And I shall write.

Isn't this an amazing mug? I wish I could give it to everyone.

Esperanza means to wait -

Oh if I'd known this alternate definition,
I'd have suffered patiently,
to wait for healing, and precision

God exists within this pain -
she, triumphant in this waiting tumult,
years passing with each day

Inside my cold and wasting heart,
blossoms bud in silent reverence
for this Abba others cast away,
to ease their confusion, disbelief

I am quiet in my closet,
marking down with lines each day,
waiting for my esperanza - hoping God will find her way

I wrote this poem a few years ago, when life was bleak and I wanted something to hold on to. I was looking for God, or meaning. I was looking for a reason for pain. And I found that sometimes there are no reasons, that to truly accept the depth of evil, deep down in your soul, is suicide, and all we can do sometimes is love one another, and speak truth, and hold hands, and all that good mushy gushy hippie stuff.

Much love.

Dumpster diving

Do you ship stuff? Do you dumpster dive for cardboard boxes? If you don't, I think you should. I get mine from an elementary school cafeteria. They're constantly throwing out boxes because of the amount of food they go through, and then I only take the ones that work for me. Oftentimes, there are produce boxes, and those don't work so well because of all of the holes. When there are small ones, I take them all. I don't take any that are gross, because that would be, well, gross.

In doing this, and combining that thrown-away cardboard with my all-recycled paper tape, somehow I am reducing my carbon footprint with my shop. Maybe no one notices, or even cares, but it matters to me. It matters that what I'm calling "recycling" is in fact, recycling, and that what I use is biodegradable and/or recyclable. When I'm at the post office, I take the Priority Mail boxes that other people have tried to use, but have thrown away. I really need to get a stamp to put on all of my boxes and packages that reminds people to recycle or reuse the packaging (I really want to buy this one).

Share your unique ideas for recycling shipping supplies :)

It's too bad I'm not urban.

I am so enjoying my tiny little apartment. It's really too bad that it's not ideal for a long-term solution. The space itself is okay, but not having a kitchen is clearly a problem, as is being connected to someone else's garage. I'm starting to dream about a tiny little place of my own, but I think that a small place in a good location would be difficult to find. I think that there are a lot of mother-in-law places on my street, but I don't know if that would be a good long-term solution either. I want something that I can stay in. I want to have enough space for my stuff, and a little wiggle room, but not too much. I like to feel cozy.

I used to have a one bedroom place. It was a duplex. Later I lived in a studio which was also a duplex. I preferred the one bedroom. It was small, but very well organized. My kitchen was large enough to cook, and I had a washer and dry hooked up in there as well. The trouble with that place was that the landlords were ridiculous about the lawn, but refused to put in sprinklers. So in the end, it was a battle over me not wanting to water crab grass in 110 degree weather, and them wanting the crab grass to be green. I'd come home to a threatening hose on my front porch as a warning. Ridiculous.

I have a lot to say about landlords, and some things I've been thinking about in terms of ethics and city planning. Perhaps tomorrow...

Cheers!

"The Hunger Games"

 

In an attempt to avoid spending the evening staring at my bedroom ceiling, I went to see The Hunger Games with my friend and her eldest son.

I haven't read the books, for a couple reasons. The first time I heard about the series, and asked about the premise, I was horrified. Later, I spoke about the books with a different friend, and discovered the philosophical nature of the series. Sufficiently impressed, I decided to read the books over the summer during my decadent book-reading marathon which will commence soon after graduation (Obviously only after I've sobered up and begun sleeping in my own bed again--Ha! As if).

The movie was wonderful, and powerful, and disturbing. The crowd was awful, and horrible, and emotionally disabled. They laughed when they should have cried. I wept all the way home. I wept for our world, where violence is normal, and a brilliant concept like Hunger Games is misunderstood by the masses as some kind of thriller series.

I am saddened by the state of our world, where a film whose cinematography gave me a migraine could draw such delighted crowds, and so many mothers with children. I feel like I should take off all my clothes, cover myself in ashes, and shave my head. I feel like nothing I ever do is sufficient. There will never be enough. The beast of greed is insatiable.

Sexual Zeitgeist

When a prostitute can comment on the sexual zeitgeist of an age, you know you have to listen. And since I've read this editorial/commentary/opinion piece, I've thought to myself, "I wonder if it was always thus? Have sex workers always had their fingers on the pulse of the sexual heartbeat of the nation and/or culture?" I think this might be entirely possible.

I feel lonely sometimes, though I am rarely lonely in its truest sense. I am not hungry for human affection, or love. I'm not even hungry for canine love or affection. But there is something deep inside of me that longs for touch that can only truly come in the form of a significant other, a romantic partner, not because sex is the be-all, end-all, but because that's what it's there for. It exists as an outlet for true and honest intimacy. We pervert it all the time, but at its essence, that's what it is.

So I strive towards that end. I search to express my sexuality in ways that are honest, and true to who I am as a person. I try to be honest with my words, with my tone, my body language, and my physical appearance. I may fail in any and all ways at one or more times, but I keep trying. I want connection, but I only want honest connection from someone that wants to connect with me. I don't want false intimacy. I've had enough of that for a lifetime.

Be an activist...please

 

So this whole Occupy movement has unfortunately been stomped on lately, but now the battle against the banks and the foreclosure crisis is heating up. One example of this is Occupy our Homes, which works to keep people in their homes post-eviction by any [peaceful] means necessary. Honestly, I have some resistance to this, and I'd like to work it out a bit. Bear with me. I will get somewhere.

I was raised on corn-fed beef and "We Hate Clinton" yard signs, so "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is not so much a saying in my mind as it is an understood core philosophy of what every person should strive for. I also believe that evil exists, and that systemic evil is particularly powerful. Secrets breed more secrets, and power is addictive. We, as a culture, have operated under the guise of self-sustainability for so long, that we didn't even notice that it was a farce. We are owned, and not by something good and pure, but by banks and corporations.

I believe that there is enough money in the system to pay fair wages, but a lot of that money is in the hands of a few people, and we gave it to them. Yup. You and me. We gave it to them. We handed it over and said, "Here, I trust you." And now we're all sunk in a pit of confusion and despair, because we didn't know any better.

But now we know better. And as Dr. Phil says (or Maya Angelou), "When you know better, you do better." So do better. Move your money, out of Bank of America, Chase, J.P. Morgan, and any other bank that didn't either originate in your area, or directly serve the people in your area. My neighborhood has one bank: B of A. My neighborhood is the poorest of the poor: the undocumented, the refugees, the single moms on public assistance-lots of people who don't have bank accounts. Every one of them is trying to make life work one day at a time. But they're stuck in a system that tells them, "This is the way" and life is so hard that they listen.

I think that some of the movement in this area needs to be towards educating people who need to learn how to empower themselves. It needs to be credit unions making themselves known to local communities, and not just to those who have already heard. Stop preaching to the choir. If they've already heard it, and haven't acted, shake the dust off your feet, and move on!

Be an activist. But don't quit your day job please.

Costly, long-suffering, hope

After this weekend's horrible events in Northern California, I've really been struggling to hold on to my stringent peace position. I have made my life about the work of peace and justice in the world, and for the first time, I'm wavering. I'm beginning to understand those who call cops "pigs". I'm losing my grip on my own beliefs. When I see indifferent violence being carried out in my own world, to my friends, my brain gets fuzzy.

Please recognize that I know that there is horrific violence in the world every day. I know that in my being; I have known it my whole life. And short of banging on soft surfaces with my fists and screaming alone in an empty room, I am not a violent person. I don't believe in violence. I think it's silly, that we as a species would resort to harming one another to solve our problems. I actually don't understand it. I resist it in my very soul. But something changed inside of me when I saw that video on Saturday morning. Perhaps the door in my heart, that I'd shut long ago, had been opened, and I began to see that violence is not just something I hate, but something that is real.

This is not a naive experience for me. I was not born into my beliefs; I have had to earn them. And they have come at a very high price. Violence is real to me, but perhaps I've been looking at it with compassion all this time. I try desperately to understand the aggressor in every situation, to feel compassion for them, to find empathy for the pain that they must experience as a perpetrator, and then later as a survivor of that perpetration. But to see the indifference with which that cop calmly shook that can...my soul cannot contain it.

I wish that I could give you some kind of resolution to this issue (I myself have found a little here and here). I wish I could give you all the hope you need for your own life. That is my life's work. But today, I will fail you. I'm so very sorry.

8. Modern Folk Music

Maybe I should call this category "Female Singer-Songwriters". There's something beautiful about a woman who's lost a mother, or didn't have a real mother, for whatever reason. A lot of folk singers have quite a bit of loss in their lives. The soul cries out in this unique, raw way. Music is surely one of the best ways to express it.

I found over the summer that I truly love all folk music. There was an interview on Democracy Now with Billy Bragg this past summer, and I'd been thinking for a long time that I was a non-punk kind of girl, but I loved him. He sang songs about protests and coal mines. He spoke truth. Folk is truth: beautiful, honest, bloody truth. Love it.

1. Lori McKenna-There aren't enough good things to say about this amazing artist: vulnerable, honest, deep, suffering, great voice, prolific...For a whole day, I listened to this song on repeat (I pretty much can't listen to it anymore, not because I hate it now, but because it connects with a place in my heart that I just don't want to go). She speaks to me, not because I'm a mother or a wife, but because she is real. Love her.

2. Patty Griffin-I am not in love with her newest album, so she's taken a bit of a backseat lately. My friend has her live album, "A Kiss in Time" and every time I drove her car, I'd listen to Long Ride Home over and again, singing at the top of my lungs (Nothing is better than the version on that album). I am not a fabulous singer, but I wanted to be fabulous for that song.

3. Cry, Cry, Cry-A single album collaboration between Dar Williams, Lucy Kaplansky, and Richard Shindell. A good friend made a tape for me in high school, and it was on repeat in my car. I think Billy Joel finished off the second side of the tape :) It's synergy, baby, synergy. Those three, all together, are magical. I like them all individually (Iowa and After All by Dar Williams are two of my favorites), but the sum is greater than the parts.

Hello Thursday!

The recycled tape is everything I dreamed it would be. It's like big strips of envelope that needs to be licked in order to stick. And it makes my packaging completely recyclable! I feel so good about that. I'm usually a 90-95% kind of girl. I do a lot, but not everything. I split my lot between two worlds. I do this because it keeps me sane. I do it because it's who I am.

This means that I am not a protester. I do not compost my own feces. I drive a car. I shampoo my hair. I use electricity. I shop at the grocery store. I do not have a vegetable garden. I humbly eat food that I am given, and shop at stores with picketing-protesters in front. I eat pre-prepared food and Mexican drive-thru burritos. I have $10 in my bank account, and am currently using my credit card to eat. Yup. That's me.

I am not perfect. I am human. I'm also awesome. True story.