Learning to Breathe on Jeju, Part I

January 5-7, 2013 
Seoul - Jeju

I'm lying on a tattoo artist's couch in Seoul. Next to me, the only female artist in the studio is tattooing a huge and painful-looking flower pattern on another Western woman's ribcage. She is wincing and nearly crying. Me, I'm just getting my long-awaited sailboat with "you come in on your own and you leave on your own" in a circle around it. A new marking, new memory for a new year.

At the Silim jimjilbang, I can't go into the baths because of the new ink. But I'm able to give instructions to some Singapore tourists. Never thought that would happen. At the lockers, I meet two Western female university students - it takes me too long to realize they are Moonies. Strange encounters. I sleep soundly. The KTX train to Mokpo the next morning doesn't seem too long. There is still snow on the ground all over Korea.

I enjoy the time with my friends and suddenly realize I'm travelling again. I'm ready to go to Jeju for the second time, 5 months down the road. I board the ferry from Mokpo and begin to conjure up the same feelings of adventure I had going last time. I spend as much time as I can to handle the stares and wind on the roof of the boat. Some college kids from Jeonju ask for their photos taken, but otherwise, it's a noneventful 4.5 hours. Grey. Windy. Chilly. Peaceful. Bikeless.

Sunrise From Mokpo - Jeju Ferry

Goodbye For Now Mokpo

Pink Dolphin Jeju Ferry Fins

Hello Jeju City

As Jeju City comes into sight again through the distant fog, I'm wondering about what magic this nearly 4 weeks will bring. Four weeks - that's a long time. The taxi driver from the ferry is friendly and tells me all about the biggest cities in the world, Jeju being one of the smaller ones. The people of this island are some of the best I've ever met.  I'm loaded down with luggage and it takes me a while to catch the right bus from Jeju City Hall to Susan-ri, where I'll be spending the next 2 weeks as a WWOOFer at Mulme Healing Farm.

The city seems endless, but finally I realize the bus is nearly empty save for a few farmer ladies. The Jeju countryside appears out of nowhere. The bus comes to a final stop and Susan-ri it is. I walk west up the hill, passing a field of lovely greens. I stop to look, to listen, to feel. The world is full of noise, but less so in the country. Birds and near silence. Another bend in the road and finally there are the totem poles. They surround a quiet guesthouse, which says WWOOF but it's actually the big orange house next door. A gray calmness in the late afternoon. I have arrived.

Greg, the American farm manager and friend of Yang Heejern the farmer, tells me I missed the big crowd. A Korean from Busan had brought students from her nature school to learn primitive bamboo firemaking, gathered in the forest near Mulme. My timing is never quite right, but I believe that things happen as they happen. I will meet them sometime in the future.

I didn't expect to see a second WWOOFer, but I'm somehow also not surprised to see Ben, an American traveller I met at Hansol Farm's December Hankyoreh newspaper report day. Heejern the farmer and meditation master makes a brief appearance, but takes off back to his house in the city. This would be the trend for the remainder of my time at Mulme. No matter, his presence is somehow felt even in its absence.

It's a Monday evening, the sun is beginning to set, we have no work until the morning. So what is there to do? Run from the guesthouse to the tangerine farm, of course. I'm not a runner and I don't enjoy the temporal experience very much - the actual experience of having a body. But I know that our bodies are meant to be used and not for sitting on chairs and desks all day long. As the colors spread out across the sky, I'm feeling the rush of the mild Jeju winter's country air.

Jeju Field of Greens

Glowing Tangerines

I had just finished reading Derrick Jensen's "The Culture of Make Believe" and as we ran, the conversation naturally drifted to the destructiveness of civilization. Greg and I agreed on a lot of things, but Ben provided more balance. By the time we got to the farm, the locked gate wouldn't open and we slowly headed back to the house, with the promise of fresh tangering picking looming in the morning.

When people move from the artificial city clock time to country time, our bodies often seem to adapt to the rhythm of the sun. Early to bed, early to rise. Greg made us dinner, and I knew I would be eating more meat during this stay than I hoped. When working hard, food is food I guess. The guesthouse was heated by copious amounts of chopped wood in the stove and this made for a smoky hot shower. And yet a not-so-warm night.

I am ready to start breathing.

Jeju Winter Sunset

How the City Became the Illusion and Nature Became the Reality, Part 2

December 2010

A cold winter night in the 5-story Lille house. I'm trying to sleep. In the morning, I'm taking the train to Paris. From there, I fly to Athens. Greece, the land of riots and possibly the end of civilization. All I know is, it must be less cold than the air in here.

I'm trying to sleep. It must be 3 a.m. But above me, there is clanging. There is stomping on the old creaky floor. My housemate is packing to go stay with a woman he doesn't know but thinks he loves, in some snowy remote corner of Western France. I can't stand it. I want to get up and shout, to bang on his door and tell him to stop being an asshole.

But I stay put in my bed, quietly seething. I'm trying to sleep. From somewhere in the distance, I hear music. Cocteau Twins? Elisabeth Fraser, 'the voice of God?' Do I have my music on? I get up and follow the sound. It gets closer. Light slowly filters through the room. I walk through my door into the light.

I seem to pass through the door directly onto the tree in the garden. The big, beautiful live-giving tree. The one in the eastern corner of the impossibly high garden wall. The wall that keeps out everything but birds and cats. How did I get so high up in this tree, sitting with my legs swinging down from this huge branch? It must be summertime. I'm wearing my red dress.

Something compels me to turn my head slowly to the west. It seems that my room has been transplanted outside to the garden. There is my bed, right in the same corner that it should be. Only it's not a bed. It seems that my bed has fallen through a hole of its same size and shape in the ground, leaving what looks like a grave.

I never climb down from the tree, and I can't feel the ground but I am approaching the bed. I'm so close. Almost there. It's right before me, ready for me to lay down to sleep again. Suddenly, an intense, split-second spasm of dread goes through my body, up to my brain. And then my body is no longer my own. After dread and fear comes total liberation. In my red dress, I can almost see myself as I am stretched out and lifted from the grass. Suspended in the air, hovering next to the bed in the ground, I feel for the first time what it must mean to be free.

From answering the call of the music, to floating in the garden, the whole thing lasts no more than 15 seconds.

And then I wake up.

What happened? Where did I go? I go back to sleep and in the morning, I am still the same.

Or am I?

Summer 2011

Greece had struck such a chord from the first visit, even though most of what I saw was the sprawling Athens metropolis. I sat on four hilltops and from way up high, I saw a city sprouting like a concrete forest. When the ancient Greeks looked down from these hilltops, what did they see?

There is more to Greece than this. I knew I wanted to go there for my first WWOOF stay, three weeks of Greek mountain magic.

Seeds. Oak trees. The Rhodope Mountains. An old woman on the porch. A dog following me on my bike ride through the woods. A tiny monastery. Coffee shop conversations. An ancient Christian ceremony of dancing barefoot on coals. A bike group riding from London to Palestine.

This was my first extended stay in a small town and natural place. Sandwiched between two short stops in the northern, second-largest city Thessaloniki. Bursting with revolution, people camping out at the harbor, a several story squat on the main street near the train station, an anarchist free school.

Going from the endless mountain expanse to the city feels like being trapped back under a snow globe. Someone is shaking us to make us move. We are not in control, it moves whether we want to or not.

But during a Saturday morning service at the monastery, the dream came back. Only I wasn't sleeping. The flash light as I stood with the sun streaming through the windows told me that the East, Korea was where I had to go next. There would be something awaiting me there, if I only answered the call.

And so I did.

Houston, August 2011 - February 2012

Worn out from travel and needing a space and a job before Korea, I put myself squarely back under the snow globe. The longer I stayed there, the less certain I became of the future. Would I stay here and engage with the radical community, living collectively, gardening, cycling, never being cold?

I worked a crappy job. I struggled with family relationships. I strugged with other interpersonal relationships. I developed new friendships. I read books. I had long bike rides. I danced to live music. I learned to appreciate Houston.

Korea, February 2012 - Present

I came to Korea because I wanted to explore Eastern culture and find inner peace. WWOOF Korea, living in the mountains, Jeju Island, meditation and most importantly, the people I've met every step of the way have put me back on a path that is no longer so easily reversible.

Suspended in the air, hovering next to the bed in the ground, I feel for the first time what it must mean to be free.

Springtime Lessons

"What if it's broken?" Korean English at Family Mart

Even on a hilltop in the middle of nowhere, you still gotta work out.

After a winter revival in the first week in April, we suddenly had a lovely warm weekend and I obviously took my new two-wheeled friend out for several spins. Korean roads are pretty well kept, even in these rural parts, and long-distance trains and buses comfortably take them on board.

Samcheok

The freedom I feel on a bicycle, especially a quality one that doesn't hurt to ride, is just about unbeatable. Paved open mountain roads around my town. Coastal roads and the beach. On Sunday night, an insane solo 20 kilometer night ride from Taebaek, the smallest city in Korea. Only in motion do I feel truly alive. (But I wouldn't do the last one again. The 2.5 km tunnel near Gohan is deafening and nearly suffocating.)

Despite my good distance endurance for cycling, Taekwando and the weight training that comes with it are beginning to seriously kick my ass. Though an active person, I've never put a high priority on physical fitness and with mirrors all around, I suddenly feel more self-conscious than ever about my body. Realizing my own weaknesses only makes me push harder. A weekly regimen of stretching, yoga, Taekwando, weights and cycling comes on top of teaching, writing, cooking, reflecting. Good for mind and soul as well.

Samcheok

And What About the Language?

Really buckling down and learning Korean would definitely help to become more connected with my new home. Certainly, when I watch the Talk to me in Korean early videos now, I feel like I've gone from zero to basic understanding in a rather short amount of time. It's a well-known fact that most native English teachers, even those who stay here several years, don't go beyond the bare bones of reading Hangeul and basic phrases to greet, order at restaurants, etc. And then there's those who go above and beyond what could be expected in just a year or two. I'm trying my best to take it one step at a time and not feel guilty that my preferred method - absorbing language through listening - is not really "studying." After all, the Asian continent, cultures and language families are a whole new world to me, even as a polyglot. And speaking a language is not the same as doing well in sports or something - it's a skill only measured by how well you can communicate.

Samcheok

"You Need to Give Them Motivation To Learn English"
After I took the initiative to ask why students weren't participating much in my conversation classes, my coteachers spoke with them and found out why. Yes, I understand the motivation thing. I'm beginning to understand that Korean students are bludgeoned by tests, tests, tests, grades, grades, grades, study, study, study all the time. So they're too tired to be self-motivated for just about anything except pop music, computer games, looks. That's not fair and a huge generalization, of course, but generalizations can be somewhat true. Anyway, they are super-competitive with each other, so speaking up in class and making a mistake means getting laughed at which is a big no-no. So I shouldn't correct their mistakes, I should just let their English level stay low - as long as they can half-communicate with me, no problem. No, that's not the right attitude, I know. I'm nowhere near the first or last EFL teacher in Korean to come face-to-face with the basic problem of teaching English in a country with an insane education system that is probably failing its kids. My job is to take it seriously by not taking it seriously. Working to make class fun. Smiling and laughing with my students even when no one feels like smiling or laughing. Not caring if they talk in Korean 75% of the time, as long as they learn something.

Identity Update

If I drink less and talk less, maybe I won't get into inane political or intellectual conversations at the wrong time and the wrong place. Maybe I won't lose friendships before they even got off the ground. Every time I socialize, I try to tell myself to work harder to make up for the mistakes I made last time. As though people are keeping a running tally of the stupid things I've said, my awkwardness, my inability to show myself in the best light. Every time I am accidentally late, or don't answer my phone, or go on too long about a serious topic, I feel that I am chipping away at something. I'm no longer the fun, positive person I'd like to be all the time. I'm that weird, moody, unrelate-able person.

So, no positive updates on changing identity as of yet. Though I have had some beautiful moments over the past few weeks. The highs and the lows could be drawn as close-together steep hills. The highs are usually tied to nature or one-on-one interactions. They lows are usually tied to a night of drinking, coupled with rambling, followed by moodiness and grogginess the next morning. But if I stop drinking, I stop going out. Dilemma.

Land Musings

In Korea, especially Gangwon province, gardening is all the rage. I don't mean young cool people into sustainability and all that jazz. The soil is so rocky in these parts and fertile land so hard to come by that people will turn just about ANY piece of land into a garden. Just in the small niche comprising our apartment complex, snack shops and the middle and high school, there are random veggie beds that are just beginning to sprout. The principal's house has a rather large section and it turns out that, for me, garden patch accessibility is too good to be true. The weather was amazing and I decided to get my hands dirty in the soil. I later learned a Korean teacher has dibs on that plot and the farmer next to my apartment also doesn't have space available. I feel bad about accidentally digging up someone's precious land like that, but maybe it will lead to more communication about gardening in the future. So, I will be starting seeds on my balcony instead and looking for some land later.


And I'm still on the WWOOF mission. I'm trying to gather information about alternative farming communities in Korea and so far I've come across just a few resources, for example: here. There seems to be a Natural Farming movement/practice here, which correlates with Fukuoka, whom I learned about in Greece. Despite learning and absorbing a lot of information and some hands-on experience, I'm still a beginner gardener and feel sort of guilty about that. Why is it taking me so long to get the initiative to do something as simple as planting leafy greens on my balcony? I remember how nice it was to grow my red pepper alongside my roommates' plants in Boston summer '09, but after that, I can't say I've done too much in the way of independent gardening. I'm changing that now too. I intend to be a full-fledged grower within the next few years. Passion must become action.

So, finally, I have a whole lot of different interests that require commitment to fully take root. It's up to each person to decide which activities will take priority. And not to beat herself up about what doesn't get done. It's only one life, after all.

Alive on Two Wheels & What Is Identity Part II

Before

After

Ahem. Ah, yes. The bike has arrived, within 2 days. The picture of the box would be better if it was  from the school administration office, where it first arrived. If only I had had the money to ride a road beauty like this in the ladies' bike gang in Houston. Or, just in Houston for that matter. I look forward to many good times with this lovely light machine, hopefully it can live up to being the best bike I've ever had. It's definitely big, but I still feel more comfortable than ever on it.

Today, despite my own deep ambivalence towards new technologies that disconnect us from each other, I decided to try out a cell phone photo project in class. You wouldn't know this was a relatively low-income region from the fact that just about all of my high schoolers have smart phones, nicer than anything I've ever had. Conspicuous consumption, or something. Anyway, I'm instructing a few of my higher level classes to collect a few cell phone pictures to put into slideshows, for which they will write and present descriptions. I'm taking this teaching thing way too seriously, it seems. Trying to be worth my salt, I guess.

OK, so what does this have to do with identity? My thoughts always sound better in my head than on the page. I live in a constant state of internal stress and creation of drama where none exists. If I can boil it down, it's stress about wanting to be the right person, all the time, in every situation. Impossible, of course. And because I can't focus enough to get it right at least once, I almost never feel like the right person. So creating drama helps to give imaginary meaning to a life that seems "not right" on its own, just as it is. The quest for deeper meaning : maybe that is my identity. The amount of pressure I put on myself to make life meaningful is only rivaled by the pressure I put on others. No wonder people, even close ones, soon grow tired of me.

If someone were to treat me the same way, I would go insane. But in fact, I have come very close to that edge a number of times over the past year. I've lost count of the relationships or mere casual acquaintances I have sacrificed to my unbending, unreal quest. Each time it happens, I am acutely aware and it hurts. It's former roommates, lovers, family members, people I've come across on the road. I can even pinpoint, in retrospect, at which moments my behavior became an annoyance. The problem is, so far I've lacked the ability to stop my heavy searching in its tracks before it runs over everything like an unwieldy freight train.

So as I seem to repeat like a broken record, Korea is the chance to change this fundamental part of my identity. How can the quest for meaning be used to harness positive energy?

I will update as I look for the answers.

A New Awakening

I would like to take this time to write a burning, positive message from the present and from the depths of my soul.

In June of this year, I stood in a tiny Northern Greek monastery secluded in the mountains. It was probably early on a Sunday morning, the warm sun had just risen and we could see and feel it through the high windows as we listened to the soft hymns. Suddenly, I felt something that could only be described as a lightning bolt, a moment of revelation. I am a willing atheist, yet I refuse to deny this power. Perhaps it was a follow-up to the dream from the night before Athens, almost a year ago now (!) where I felt an incredible sense of liberation, literally floating in the air above the garden with a bed in the ground. Freedom, lightness, clarity and warmth are definitely accurate ways to describe this moment. I saw a real & bright future in Asia, teaching, learning more languages, going to graduate school for linguistics, falling in real romantic love with another person after learning to love myself. And yet, nowhere in this vision was there a lack of hardship, a complete erasure of uncertainty or an effortless, paved path to walk. It was simply an impression of an end result presented to me, that elusive magic that I never stop chasing. Magic within a concrete reality, not the one-dimensional world in my head with me as the eternal puppet master. A world based on my acceptance and optimal use of my strengths. A world where imperfect humans coexist and thrive alongside me, where I don't drive them away. A world that is mine for the taking if I will only accept it.

Today, my brother's 12th birthday, nearing the end of 2011, the stars are aligning to bring me back to this magic. One crucial thing came out of my recent therapy sessions: I discovered my Myers-Briggs personality type - INFP (Introverted. INtuition. Feeling. Perception.) For many years, I have heard about the importance of this "personality test" for those of us in the Western world to understand ourselves. Not just a surface examination of our personalities, but an affirmation of our natural tendencies and how to harness them in the best direction. For all my short yet substantial life, it seems I have been frantically searching for an explanation for my strangeness, for someone or something to tell me what is "wrong" with me. I inhabit the same space as my family & friends, so why the hell do I feel different? For the first time, I have stumbled upon something that helps tremendously. Apparently, INFPs in our population are seriously rare. I link again to the INFP blog because after this, it has been an astounding treasure to dig up. Here is a 40-year old, married-with-children American male who writes about his long-overdue "success" at "being an INFP" after years and years of wandering around lost. Hopefully, by starting now, I can begin to approach my magic point while I am still young.

 

Just this instant, I typed "Myers-Briggs France" into Google and stumbled upon an INTJ forum with this telling post:

A friend of mine who got her Masters in Psychology (and is a Korean native) told me that 75% of Korea is introverted. So ENTPs for instance are one of the rarest types there while INTJs were much more common (I think 6%), interestingly she also mentioned that ISTJs were by far the largest group, which had more than all the NTs combined.

She also said MBTI was taken more seriously there and they started making the tests mandatory by high school. 

                                                                                Things are coming together now in a big way. I went to the Houston Korean Education Center today and they gave me a *free* beginner's Korean language book. Hell, fuck the French. :P

The next step is again and again repainting every day, every important moment of my past in the most positive light possible to keep me moving forward. Truly, reconciling my past with this discovery is the first step. The second step is consciously living the change that is in my hands.

No Surface, All Feeling

Travelling mentality - in which one adopts or develops a constant tendency to see and do as much as possible, as time is always limited 

The perpetual state of loss - the desire and inability to belong in a community, missing all that has come before and all that could be - elsewhere

If anyone is interested in or irrationally doubting the livability and coolness of HTX, I'm here to say you are wrong. Or mistaken. Or naturally misguided by stereotypes and misconceptions. It's too bad that I haven't been carrying my cameras around at all. It's still hard for me to place Houston on the travel map, as somewhere that merits visual memory. Maybe I assume I will always come back here, that my family will always make me call it chez moi. I'm peeling back layers of the onion each day and this city keeps revealing its mysteries. Tonight at the Down Together zine-making party, I was feeling overwhelmed by the number of people from my different "lives" that came together in one space. What an absurd feeling, after spending less than 4 months in a place! To have such a strong urge to integrate instead of just visit and explore. 

It was good that I could discuss the Occupy problems with others, I really needed to listen and commiserate. The resignation and boredom of Tranquility Park, the attacks on Wall Street and not being able to be there, the imminent decline of the local infoshop has made me frustrated to try to be a radical in the here and now. It was also good that I decided to stay at the zine apartment the whole night instead of going to the fiction/poetry reading at the gallery. For fuck's sake, shut off the travelling mentality for one night and enjoy the present moment. 

I have learned that I am supposed to aid in my personal liberation and growth by just being myself and focusing on others when I interact. But I just wish people would say to my face "Shut up, you're annoying me." Maybe I can learn to read their facial expressions and body language. My self-consciousness is at a level and degree that I can't remember since even before adolescence. I was an only child until age 12.5 and it seems that all these years, I have failed to shed my shelter, isolation and desperation for attention. Stop being a fucking hypocrite. If you care so much about cooperative living, start by living cooperatively with the person who gave birth to you. Take care of the space. Be kind. Listen. Don't treat your mother like a pest or a stranger.

We Are The Dreamers of Dreams

In further psychological exploration, I went to bookstore of The Jung Center of Houston, a place that I had passed for years but never understood, seriously thought about or considered visiting. I was overwhelmed by all the books, as usual, so I decided to start with Jung's autobiography, which is really an account of Carl Jung's inner experiences, not a mere recounting of events as they occurred. In this sense, time and accuracy become far less important than feeling and reflection. 

I have a burning desire to write every day, but I rarely fulfill it.

Working at Target is like taking an anthropology class. Next week is the deadly Black Friday, or for us secret and not-so-secret anarchists and anti-capitalists, Buy Nothing Day. I will indeed be working the 10-hour overnight shift, 11:45-9:45. Fortunately, I am also pretty much opposed to the ritual celebration of Thanksgiving, so I'll try to get to a No Thanks dinner that night instead. Fortunately, my ass. I still want to spend time with my family and friends, not force myself to take sleeping pills during the day. Not only that, they put me on an early Saturday shift the next day. Why do I continue working there, one might ask? Why don't I get another job, or at least more work on top of it? Because I am tired and overwhelmed and only want to focus on getting to Korea. Excuses, excuses.

If I go to Korea in February, that will put my time in Houston at a full seven months, the same amount of time that I spent in the teaching assistant program. Such disparate back-to-back experiences, punctuated by an entirely different summer in Southeastern Europe. Not a day goes by that multiple, layered visions of other, wholly familiar and far-away places don't meander through my head.

I am trying to write a coherent entry, but I'm too upset by watching the Occupy Wall Street livestream. In the early hours of November 15, 2011, the United States' 21st century people's revolt is being thoroughly and violently crushed. We must stand in solidarity. "Peaceful protest" will not prevent violence, as we see again and again.  

http://occupywallst.org/

What is Identity?

Today I woke up at 8 a.m. to take the bus to meet a new friend, one of the best people I've met in Houston, at a park to ride bikes to volunteer in the community garden. The day worked out really well, even with a 5-hour busy Target shift in the middle. I love those days, when I have enough positive energy to not get down about working this job.

Of course, before I met up with my friend, there were dark clouds hovering in the sky and they were making my already irritable mood spiral into that unreasonable place of despair. Yesterday, I was at an anti-police brutality rally and before we started marching, I suddenly found myself in a very real and very serious conversation with this new friend's girlfriend. She revealed to me her longterm struggle with anxiety and depression and she said many things to me that hit so incredibly close to home, things that I almost could have repeated verbatim. I was caught off my guard and continued on with the march, feeling newly invigorated and vowing to talk with this person again and really pick her brain about radical mental health and other solutions to these problems.

Last Sunday, I went to the Zen Center for the first time, for an informal meditation and discussion section. It was a beautiful bike ride from downtown, after spending the night in the park at Occupy Houston. Many ideas surfaced that also hit me hard, like people who will call you out on your flaws in a helpful, loving way and how those are true friends. But how do we tell the difference between kind honesty and brutal honesty? Is it pure intuition? Or does it require a substantial amount of awareness and humility? Does it require mental health?

So I'm not going to rationalize or pretend, I know why my mood took a turn for the worse yesterday. I had crashed on some awesome peoples' couch the night before and woke up with lots of positivity for my day off, but then I had lunch with Dad and his new wife (maybe if I don't even call her my "stepmother" I won't have to acknowledge her as a family member at all) and it went how it frequently does, with a hugely unpleasant argument, except this time in public. And I can't cope with this, I can't defend myself while also casting myself in the best light. I can't be accused of selfishness and blatantly judged and personally attacked for my lifestyle, past & present choices and remain neutral, accept it as "honesty" and keep my composure with calm responses. For, in my mind, this person's honesty is of the worst kind of brutality, the kind that stems from projection of personal problems on a fellow and undeserving human being. Have I also been guilty of this behavior? It's quite awful when thrown in your face. 

Then I think about the other person who has unintentionally set me on an emotional rollercoaster since I arrived in Houston. Who has also pointed out my shortcomings to me, forced me to look in the mirror. I think about these two people and I think about identity. 

So then on my walk home last night, the truth struck me clearly and at full force: I have no identity. Deep inside, I don't exist as a person. What can normal people, including even therapists, answer to this except "get to know yourself," "we're all finding ourselves," "you're not alone," the whole gammut. I can't relate to any of this on a deep level because I know that my lack of selfhood is a chronic condition, not a "phase" and not just related to my youth. To me, finding myself may be the big difference between getting mentally healthy and continuing down the winding road of crazytown.

I am a cis-gendered female. I am heterosexual. I am a Russian-American. I am a 20-something. I am a college graduate. I am white. I am a daughter, granddaughter, sister, cousin, niece. I am a "writer." I am a reader. I am a cyclist. I am a polyglot. I am a traveller. I am a semi-strict vegetarian. I am a nature lover. I am a radical. I am a worker. I am a non-believer....what else?

Except none of these things are my identity for they are all subsumed in what I do and how I relate to others. And taken together, they are just a blurry amalgam that I become lost in. As a traveller and as a person in general, I know what I gravitate towards and of course, it has helped me figure out where my true interests lie and how I might want to build the remainder of my life, at least for a good part of the foreseeable future. But in fact, I have come to the startling conclusion that this has very little - if anything - to do with who I am.

The Real Journey, Part I

I know this blog is not really private, but I don't care. Should I? I have yet to retire and replace my long-suffering black notebook, almost filled to the brim with notes and scribbles and travelogues. I'm OK with personal outlines, even here.

Three 1-hour sessions have come and gone. I'm late to a lot of things, even work and even when I have a full free day beforehand. But with therapy, I come right on time every time. I read on a website about "finding the right therapist" that this person needs to "hold you emotionally" and the most important part is developing a personal relationship. I also read on a personal account of an English journalist that you can become "addicted to therapy." Of course, I chose a woman and I'm sticking strictly to one session a week so as not to overdo it. "These things take time." What I'm really addicted to is negative thinking and the spiral that feeds it. How to cut out the cancer...

Session I
"Have you done this before? Why are you here?" etc.
Blah blah blah ramble ramble ramble oh woe is me I am so emotionally unstable blah blah blah...
"Can you bring something you wrote next time?"
Weeeeee I love writing!

Session II
I brought in my last blog entry. That's the last thing I wrote. I also have a timeline of my life and goals for therapy, oh la la the narcissism...
"Why don't you read it out loud?"
Really? Wooooooah! Okay here goes...
"laughs charmingly at 'normal mental health practitioner'" and 'unbearable' etc."
spill out stories about the men and the stupid things I've done
"why do you have sex? it seems that's the problem...[in reaction to goal overcome depression] "have you considered medication? What about St. John's Wort?"
You are such a lovely, smiling, calm little old lady, nothing you say comes out as judgmental and if it came from anyone else, I would absolutely resent it. Personal approach makes all the difference. 

Session III
Too distracted to bring in anything. However, I was very good and rode all the way to Whole Foods for St. John's Wort for mood lifting and Valerian for sleep.   
"Is it helping?"
I have an affinity for dreams, so I go on a tangent about the one I had the night before after taking one of the herbs. I was clearly in Houston with a group of "good guys" and we were working on a video project. Things suddenly became clear and joyful as we rode in a car down "avenues all lined with trees." I woke up with warmth. Dreams, how can anyone just blow them off?
"Can you admit that you don't like someone?"
No, I can't stand that feeling. I want to know why....isn't thinking too much about how people may not like me or hurt me part of having an overblown ego? Reduce the ego, reduce the suffering?
"No, your ego isn't too big. It's not shriveled, but it's fragile. You become cold and distant to protect yourself."

When I was alone and stir-crazy in high school (much much worse than any other time since, all things considering) I used to read a lot more and above all WRITE. And not just journal entries, I went way beyond that. I typed up dozens upon dozens of pages of a story, really spent time on it. I'm not sure anyone else read it and it might be lost, but it comes back to me in snippets and its wistfulness is really a thing of beauty.

"Do you hate them, 'cause they're pieces of you?" Jewel's first album, a true masterpiece, no matter how much it smells of melodrama and stupid 1990s radio hits.

Astrology, it might be a hoax. I'm willing to accept that possibility about any system that includes a healthy amount of dogma or blind faith. But I reread my natal chart and then read about those crazy Aquarius men and there are some things that really stand out. The funny thing is, I don't see astrology as useful in predicting the future or believing in destiny. I see it as an interesting study of human psychology, how we relate to each other and explain why things work out a certain way. It's just one piece of a very large puzzle and as a hardcore skeptic, I find it open enough to interpretation to suit my liking.

"People tell me it's a sin, to know and feel too much within." Because people like us are dangerous, or at least just prickly thorns, pricking ourselves and others. We simply refuse to accept and I will go so far as to exclude many self-proclaimed radicals and anarchists from this category. "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them." There is nothing quiet about us and desperation is not our driving force. We are not elitist, but we are naturally not a large group. We are simply born with the burning desire to shine like stars. We don't want to judge you. We just can't understand how anyone else would want it any other way. A poor subsistence farmer, a slum dweller, someone in the streets, any of them can be among us and they can create joy even out of a hard and restrictive existence.

Who the hell do we think we are, people like us who demand, who accept nothing less than joy and freedom? Who refuse to be content with "Everything's going to be OK?" Every time I hear it, I feel nausea and irrational rage in the pit of my stomach. Rape, torture, poverty, illness, murder, prison, an endless list of the sickening things that humans have imposed on each other since the beginning of time. Maybe for survivors and constant witnesses and bearers of horror, just "OK" may be a nearly unreachable milestone. And this makes us even more indignant. With so much unnecessary suffering, how dare we resign ourselves to "just OK" and not put up a fight for a life sparked by wonder?

"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" or "The Dark Place...And The Decision To Seek The Light" or "Fuck You All, I Just Feel Bad, OK?"

"There's no one to beat you, no one to defeat you, just the thoughts of yourself feeling bad" 
- Bob Dylan 

I have been neglecting my mental health for quite a while, thinking time and circumstances will heal it or moving to a new place and starting over will bring me enough of a fresh start to overcome my problems. It's really sad that I have to reach a breaking point, a moment that I can only describe as a crisis that I must finally hit my wall.

(Flashback exactly five years ago. I was starting sophomore year at college and I was super excited to be back in Boston after a long, oppressively hot summer of mostly work and very little real play in Houston. The first week was a lovely New England September. I had moved to a beautiful part of campus, right next to the river. I started cycling. I was living with a totally cool girl (who is now one of my closest friends) and I was hitting the ground running with everything I wanted to do that year. For all intents and purposes, I was alive, well and my world was in good shape. And then the first weekend came. And I wasn't invited to a party where a guy I wanted to meet was going to be. One thing led to another, I was sitting alone in my room...and I snapped. I had a complete and total mental breakdown.
I was so frightened of what was happening to my mind that the only real relief came from making the call to the school psychologist. By the time I got there, I may have already met my ex, with whom I would spend a very confusing 2.5 years. I can't remember anymore what insights, if any, I gained from the brief therapy sessions.)

Anyone reading Prozac Nation, whether they like it or not, will probably agree that Elizabeth Wurtzel comes off as extremely, melodramatically self-absorbed and self-defeating. That's why I so appreciated and - though it's been while - probably still appreciate this book. She damn well knew how she presented herself and she took the risk anyway. And though she sold millions of copies, you still get the love-or-hate response from a wide range of readers, from people with severe clinical disorders to those who haven't gone beyond run-of-the-mill bouts of depression.

And just like Elizabeth, I am self-absorbed. I am self-defeating. I am infuriating and whiny and I imagine, nearly unbearable in some states. All these traits, I must realize, most closely resemble childhood. I've pretty much been this way my entire life.

I give of myself to people who won't love or care for me unconditionally, while callously walking over and using those who would and do. I am frequently like a helpless child. I have grand plans and ambitions, but too often can't get the nuts and bolts right, missing some important detail that obliges people to take care of me. I can make a huge list of incidences like this. I've been so fortunate to meet patient people who refuse to walk away from me, yet I keep pushing their boundaries, testing their "loyalty" with my irrational outbursts.

I love life and sometimes I am so filled with joy, hope and magic that I gleam and shimmer. I smile, I laugh, I am a great conversationalist, listener, wild dancer, lovemaker, a shining light. That's one side of the coin. And the other side is the overwhelming black cloud of darkness. Could I ever have one without the other? I truly believe that this is not a madness of destruction, but a madness that should be harnessed into cosmic and creative energy. It should be used to teach children, who are most receptive to it. It should be used to tend to nature. It should be used to write. It should be used to sing and dance. It should be used to make music. It should be used to love fully and to create, create, create.

I have long been fascinated with insanity, what it means, how you can detect it and how people live with it. In Boston, I kept hearing about The Icarus Project but I need help right now and yet I am so frustrated about the prospect of going to a "normal" mental health practitioner who will time me or label me or forcefully channel my thoughts. I know that beggars can't be choosers and I *must* have an open mind about this if I truly want to get better, but all I really want is to have sessions like the other day, where three of us beautiful & smart ladies shared a communion.

The difference between me at 19 and me at 24 is the truths that mistakes and open communication have taught me. No one is out to get me. No one is lying to me or purposely hurting me. People appreciate my goodness and they are exasperated with my badness, just as anyone would be. All of us are, at different moments, selfish, inconsiderate, frustrating and impossible. And all of us are capable of great kindness, tenderness, respect, love and compassion. My desire for empathy must stem from my empathy for others.

And here's the most important truth: just like I have the responsibility to earn my own living, I have the responsibility to take care of myself. I owe it to the world. After all the gifts that life has presented me with, the least I could do is to show a little humility and make some effort to say "thanks" by getting help.

August 2011 Houston - The Dark Place

Houston, Texas

A place I haven't been to in quite some time. Different than the late fall troubles and the winter blues in Lille. Different even than post-Calais. Different than high school boredom and desperation. Different than pre-Cambridge Coop depression and frustration about the future. Different because I have just hit 24 years old, still quite young yet too old to be where I am now. The dark place. A place where all my small errors, huge mistakes, rash impulses, overanalyzing, bridge-burning, awkwardness, social ineptness, making heaviness out of lightness, melodrama, self-absorption, inconsideration, cruelty, feeling/thinking over action, travel burn-out, political awakening, city blues and perpetual state of loss hit me like a ton of bricks. The dark place. A place where all the beautiful/painful memories I have purposely or unconsciously repressed, the problems I never resolved, the childhood/adolescence insecurities, the broken family pieces, the personal and professional "failures" that I haven't recovered from, the displacement in a familiar place overwhelm me to the point of numbness. The dark place. A place where I doubt all that I have accomplished, the connections I've made, the foundations I've laid, the good times I've shared, the changes and progress I've decided on. The dark place. A place where I must "breathe the air and walk around." Where I must accept exactly who I am, own and take responsibility for each one of my actions and the fact that they affect my family, friends, acquaintances, strangers, everyone I come across. The dark place. A place that can teach me more about humility, compassion, love, laughter, risk, respect, communication. The dark place. A place where I can plant new seeds and strike new matches. The dark place. The underground bridge between two continents, civilizations, huge pieces of land in huge bodies of water, a huge shovel digging out fat worms feeding on fertile earth.

Who hasn't gone to this dark place? Who hasn't experienced so much that they are unable to sift out the flowers from the shit? Who hasn't taken their created suffering out on others, trying to unload the weight on those who don't ask for or deserve it? Who hasn't sunk their head so far below the water that they start growing gills? Who hasn't run on empty for so many miles that the shock of stalling, crashing, burning is hard to admit or accept?

And this is all the psyche. I am healthy. And loved by my family that I get to stay with. And supported by amazing individuals who have no obligation to be patient with my neurosis. Food in my belly. Roof over my head. Blah blah blah. "First world problems." No, just internal.

In no longer than six months, and probably only three, I will be in South Korea. I won't escape myself and this time around, I won't pretend that it's possible. But I know that there, with all the concrete new things to do every single second of every day, the dark place won't welcome me with open arms. It will lock me out and push me away from the door.

So while it's still possible to be here. Welcome to the dark place. Breathe the air and walk around.

December 2010 - A Northern France Winter

December 2, 2010 

I'm sitting wrapped under a huge comforter in my big, nearly empty room, watching small flakes of snow cover the city of Lille outside my window. For some reason, I felt like listening to Pink Floyd's "The Wall" this morning. I'm supposed to be at an assistants' orientation meeting, but it's normally my day off from work, so I have better things to do. Like plan lessons. So here I am!

I can't believe winter is here already and that the year 2010 is drawing to a close. This has honestly been the most intense, challenging, rewarding and in some ways, most joyous year I've ever had. I remember how it started - in Boston, the snow having fallen all day long on New Year's Eve. (I had arrived just the night before from Houston and it was strangely warm.) An early morning walk to the liquor store, through the nearly silent falling snow. Staying in, cooking and chatting. And then later hopping from apartment to apartment, finally ending up on Litchfield St. in Lower Allston and staying up until 4 in the morning with loads of random and not-so random people. At the time, I was still living in the Cambridgeport house, trying to build up the courage to get the hell out. It was right in the middle of the drama. But, it was a NEW YEAR with new possibilities and I was on a high. I think we listened to Simon and Garfunkel's "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme" on vinyl. Beautiful.  

And I still had NO IDEA about all the unbelievable, overwhelming things that 2010 would bring. I didn't know that I would finally get the courage to come to a Sunday Food Not Bombs meal in Central Square, in the dead of winter. I had no idea that on a boring day in February, where I didn't leave the house at all, I would fill out the application that would lead to me moving into the Cambridge Coop in May. I didn't even know that my mother would get remarried that month. And that I would see my father get remarried and start a new family at the end of July. That I would get the crushing "waitlisted" email from the teaching assistant program in the beginning of April, forcing me to live in the present in Boston. That I would grow to love my job at Filmmakers' Collaborative so much and stay there right up until the end of August, just a few weeks before leaving for France. 

That I would have an AMAZING 3.5 months at the Cambridge Coop, transforming my life completely. That I would meet people that I may never have met otherwise. That I would become a regular Food Not Bombs volunteer and see the group put on a beautiful festival in the Boston Common at the end of May. That I would go to an anarchist conference and dance through the streets. That I would bike all the way to Walden Pond and swim there three times this summer. And finally, that getting the "you are accepted to the Academy of Lille" email at the end of June would tear me in half and force me to choose...when back after 2009 graduation, I was 100% sure that I wanted to leave Boston.

And now, I'm in France and I have no regrets at all. I did have a bout of homesickness in November, which is always a hard month for me. So many things have gone down in the past 1.5 month, some of which I can't write about here. Some wonderful, some painful, all unforgettable. Over Toussaint vacation, I spent three lovely, spontaneous days in Brussels with another assistant. Brussels is a city worth visiting, worth discovering the secrets hidden behind the EU big ugly building façade. There's Arabic and African neighborhoods, with delicious food and jazz cafes. There is also a cinematheque that shows silent slapstick comedies with live piano accompaniment for 3 euros. There is a GIGANTIC comics museum - seriously, this place is intense. Also, people speak an interesting mix of Nederlander, French and English, all of which are heard in the metros. 

I also went to Paris, which I happily realized is too intense for me. I did finally see the permanent Cinematheque exhibit though, dedicated to Henri Langlois. The weather was beautiful and I enjoyed spending time with Ratasha, her cousin and friend. I even spent some time with my current housemate Patricia, her boyfriend Hervé and his friend - it was funny to go to the Rodin museum for the 3rd time because for them, it was the 1st time!

Back in Lille, I've begun to settle into the teaching regime. It's more challenging than I thought because I have 12 hrs of totally separate classes - some of which I take on by myself - and I spend a lot of time planning lessons, as well as hopping from one school to another, sometimes in one day. One of my goals for the New Year is to become a more effective lesson planner because once I get into the classroom with at least *something* prepared, it usually works out OK. The 3éme 14-15 year olds are pretty tough to rein in - they're ready to get outta there, so they don't want to focus or pay attention to anything you throw at them. The 6éme 11-12 year olds and 4éme 13 year olds are better. Levels of English vary from class to class. For example, I recently saw a 3éme class that knows NOTHING, less than the youngest kids. Makes me wonder about the quality of teaching they're getting ;) What I don't like about taking on small classes by myself is never knowing when to speak French, getting laughed at for my accent/mistakes, and dealing with discipline. Also, at one school, I constantly have to remember when to pick up the kids from outside, when to get them from Study Hall, when they come meet me and which half of the class I'm taking. My schedule varies from week to week and it's difficult to keep track of all the kids, even with the lists I have. Even though I like most of the kids, I prefer the second school where I can concentrate on just teaching the lessons I prepare, which is challenging enough. My referring teacher agrees with me - that system works better. However, now that I'm getting the hang of it, hopefully I can start really improving.

I'm already thinking about renewing my contract next year, but of course, that's not up to me. And I can never be guaranteed a spot in Lille either. There are just so many things that I want to keep doing here - I want to work onstarting a Food Not Bombs chapter, volunteer at a cinema, work on an organic farm in the summer, keep practicing French, etc. etc. Even though it's far off, I can't imagine going back to the States in May and leaving everything hanging in the air. That's what's so tough about constantly moving around like I do: every time I start getting attached to a place/people, I get up and go on to the next place. I would like to actually build a community in Lille, if possible, and as a new person and especially as a foreigner, that really takes time. So I don't have illusions, but I'm trying to be as engaged as I can. Sometimes the assistantship actually gets in the way of that and sometimes I end up spending hours in my house. Which is not all that bad, because I do get to interact with my housemates, but they are out doing their own thing as well. So I plan on spending more time working at a local cafe, which my assistant friend and I just realized has free WIFI! It's a great little alternative coffeehouse/bar, with four floors and tons of events/flyers/fun people hanging around. Even though it can be discouraging, it usually pays off to go out as much as possible and put myself out there - eventually someone responds! 

Christmas Break is coming up in just 2 weeks! First I'm going to visit Ratasha in Athens and then.....????? I can't make up my mind on whether I want to go to Sofia, Bulgaria and then to Spain to stay with another assistant. Or come back to Lille for New Year's? Hopefully I can make a decision soon. In any case, it will be nice to travel again and see some warmer weather for a little while! Who knows what other crazy things this last month of 2010 will bring! :) 

Meanwhile, tonight I'm going to see a concert for free. One of my housemates talked me into joining a "montévideo," which takes a small group of people less than 26 and older than 55 and gets them into shows at the big venue called Aeronef. We get interviewed on camera and it's posted on the website - I'll send a link soon. I have to speak French and it's kind of intimidating, but also fun. The live music scene is alive and well in Lille and that's definitely a picker-upper during these cold winter months. The Vaselines, an old Scottish group, are coming at the end of January!