The City

I've spent a great deal of time trying to decide what to write about, hence the long silence. Should I update you all about my schoolwork? Would you enjoy a report on my break so far (and the several flight issues that have slowed my travel)? What about a little something creative I've been working on? Or some deep philosophical musings on our inner darkness?

Nah. I'll save all that for darker or more mundane days. Today is about San Francisco...kinda.

Something inside of me only comes alive in this city. There is something about a late evening stroll through the Tenderloin that makes me feel closer to humanity. Then again, maybe it's in the air in the Castro, or at the wharf, or watching the waving tourists snap shots from the top of a double decker bus. I don't know, honestly.

Then I ponder on Boston, or well, Somerville--my current home and the place where lately it has felt like it's all come together (to be vague). I love that place so much, but not the way I love this one (i'm actually sitting in the San Francisco airport after a canceled flight waiting to see if i get on my flight that i'm stand by for writing this in an email to myself on my phone...yikes).

Maybe a good analogy is that San Francisco is like my high school sweetheart and Boston is my current romance. The fact that I never had a high school sweetheart and don't have a current romance isn't lost on me.  I'm starting to think that maybe the metaphor is not a coincidence. Maybe my love-for-cities-bone is connected to my romantic-love bone. But in a converse way. All the people I loved were not city people. Our lives planned together were always in the country or big towns. I feign no suprise at the fact that coming into my own has meant a love for cities. (That's not to say i don't love the countryside. I still do, but as my uncle said, "Have a country home for vacations and holidays and a city apartment to live in." Now, wouldn't that be something?!). I've found myself drawn to these cities lately, though. Like maybe here or there I can really be myself. It seems that coming home in the personal sense has meant questioning where home is in the global sense.

And let's not pretend that a lot of why I love these places has nothing to do with who I love there. Boston offered a challenge becuase I moved there with almost no friends. There, my friends are all academics and future clergy (with some glaring exceptions). My first full day in San Francisco, I was reminded that there is more than one way to be in the world. I had lunch with Marissa, who for lack of a better word is an activist and a friend from HiA, followed by coffee with Lauren, an artist (to say too little) and friend from college. In two beautiful (and much too short) conversations, I remembered another piece of why I love this place. Marissa and I strolled through the castro talking about sexuality and Lauren and I sat at a coffee shop where she adjusted her art display, discussing love and the beauty of being alone. I hopped back on the BART and was right back in time to meet my uncle, Brandon who is my longest standing best friend. A quick ride on the muni and we returned to the castro to meet my uncle's friends, John and Mike, for dinner. The laidback tone of conversation, the warm demeanor of my companions, and the ease of transportation characterized my entire time in San Francisco. There's something formal about Boston. Maybe it's the puritan values or the sense of tradition (which even reaches into the queer community, into what a dear professor lovingly called the Ice Queens), but it seems harder to relate to people in Boston. And at school, sometimes it feels like there is always an angle. People have something in mind or are often more interested in being convinced by their own argument than really learning something new. Of course, I've met (and befriended!) exceptions, but the atmosphere is markedly different.

What about home? Where is home for the traveler? I probably wouldn't have called myself a traveler until my family pointed it out to me this last week. I'm off to London and Edinburgh (for Hogmanay) in a few days (flights, weather, and god willing). I drove across the country to a city I visited once for grad school. I'm hoping to spend a year abroad after finishing at HDS. And my mind is always thinking about the next trip (including the ride...more details to follow once I pay my registration fee!). So, maybe it's time to accept some labels, including traveler. The question remains: where is home?

Some say it's where the heart is or where you hang your hat. Perhaps it's where you nail together some wood (or lay some bricks) and buy furniture. Then again, maybe for an academic it's where your books are (if I had a kindle, this might be a little more philosophically daunting, but I don't. And, I don't really want one).

For me, though, in a very real way home is in Amsterdam, where I learned the pure joy of life. Home is in Mexico, where I decided to be an academic. Home is in Denver (and other parts of Colorado), where my childhood, Chloe, and so many, many loved ones reside. Home is in Glencholmcille, where I first felt at peace. Home is in Boston, where I have a community, and a pup, and a roommate, and new friends. And, home is in San Francisco, where I can be whatever I want and be loved. Home is all these places and so many, many, many more. Of course, it's always painful to love. And to love so much in so many places seems always to signify fragmentation, but I have no time for Freud or Lacan. To me, these many loci mean flexibility and a great expansive space in which I can live.

In short, my home is with all of you.

Happy holidays and bring on 2011!


--Sierra and Ace

My beautiful, darling Lauren adjusting her installment.
She is truly incredible, please visit her site and think about supporting her in her pursuit of her dream!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/Quickeningforce

One of her pieces up close!

Her collection specifically for this cafe.

a little something

Since I'm buried under another 20-30 pages of writing to do this weekend, I will not attempt a blog entry. However, a week from now, I will hopefully write joyously about how well my papers went. In the meantime, I will leave you with something absolutely lovely from Hannah Arendt:

Even if there is no truth, man can be truthful, and even if there is no reliable certainty, man can be reliable.

May you be truthful. May you be reliable.

Sierra and Ace

Personal and political

Thanksgiving. A time for gluttony and family. While I took it easy on the gluttony, I've had a double dose of family. I'm in Washington D.C. where Allison, my sister, lives. Tiffany and Rob, her husband, are here. Betty and Dorman just left this morning and Melissa is sitting right next to me. We're watching Dexter, our favorite T.V. show to watch--episode after episode. This is the Diller family. And I'm part of it.

I lived with the Dillers from the age of fifteen on. Since that time, I've been so lucky to have my family sphere expand to encompass new people and new roles for me. This expansion has completely altered the way that I conceive of the world and the definition of family under which I operate.

As our family has grown with Rob and his family, my red hair and facial structure make me stand out less. British accents and foreign vocabulary trump appearance. I have inside jokes, family photos, and long-standing "bickerings" between siblings on my side. When I was younger and insecure about my connection to the Diller family, this would have been my train of thought. Today, though, it's not a competition. It's a family with open arms. We have welcomed Rob into our fold. Just as I was once welcomed into the Diller fold. Just as I was born into a loving family.

Sometimes I get stressed around the Holidays because it means coordinating visits and finding flights. It means packing bags and leaving my dog and my home. I easily forget that my family (however defined) comprises such a huge part of who I am. My family--the Dillers, the Fleenors, the Jensens, and now the Howards--who would I be without them?

I've been reading a lot of Hannah Arendt for different projects and because, well. Simply put, I love her. She was a German Jew who fled during the Holocaust. After a short stint in France, where she was imprisoned for a short period of time, she moved to the U.S. with a visa that was falsified for her. Arendt went on to write some of the most provocative and compelling philosophy coming out of the Holocaust. She has written about violence, evil, and the human condition. Arendt's intellectual work is infused with her existential reality. Her encounters with the S.S. and the consequent events comprise the frame in which Arendt created her art--her philosophy. Her philosophy was grounded, powerful, and overtly political. Arendt did not obscure that fact.

Her life and her intellect were woven together. Her resistance was her work. To write was to live. To live was to write. I can't help but hope to embark on such a voyage some day--to write my life, but not in the sense of my "life story." I hope to write critical work a la Arendt. I am not someone who survived the Holocaust, but I am someone who has lived. My life and the people in it have shaped me in such a way that my life hangs in the balance of my work. Melodramatic, but true.

I hope to take this to heart as I write my final papers for my classes. Wish me the best of the personal and the political in this happiest of seasons--writing season! ;)

THE GAME and beyoooond

Tex and Hunter being adorable before the game.

The Game. Maybe you've heard of it. Maybe you haven't. This epic struggle of good and evil has raged on between Harvard and Yale since time immemorial (or since 1875). If you're wondering who is evil, the drunk Harvard grad from the seventies seated directly in front of my friends and I can clear that up for you. "If you go to Yale, you will fail. If you go to Yale, you are morally corrupt." Now, the people seated directly behind us, having driven up from Connecticut, might not agree. But, of course, they are patently wrong. They had probably just come from kicking puppies or something. Evil jerks...

Whoa. Let's just say I'm suddenly very proud of going to Harvard. And, in case you were still confused, we won the game with some surprisingly stellar ball playing. The running back from Harvard returned a kick from over 80 yards to score a lovely touchdown. Honestly, I screamed myself hoarse.

Let's not pretend like the whole thing was without a hitch. In fact, I felt suddenly strange. I hadn't attended a game since my time in Pagosa (except maybe one game at CC). As I tried to explain plays to Hunter, I kept looking to Tex to make sure I'd said the right thing. My play breakdowns wandered and often involved a juxtaposition of terms drawn from soccer and rugby alongside football. The most embarrassing moment fell about halfway through the final quarter. We were seated at the middle of the "coliseum" (what a name!), where the crowd was made up about 60/40 of Harvard/Yale fans respectively. Someone to my left started cheering "Defense, Defense". Elated that I knew the cheer, I joined in only to realize that they were Yale fans. I hoped against hope that our dear compatriot in front me had not noticed. The next play, he turned around.
"Are you cheering for Yale now?" he asked.
"Um...no...I just got confused. Uh...I mean...I," I mumbled and tried to find something to say. "I thought I was cheering for Harvard and...uh..."
"No. It's ok. I just want to know so I can keep it down."
"Never!" I replied emphatically. "I hate Yale, bunch a jerks." My reply appeased him.

Our friend can be seen here pointing to the sky,
I believe this gesture reflects joy.

He seemed to get over the incident rather quickly once we scored another touchdown. In fact, while Tex and Hunter got high fives, I got a bear hug. Awkward.

Tailgate before the game. Outside shot of the Coliseum

Before and after the game, Hunter, Tex, and I attended a few tailgates which were a ton of fun. Between the actual game and the hullabaloo surrounding the game, I couldn't have felt more like a real Harvard student. Go Crimson!

After the game, students flooded the field.

The man in the beanie on the edge is Hunter running to join the team on the field.

A couple of days later, I am staring at screens. Going back and forth between the t.v. screen and the computer screen, I write scene analysis and theory and anecdote and pun and so on, hoping something that makes sense will appear on the page. For the first time since graduating from high school, I have four papers due in the next two weeks. Part of me is terrified. The other part of me decided not to be hung up in fear. I have started all of my papers and plan on finishing the one I'm working on tonight. It's a lot to juggle, but now that I'm actually writing, I feel a lot calmer. I feel capable and confident. I just can't lose steam!

Reflecting on the past week, I can say only that I feel like I actually live here. I feel like I belong at Harvard in some way. I may not be the brightest and best student, but I'm keeping up. I feel good about what I have to contribute to my classes and my community here. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving in Washington D.C. and a few weeks away over winter break (California followed by the U.K.?!?!). Spending most of my break here will be a lovely respite as well. My time will be filled with working at the RSL office and reading independently. There are so many books on my list and I'll look forward to time to investigate some new work. Hannah Arendt, here I come!

But, before I can get to reading for fun, I have to be on task with my writing. Wish me lots of inspiration!

Existential Crises of Age and Understanding

Good Morning!!

Ace and I have been up for a while. However, we haven't accomplished much more than cuddling and a walk. As I start to write and watch some of my "sources" for my upcoming final projects (ie: the t.v. show Dexter), I have been reflecting on my little man's birthday, age (as a concept), and understanding.

Ace turned five this week. The lovely boy celebrated in style with a doggie cake, music videos, friends, and champagne. Well...Ace at least had a piece of the doggie cake. The rest of us took care of the remaining party accouterment.

Around the same time, actually while I was buying champagne for the party, a young cashier asked me if I was old enough to be buying alcohol. I'm 24. I wasn't offended, especially because he went to lengths to tell me how beautiful I am and that he hopes to see my "pretty face again soon," but it gave me pause. The next day, someone was talking about how he was turning 25 soon. I said, "Yeah! Me too...well, soon enough." He looked at me and said, "I would never have guessed." I didn't quite know what to think. He went on to explain that I looked like I was maybe 22 or 23. But, what did that even mean?

As my four legged soulmate gets markedly older, graying on his chin and lips, I somehow seem to be appearing younger. To me, this is a vicious reminder that if all goes the way of it "should," I will continue on in my "youth" after my dear boy fades into old age. I spent a lot of my summer reveling in the wonder of being a twenty something alongside Ace. Both full of energy, exploring a new city together, I could feel the youth pulsing through my veins. I could see it in the way he looked so alive running down the street on our daily run.

Months later, I am sitting here in my bedroom with my lovely boy, pondering the finite nature of our individual existences and our collective relationship. My own insecurities about being understood are drawn into the searing light of this constant existential reality. What does it even mean to be so afraid of being misunderstood when in reality understanding may be impossible? Why do these questions matter when my whole frame of reference (living) could be gone in an instant? And, surely, one day it will be. 

I struggle so hard to express myself clearly to others. The more I seek to explain with words, the less it seems to work. I am often afraid that people will misconstrue my actions and think me stupid, needy, or inept. That sort of pressure is impossible to live under. The more that I read and study here, the more I realize that misunderstanding is probably an existential reality. We are caught in discourses that determine us and bind us, even as we experience individual phenomena that defy or question these discourses. Somehow, though, even these words that I write miss the point. So what is the point? 

The point is that language is useless when it comes to really expressing the essence or the experience of a person. Philosophers and poets spend their lives throwing themselves against this notion, generally only to learn to appreciate the places words cannot touch. So, maybe my own frustrations with being misunderstood are actually a realization of my existential limitations. Maybe the greatest thing I fear is that to not be understood is to not be alive. Let's just tilt our heads a little to the left and look at that again. Maybe the thing we should fear most is not to be misunderstood. Maybe misunderstanding is the real seed of understanding. Maybe by accepting that no one will really ever get me I can accept that I can be "not gotten." And that mercy, that love, that whatever, is more important than being understood. Instead of wanting to know the "truth" of one another, we are seeking to experience the existence of one another. Instead of understanding one another, we look to touch one another in some honest way. Now that is an existential crisis I can live with.

Two Quacks

As I sit on my couch before the world has really rubbed the sleep from her eyes writing, I cannot help but feel older, more genuinely in control, happier, and freer. In some ways it feels like the only way I have been able to really grow up (even after two years of working full-time and a lifetime of taking care of myself) has been to revisit this primal scene (forgive me, Freud, for not making this about sex) where I was most powerless and from which I have to regain power.
My primal scene is academia. When I went to college, I felt totally lost and totally alive for the first time. My peers were markedly more intelligent than I. They knew who Heidegger was, could describe the intricacies of the Spanish Civil War, and most importantly, they were confident. They knew that they belonged in the halls of my undergraduate college. They knew that they had every right to ask for more, to challenge their professors, and to write the papers they wanted to write. For a long time, I mimicked them. Thinking back on it now, it reminds me of a duckling trying to imitate a chicken. Sticking my head out, puffing out my chest, bobbing my head back and forth--I looked almost like an academic. To the untrained eye, I was all I needed to be. But if you looked closer, I didn't have the right feathers. In undergrad, I waited until the last minute to write every single paper I ever turned in. I will blame a bit of that on the block plan, but I will place a lot more blame on me. There was this sense that if I didn't really give my all, if I didn't really spend a lot of time on my work, then no matter what the grade or feedback, it couldn't really speak to my experience. I hadn't really tried, so I couldn't really be hurt. Call it self-preservation. Call it immaturity. Call it what you will, but this was my primal scene.
Years later, I am back in that milieu--the place where I was least qualified and most scared. I still have moments where I am terrified, but not like before. I am re-playing my primal scene and things are going differently. Instead of waiting until the last moment, I have already started my final papers (which are due in December). Instead of giving 70%, I am giving one hundred. And the most surprising thing of all is that I'm still alive. I'm risking everything. I am going for broke and I'm ok! The comments that come back on my papers, proposals, or presentations are reflecting that. It's as if I'm really showing up for the first time, and with all the risk that entails, it also offers a huge pay-off. Maybe I couldn't really understand the gambling metaphor before visiting Vegas, but I'm not folding. I belong here. And if I'm not smart enough, if my ideas aren't good enough for me to be a professor and an academic, I am sure as hell gonna find out. Hiding from the truth has never served me personally.
Forgive me the double metaphor, but it seems to work in my mind. This primal scene is playing out differently because I want it to do so. I am not a duckling imitating a chicken. I am a duck. I can't crow and I don't know how to scratch the ground the right way. But, I can swim. And I've never seen a chicken swim.

Vulnerability

On my back, face to the sky I breathe heavily under the weight of my vulnerability. For a moment, my world has completely fallen apart. I am not invincible any longer. I am a mass of flesh crumpled on the pavement. I do not know if I am safe. Some part of me feels broken, but my mechanical frame still remains intact. I see the tires of the car that hit me from a completely novel position. For a moment a piercing silence surrounds me. Suddenly, voices.

The way I have ordered my existence, my only ritual since I was a small girl, has been writing. When routine has been destroyed by violence or displacement, I have turned to my personal rain dance--words on the page. Until the last six months or so, I have kept most of my writing to myself. The willful exposure of my wounds reinstates my control over them. By choosing to share what scares me, I can stop it from over-powering me. I am vulnerable. The ghastly bruises covering my pitiful, aching body can testify to the great betrayal I feel. I trusted this city and its drivers, for better or worse. Three days after a collision with a car, I am alright. I know I will get back on my bike and that I will be more cautious, helmeted, and a little more embittered. With time, the reality of this moment will fade. I will enforce normalcy in my life to aid in its slipping away. I will change the way I tell the story from the present tense to the past as I exercise the power of ritual over it. And through this retelling, I will heal. If not today, soon.

I left my apartment to head to the Divinity School. I felt particularly good about this day. I had gotten up to run, packed a lunch, and eaten some yogurt. I was running a little late as I pedaled up to my first intersection. I saw another cyclist ride by with a helmet on. Suddenly I realized I'd forgotten mine. I'm not an avid helmet wearer, but it came into my consciousness at this moment. Next time, I told myself. As I approached the hill that marks the first half of my ride, I noticed a mini-van sticking out, clearly having failed an attempt to parallel park. I made my way around them, making sure not to swerve in front of any cars. I heard a car come up next to me. It was the same van. They went around me and cut in front of me. I inferred that they were going to attempt to park again. I moved over to the left, so not to hit them. As I passed their taillights, time slowed. She was going to turn left. I had too much momentum behind me as I descended the hill. I grabbed onto my brakes. I leaned back. I called out, "What the hell are you doing?" Too late.

On my back, face to the sky I breathed slowly. For a moment, my world had completely fallen apart. I was suddenly aware of my vulnerability. I pushed my mass of flesh up off the pavement. I realized I had landed in the other lane, five or ten feet away from Nigel. I stood up and moved toward my bike.
"Why didn't you use your blinker? What were you doing?" I asked, covering my intense sense of nakedness with bravado.
"Are you ok?" a small sixteen year old girl asked as she stepped out of the mini-van. A chorus of voices rushed at me repeating the question.
Who were these people wanting to know if my fallible frame still worked?
"I'm fine. I'm fine," I said over and over, picking up Nigel's twisted frame. He looked suddenly small and light against the backdrop of the giant van.
"Hold on. You're probably a little shook up. Let me take this," a man said and took my bike, Nigel. I reached for Nigel, wanting to hold to something to make me feel bigger. The man put his arm around me and led me to the sidewalk. "Just take a second."
I breathed deep. My lungs work. My knees hurt. Otherwise I was fine. Nigel was okay.
"She almost hit us, too. She pulled out right in front of us without looking." The man gestured towards his truck. I realized he had been following the mini-van. "Do you want to take down her license plate?"
"No. I'm okay." This time I said it firmly. I did not want to stand there any more. I did not want to be seen so vulnerable and alone, some twenty-something on her bike without a helmet. I wanted Nigel back. I wanted to be big and safe.
The driver's friends asked again, "Are you ok? Are you sure?"
"Thank you. I'm fine," I answered.
People returned to their cars and their days. I started to walk Nigel down the sidewalk. I felt myself start to shake. I felt my mind start to lose control over the situation. I could have...she could have...what if I'd... I called my uncle. I knew he would hear me. I knew he would listen. I cried. I calmed down. "Were you wearing your helmet?" I cried again.
I made my way back to school, biking part of the way. I cried once I was back in the seat. I got to school. I went to see my work supervisor, our director of religious and spiritual life. I told my story. I cried. She took me to the medical center. I told me story again. I cried. With some ice packs and a warning about soreness and stiffness, I came home on the bus.

My sweet friend Ace greeted me at the door and I thanked the earth for continuing to spin. I thanked my tights for saving my tender legs. I thanked my flesh for holding itself together. I thanked Nigel for being such a sturdy bike. I wept from gratitude and mourned the loss of my innocent beliefs of invincibility. Through my sole ritual, I gathered my strength about me and embraced my vulnerability.

Every muscle aches. All at once, Monday became the day I grew up. I am not so young anymore. My body is aging and my humanity feels entirely real. I have read so much about how ritual helps people order their worlds or regain power when they feel so weak. Only now do I begin to realize what that means. I have been through rituals. I have been through deeper and greater pain than being hit by a car. And I've been hit by a car before. Somehow, though, my awareness of how my mind is processing and my rituals are saving me changes how I see others. This body is tough and hearty, but it will not last forever. I write, I love, and I think all in order to come to peace with my embodied existence, to make these moments somehow less futile. For me, there is so much hope in that fact. There is so much hope in my ability to create relationships and rituals. I have always been one who loves chaos. Today, though, I am one who understands order.

Laundry for One

I don’t know if there is anything that makes me feel single quite like doing laundry. For one. While listening to Ingrid Michaelson question the effects and purpose of love. While reading about a guy who is falling in love. It’s just depressing.

Generally, I love being single. I don’t have to watch movies I don’t like. I don’t have to feign an interest in academic subjects that sound completely soul-less. And, I don’t have to spend money on impressing someone. I get to spend tons of time reading, listening to music and hanging out with my dog.

I find it disturbing to have one of my favorite rituals besmirched by romance…or a lack thereof. My apartment bears the aromatic wafts of fragrant Tide (I never let my laundry dry completely and have to hang it all around my room because I’m impatient), but I am left feeling lonely. Usually this fragrance (alongside my unmentionables draped around my furniture) leaves me refreshed at my singularity. But, today it makes me wish I had someone to share laundry with, someone to be frustrated that my underwear are in plain sight, someone to make me wait until my clothes are actually dry before removing them from the dryer. 

Perhaps most aggravating of all is that I spent the majority of my time at the laundromat (while reading about liminality and communitas--how we are at points on the fringe of society, and at others we are soaked in it) thinking about a recent conversation with a friend about the difference between loving and being in love.

I'm not sure this is either a revelation, or a very important distinction, but it helps me order my inner and outer world (which, I think Mary Douglas might appreciate). So, what's the difference?

To love is a choice. It is directional. A person (or people) act.

I love you. You may also love me. But we are in love.

To be in love is to be located there, to be submerged in love. Love is the very environment in which we live.

Maybe a person needs both. Maybe not.

Then again, as someone who has never been in love (oh, I have loved...and fervently), perhaps I am not privy to some secret understanding of love. I do not endeavor to dichotomize these two types. I hope only to posit my definitions as a possible reading of two of the many ways that we experience love. For me, it helps as I reflect on past relationships, on the love of my parents for their partners, and on the love I see in some people's faces. I don't know that one form of love can sustain us a lifetime. Such a dynamic experience and emotion must have a wide array of expressions. Maybe there's a point at which the choice to love can grow into an environment of love. I have heard descriptions of this relayed from arranged marriages. Then again, what starts as a total immersion in love has to at some point be a choice to continue that love.

As I pick up another t-shirt I cannot help but laugh at how funny it is that such a mundane task as folding my laundry has caused me to meditate on love and its many functions/actions. I guess this is what happens when you spend all your time thinking.

I'm revisiting this post now, after a day filled with celebration. Two of my friends celebrated their engagement today (congrats Tim and Jake!) and another friend and I carved pumpkins. I'm continually struck by how when I feel the most lonely, I am reminded of how truly loved I am. Carving pumpkins with two couples, it never once crossed my mind that I was single. The whole time I kept thinking, This is great! I love wasting time with friends. As I reflect now, the last thing I was doing was wasting time. The time I spend with the people I love is an investment. And, I am blessed to be so rich in this currency.

With musings on love and pumpkin guts behind me, I think I can safely say that today was a great day.

Am I still single? Yes. Am I alone? Not in the slightest.

Cuddling up with my pup and cup of tea,

Sierra

My sweet pumpkin

A full (and strange) week

It has been a strange week. I had a paper due in one of my classes, so I spent the majority of my week between writer's state (as I like to call it) and reality. Unused to writing on a semester plan, with the great advantage of time, I spent days writing this paper. I would write until I ran out of gas and then step away from my computer. I would come back later that day or the next day and edit. Then I would write on a new topic. Finally, I sat down to edit all these smatterings together into one cohesive paper.

This paper has lingered with my for days now, infecting my thoughts and actions. It has become the underlying discourse of all my conversations. My two best friends here, Hunter and Tex, are in the same class, which somehow raised the tensions. When we weren't writing our papers, we were talking about writing our papers. Unfortunately, we didn't talk about how to help one another, but held our cards closer to our chests. I hope that in the future we'll be more collaborative. That is not to say that in this instance it was a negative thing. This was our first paper in graduate school, which is already a very vulnerable situation. Inviting a "competing" peer to read your paper risks undermining your confidence and theirs. We probably made a good choice in not sharing, even if the motivation was at best questionable. I know for me it was fear based. I can be very insecure about my intelligence and at times, I horde my writing to myself, fearful that it will either confuse or disgust those around me. But, that's what your Teaching Fellow is for (oh god, if any of them are reading this, please pick up on my sarcasm).

Besides all this, it has just been surreal. Lack of sleep, days without coffee (I decided to take a hiatus when I quit the coffee shop), and Foucault on the brain has made life a sort of walking dream. There are moments when I feel like I'm not really here. Almost like I'm watching a movie. As all the characters walk by, their names come on screen and a relational line connects them to someone else, scribbling off in infinite directions.

This is not to mention the matter of the increase in coverage of queer youth suicides lately, which have kept me on the verge of tears (or made me outright weep) for days. I am so saddened by the loss of these young boys and troubled by the questions left in their wake. What do we do about bullying? How has systemic homophobia denied the agency of all the characters in this playing out of power roles? How has the media constructed harassment as a rite of passage?

Yesterday, we had a service on campus for a student organization called Queer Rites. It was an amazing service that brought to light the great diversity of the experiences of queer persons. I am in awe of the words my peers offered and the way their passion or criticism moved me. I was able to offer a blessing and feel blessed to have done so.


I do believe that things will get better. But not because we wait for them to. They will get better because we make this world a better place. This life will get better because we take action to care for each other and ourselves. It is not us against them, or against the world.

It is us together in the world.

Letting Go

I quit my job yesterday.

I don't think I've ever said that in my entire life. I don't think I've ever quit anything. I've always toughed it out until the "natural" transition point occurred. Now that I write that, I cannot even conceive of what that means. Perhaps a self-indulgent attempt to make sticking it out somewhat easier. A reason to persevere. Or other nonsense.

I was overwhelmed. As someone who generally knows myself and my limits (or lack thereof) pretty well, I feel terribly ashamed by that fact. And that shame makes me embarrassed because I know I have nothing to be ashamed of. And so my self reflection circles round itself trying to find a place to lie down as if it were a puppy, too determined to find the right place to just rest.

On Monday, after three days with no more than four hours of sleep at a time, a wonderful celebration of Tiffany and Rob's love, three flights, six cabs, two trains, four buses, and three hours of work on campus, I collapsed into my chair in my classroom for my Counseling class. My professor walked in after I'd sat down and started rearranging furniture. Then it hit me: I had volunteered to go first in counseling a complete stranger in front of my peers as part of class. I told myself to calm down. I'm good at counseling. I understand people pretty well. I could do this. Then I reached down to grab my book and almost vomited. There was no way out. My peers were counting on me and I'm not the type to back down or disappoint.

The session was fine. Good, in fact. I messed up a couple of times (but, hey, who doesn't?). It was a great learning opportunity and I was able to reflect on my mistakes. I felt pretty good and was looking forward to the class break. But, it wasn't over. There was still time for a feedback session. Every thing I had noticed that had gone wrong, everyone (I mean everyone, including the client) reflected back to me. I generally can take criticism in stride, but I was at the end of my rope (a macabre, yet apt metaphor). I felt horrible. After what seemed like a year of being told just how I screwed up, we finally took a break. I went to the bathroom to breathe, compose myself, and, as it turned out, cry. If only that were the end of the story.

I walked back to class, knowing that everyone could tell I had been crying, but I figured that given social norms, no one would say anything. That's just not how my professor rolls. I sit down. She stops talking. She turns to me and asks, "Are you upset?" Well, thanks, Pat. Yes. Yes I am, I think to myself. Out loud, "Yes." The tears start rolling down my face and utterly aware of my own ridiculousness I say, "It's just hard to hear the criticisms others have of me when I already have those criticisms of myself. And, honestly, I think I'm only crying because I am so so exhausted." Everyone rallied back with support, "Oh no, Sierra, you rock." "I wish I could do that like you." "Just be yourself. Stop trying to imitate the textbook." Of course, being told that what you're feeling is ridiculous always helps. Someone finally changed the subject (thank the merciful god/s). I felt horrible the rest of class. I wished I hadn't said anything. I wished I'd slept. I wished I were somewhere else. After class, one of my colleagues looked at me and said, "It's impossible to keep going when you're so spent," and offered me a hug.

As you know from reading my blog (which I know you all do religiously...if only I would maintain some kind of regularity), I was sick two days later. In my bed, miserable, I thought to myself, I just can't keep doing this. I can't do it all. I later realized that was the moment when I decided to quit working at the coffee shop.

Friday morning, when I peeled myself out of bed, still sick, still tired at 5:30 am after having spent two days with guests in my home, I made the decision to quit. Working twenty-four hours a week suddenly seemed to me unreasonable. I was losing my grip and couldn't afford the devastation that was sure to come (as if being physically ill and crying in class weren't devastation enough...).

At 3:15 p.m. yesterday, I sat down with my boss and expressed my concerns. She was amazing. She spoke to all the hard parts of leaving that place for me in such a generous, thoughtful way that I am still awe struck. There is still the matter of my last shift to be figured out, but other than that, my time at the coffee shop has come to an end.

Ace and I went on a little stroll today. We walked further and longer than we usually have time for and while we were out, I realized how wonderful it is to feel like I have time. Twelve to fifteen hours is a lot of time to not have in a week. Hard as it is to quit something that I feel hadn't reached its "natural" point of conclusion, I know that I've made the right decision.

And as for all my self criticism and reflection, this will be a process I go through for the rest of my life. I will always reflect on my thoughts, actions, and ways of being. Sometimes it is exhausting. Sometimes it is exhilarating. But, for the most part, it's just me.