Putting along

Yesterday, I ran errands on my scooter for the first time. I rode to Target to purchase new stockings and toothpaste and wound up with those and tea, a new watch, and some frozen meatless bbq stuff (the wonders of everything under one roof). I was going to proceed from there to Caroline's but, although the temp was supposed to be in the mid fifties, it was overcast and windy, so I called her to let her know that I will pick up the article another time (she emailed me later to say that the article does not really apply, anyway). The Charlotte Ave. Goodwill was on my way so I stopped and found a new black sweater for me to wear while working (it will fit nicely under my riding jacket) and a hoodie for Zed. I'd brought my messenger bag with me, so stuffed all my purchases in it and rode on. Next I stopped at my neighborhood Kroger for dinner fixins. But this time, the under the seat storage was full, my bag was full and I tried to put things in the "glove box" which is aptly named: It's possible that a pair of gloves will fit it, but only that; actually, I fit 2 pears and an orange in it.

I think running errands will be much easier when I get my topcase mounted so I don't have to juggle everything.

What I'm finding is that it takes a lot longer to ride the scooter than to drive a car. I don't take the interstates or Briley Parkway so I'm having to go roundabout ways to get places via secondary streets. Putting on riding gear, ski mask, helmet, coat, purse/bag, ski mittens, not to mention finding a place to park and lock, takes more time than shutting a door and fastening a seat belt. But it's a lot quicker on the scooter than the bus, and a whole lot more fun!

The reactions I get from people are funny. Almost invariably, guys in sports cars pull up next to me, check me out and then have to speed away, as if a woman on a two-wheel motorized vehicle is somehow a threat to their masculinity. Old men are amused. Old women look shocked. Young women look intrigued. Kids look impressed. My little People is an eye catcher.

I rode in heavier traffic on Charlotte and White Bridge with nary a second thought. No problems at all. I'm beginning to feel quite comfortable but I do look forward to many things becoming second nature to me.

Thank you, Sharon

I just got back from Meeting. Second hour was lead by a women who recently began occasionally attending when she is in town visiting her daughter. She spoke about the overt and systematic racism that she has experienced in a Quaker Yearly Meeting. Her story is painful and dumbfounding, especially within the context of a Friends Meeting. She is hurt and angry and I perceived her as coming across, at first, as rather aggressive. Once she began talking and I began to hear her story, I began to understand and empathise.

Up until not too long ago, I didn't really understand how my life was affected by racism until someone I met in an on-line forum likened it to sexism. Lightbulb! Of course. I see sexism all the time. Now that I am aware and see racism in many, many things that are "normal" in our society.

One way I can understand this is through my experience of having studied the history of the medicalization of childbirth. Up until very recently (and even still in some drug trials), the male body was the norm for physical health which meant that the female body was pathological in that it differed from the norm. Childbirth, which never happens to men, was seen as an inherent emergency. Actually, any part of a woman's reproductive system was pathological because it deviated from the norm of the male body. So, male=normal and female=abnormal.

As it is in our society in regards to race. White=normal and black/brown/tan=abnormal. The white experience is taken for granted as being the norm. White is a race but when we talk about "race issues" we're never talking about our own problems, biases, or viewpoint, we're always talking about the pathological "other". We never look at how we are able to take for granted that we are a part of the dominant culture because we simply do not see that we are, in the same way that we don't often think about air as we breath.

I'm very sorry that this Friend had the experience that she did with her Yearly Meeting. I'm sorry, too, for those who have been so wrong in that YM. I appreciate that she was able to share her experience with us. I think what she said has opened us to begin discussing how we may be complicit in the racism in our lives even by unquestioningly accepting the benefits of being white in our society.

There is a Season...

It's funny how I can sit down to write about one thing and then be lead to go somewhere else. Yesterday's post is an example. I was sitting down to write about energy levels and cycles but wound up writing about "koyaanisqatsi", life out of balance.
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I don't think my energy level is changed by sunlight or weather. I love gloomy, rainy days as much as bright sunny days. I think my body connection is to my ancestral roots in Ireland because getting wet, being in rain or snow don't bother me a bit. Maybe I was a duck in a past life.



I have several friends who are affected by "seasonal affectiveness disorder". During the short sun days of winter, they don't have much energy and seem to feel really depressed and unhappy with missing out on their normal activities.



My thinking is this: Maybe every day/week/month/season is not supposed to be like every other one. We live in a climate controlled culture. Many people go from their box=house to their box=car to their box=work/store/mall(/whatever). People seem to think that every day should be as productive as every other day; that what they do in May is the same as what they should be doing in January. But maybe, we're not supposed to live that way. Maybe, the dormancy of winter is for us, too, as well as nature; I mean, we are a part of nature, n'est ce pas? Think about the fact that it's only been since the advent of common people owning motorcars that we have believed ourselves to be above the dictates of weather. Throughout all of history, people would hunker down around the fire in cold, wintery weather, going out only for the most important or festive occasions. Only in the past 50 years or so, have we had the ability to travel with rapid enough speed in an enclosed (usually heated) box to get from point A to point B without being much impacted by temperature and moisture. But our bodies are still built for the past howevermany bijillion years of living in and with weather.



So I say: Embrace winter! Snuggle down. Make stew. Play board games. Read books. Write letters. Feel grateful for modern heating systems. Honor the season and nature. Find the rhythm in this day and time of year and learn to enjoy it's small blessings. Life doesn't always have to be busy and "productive". As nature intended, sometimes a time to pull inward and hibernate is the most regenerative thing one can do.

A Quarter of the Time

It's January and I'm feeling a fresh burst of energy. I don't think the symbolism of it being a new year has anything to do with it. I think my energy levels cycle and I happen to be in a high energy phase.

My brother suffers from bipolar disorder and my mother suffers from serious depression (hers is currently being effectively treated through medication). Sometimes the idea of cycles of mood and energy frightens me. I know I'm not depressive; if anything, I'm unipolar on the manic end of the scale. My energy levels tend to run high and, although I'm grumpy and cross with my family often, I'm of a fairly cheerful disposition, in general.

Which leads me to thinking about monthly cycles. One week out of every month I dream of living alone. All my fantasies, all my daydreams are about having my own little apartment in which I don't have to deal with other people, particularly the men I currently live with. That sounds awful, I know. I love my family. I treasure them. Truly, I do. But one week out of every month I just can't stand the noise and chaos and smell and mess of living in this home I created. One week out of each month I just want to live in quiet contemplation, listening to the music of my choosing or being in silence, reading or doing handiwork.

When I was a teenager, I was really crazy that one week each month. I had a wonderful boyfriend, Steve. He was mature, kind, thoughtful, hardworking and he loved me deeply. Most of the time, things were good between us, but that one week out of each month I would become a psycho bitch. I'd been raised in a fundamentalist household and had been taught that things were black or white, right or wrong. During that week, all the conflict over the choices I made that differed from what I'd been taught to believe would come out and I would become controlling and irrational and repentant.

Steve was a naturally "good guy". His parents were divorced, his dad an alcoholic, his mom was very unmotivated with no aspirations to better her life. Steve was not "of" his family, although he worked hard to help support his mom and siblings financially and by being the man of the family. He played drums (the first of my lifelong relationships with drummers) and liked rock and roll music. Occasionally, he would drink a beer. We had a mature, fantastic sexual relationship. And one week out of each month, all the craziness of the rift between who I was supposed to be (a pure, Godly young woman) would come into conflict with how I perceived myself (a sinner. But one who enjoyed her sin waaaay to much to give it up) and I would flip out and preach and rant about how we had to stop having sex and go to church and repent.

After a year and a half, Steve broke up with me. He broke my heart; I'd really felt emotionally wed to him. Looking back, I don't blame him. I placed the brunt of my inner chaos on him. If we'd stayed together, I would have remained chained to that dichotomy of being one thing but having to act like another. I would have been so wrapped up in rules about what's right that who knows if I would ever have been able to hear what was true in me. By breaking up with me, he freed me to discover who I needed to be.

I understand now, that I was crazy with Steve because I was living out of harmony. I had never had the opportunity to gain perspective about what I believed was right and wrong, had simply internalized the values of my church and my parents, believing they spoke for God.

I wonder what I can do now to create more harmony in my life so that the one week each month is not so anomalous to the rest of my life? I think more time alone is a start. Ah, but how do I go about getting that in a 1500 square foot house containing 5 people? Maybe I could plan a day or two each month at a retreat center. Easier said than done in a busy family and with a sometimes full-time job. I think I will begin to hold this in the Light to see what love, for myself and my family, will do.

Barak Obama

I'm reading the memoir of Barak Obama, "Dreams From My Father". It's pretty compelling reading. I haven't done a terrible amount of research about his voting record or the plans he is laying out for the future direction of this country. Based on the website, http://glassbooth.org/, I know that he is not the candidate who best represents my deepest concerns (Mike Gravel is). I have to say, though, that the idea of having a president who's had the life experiences that Barak has had fills me with excitement. If I can believe what he wrote in his memoir, he is a truth-seeking man who is willing to listen to his Inner Guide for answers. He does not seem to be afraid to confront the shadows that he finds within. He is troubled by his own arrogance and tries to move beyond himself to the greater good, it seems. He examines his own racist tendencies and his own biases. Throughout his life, he has been an outsider learning to adapt. He seems to know not to make too many assumptions about people or situations. He seems, in many ways, the exact opposite of our current president who, to me, exemplifies the "ugly American".

I know that Hillary has had her own challenges. I would imagine that, in some ways, her experiences and my own are more similar than those of Barak and myself. I know she gets called a bitch and many worse things for doing a "man's" job in a man's world. I know she's seen as power-hungry. I know that people have discounted her and not listened to her because she is a woman. I know she has been judged for every move she made as First Lady. In some ways, I really respect her for some of the changes she tried to make happen (health care reform comes first to mind). And I do love the thought of having a woman leading our country. But, mostly she seems to be a politician concerned about being elected more than standing for values I hold most dear. I just don't feel as good about Hillary the individual as our president as I do about Barak.

Maybe I should read Hillary's book, "Living History" to hear her "voice" as well. (I just looked it up. It's 562 pages, which makes it much less likely that I will read it).

Maybe I'm naive to believe a book written by a politician. But he wrote the book more than a decade ago and talked about things that have the potential to really hurt him (his father being raised Muslim, Barak's drug use as a teenager, his mother's multiple marriages to foreign men). He writes openly about racism in our country, a subject which is almost taboo.

Ours is a country divided by the color of skin which those with the lightest skin and most power refuse to acknowledge. Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, the Williams sisters in tennis, Denzel Washington, and Tiger Woods. They prove that there is no excuse any more to whine about racism, right? Right.

Not.

I don't think having a president who is American and African will solve the deep wounds of racism in our country but I think it would certainly be a step. I think having Barak as president would force us to have to discuss the rampaging elephant in the room.

I have to admit that I would worry for his safely more than Hillary or another person filling the position.

And I'm aware that John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel all represent my concerns better than Barak and Hillary. I just don't think that they have a chance to win. Whoever wins the presidency will have a huge job fixing the wrongs of our country. I'm realistic enough to know that at least half the people are ready for change and for history to be made and a white guy just isn't going to do that for us (which, I realize, is it's own kind of bias). I'm not saying that I am committed to supporting Barak Obama; I still need to learn more about him to make that decision. I do like what I've learned, so far.