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.

Homage to España

I spent one week in Spain in December. I went there, like I went to Athens, barely knowing a thing about the country. I'm not sure how it's possible, being around anarchists, reading the news, knowing some things about twentieth century history. I even read For Whom the Bell Tolls on my own at the end of high school, though I found it monotonous, like a lot of Hemingway. I don't know how I was fortunate enough to have friends to visit in Greece AND Spain, where seeds of revolution have been planted for so long and not actually know a thing until I got there.

But this is not a post about bitter lament. This post is about Spain. I finally got around to reading Homage to Catalonia, which I'm about halfway through now. On the drive between the Zamora-area countryside and Vigo, I was tired from travelling but still totally fascinated by the stories of Irati's father. Apparently, back in the 70s, he and her mother were dedicated Marxists. He was telling me all about Anarchists during the Civil War and suggested I read this book. I'm glad I'm reading it now, late as it is. Orwell is a gift to the English language and all of human literature. I'm actually quite in awe of how a person who spent only 47 years on this Earth could have experienced so much and graciously left it with the rest of us bystanders.

I'm not going to go as far as saying that I regret not sticking to Spanish as I had planned and tried and not applying for the Spain assistantship. I am merely saying that when I can catch bits and pieces of real understanding, I feel lucky and privileged.

OK so this is not entirely about Spain. More to come.

***

I finished the book. Orwell's gift for language also extends to his ability to write so much in so few pages.

Back to Spain, where I started 2011. Some of the most beautiful views, captured more deeply in my memory than in these images:

Baoina, Galicia

After meeting Marine at CCL, the way we really connected was through our tiny Spanish class at the Union Française de Jeunesse, which I took seriously for quite some time. There was one point in Spain where I had to dig up my Spanish skills, just to communicate with the family. I imagined the possibility of applying to be a teaching assistant in Spain and now I'm wondering if that wouldn't have been a good choice. But that's not my journey right now. That is Rebecca's journey.

I also had imagined going to the Primavera Festival in Barcelona at the end of May, to see Pulp together on stage for the first time in 10 years. I had so many ideas of going back to Spain, after just one week of being there. Amazing how much can happen in one week. There was even a Korean girl there, and already then I was laying the foundation for the idea of teaching in Korea.

Irati told me about this farm, run by French people. I wanted to go there and help out over the summer too. Spain, why did I abandon you?