funny.

This seemingly innocent kind of thinking exposes the root of rape culture, this kind of thought is okay…it’s supposed to be found flattering to women. I’m supposed to think it’s romantic and cute that some stranger has been lusting after me from afar and I’M the one who is out of line because I am not available to him. That is so weird! I’m not trying to make this into a bigger deal than it actually is. But this is the kind of subconscious thought, underlying, seemingly harmless cultural norms that slide by, that are okay. But these are the kind of acceptable social attitudes towards women that allow for a broader assault on the rights as women as humans to not be blamed for street harassment, rapes, assaults on their bodies by other humans. It seems innocent, but it’s what has laid the foundation for women to be blamed for assaults against them. (You have a great beehive and I think you’re beautiful, but you kissed someone in front of me! That’s out of line! I’m going to joke around and pretend that we’re going in different directions because I don’t know you and you’re not available to me and I’m put off. It’s your fault. I hate to break it to you, but now we’re going to have to pretend like this never happened? Like what never happened!!! You’re a stranger! I don’t owe you anything? Can I not work and walk down the street where I live and not owe anyone anything? Can I not be in a consensual and healthy relationship, where I’m seen as a human being first and foremost without some strange man being let down and feeling the need to let me know via the internet? Sorry that on that particular day I decided to not make my hair as big and to not wear makeup…what?! What in the world? Is this not strange to anyone. Joking about it to soothe your ego? It’s really not cool. I’m just the girl with the big hair and makeup who works at the pizza place, not a full human being with thoughts and ownership of my own body, my own style and my own experiences. Patronize me, yes yes I’m sorry but we’re just going in two different directions. I’m sorry, since I saw you with someone else, your hair is smaller and you lost weight, I guess I’m going to have to find someone else to lust after…Yuck.

It is the underlying thought that has allowed us to let politicians to redefine rape, for the teenage athletes who rape their fellow classmates to be seen as the victims because of how their guilty verdicts have ‘ruined their young lives’. It’s easy to say, hey this is just some guy who thinks you’re cute, give him a break…it’s not him, it’s the fact that this is the underlying attitude that perpetuates rape culture and victim blaming in this country. I’m out of line. I do my hair and makeup in a way that draws attention to me. I should expect it. Look, I know that, I have done my hair like this since I was a pre-teen, I know it is ‘different’ I know it draws attention, but this kind of attention is not welcome and it is not warranted. Of course I like it when W____ comments on my hair, my makeup, how I look. Humans desire to be found attractive by other humans. I welcome his attraction, it is mutual because we know one another. His attraction to me doesn’t mean ownership. I’m not out of line when I am attractive to another person and they cannot ‘have me.’ Because to W___, I am not something to be had. I’m a person. This kind of attitude is at the core of our culture and we haven’t been vigilant enough and it’s turned us into a nation of rape apologist and victim blamers and it’s a slippery slope. I’m a harping feminist because I can’t take a joke and a compliment. No, I’m a person who wants to feel comfortable at my job and not be joked at about being ‘out of line’ when a stranger finds me physically attractive, but unavailable. Yes I know, I’m a harping feminist because I know that this is the kind of thought that pre-empts a man thinking that it is okay to have non-consensual sex with a drunk girl because he thinks she’s attractive and if she was sober she wouldn’t be available to him, otherwise known as RAPE!

If I can’t go home

because of this “snow storm” on my day off..

I guess Dunkin’ Donuts date with Katie W., thrifting with Anna and eating frozen pizzas and drinking wine with lady friends, showering with STNNNG blasting on my record player because my roomies are away, watching Bob’s Burgers and then reading Middlemarch until I fall asleep is as good as it’s going to get.

ACB always soothes me to sleep

Take me back to where I was before I was born. It’s like sweet and dreamless sleep. It sounds like heaven to me.

It was all a blur

and then I drove back, knocked on the door and did what I knew I had to do.

This time it was me. This time I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to be without ____, but it was right for me. I love you, dude. So, so, so much. But I need something you don’t have to give. You love me. You care about me. But you need to take the next step on your own.

My heart is broken again into a million little pieces. But it is the right thing to do because it would have been 10 million times harder if I didn’t do it now. Each time with you has been different, each time has been increasingly wonderful and each time has been very special. Something I will never forget or let go of, something that has made me a better person and something that changed me, made me more myself. This last time we fully understood one another, you came full circle and were one hundred percent yourself, nothing left to hide, nothing to be afraid or embarrassed of. You know me. I know you. Inside and out and we’re hooked, we’re friends for life, that won’t go away. But right now I can’t see your face without wanting to kiss it and I can’t sit in a room with you without your hand in mine. Friends will come later, or maybe when we’re very old and you find that piece of yourself that is missing, that piece I’ve already found, the piece I’ve built a solid foundation on, maybe then…

But for now. I’ve got to let it go. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do as an adult. If letting you go, knowing we love one another and we’re always going to be in each others’ lives, one way or another, is the hardest thing I’ve had to do as an adult, I’m lucky. At the same time, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, it’s too dang complicated and really hard to plow through emotionally. Mostly because it’s not about incompatibility or disagreements, it’s not even about loss of attraction or interest. Every element of a good lifelong companionship is there, except one thing. You don’t have a source of strength and peace. You don’t think about the future, because you can’t, because it will make you crazy with anxiety. You still hold on to an immense amount of fear and anxiety and I was taking that on myself, as something I could alleviate. Something that was about me, about us. But it wasn’t, it was bigger than that, it was about everything, not one thing. Because you have nothing to hold on to when things are uncertain, so you shut down, so you let go of everything…I was afraid of that happening again, I was anxious about your inability to face life’s difficulties without completely shutting yourself off that I was experiencing anxiety at the thought of you being anxious. It was a terrible feeling. Worrying that you would worry yourself into shutting down again. While it didn’t happen this time, I ended things because I knew it would happen again and when it did, it had to be you alone, dealing with it and you taking the steps necessary to find peace, it had to be you on your own, I couldn’t be involved. You fear that you won’t be able to bring anyone along, on this next step in your life, but if you did it would be me. I know that you can’t bring anyone with you, it has to be you on your own. Your inability to face uncertainty about your future with another person in your life is not going to change overnight, it is not going to be solved by being with me. You, knowing this about yourself, want it to not be this way, but you can’t change it on your own and you’re not hopeful that it will ever be different for you. Without that, I am doomed to float alone in this life, even when attached to you and I cannot let myself do that. If I choose to share this life with anyone, and at this point, I elect not to, they have to be a rock, drawing strength from outside of themselves.

The hard stuff that will be thrown at us later on in life…you won’t have anything to anchor yourself to when that comes, but I do. I need you to find your anchor, the one that enables you to think about the future and not fear, to commit to a decision and not worry, to be flexible and not anxious. You knew those things, for you, would not go away over night, but the wellspring from which growth comes is not inside of you, you have to find that..I can’t be that for you, no person can. I do not want to be that for you. I want you to find that and then, ideally, I guess I’d want you to come back and find me.

But for now what I need and what you can give are different. Not incompatible, not wrong, not impossible, but different.

It’s the timing and it’s, in all honesty, it’s our age. We’re not young and foolish with others anymore. You never were. I know what I want and you know what you want. I want you and you want me. And we both know we can’t be that for each other right now, as much as we want to, it’s just not the time.

It’s spanned 2 years, 4 different places I’ve lived and it’s always been you and it will be until someone surprises me, I die or we get old and find each other again. I was never looking, neither were you. I was never looking for anyone, I didn’t want it. I was content. Then I found you, someone with as weird as a brain as I have, someone who got me, someone who would never ask me to give up my independence, but who wanted me to let him be there for me. Someone who always made me laugh, who shared his deepest thoughts with me and listened to mine. Someone I felt connected to like no one else I’ve ever met. You were never looking, you have always assumed you’d be alone forever and that you should. But you found someone who understood you and loved you for all the things you didn’t think anyone would ever understand, someone who made you laugh, who made you feel like you, who made you confident and sure of yourself, who encouraged you and supported you.

I think mutually alone is how it has to be, hopefully we’ll never be without each other close by.

All The Pretty Horses

These lines in this book, more than any other in McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, have struck a chord in me and they will stay with me for a very long time.

“He lay looking up at the stars in their places and the hot belt of matter that ran the chord of the dark vault overhead and he put his hands on the ground on either side of him and pressed them against the earth and in that coldly burning canopy of black he slowly turned dead center to the world, all of it taut and trembling and moving enormous and alive under his hands.” pg. 119

“He thought the world’s heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world’s pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single flower.” pg. 282

—-

They almost make me cry to read them over and over again. How could he put into words how humanity desires to connect to the Earth, how does he put into words the weight of the world’s pain versus the lightness of its’ beauty.

Border Trilogy

I have now finished McCarthy’s Border Trilogy. Started with The Crossing, followed by the third (Cities of the Plain) and I just finished All The Pretty Horses (the first book). I read them out of “order” but it mattered very little.

I now feel like I can’t read anything besides Steinbeck and McCarthy, even my forever favorite, Rushdie, seems frivolous to me. Something about their stoic, gritty philosophy hits me so hard.

I want to keep reading McCarthy, read all of his books, but I feel like I should take a break.