Last U.S. Days of 2012

I'm making a commitment to update this blog at least once a week for the rest of the year. Not an easy task, I'm sure, but since my mind is constantly working to keep straight an ever-expanding accumulation of interests, personal memories and world events, it seems that writing it out is the path to keeping sane. Also, I am about to embark on a whole new journey on a small Asian peninsula.

I left Houston one week ago. Being on the road again, even if it's actually flying in evil planes and actually staying in familiar family's houses, is what feels most like home. I've started journalling again in earnest, reading longwinded fiction in the form of Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, using the beautiful & awesome new Slingshot to keep organized and learning basic Korean with the help of these badass Koreans.

In Denver, everything was covered in snow and huge icicles, a reminder that yes, it is still winter and I'll be in for a rude awakening in my new home. Also in Denver, my Russian-speaking grandfather remains largely the same and despite his being 60 years my senior, I can't help but call him out on statements like "Listen to a woman, do the opposite," "Humans are evil (or something)," "The East is a dark place," etc. etc.

Now I'm in the Bay Area, reconnecting with my cousins, college friend Michaela, and filmmaker Rob Nilsson. Rob and I had a pretty interesting conversation about art, politics & society today. It was sunny, I was in a good mood and I felt like taking the side of fighting the system by doing our own thing and not overly concerning ourselves with the system. On other days and depending on who I talk to, I'll take a far more critical and negative view of the situation radicals, especially radical artists, find themselves in. In general, though, my distaste for authority cuts through everything and I feel that putting some kind of artificial standards and rules on creative expression still does more harm than good.

Oakland and Berkeley have evolving resistance communities and I could spend years exploring them as I could Boston or Denver or Lille or Houston, but all I have is these few short days. The reality is, I will very soon be pulled away from all these familiar elements of life. There will be no readily accessible anarchist social spaces with books and consensus meetings and shows and vegan food. No regular community bike rides. No women's discussions. At least not in Gangwon-do, where I will spend the majority of my time. There will be a vast number of new places, people and memories that I can't even imagine as I sit here. No matter how much I absorb from books and the Internet, I could never adequately prepare myself for the massive change that is about to take place in my life. The biggest one yet.

Korea, take me in...

Occupy Everything?

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” - Arundhati Roy 

 

2011, the year our collective, burning desire for freedom could no longer be contained. The media couldn't black it out. Our instinct for denial and "everything's going to be OK" couldn't hold under pressure. From North Africa to Spain to Greece - the beginning and possible end of Western civilization - the rise-up reverberated. And finally, it couldn't stay away from U.S. shores. 

 

As we all stand at the dawn of this "new year" - as far as our meticulous, calendar control of time really means anything - I feel an overwhelming, sharp awareness of surroundings. So aware, I could fill a giant canvas, write an entire book, drink a whole bottle of wine, walk through the woods all day in celebration. But for now, it feels right to remain content with just the real moments. A friendship-affirming New Year's celebration on a bike trail, a walk through downtown, a drunken rooftop party, an extended snuggle with three big cats and a beautiful sunny New Year's Day with reflections in the park and more exploration by bike. All the moments like these from 2011, I could fill up pages and pages retelling them. From New Year's in Vigo, Spain to Morocco in February to bike rides through the Flemish countryside in the spring, to No Border and Greece and Bulgaria and the Critical Mass in Paris to teaching and living in Lille in between. What binds them all together is the great fortune of crossing paths with amazing, life-changing human beings. 

 

Besides the travel posts, politics hasn't really made an appearance here yet. But politics is a big part of this journey. Specifically, the politics of resistance. Going to Europe highly undereducated on what resistance looks like there, let alone a good idea of what I wanted my own resistance to look like produced overwhelming results. A high-speed race through a kaleidoscope of social center concerts, meetings, big public demonstrations, dumpster diving, free vegan meals, documentaries & discussions, direct action immigrant solidarity work, gardens, bike rides, organic food, carnivals, feminist spaces, radical teaching, etc. etc. And a constant nagging feeling of being the floating American tourist, of not doing enough.

Since coming to Houston and despite staying at my mom's place outside of the city, I have made a concerted effort to connect the dots of all that I've learned with the here and now. And finally, painfully I come to realize that we can't and shouldn't try to "Occupy Everything." A huge part of my current journey is learning to recognize and embrace the spaces that I want to occupy in my regular life. This means not going to every single meeting, event or show because it seems like "the right thing to do." It means listening to my body and head and how they react to different circumstances. It means being in control of my comfort levels and knowing the right times to step out of that zone. It means being more assertive, straightforward and focused on passions and carefully choosing with whom to share them. Above all, it means being aware.

The time here is growing into a microcosm of my life, including all my various screwed-up relationships and bitter internal battles. I have 2-3 weeks to wait for that ever elusive 12-month teaching placement in South Korea. The closer February gets, the more frustrating the process. The harder to retail cashier during a busy holiday season and come home to my mother's unhappy house. Yet again and again, I am filled with the desire of letting it all flow, grasping the possibility for magic in any place, at any time. The prospect of staying in place - enduring - and engaging in a vision of community living and radical organizing suddenly seems like a viable and totally valid option. I told myself that post-Europe 2011 would bring amazing, unexpected experiences and the premonition has proven true. When I look at it holistically, when I see the big picture, it seems more right than I could ever imagine. 

We spoke of the Tao and I am rapidly plowing through this newer classic  on stepping outside of modern life. Interconnectedness, from a radical perspective, means recognizing that no person is an island and there is no individual problem that can't be tied to our collective broken spirit and disconnect from ourselves. Those of us facing the challenge of building sustainable communities from an infrastructure of fragmented, isolated life on our dying planet come up against nothing short of unlearning, deconstructing and creating something new. 

I am still sick on the inside. I still grapple with a host of demons every day. But I am filled with energy and anticipation of where this journey will lead next.

Another World is Possible

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?