Snowfall

There's something very comforting about tromping through inches upon inches of fresh snow as even more falls down upon me. Honestly, I've never been so aggravated, nor have I ever slipped so much walking merely a few miles. The snow is so wet here. It's as if there is a layer of snow, covered in a layer of ice, covered in another layer of snow, all kept together by slush. No one could have prepared me for the absolute frustration that pulses through my body daily, as if Boston and I are locked in a carefully choreographed dance that I don't know the steps to, leaving me panting while the city moves gracefully to the rhythm of her own song.

It feels good, though, to have a tangible, existential problem. Like perhaps struggling against the forces of nature makes it easier to struggle against this large stone that weighs upon my chest. The death of my grandfather has hooked into something deep --our final conversations, his place in my life, the fact that he was so proud of me, all of this is stirring round in circles within me.

And with all these heavy thoughts and many dreams, something about the snow cools my temper and soothes my heart. The cold allows me to turn inwards without losing myself in the abyss. 

I've been unsettled by my grieving process. At moments, I get upset, but then I calm myself. At others, I feel that I should be upset, but I'm not, so I try to work myself up. And, then there are moments out of the blue where I break down in public. No matter what I feel, I long to feel something different--to cry or to stop crying.

I keep returning to the words a wise man recently told me, "It's not what if, but what is." This sentiment echoing in my mind, Florence + the Machine pumping through my headphones, trudging through the white powder and slush, I can breathe a little easier. And, if I forget to do so, there are a million little snowflakes landing upon my face to remind me that it's as simple as inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

-Sierra

A hatchet might be a useful tool for traveling to school.

A winter view of historical Prospect Hill.
If you look carefully, you can see the moon.

Imprudence and Mourning

My grandfather died this morning. That doesn't sound right. Like the timing is off. My grandfather survived a pretty horrific car crash earlier this fall. We thought we might lose him for a while. But, we didn't.


Over Christmas, he spoke to me about making the most of my life and taking care of my body. He encouraged me to enjoy myself in London and to apply myself to my studies. He spoke of his newfound feeling of vulnerability and mortality. He said I had too many theories.


Last night, my grandfather went to sleep next to the woman he'd been through heaven and hell with, two yappy dogs asleep beside them. This morning around four a.m. he stopped breathing. My grandmother awoke to her still breathed husband.


Somehow, the timing feels wrong. But, everything that happens, happens, doesn't it? So, the timing can't be off. I'm not saying I believe in meant to be's, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what might have happened. What matters is what is taking place. My Pops is dead.


Part of me thinks such public mourning as this is imprudent, but perhaps I've been among the Puritans too long. I come from a long line of emoters. We laugh, we cry. I'm sure over the next few weeks as we prepare for the funeral, I will share many memories of my grandfather that will elicit tears and laughter. For now, I will just say that he is the only grandfather I've even known. We used to split boxes of cookies n' cream ice cream and watch the Ninja Turtles. As a kid, you take those things for granted, but I'm sure he wasn't interested in the finer points of Splinter's philosophy. I was lucky to have my grandfather in my life for so long. I'm lucky to mourn him so deeply now. I hope you will bear with me over the next few weeks as I honor the memory of a great man.


In the meantime, I want to share something that reminds me that perhaps public mourning is important:


Funeral Blues
by W.H. Auden


Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good. 

The Ride

Friends, Romans, Countrymen--

It is with great excitement that I announce that I have officially registered for AIDS/Life Cycle Ride, also simply known as "The Ride." This summer in early June I will ride my bike from San Francisco to L.A. to raise money for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, an organization that among other efforts helps care for individuals living with HIV/AIDS. The ride is 545 miles and will take seven days. For Christmas, my grandparents decided they would buy my bike for me, which I'm in the process of securing as we speak.

Many of you probably know that HIV/AIDS hits close to home for me. My uncle (who you've heard about from time to time on here) has been HIV positive for 21 years. As you can imagine completing this ride will be emotional for me. The fact that my uncle is healthy and will be riding alongside me (or more likely way in front of me) makes the whole thing so much more special. I know that this will be a life-altering week and I am excited to train and fund raise for such an amazing cause.

I have agreed to raise $3000 between now and then. I would love any support anyone can give, seriously even as little as $5 can make a difference. And even more importantly, please have patience with me as I contact you via email, text, or phone in the coming months to solicit your support. I really hate fund raising, perhaps more than anything, but this is a worthy cause.

You can view my page here and our team page here. I am riding with my uncle and his friends, who all work in the adult film industry--hence the amazing team name.

HIV/AIDS is an epidemic that has crippled our world and continues to do so. I look forward to being a part of the battle against this devastation.

With the highest of hopes,

Sierra

We'll take a cup o' kindness yet...

It’s hard to know quite where to start after a week like the one I just had. It makes sense to start at the beginning, but really, how interesting is a chronological account of a journey abroad? And, how does that make any sense when I can't even keep the order of events straight? Why proffer a contrived semblance of reality when the madness is so much more fun?

After seven days in the UK and a bit of a hike/walk through the entire city of Newark to catch my second train to London, I tucked into a seat next to a older English man who seemed utterly unamused by my presence, even after I did my best oh-look-how-cute-and-American-and-confused-I-am. Apparently, he didn't like redheads. Trying to soothe my aching self, I pulled out a delicious gluten-free sweet that I had bought. This incredible concoction of gastronomical heaven helped me to cherish my last few hours riding along in a bouncing train in the English countryside--truly a perfect moment. As I read the label (of course I did), I started to realize how amazing this company Honeybuns actually is. Not only do they make gluten-free food, but they also use their business to contribute to making the world a better place. Their labels talk about the efforts they take to be green as a company and about an organization they sponsor called Samaritans which offers a listening ear. What a notion! To live simply and happily and to make the world a better place.

After a short meditation on simplicity and the beauty of living, I spent the remainder of the ride reflecting on the experiences I'd had over the last week, which felt like a lot longer than a week, and what perhaps that aching feeling inside me meant.

The greatest moments were the ones that couldn't be planned. Hiccups in the plan or twists in the road (sometimes literally) wove together into this perfect tapestry of unexpected brilliance. From five hours alone in the car with my new brother-in-law getting to know him to his lovely friends who became our Edinburgh companions, everything was amazing. Hogmanay (the New Years' celebration in Edinburgh) was outstanding with some of the greatest fireworks I've ever seen and a rousing rendition of Auld Lang Syne which prompted a Scottish fellow to tell our group that we sounded like cats. 

The "Big Wheel" as the Brits called it.
Beautiful and fun to ride!

Melissa and I-typical self-portrait.

Lovely fireworks!

After three days of barely seeing sunlight, my sisters Tiffany and Melissa took me on a tour of London. I saw the changing of the guard in front of Buckingham Palace, rode the tube, walked around Piccadilly Circus, listened to the drunken rants of an Irishman (made me proud), saw Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, and spent a great day with my sisters. The two moments that stand out most were the least planned. First, we stopped into a beautiful church just to have a peek and wandered into the rehearsal for that night's performance of Handel's Messiah. A rather normal looking fellow stood at the front and after a false start or two, the orchestra started playing harmoniously. For a moment I zoned out and then this booming, incredible, completely unexpected voice came out of the man in front. We stayed for the entirety of the song, swept up by the beauty of that moment. Later, we went to Melissa and Tiffany's (dare I say) favorite play Blood Brothers. It was outstanding. The acting was phenomenal, the story line devastating, the songs beautiful and compelling. All in all, London was incredible. The next day was spent at Tiffany, Rob, and Melissa's new place in High Wycombe. Mostly we just hung out and watched The Inbetweeners (a hilarious, terribly British TV show that makes me laugh in that embarrassing way that so many of you are familiar with. You know, the one where I start crying and laugh for about five minutes after everyone else is over it. Yeah. That kind of laughing).

Rob and I drove three hours to Lincoln where I spent my last day wandering through the city alone (with my giant bag on my back). On the way there, I was nervous and afraid that maybe I would hate having to explore by myself, but as soon as I said goodbye to my brother-in-law and set off to see the cathedral, that old part of me came back to life. Being alone is such a wildly comforting feeling, especially when I know it's only temporary. I spent a few hours in the cathedral, another hour just wandering around by the castle and the other old parts of the town, and then finally an hour or so in the pub. Now, that, my friends, is a day in England. Somewhere between the pub and my train ride the next day, I worked on my posh (which stands for Port Out Starboard Home, the name of the expensive cabins on boats back in the day) accent, realized it had been over a year since I'd been abroad, and felt truly happy.

The lovely town of Lincoln, UK

The Cathedral during the day

A reflection from the Cathedral onto the sidewalk
that I thought was really cool.
Seriously, I have like fifteen of this same photo.

A grandfather and his grandson playing and making
shadows in the light of the church.

The Cathedral by night.

As for the aching feeling I felt on my train ride back to London, let's call it one part nervousness about making my flight (which I did just in the nick of time), two parts befuddlement, and one part exhaustion. My befuddlement, of course, was at realizing that yet again I had found another little piece of the world to love. Yet again, I had found people I could be friends with, places I could explore, and a public transit system I could use (I'm guessing by this point in my blogging, you understand that I am obsessed with public transit. Having grown up without it, I think it is a modern miracle. One day, I'd like to write a book about how I think public transit says a lot about a place...one day). My befuddlement was also at the realization that I long for foreign lands. Sometimes, I think I have convinced myself not to feel that way, but I do. I want to be somewhere...else. Now, I'm not particularly interested in the roots of this feeling (I can just hear some psychologist in a crazy German accent saying, "As you can see, ze child wizout a stable childhood growz up to be ze adult wiz ze wanderlust.") I do, however, wonder what it means for my future. There is so much of the world I have yet to see and I wonder how I will see it all. Mind you, how. Not if.

Finally in the plane about to depart from Heathrow, I had left another little piece of me in England. I'm not worried, though, I have plenty of reasons to go back. And, the flight takes the same amount of time as flying to California.

All of these thoughts and memories swirling inside me, I am slowly getting back into my routine here in Somerville. I'm in the laundromat as we speak, excited to have clean clothes. I'll work all weekend and next week I'm attending a poetry workshop two of my friends are running. Hopefully, somewhere in the midst of all that, I'll be able to knock a few things off my ambitious to-do list.

Life is good here. I'm a little restless, but no worse for wear. 

In honor of the time of year, may we all raise a cup o' kindness yet for Auld Lang Syne. Happy New Year, everyone!

-Sierra

On a final note, my New Year's Resolution is to spend Saturdays for self-care (running, getting in long bike rides, playing with my dog, sleeping) and staying in contact. Hopefully, you can expect a new post from me on Saturdays, though there may be points where I slack...

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.