tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91788446645251815552024-02-07T17:31:59.475-08:00Cave MouthObservations about family life, aging, being a girl, being a mother, religion, art, sex, mortality, the usual.Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-30778935075509435522011-01-13T08:37:00.000-08:002020-03-21T00:05:34.670-07:00Bad Object: Bikini Girl<style>
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My mother kept two photographs of me tacked to her kitchen bulletin board throughout my years in college and graduate school. In one, I am twelve years old and have dressed up as a flapper in a real 1920s dress, black with maroon flower appliqués on the skirt and maroon lining that continued onto the very flapper, long narrow sash at the neck meant to tie in a bow at one shoulder and drape down the torso to the hip. The black velvet turban I am wearing is also period, having been worn by my maternal grandmother during that decade. An exaggerated cupid’s bow is my mouth. My legs are crossed coyly. I am a dead ringer for Clara Bow, but for the faux beauty mark I’ve penciled above my upper lip. In the other photograph, I am thirteen or fourteen, soaking wet on the front porch of the second house we lived in on Olive Avenue (the last house we occupied as an intact family). The <i>Saturday Night Fever</i> beach towel stretched triumphantly behind me I have taken to The Floral Plunge downtown near the recycling center every weekday for the entire summer for two summers running. The occasion is my sister’s eleventh or twelfth birthday party. Lanky and wrapped in her own towel Phen Trahn, my sister’s arch-nemesis and best friend is standing to one side and a little behind me laughing. (Phen and Sarah always competed for the highest test score. Tran won a little more often than Sarah.) I am wearing a brown bikini with tiger-like black stripes arranged in a triangle on each cup and in lightening bolts pointing toward or exploding outward from my hoo-ha on the briefs. My pose is triumphant, legs apart with one foot forward, knees slightly bent, hips thrust forward, arms raised above my head so that the iconic, Statue of Liberty pose of John Travolta hangs down behind me like the cape of a superhero. When each of these photos came back from being developed at the CVS Drugstore at the new Redlands Mall, I loved them. By the time I sent them away, I hated them. </div>
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I loved the photos because I looked good in them: pretty, well formed. They were just the sort of photo one’s female relatives would unselfconsciously tack to a bulletin board or frame in silver and display in the living room, and then to which direct the attention of visitors, those visitors politely opining that one is indeed a lovely girl. My mother-in-law’s house is full of photos of this type: herself and my daughters—big smiles on pretty faces, nice clothes on special occasions. (There is a single photo of me in my mother-in-law’s house—a wedding photo in which my hair is an elaborate Elizabethan up do studded with pearls and my gown is dark champagne with heavy white pearl beading. My makeup is perfect and I look as lovely as I’ve ever looked as an adult. In it, I weigh somewhere around 270 pounds, give or take 20, where I have hovered for at least one decade, maybe longer. I am fat in this photo. I’m pretty certain visitors are not encouraged to look at this photo. It is not one that is trotted out into the den, as I am not a show pony. As one of my husband’s childhood friends explained when I was complaining about always being sent out for office support jobs instead of office work jobs, “There are show ponies and there are work horses.” I took that negatively, but it now seems maybe I should have considered his comment more carefully: The receptionist and executive assistant does, after all, require “front office appearance.” Maybe the crushing dysmorphia I carried through my adolescence followed me into adulthood? Why do I even bother posing this as a question? Of course it did.</div>
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Hyper-compensation is one of the cruel ironies of dysmorphia. We bulimics, anorexics, disordered eaters, and food addicts are fashion-obsessed habitués of the cosmetics section of the drugstore (along with the diuretic, laxative, and purgative aisles). While we are certain that what we see in the mirror will send children screaming for their mothers, our costuming is perfect, our makeup worthy of Kevyn Aucoin. While I was on my knees in a pepto bismol pink bathroom sticking my fingers down my throat, friends were saying things like, “You’re so cute and shubby, Gordita,” “you look like a plus-sized model,” and the most damning, from the mother of a friend, “Your graduation portrait is lovely: the only thing wrong with this photo is you’re fat.” Underneath the perfect outfits, artfully coiffured hair and the carefully applied cosmetics is a little girl who knows she has to work harder at it just to be presentable, or in the best case, ignored. (As a chunky adolescent, being ignored is better than the boys’ moo-ing at you in the junior high hallways. Being invisible is preferable to pretending you don’t hear people calling “Hey, Romeo Void!” or calling you “thunder thighs” or “fat bitch.”)</div>
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Dear friend, Amelia recommended Ann Patchett’s <i>Truth and Beauty-- </i>the story of Ann Patchett's friend, the poet Lucy Grealy, whose face was the subject of her own book,<i> Autobiography of a Face</i>. Grealy suffered cancer as a child and wore the scars of chemotherapy and dozens of reconstructive surgeries as an adult. <i>Truth and Beauty</i> has obsessed me for the past couple of months. Usually when Amelia recommends a book, I order and read it promptly. Like a carbohydrate rich meal, this one loomed as both repellent and attractive. At least a year passed before I purchased it. At least another half year passed before I opened it. I read the first chapter and closed it for another couple of months. Then I took it to work when I started a new job—something to read in the lunchroom—and I was face down in a pile of… nutritious greens? Or is it chocolate? Particularly extraordinary, beyond the fact of Lucy Grealy’s life experience, is Patchett’s description of how dysmorphia works both ways. Patchett describes Grealy’s personals ad date with George Stephanopoulos, and the ego gratification Grealy enjoys in telling the story of the date. At a dinner party, Grealy tells the story and another writer asks if Stephanopoulos knew she was disfigured prior to their meeting. This question sucks the air from the room and from Grealy’s lungs. She runs from the room. </div>
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In that anecdote is a truth I recognize in myself: the dysmorphic indulge in believing they are just like everyone else, perhaps even attractive, or in my case, exceptionally attractive. How is this possible? Do we not have mirrors to look in? Do we not notice the size of our clothes when we pull them from the closet? Here is my theory: the same disconnection from reality that allowed me to function walking down the hallways from one class to another at Cope Junior High, allows me to focus only on my face in the mirror, to see only the outfit as I imagine it in my head (as opposed to how it looks on my body in the mirror), to filter through what people say or do not say and chose what makes me happy or least at peace. Here is another theory: it is the constructing of such worlds, actively piecing together a sustainable relationship to reality (which ultimately isn’t reality at all) that has fed my facility for imaginative thought. My self image is the product of three funhouse mirrors arranged as for a fitting area, reflecting back and forth, no single image accurate, or and here’s the scary part, no warped image is inaccurate because self image is, ultimately, something that only exists in our minds.</div>
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Further horror: I identify deeply, not with Ann Patchett, but with Lucy Grealy, and it’s not the MFA and the poet who petered out thing. It’s Grealy repeatedly asking, “Do you love me?” “Do you love me the most?” “Will I ever have sex again?” It’s the sex almost exclusively outside committed relationship because you have to take it where and when you can get it; you know what they say about beggars. It’s the endless search for who I am because believing something positive is so very fleeting and difficult. Because believing something damning is likewise unsustainable and ultimately defeating. Neither the worst case nor the best case is the truth: the truth is unstable, refracted across the faces of loved ones and strangers and my bathroom mirror then negotiated between all those perspectives before gathering into a smoky image that threatens to materialize as something substantive and focused only to implode on itself and disappear, replaced with the latest warm greeting or disapproving look of assessment.</div>
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It occurred to me that I should at least know what Lucy Grealy looked like before I claim any kind of emotional kinship. She looks far better than I expected. She had a pleasant face, a face that looks to have begun basically attractive and then became damaged some around the lower half. I claim no physical parity with her. She prided herself on her lean figure, her coltish legs, Patchett writes. Her relationship with food was torturous in its physicality, not emotionally; my tortured relationship with food is mostly joyous lately and began and remains a problem rooted in psychology more than in any difficulty in merely swallowing. I have no problem swallowing food in great quantities. In fairness to Grealy, I suspect she would rather have died than be fat. She made a point of being thin and muscular. There is no mention of her ever believing that when people fall in love they fall in love with the person, not the body. That is a bromide people who are fundamentally attractive like to believe about themselves, so that they have some confirmation that the gifts offered to them have some origin in the attractive party’s quality as a human being, rather than as an object. (Tell the pretty girls they’re smart and the smart ones they’re pretty.) Lucy Grealy probably knew very well that “will I ever have sex again?” was a legitimate question. I would caution that while the answer is “yes, of course,” it is the circumstances under which the marginally attractive copulate that are the bitch.</div>
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When I was newly bulimic and attending junior high school, I went to the multiplex at the Carousel Mall in San Bernardino with Brian and Monica, and Brian’s parents/my godparents Nancy and Phil to see <i>The Elephant Man</i>. It remains one of my favorite movies. The stage play also remains one of my favorites. For the next decade, whenever I needed a good cry, I watched <i>The Elephant Man</i>. Do I identify with John Merrick? Of course. Who doesn’t? What kind of person does not carry some kind of damage that makes him fear he is ultimately unworthy of love? Or too damaged to accept love when it is offered? Or too self-involved to be of any use to anyone who might attempt to love us? When asked why it is one of my favorite movies, I used to talk about canted angles, subjective film making, fine performances, beautiful cinematography. Yeah, that’s all true; <i>The Elephant Man</i> is movie making of the highest order, but the reason I weep like a penitent pretty much from the opening scene on is that I feel John Merrick’s pain. (And yes, I’m aware of how melodramatic and self-indulgent that sounds.) Deep down, some of us are freaks whether or not others can see the evidence of our criminally malformed souls and bodies. <i>One of us, one of us . . . </i></div>
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People like Lucy Grealy (and me) who genuinely have a defect are excluded from the diagnosis of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) put forth in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, that is to say, part of the diagnosis for BDD is that the perceived disfigurement is merely perceived and not actual. When visiting a therapist, Lucy Grealy would likely have been excluded from the diagnosis as she did, in fact, have a facial deformity. Likewise, people like me, who are genuinely fat, fall under some other rubric of mental illness when presenting with BDD symptoms. Nonetheless, being me being fat trying to figure out who I am and what I look like in the world of other people feels crazy. <i>Truth and Beauty</i> in many ways points to a similar crazy in Lucy Grealy. Further, when I read through the list of symptoms, that crazy person sounds an awful lot like someone I hold dear: me. (I wonder if the advice psychologists are supposed to offer us freaks is similar to that my mother offered me. Do they lean forward and offer in kinder words, <i>stop being a freak</i>?)</div>
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Back to the photographs: when I sent the photographs away, I did so in response to a question posed by my mentor: <i>Did I remember or know what I look like thin?</i> After age 14, I never again looked the same size as my skinny peers. These two photographs were iconic in my household as the best evidence of what I could have been—a person whose non-existence my mother mourned, hoped for, and tried in her own adolescent way to encourage into being (the advice “just stop eating,” a Venus De Milo membership as my 14<sup>th</sup> birthday present, a refusal to buy “nice clothes” until I reached my goal weight, the frantically tearful pronouncement that I had ruined the beautiful body she had given me). Sending the photographs away in the mail purged them from my mother’s house. I probably wanted to purge them from my mother’s psyche and my own. By my early twenties, I was determined to prove that the person I was, whomever she might be, was lovable. (How could my mother love me, if she were still mourning the girl she didn’t have?) Tucked into a letter that likely contained many other less interesting observations, the photographs traveled along Interstate 10 from Redlands to Pasadena, arriving at the home of my professor like so much weapons grade plutonium—what else could a photograph of a bikini clad, 13 year old girl mean to a college professor? Needless to say, it is highly likely that the photographs no longer exist.</div>
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Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-86429071994651332952010-12-03T06:13:00.000-08:002010-12-03T06:13:40.807-08:00Bad Object: Musings from the Periphery of Femininity<style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp5sjJSvz9doGI9D5zuLm5Tr2H8zUsp45TTmZQZfPMJLVYFJWjkBn2fK61puxmyTnKUoh6M3gl4HTKj62w9u50EfFZIb3oDtFHGbfXyVYL5_5alJXjfBp-MfWk8IcDXKNLX0vADFuRK6A/s1600/flag-boobs-touch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp5sjJSvz9doGI9D5zuLm5Tr2H8zUsp45TTmZQZfPMJLVYFJWjkBn2fK61puxmyTnKUoh6M3gl4HTKj62w9u50EfFZIb3oDtFHGbfXyVYL5_5alJXjfBp-MfWk8IcDXKNLX0vADFuRK6A/s320/flag-boobs-touch.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">I have been a bad object for as long as I have wanted to be a good object. During my preschool years, my sister and I spent a lot of time with the sons of our mother’s best friend at the time. The eldest boy was obviously smitten with my little sister who was closer to his age. I asked him if he thought I was pretty too. He considered my question and after a while answered, “You have a better personality. Sarah is prettier.” (I know, I know, but these are the children of college professors; that is the way he spoke.) A half-decade later, my godfather confided that he would much rather be me than my sister, implying that the benefits of intelligence outstrip the fleeting and superficial magic of beauty. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwf8Zk9y7t52Xzl_ltMJIaMtq3PfUlavsBw-sVOHUAssbc-9YaytPxEKvCtxsywtjAnRr3ljkjVpStKzzTFqnrGJSXOEOxrXSkpmsKmJhDygUDSAQgovtLzIuLVoDLaArHsmfWjEoS9DY/s1600/plusGirlsDove.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwf8Zk9y7t52Xzl_ltMJIaMtq3PfUlavsBw-sVOHUAssbc-9YaytPxEKvCtxsywtjAnRr3ljkjVpStKzzTFqnrGJSXOEOxrXSkpmsKmJhDygUDSAQgovtLzIuLVoDLaArHsmfWjEoS9DY/s320/plusGirlsDove.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>As an early teen, my best friend Dayle and I spent a fair amount of time with a boy who was 18, an orphan who lived in a garage conversion and had his own car—paltry solace offered in part from a sympathetic aunt and the Social Security Benefits due orphans. While Dayle and I looked nothing alike, we were a fair match on the continuum of beauty for a couple of years when I could still be considered thick, as opposed to chunky. Where I was thick, she was plainer of face. Her hair was a beautiful natural red, but it was thin and lank. My hair was thick and full, but medium brown of no distinction. She was petite with huge boobs. My boobs were huge too, but I was curvy from head to toe, solid, while Dayle was waifish. She was not skinny, but there wasn’t an ounce on her body to spare. I, on the other hand, well, I had not completely puffed up, but you could see it coming—clearly I would either grow 3 inches taller or grow up to be the plumpling I am. The 18 year old was in love with Dayle, and there was nothing I could do about it.<span id="goog_1231663087"></span><span id="goog_1231663088"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga6LiLAg6umsHh0TTaGcrEHDktsYqI0Fep46oveyIvcLplJ1mXKnKF5Ec65OQB_FkD9RWE_4zHGnUm8wCWB9eczViB_6IKZYYl6HTQ5ihXPseJcs0uefms0jNlN0_h8dsITGNcHwspQqk/s1600/biggals.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga6LiLAg6umsHh0TTaGcrEHDktsYqI0Fep46oveyIvcLplJ1mXKnKF5Ec65OQB_FkD9RWE_4zHGnUm8wCWB9eczViB_6IKZYYl6HTQ5ihXPseJcs0uefms0jNlN0_h8dsITGNcHwspQqk/s320/biggals.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
As we aged, Mike had the hots for Dayle, too. Tom wanted Dayle. Keith, the blond guy we met at Pizza Chalet wanted Dayle. Everyone wanted Dayle. Hell, sometimes I wanted Dayle. Some of the guys who wanted Dayle figured out that they would have more undisturbed time with Dayle if they brought along a homely friend for me. Why homely? I don’t know, except that perhaps I have hugely over-estimated my success at being a good object at that time. The friend proffered for my consumption was invariably not only a little chunky, like me, but also, not particularly attractive as a person—neurotic, creepily shy, or damaged in ways that paled to my own. Perhaps I have also underestimated my own damage and its obviousness to others. Maybe what others saw in me was more accurate than the person I saw when I looked inward. But, then I think about the damage my girlfriends carried during those years and know that I was no more or less damaged than any of them. The theory that damage is unattractive just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. In fact, the girls with the most serious afflictions were often the girls who had boys lined up anxiously awaiting their turn. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ9eFJxVkWR1i2i17LYAInD8oCgEkaxrLz9KNPl3vxWfkqmAc7TzOTxe3pVtyuLVjixWvOkrKh7L47tsIMnQSYNp7Zdijvw7-8eNIPb_UTVPtcdApiz_P7W6effLdIDdUM1pagQJy4HbM/s1600/Rennpluscov1%2528C%2529--300x450.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ9eFJxVkWR1i2i17LYAInD8oCgEkaxrLz9KNPl3vxWfkqmAc7TzOTxe3pVtyuLVjixWvOkrKh7L47tsIMnQSYNp7Zdijvw7-8eNIPb_UTVPtcdApiz_P7W6effLdIDdUM1pagQJy4HbM/s400/Rennpluscov1%2528C%2529--300x450.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>The more vulnerable the girl, the more likely the boys were to pursue her, damaged or not. I was not vulnerable. There was nothing soft or inviting about my personality. I made few concessions to modulating my personality for the comfort of male companions. I want to say that my body may have been soft, but my heart was hard, even at 14 years old. However that isn’t the full truth. I wanted desperately to be wanted, cherished, consumed, devoured, swept away, taken, held rapturously in the embrace of physical and emotional symbiosis. What I was not was accommodating. I did not and did not understand <i>how to</i> conform my behavior or appearance to the narrow bandwidth in which women are supposed to exist. I was a bad object.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Costuming was a problem. Also, I couldn’t get the makeup right. In eighth grade, my mother said I looked like a whore, but before I started wearing the full face of makeup my friends encouraged, they had said I looked too innocent, too much like a little girl with tinted lip balm on a clean face atop fashions my mother helped me select for their timelessness and the tastefully demure impression they were supposed to impart. By the end of junior high, no one commented anymore. The complaints from all quarters died down as I reached a sort of homeostasis. One friend admiringly opined that I looked like a plus size model. High praise that, but not what I wanted to hear. Plus sized models were freaks, freaks no one wanted to make out with in high school where I was headed. I had finally gotten it right: I fit snugly into a cultural role, but it was one that wouldn’t get me the results I wanted. Teen aged boys aren’t interested in plus sized models. Very few full grown men are interested in plus sized models. I had managed to fail upward, but I was still failing. More than costuming and cosmetics, the problem, clearly, was my body. My body was wrong. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXCjf7LAaT5dZDCjj_XLhoG1Lj8s2ZyXza4AIVhFZoYY95XAmxAl9i4iFz5jnzUU4HBrWxmJPSuGM0PsgGJvHd87vg6Au_GzbRy6knlDfle4iW2dbbFFV31W_-i_D-Le0eeMgLmd58cvM/s1600/too-much-makeup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXCjf7LAaT5dZDCjj_XLhoG1Lj8s2ZyXza4AIVhFZoYY95XAmxAl9i4iFz5jnzUU4HBrWxmJPSuGM0PsgGJvHd87vg6Au_GzbRy6knlDfle4iW2dbbFFV31W_-i_D-Le0eeMgLmd58cvM/s1600/too-much-makeup.jpg" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Unfortunately, even then, I knew that the bodies of all women are wrong. None of us could be skinny enough. None of us could have breasts large enough, and if they were large, they weren’t pretty enough. None of us could have buttocks free of cellulite and fill out a pair of jeans nicely. None of us smelled like summer fields of newly mown grass. We looked like normal girls with pussies that smelled like pussies.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5cCAvqCid1-TGJ6lHAWAAbI79OaTJxIJvEl1Uh2jkrJOsozYpSsvuYI2XjcFkYIBECOJK9KGndSs3xDVhKOQV2kEtQoowT5tFXL0d3JtbpDF2AsCXfi7ARERMQNsoa6B5sJb4bPKnTwg/s1600/goth-girls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5cCAvqCid1-TGJ6lHAWAAbI79OaTJxIJvEl1Uh2jkrJOsozYpSsvuYI2XjcFkYIBECOJK9KGndSs3xDVhKOQV2kEtQoowT5tFXL0d3JtbpDF2AsCXfi7ARERMQNsoa6B5sJb4bPKnTwg/s640/goth-girls.jpg" width="467" /></a></div>That knowledge made it easy to say, “Fuck it” and become a punk rocker. My friend Laurie cut off all my permed curls in the lounge of our alternative and experimental education program one high school afternoon. When I came home, my mother cried, “You’ve ruined yourself!” Apparently, plus sized model had been good enough for her. Teen aged boys aren’t particularly interested in Goth queens either, but the power inherent in being vaguely intimidating can be more intoxicating than the power inherent in being desired, especially when being desired is a rare occurrence and being intimidating can be a comforting and consoling constant.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQR7n7u-5TsmN4r3cHtQezCgL0wj_Bj4_c1ChzVzKVPdbiTNcE3FIO-Fb5nFDeRjb9G577FwQwRWfvG5dMQBAT0UqW2CNYe9vip02xMOwOQvANSkSEsuVIM0YwKyPd_MusPytNxTkhXU4/s1600/fat-goth-girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQR7n7u-5TsmN4r3cHtQezCgL0wj_Bj4_c1ChzVzKVPdbiTNcE3FIO-Fb5nFDeRjb9G577FwQwRWfvG5dMQBAT0UqW2CNYe9vip02xMOwOQvANSkSEsuVIM0YwKyPd_MusPytNxTkhXU4/s320/fat-goth-girl.jpg" width="320" /></a><i>Ruin</i> is an interesting concept in the world of the failed object. Existing in the narrow bandwidth of culturally acceptable female self-presentation often means (or meant in the early ‘80s) avoiding looking or acting like a bad woman, a slut, a whore, a woman unsure of her own worth. Conform because the person you emerged from childhood being is incorrect, but be confident in the new person you present, even though she is, at best, a sock puppet with yarn hair and smeared pink lipstick hastily pulled on when the rules changed. I was already “ruined” in my own mind at 13 because the person I knew as myself was inadequate. However, I was not yet “ruined” in my mother’s mind because I was a virgin and was still presenting the scrubbed face, soft curls, and daintily dressed girl child she felt was appropriate to my age. No one was sophisticated enough at the time to emphasize the only socially and personally useful concept lurking underneath all of these rules: self worth.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG1FLaELqfqxYNVPrU000boKFT-KAc0jmCrGIaew2o9P_pE-Oe4fR4Lbb-9Hr7XgJlkXXJOitzrS9QdQ9hjw1mTKoQQ6tWlgVKNts-sBezn_YP_DHPAO1Ofece8Z49LEjKA5F7wkLMOMs/s1600/gothgirlandcowboy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG1FLaELqfqxYNVPrU000boKFT-KAc0jmCrGIaew2o9P_pE-Oe4fR4Lbb-9Hr7XgJlkXXJOitzrS9QdQ9hjw1mTKoQQ6tWlgVKNts-sBezn_YP_DHPAO1Ofece8Z49LEjKA5F7wkLMOMs/s320/gothgirlandcowboy.jpg" width="255" /></a></div>My godfather tried to explain the connection between self worth and sexuality through stories: When he would go on leave in the Army, he and his friends would always try to find the ugly girls so they could score easily. Before that, playing on the rooftops in Brooklyn, he and his cousin would play with the boobs of a neighborhood girl who, amazingly, would let them. And this signaled an insecurity in her that they exploited. He felt bad about that looking back. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The combination of demeanor and costuming that signals self worth has escaped me in every context save church and office, where the uniforms are easy to mimic. <i>Demeanor</i> I’ll have to get back to you on…still working on figuring out how to be sexual but not desperate, how to desire and still invite desiring. Sort of. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBKTHoVRh3wWnAQslX7h-YVHMWYQR11-_PZCuHeLZRn0jwdiuRgOxXbu71ODEilgsWfMhtRpx3-1S8RLNMrydLN7KUQYUIC9QoWTcsWK_TdKQn47FiVRMCUobIgXT7zvkHbAVF8LTJrs/s1600/hot-goth-girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>I do want to be “diminished” by the ogling stares of strangers. When I was 13 or 14, I had a French terry cloth shorts set in a coral-tinged pink. The cloth clung to my body. The t-shirt had a deep neckline, and the shorts were short. I would change into this outfit after school and mount my new ten-speed to ride down Olive Avenue to the construction sites just before Teracina Street. I sat up straight as I pedaled past the construction site. The workers whistled appreciatively. I went back again and again. I was a good object in that moment: They wanted to fuck me. Unfortunately, I knew enough to know there was something wrong with full grown men who wanted to fuck 13 year old girls, even if the 13 year old in question could pass for 20 in the right light, with enough atmospheric perspective to blur her still baby face. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBKTHoVRh3wWnAQslX7h-YVHMWYQR11-_PZCuHeLZRn0jwdiuRgOxXbu71ODEilgsWfMhtRpx3-1S8RLNMrydLN7KUQYUIC9QoWTcsWK_TdKQn47FiVRMCUobIgXT7zvkHbAVF8LTJrs/s1600/hot-goth-girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBKTHoVRh3wWnAQslX7h-YVHMWYQR11-_PZCuHeLZRn0jwdiuRgOxXbu71ODEilgsWfMhtRpx3-1S8RLNMrydLN7KUQYUIC9QoWTcsWK_TdKQn47FiVRMCUobIgXT7zvkHbAVF8LTJrs/s400/hot-goth-girl.jpg" width="286" /></a></div>That self-consciousness is part of being a bad object. Consciousness of one’s attractiveness, of others’ reaction to one’s attractiveness, of the larger cultural context of attraction and desire is fundamentally counter to being a good object. <i>Guilelessness</i> is what is needed. Guilelessness is one of the reasons some people go searching for “barely legal” porn or purchase “schoolgirl” costumes for their female sex partners.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
The passive role of desired object is hard to get right. Apparently I’m supposed to be desired while not being degraded by said desire. Everyone should want to fuck me, but no one dare? No that’s the domina. She exists outside these petty rules. Everyone should want to sleep with me, but it should be clear that I am not available? That’s the good churchwoman or wife and mother. That may be the age appropriate role for me now, but it’s kind of boring. Everyone should want to fuck me, but be a little bit unsure of whether or not they would meet my demanding expectations? That’s closer, but not quite it. Be fuckable, but unfucked? Closer still, but still not quite capturing the complete picture. Desired without being complicated by one’s own desire. Lacking guile. Lacking the intellectual means to purposefully inspire lust. One’s attractiveness must be accidental, instinctual, untested.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1dW1kHsP2oQmwAGK_lyOEAm3vX9mbYmjitQzF8qsiIKr_EuTnSC49fRbs7VeM_lmz-CoObEXMSXm9cJFma4Ao1Viw7eBtWu0PTUtIFqVG_ZoEJzIC5s6b1F3tvtx1wAqpgBXTRDBEbsk/s1600/drunkgoth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1dW1kHsP2oQmwAGK_lyOEAm3vX9mbYmjitQzF8qsiIKr_EuTnSC49fRbs7VeM_lmz-CoObEXMSXm9cJFma4Ao1Viw7eBtWu0PTUtIFqVG_ZoEJzIC5s6b1F3tvtx1wAqpgBXTRDBEbsk/s1600/drunkgoth.jpg" /></a></div>I left high school convinced that the world of admiring suitors was not one with which I would have any familiarity. When I turned 18, I got my first tattoo, a black heart with a dagger through it. I was hard hearted. Cynical. I assumed that whatever was going on with the hearts of others wasn’t something in which I was going to be able to participate. I assumed I would be able to fuck other similarly desperate and/or disaffected souls. I went to parties dressed to amuse myself and with no illusions about being able to hookup. It just simply wasn’t going to happen. Sometimes I flirted aggressively, knowing that my overtures were easy to dismiss at best and frightening at worst. I bludgeoned the man-children around me with an adult sexuality born of an encyclopedic familiarity with Penthouse letters. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>With almost no real experience, I went years without so much as kissing another person. Then when my need outweighed the shame inherent in possibly failing, I would get as drunk as I needed to be and find someone, anyone. I now know that this pattern of behavior is similar to that of some closeted or uncomfortable gay men, which may explain my deep affinity with gay men. Gay men get me in ways straight men never will. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_L8qod6j0dyCnjtmtBTv1wdI4KvKS3E4WnPYnyk5gykklCMJEwDd0DRy_Ubu9shGXvNHQeHwq2gQBZNfPTlLtchMJaycaZma1Lp1tIllWBZEe5dclQGre8HszMfXQPc-_eq5bwCqNFkA/s1600/John-Waters-Divine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_L8qod6j0dyCnjtmtBTv1wdI4KvKS3E4WnPYnyk5gykklCMJEwDd0DRy_Ubu9shGXvNHQeHwq2gQBZNfPTlLtchMJaycaZma1Lp1tIllWBZEe5dclQGre8HszMfXQPc-_eq5bwCqNFkA/s400/John-Waters-Divine.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>The getting has something to do with understanding what it is to be deeply, desperately sexual and not be able to effectively deploy that sexuality in the world with any hope of receiving the approval of others. (Undesirable women who have the nerve to still desire reap the rage of men. Our existence is cause for anger. I can piss men off sitting still reading a book, perhaps the more so for having a dim glimmer of what I could be if: If I wore the right clothes, if I lost fifty pounds, if I bothered to wear more than lipstick, if I were younger, if I were myself skinny, dressed by a stylist, and twenty years younger. Otherwise, I am easily ignored. Otherwise, I am invisible.) The getting of me by gay men also has something to do with a particular bearing born of a need for dignity despite the indignities of unmet desire. All of which is to say, John Waters would worship me. David Sedaris might be deeply fond of me; John Wayne would find me distasteful were he alive to pass judgment.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnTGohvGB_fU5ruYzTqXWj05zxw8uqSW-jJhmtYJpL2ZbYPxMg4oxGD5j22TNbinYsQl6x4t5Xw2XLx8pCmaK_hhvNjui9j7lLHpBOITz0n6CNNpJh-uaXFrLobXTy5dDtCZmmPOEgtBM/s1600/Domina_Darla_Kincaid_lg_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnTGohvGB_fU5ruYzTqXWj05zxw8uqSW-jJhmtYJpL2ZbYPxMg4oxGD5j22TNbinYsQl6x4t5Xw2XLx8pCmaK_hhvNjui9j7lLHpBOITz0n6CNNpJh-uaXFrLobXTy5dDtCZmmPOEgtBM/s320/Domina_Darla_Kincaid_lg_01.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Being a good object ripples across a woman’s entire life, not just her sex life. Being a good object is a moral imperative. Consider those good Christian ladies for whom appropriate clothing, hair, makeup and deportment are part of what it means to be a good Christian lady. For these women, it is important to be desired by not only one’s own husband (which, let’s face it, is shooting ducks in a barrel), but to be desired by most men. Being mildly desired is part of being pleasant and of good cheer. The unstated, and probably unacknowledged, goal is to be desired by all the men at the Knights of Columbus hall, and at the same time put forward the impression that none dare ask. Desired, but unsulliable. Hence the deliciousness of stories like the Marquis’ “Justine.” Hence the anger, playful and good-natured or not, behind such stories and fantasies. The underlying theme being, <i>Oh come on, lady, you know you want it.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">[Note: Beloved said that paragraph gives him pause because that underlying theme is part of the thinking that justifies rape. Yes, it is, but it is also why men have rage about or toward bad objects: all women are responsible for the lust or lack thereof we inspire in others. How we are perceived is our fault as is how people (male people usually) react to that perception. That slippage (being responsible for the reactions/actions of others) is one of the sources of the complexity of BDSM relationships. Who is in power if the passive object is responsible for the psychological state and physical responses of the active subject?]</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ-3goNlbHn5WMmgOX2rKcaNpmJxxgUAlkrhTpo7tGLIwQrIQyD-6szajxIXwUkvtwq7g_uW_04RTu-YlUCdv12rdsy1FfJe8pWYVUMV8HV_NdawhHxLTF4FQbjxL0UICuXQXRE-GApwE/s1600/Magritte_The_Rape_1934.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ-3goNlbHn5WMmgOX2rKcaNpmJxxgUAlkrhTpo7tGLIwQrIQyD-6szajxIXwUkvtwq7g_uW_04RTu-YlUCdv12rdsy1FfJe8pWYVUMV8HV_NdawhHxLTF4FQbjxL0UICuXQXRE-GApwE/s640/Magritte_The_Rape_1934.jpg" width="475" /></a></div>The imperative that we be good objects and at the same time "not want it," while processing the anger of men over whether we have succeeded or failed (both equally occasions for anger and/or resentment) is a double bind that made me miserable as a young teen. As an adult, playing with that anger consciously is deliciously fun in multiple contexts.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Being a good and moral object means making an effort to conform to societal norms of beauty, but not slipping into the dangerous and threatening waters of the seductive or in any way erotic. When I was a couple of years out from starting my period, my mother was anxious that I style my hair and wear some lipstick before leaving the house. Dark eye makeup and red lipstick, however, made her even more anxious.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Aha!</i> you say, <i>what about the MILF?</i> Thinking naively that you have unraveled my brilliant analysis of beauty bondage. <i>Oh please, get over yourself</i>, I counter. <i>I have spent more time obsessing about this than you have spent in lifetime aggregate styling your hair.</i> The MILF falls under the cleansing male ownership of a husband, and is therefore not sullied. The MILF is not a young single mother in the popular imagination. In the popular imagination the MILF is a middle-aged, married woman of some civic and moral standing in the community. She is the MILF, not that whore who lives up around the corner with her husband. She is the MILF, not that hot piece of ass with the kid. She is the MILF, not my friend with the toddler. MILF is other: she exists in relation to the friends of her own children (and perhaps some of her husband's friends) but the term originated with adolescent boys owning up to their fantasies about some of the mothers in the neighborhood. The MILF is wholesome in her fuckability. It is precisely her lack of overt sexuality that is so titillating. Her tight jeans are accidentally delicious. Her big breasts got that way the old fashioned way, breastfeeding. Her subtle use of cosmetics and carefully pleasant while not the least bit purposefully seductive dress place her in the middle-aged section of the neighborhood occupied by the bespectacled hot nerd girl, who likewise is accidentally hot.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5kkHqFazdHNbFTbNHjKaE2jLDDuVmuAhWkSuLY4z5NxmIiXVa0GodWPHDENV0CPKI-3e02ZqphZt83ydy3ple5tAhxKl79g99wG521C3k5hMdn8b1RD6A2XblXq63AhiOnxNpCuMJX4g/s1600/Goth+Girl_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5kkHqFazdHNbFTbNHjKaE2jLDDuVmuAhWkSuLY4z5NxmIiXVa0GodWPHDENV0CPKI-3e02ZqphZt83ydy3ple5tAhxKl79g99wG521C3k5hMdn8b1RD6A2XblXq63AhiOnxNpCuMJX4g/s400/Goth+Girl_1.jpg" width="322" /></a></div>The bespectacled hot nerd girl has a hot bod, but it’s hidden under baggy and practical clothes. Her face is beautiful, but without any makeup it’s hard to distinguish her among her more colorful twenty- and thirty-something peers. She identifies as a mind primarily and does not conceive of herself as particularly attractive. Popular mythology says she’s a ravenous sex fiend when you coax her into relaxing enough to show you the tigress inside her. Her emergence as a popular icon, I would argue, coincides with the emergence of raunch culture. As it has become acceptable in some circles for young women to wear T-shirts proclaiming “Slut” and “Porn Star,” that is, as it has become acceptable for young women to admit sexuality and sexual longing, the hot nerd takes the stage. This is progress, but the hot nerd is still responsible for the actions and reactions of others in ways she shouldn’t be, and her hotness is partly due to her lack of guile. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When I was in school there was much discussion of “rape culture.” I don’t dispute the prevalence of “rape culture,” but I have problems with any political or philosophical rubric in which I cannot, in Trent Reznor’s words, “fuck like an animal” or be fucked like an animal. Nine Inch Nails’ song “Closer” received more tsking and headshaking than it should have back in the ‘90s. The psychological complexity of the song was lost on many. I like to fuck. Five years from now when I am fifty, I expect will continue to enjoy fucking. I am not anti-sex, and want to stress that to question rigid definitions of attractiveness and gender roles is a position far from anti-sex. Rather, I am planting a flag of conquest for all the aging women of questionable attractiveness who nonetheless enjoy a sound rogering, a vigorous fuck, an active sex life. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-85226528398781517862010-10-14T11:30:00.000-07:002010-10-15T07:34:50.227-07:00Cracker Barrel: Love Thy Neighbor?<style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh6o07S8g2d4MDJNmur5q5Ve7oEwMX2zVAzoMje0duDBG8jE7G_bwb3UEg0Llmbj0Qp-gvQo77G2c_6_hYr329tIzmboHdC-meLLB5MwtGK41dZGSTNr4RYgF300fSVjkSE3ko5rZX2bE/s1600/CrackerBarrelPuzzle_lg1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh6o07S8g2d4MDJNmur5q5Ve7oEwMX2zVAzoMje0duDBG8jE7G_bwb3UEg0Llmbj0Qp-gvQo77G2c_6_hYr329tIzmboHdC-meLLB5MwtGK41dZGSTNr4RYgF300fSVjkSE3ko5rZX2bE/s200/CrackerBarrelPuzzle_lg1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Many years ago, I watched <i>Out in America,</i> an HBO documentary including the profiles of a cold call stockbroker whose coworkers painted a Jolly Roger on the hood of his black sports car, and a woman working in the kitchen of a Cracker Barrel in some backwater state—I want to say Alabama, but it could have been Mississippi or any of those other southern states whose public image is indelibly linked to images of children grinning under the mangled and lifeless guest of honor at a lynching or photos of the car in which civil rights activists were last seen alive. The third profile was of a man who lived in some similar backwater who was murdered because he asked the wrong man for a date. His friends and relatives were interviewed one after the other, alongside a dirt road, in front of a two-pump gas station, or outside the bar in which the greatest number of people last saw the man alive.(http://www.andersongoldfilms.com/films/documentaries/oaw_au.htm) </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizyeO71XwB5ESixxOylDImVWvF5YL9h7o2lAwz1__Oyp2MkFHj_fK7qwp3YcCb8DvbQ0hcIPYHLz4lANDPderNeVj5-e8lzgiKf7TXlxoDlaQk9lIE0JRJBkcBeB8-Vb_FuM5CIO-iRUA/s1600/Indiana_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizyeO71XwB5ESixxOylDImVWvF5YL9h7o2lAwz1__Oyp2MkFHj_fK7qwp3YcCb8DvbQ0hcIPYHLz4lANDPderNeVj5-e8lzgiKf7TXlxoDlaQk9lIE0JRJBkcBeB8-Vb_FuM5CIO-iRUA/s320/Indiana_large.jpg" width="278" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">The woman worked for many years as a cook in the kitchen of a Cracker Barrel restaurant. She and her lover were raising a son who attended public school. Cracker Barrel corporate issued a memo delineating corporate policy that no employee of Cracker Barrel could be homosexual as the employee’s sexual orientation or “lifestyle choice” was not consistent with the public image of the corporation as a family friendly establishment. The woman figured the memo wasn’t about her; she didn’t interact with the public. She was back in the kitchen cooking. Her manager interpreted the corporate policy differently. She was terminated. She sued. During the lawsuit, her son suffered exactly the kind of bullying abuse at school one might expect. She eventually won her lawsuit. I like to think she took her money and moved north and coastal. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The documentary must have aired over a dozen years ago, but I haven’t forgotten it. And until recently, I had never eaten at a Cracker Barrel restaurant, despite many road trips on which a Cracker Barrel would have been a reasonable alternative to a steady diet of gas station snacks and Happy Meals.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Ro_gkVDPlqgES2g6ZfSYvj8ItFpQAL7NIT1f_ADwG5RbsKCsixTGleAMuMHldqsFeCEcKDGmu2qfBVhChPITfkzqmPqUkeHPpEnbaH16iGc943njlO3XK_LKn_3NFHVMl407X4wGfnY/s1600/TheseColorsDon'tRun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Ro_gkVDPlqgES2g6ZfSYvj8ItFpQAL7NIT1f_ADwG5RbsKCsixTGleAMuMHldqsFeCEcKDGmu2qfBVhChPITfkzqmPqUkeHPpEnbaH16iGc943njlO3XK_LKn_3NFHVMl407X4wGfnY/s320/TheseColorsDon'tRun.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Visiting Cracker Barrel was a socio-political experiment in expanding my cultural literacy as much as a dining experience, like ordering grits, fried green tomatoes or fried okra in the South. I live in Indiana. There are Cracker Barrels everywhere. This surprises me as much as seeing a Waffle Hut in downtown Los Angeles might. Or a rebel flag hung on the flagpole of a house in Province Town or Fire Island. Indiana was a Union state, and yet rural southern Indiana is dotted with houses whose front porches are hung with Confederate flags. <i>Paddle faster</i>, I think driving past them. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOi_nfQqOljtqv0zjfoWRyQtqdfwoHk_nCZf-RQX89zYPX6_tjeEpcwNg49SsCooaBZ3Ga31dj9IASM2iFFUTGkC_01OLcSBJe8oRPIIRSW0XizAbpChixXPGWBBduZH32TIrnepF_Ko/s1600/ObamaSignswerwr32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOi_nfQqOljtqv0zjfoWRyQtqdfwoHk_nCZf-RQX89zYPX6_tjeEpcwNg49SsCooaBZ3Ga31dj9IASM2iFFUTGkC_01OLcSBJe8oRPIIRSW0XizAbpChixXPGWBBduZH32TIrnepF_Ko/s400/ObamaSignswerwr32.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">A Confederate flag snapping in the Atlantic breeze above a house on Fire Island. Now, that’s an image! There is no way for anyone encountering such an image to not giggle a little at the incongruity. Like Lee Iacocca and Liz Taylor zipping around on Harleys, a Confederate flag on Fire Island would be ironic; it could be nothing else. It would be a smartass decoration for a hoedown-themed brunch or a wry attempt at annoying despicably self-satisfied and pretentious neighbors. No one in the real world of college degrees and gainful employment takes such things seriously, right? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">While watching Sunday Morning a few weeks ago, Beloved huffed in annoyance over the report that a majority of polled Americans do not support the Health Care Reform bill. The poll asked people whether they supported President Obama’s bill. A majority said they did not support the historic reform.<span> </span>However, of the majority, a large percentage believed the president didn’t push for enough reform: they believed he didn’t go far enough. The newscaster reporting this failed to mention the point that a majority are glad it passed and most of those people think the bill was watered down and should have done more, more not less, to piss off Republicans and corporate interests.<span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My beloved said, “This is exactly Bob Cesca’s point!” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-se-ptnxpp7dHjrhyphenhyphenIwmx5x2xsTTLKD-CQUd_JluCg_7XZ6U4SeWVfmLa1mk6AK_6xKBAWgE8ACqGRhIJLcYPkia10RzC8srZWSG53i5kA6-H9lYU25ylxyHUOe23Hn9rhTWkTy3k6C8/s1600/TeaPartyKlanad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-se-ptnxpp7dHjrhyphenhyphenIwmx5x2xsTTLKD-CQUd_JluCg_7XZ6U4SeWVfmLa1mk6AK_6xKBAWgE8ACqGRhIJLcYPkia10RzC8srZWSG53i5kA6-H9lYU25ylxyHUOe23Hn9rhTWkTy3k6C8/s200/TeaPartyKlanad.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Bob Cesca wrote in a recent blog post that America is a left of center country but has been convinced that it is something else. <span> </span>Cesca argues that various media and polls frame the political debate with the presupposition that to be liberal is to be un-American. The questions asked in polls skew the results that wind up in the news. Bob Cesca opined that what these polls really ought to ask is whether or not the poll participant is a “vaguely gay elitist who hates America.” I said, “Hey! I need that on a T-shirt!” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Despite-America-s-Temper-T-by-Bob-Cesca-100924-779.html </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Beloved said he’d look into getting me a t-shirt, and added, as he does often lately, that we really do live in two countries: one educated and urban, the other uneducated, disempowered and rural. Together, Beloved and I often marvel at the skill involved in convincing that other demographic that the Republican Party is actually on their side. The American Dream (anyone can make it, any Joe the Plumber can hit it rich if he works hard enough, prays hard enough, does what needs doing) is held before the workingman like a sad and withered carrot. Sad and withered!? Sad and withered?!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyHqUazOhW7ZE3SFLlZZsKKV5azpM2uStYTVIfGaOZX6Jwh4FHFDiGQ7XHpmiS_6QDPkHqZaDV5-HZSBpWRqKG8ltTGSQkWtDUuaEXNq9120VIgad_Pma32mAS_OTuZD72hmQ4WZ1sSn4/s1600/curiousgeorgbamashirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyHqUazOhW7ZE3SFLlZZsKKV5azpM2uStYTVIfGaOZX6Jwh4FHFDiGQ7XHpmiS_6QDPkHqZaDV5-HZSBpWRqKG8ltTGSQkWtDUuaEXNq9120VIgad_Pma32mAS_OTuZD72hmQ4WZ1sSn4/s320/curiousgeorgbamashirt.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Yeah. You heard me right. Sad and withered. Sure that stuff happens. People win the lottery. People settle out of court for undisclosed sums. People start with one corner shop and soon have twenty. Oh. Wait. Wal-Mart put all of those guys out of business. Ok, people start with one Taco Bell franchise and buy another and another until they own fifty. Sure. That stuff happens. Far off in the distance, and to someone else. In forty-five years on the planet, I’ve been acquainted with only one person who has gone from something to millionaire in a private jet. Notice he started as something, in this case, a dentist.<span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When’s the last time you heard of anyone going from the crap side of Anytown to Central Park East? (Rappers and rock stars don’t count. Athletes either. Why? What percentage of the American population are they? 2 percent? Less than half a percentage point?)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Most of us get as much education as we can (or as we can stand) and vie for the sweet job at the Wal-Mart distribution plant, with City or State government, UPS, Federal Express, the airport, a hospital, or Eli Lilly. That’s the list for central Indiana. Failing one of those, the service economy always needs wait staff and sales people. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz9_-iLLUL4G9cazC1A0fOhO0LGKzOjefQRt4C98zJnACjRngwikpHyWprXueZCNNUQWYDcNLRzLe_Tz5Cd4zcmp1SasaqzZwyJnGa7lV21AIlVBuuLo54kKy9D8D5GV7wIGgT9VQ2HWk/s1600/the-jerk-hd-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz9_-iLLUL4G9cazC1A0fOhO0LGKzOjefQRt4C98zJnACjRngwikpHyWprXueZCNNUQWYDcNLRzLe_Tz5Cd4zcmp1SasaqzZwyJnGa7lV21AIlVBuuLo54kKy9D8D5GV7wIGgT9VQ2HWk/s400/the-jerk-hd-.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Back to Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel is decorated nostalgically. The nostalgia is, apparently, for a rural “country” America of a long gone past: low country farm house architecture with a big front porch (like the one in the happy ending of the movie <i>The Jerk</i>), washboards and simple wooden board games (checkers and the golf tee game) that harken back to a time before the era of the high tech. There is no place for a computer in this decorating scheme. Admittedly cash registers are complex pieces of technology, but they don’t scream “digital age” the way an Apple desktop might. Inside the Cracker Barrel, even the registers are concealed behind board and batten siding like that one might find on the side of a barn. A small family farm barn, not the big corporate feedlots and dairy barns that comprise the majority of the beef and milk business nowadays.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBfEM67c7QkI__PK5hg7zVylBi27aA1wvQ84A_rT5I28vWY8382ZDn1XUcFhlXNlfL349clZIKiGRUSgyqdQJ4mSh-usHHri9wOvAmrptTAvBpmHlWAyuhh7du9wg9JOwtKkHClOBWb-w/s1600/BillGaither.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBfEM67c7QkI__PK5hg7zVylBi27aA1wvQ84A_rT5I28vWY8382ZDn1XUcFhlXNlfL349clZIKiGRUSgyqdQJ4mSh-usHHri9wOvAmrptTAvBpmHlWAyuhh7du9wg9JOwtKkHClOBWb-w/s1600/BillGaither.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">The gift shop portion of the store includes children’s clothing, candy, country wall décor and knick-knacks. A large display is devoted to novelty candy in packaging from the first half of the twentieth century. Cracker Barrel is Christian, not spiritual, nor does it cater to any other concept of God. Bill Gaither books and CDs are displayed for sale, as are Gaither-endorsed china platters and wall hangings. (The menu features Sunday Dinner specials.) Automobile parts—sparkplug boxes, cases of engine oil in early 20<sup>th</sup> century packaging are displayed in tasteful tableaux on the tops of shelving units in the country store. Cracker Barrel is agrarian: farmer’s popcorn still on the cob is offered for sale, the objets d’art offered are made of cornhusks or decorated with barnyard animals, milk cans of many colors and sizes are used as display receptacles for toy swords and princess wands. Note, though, that this is an imagined agrarian past of bucolic small family farms, not the squalor of subsistence that I would argue exists solely in Appalachia as the only remnant of family farming.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7x06xIypk3Pi-sSDhfpkg3NGP-SWUkrOkax_Ca5axlsSVX1uQia89KVgFQqP3A_GCVgIWG9MzKAyJ1vTVJJz_88WSYJl_clI8sKaMM8wJN6CU3jareI_rQtwLnXae1ypyInQEVUtp0uo/s1600/TheJerkFamilyPortrait.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7x06xIypk3Pi-sSDhfpkg3NGP-SWUkrOkax_Ca5axlsSVX1uQia89KVgFQqP3A_GCVgIWG9MzKAyJ1vTVJJz_88WSYJl_clI8sKaMM8wJN6CU3jareI_rQtwLnXae1ypyInQEVUtp0uo/s400/TheJerkFamilyPortrait.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Decorative wall hangings in the dining area include late 19<sup>th</sup> century portraits of ancestors one can only assume represent the glorious past now Gone with the Wind. (One, having grown up with a Southern mother, would be familiar with the complex set of associations such family objects carry.) Tin advertisement signs for cola and other products from the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, notably not Coca Cola, but brands that are either fictional or long defunct hang on the walls around diners. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Cracker Barrel is the antithesis of the digital age. <span> </span>Cracker Barrel is agrarian. Cracker Barrel is nostalgic for an America that existed at least 60 years ago, maybe longer. The oil lamps on the tables touted in a current billboard campaign along Interstate 65 come from a newly industrial America before electricity made it all the way out of the major cities. One of the wall hangings is a sign extolling rural electrification projects. Cracker Barrel imagines a world that is not urban, sophisticated, or by extension, liberal. If Cracker Barrel were a movie set, I would place the setting in the late 1920s and 1930s but the only set dressing that pushes Cracker Barrel further into the 20<sup>th</sup> century are the nostalgia candies for sale from several decades spanning the middle of the 20<sup>th</sup> century and the sign for rural electrification. Overall, this is an imagined rural community left behind, blissfully untouched by the complications and stresses of urbanity, technology, and an information age economy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5xZMZ3ITZvNRGfzP-dCT4-bZgXXGDmQu6VhISkpUtts_3n_raoJlkBu68GAlgIHxDct-GCFrLUt8a5Ml2xNKSfBNj9UQIt92Ibq_O17Iufp17pbK3d-RGhm56uso-Ze2Do_BHv7A8O9Q/s1600/keepfearalive1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5xZMZ3ITZvNRGfzP-dCT4-bZgXXGDmQu6VhISkpUtts_3n_raoJlkBu68GAlgIHxDct-GCFrLUt8a5Ml2xNKSfBNj9UQIt92Ibq_O17Iufp17pbK3d-RGhm56uso-Ze2Do_BHv7A8O9Q/s320/keepfearalive1.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Cracker Barrel must then serve as a salve and comfort to the masses who identify with this particular brand of Bible Belt hospitality. Somewhere in the meaning of what it is to enjoy dining at Cracker Barrel lays an explanation of why those living far from even the margins of any constituency that could be said to benefit from Republican policy would believe in the rhetoric of the Republican Party. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Policy is not rhetoric. I find it difficult to believe that Cracker Barrel types agree with Republican Policy except where it must coincide with the more craven race baiting and fear mongering rhetoric that wins elections. Is it fair to say that true blue ‘Mericans, <i>These Colors Don’t Run</i> types are vaguely racist and homophobic? Well . . . if we did a full mouth of teeth count among those Americans brandishing sock monkeys at political rallies . . . what would those poll numbers be? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Wait. Sorry. Disrespectful. All too easy for elitist Left Coast me who has always had access to dental care, if not dental insurance, to cast dispersions on those who haven't and don't. What I meant to say is maybe there's a statistical correlation between owning clothing with John Deere or NASCAR logos and having a neck that is slightly red? Sorry. Someone stop me! It's hard to summon compassion for people who frighten us . . . and maybe that's the point here.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What I meant to say was—maybe people who are overwhelmed by late capitalism with its lightning fast processing speeds, its global village of ideologies complicating homespun truths that were once so comforting, its Fox News with constant reminders of which people of color are most frightening this week, its Entertainment Tonight with those horrible drunken lesbian girls flashing their bits and pieces, its Negro Presidents, its fierce competition for good middle class jobs that have evaporated with the fall of the unions—maybe those good, honest, hardworking people who used to be guaranteed a certain place in the world because they and all their friends always had been guaranteed a steady job, a decent home, and a neighborhood school free of the kind of shenanigans going on in those crazy urban neighborhoods—maybe those honest, hardworking people aren’t getting their slice of the American Dream Pie anymore and they’re looking around for someone to blame. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX8HhyphenhyphenfY7ZUTzjmNUesAovQg57pHJiauWCzBgVmo5lkyy8okk8ftoPvd9fGxK4RIYmxDnaFj1t09B3nYlzkM3OpaC-PZ0O7mfpX0eF6qsVu7Xfl6NiOL7H1EJ7DMjUFpWeEUrTTGJTXRs/s1600/CrackerBarrel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX8HhyphenhyphenfY7ZUTzjmNUesAovQg57pHJiauWCzBgVmo5lkyy8okk8ftoPvd9fGxK4RIYmxDnaFj1t09B3nYlzkM3OpaC-PZ0O7mfpX0eF6qsVu7Xfl6NiOL7H1EJ7DMjUFpWeEUrTTGJTXRs/s400/CrackerBarrel.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Fox News is already telling them morning, noon and night. Glenn Beck will tell them where blame belongs. Rush Limbaugh will tell them. The PTL Club has been telling them for years. The Republican Party will give a wink and a smile while tapping its toes to the faint strains of banjo music. And when all of that noise gets too loud, they can retreat to a quiet Sunday Dinner at the local Cracker Barrel where they can imagine they live in a small rural town, far apart from the syncopated frenetic rhythms of the big city. They can sit in rocking chairs on a big front porch and smile beatifically at neighbors who are easy to love because they look and act so much like themselves. <span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-31613147390429620932010-10-05T06:49:00.000-07:002010-10-05T06:52:34.370-07:00While I've Been Away . . . Virtually<style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVVIfdXHOdopTYKFyieNyrErGyGRaupZq28AE43Wf1IDEp2ND8MKU-LtrIWVxI7SoLMCTkBmLH7hyphenhyphenOAMRO9S20nv3ux2q0AAcSgolfE9MpNL394cVNiGk199DuwqdsMD08_s9y_HYotwY/s1600/Darnassus.mpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVVIfdXHOdopTYKFyieNyrErGyGRaupZq28AE43Wf1IDEp2ND8MKU-LtrIWVxI7SoLMCTkBmLH7hyphenhyphenOAMRO9S20nv3ux2q0AAcSgolfE9MpNL394cVNiGk199DuwqdsMD08_s9y_HYotwY/s320/Darnassus.mpg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">While I’ve been away, I learned to play World of Warcraft, not very well (level 46 Night Elf, a level 10 Troll named GoatEater, and a level 7 Rogue named Wllndorf). My friend, Gamer taught me to play. Away from my friend’s taunting and frequent retorts of “Such a noob!” the snowy world of the rogue is a peacefully quiet, almost meditative environment. Doing quests and running dungeons with the elf is more visually stunning; Elune’s temple and the city of Darnassus are beautifully awash in the colors one associates with airbrushed renderings of Pegasus flying over rainbows, and being able to fly a Hippogryph over an animated ocean as the sun sets over ships docked at Teldrassil is a virtual experience that’s worth making it to level 20 (or maybe that was the prerequisite for getting a “mount”—mine a white saber tooth, which looks like a huge tiger). It is exactly this sort of slipshod attention to the details of the game that most annoys the gamer buddy who introduced me to the virtual world.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Gamer buddy thinks the details of the game lie in gear scores, one’s ability to remember that “stam buff” means Fortitude spell, knowing which characters are able to pick locks. Apparently it is important to have a guild because there are benefits associated with membership. So far, I have only been able to make use of the guild to the extent that I know whom to pair with for dungeon runs based on the guild membership list that includes character levels. (A 46 can’t be paired with an 80 in a random dungeon. No need for despair, Whobbs has offered his services as my tank!)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNCk2FYcr45UlXmwiXRJ_KkQ7dM4UUlyREDRn5vtZGPUkRv6uvHwpZPSa5C1yeiHRtzHMnexOi_XH-8URPSSXRPMhDqhT6GYNucF2zZjZOnq61hE4n28zk4DgovzxkPpTZ7wJXNQ2PYhM/s1600/auberdine_inn_darkshore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNCk2FYcr45UlXmwiXRJ_KkQ7dM4UUlyREDRn5vtZGPUkRv6uvHwpZPSa5C1yeiHRtzHMnexOi_XH-8URPSSXRPMhDqhT6GYNucF2zZjZOnq61hE4n28zk4DgovzxkPpTZ7wJXNQ2PYhM/s400/auberdine_inn_darkshore.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">One night on the docks of Darkshore, a level 80 Night Elf approached my friend and I and chatted us up. We ran a few quests, told a few jokes. My friend excused himself to run a raid, and I was left chatting with Kainis alone on the docks. We “friended” one another in the game. Soon after Kainis checked in with me whenever he saw I was “ingame.” Which was helpful. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">One of the pitfalls of being a “noob” is that finding your way back to the entrance of the dungeon (in which a fire monster, troll, or scarlet zombie monk has just smote you) can be next to impossible, especially if the charming man who has introduced you to the game fails to mention that the little torches leading away from the burial ground will take you directly back to the dungeon. Or maybe, I’m just too big a “lame fail noob tard” to have figured that one out on my own. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig-CA4TI5AOMV5WFsHaVzZ_ugT20I4Sl_EeK_30nsqncHojjt1WvyK94VtANgwVOcQJPqAhbH5ubQbEjcq4ecKWGfur1klgVktGDGX2XErFVzJ0aedCXnC9MbVJcL8P3-UYZQVFGL9D9k/s1600/spiritguideWoW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig-CA4TI5AOMV5WFsHaVzZ_ugT20I4Sl_EeK_30nsqncHojjt1WvyK94VtANgwVOcQJPqAhbH5ubQbEjcq4ecKWGfur1klgVktGDGX2XErFVzJ0aedCXnC9MbVJcL8P3-UYZQVFGL9D9k/s320/spiritguideWoW.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Kainis would frequently ask how I ended up in the middle of nowhere (since he could see my location on his friend list), and he would talk me back to the dungeon or the cemetery depending on how much I wanted to continue pretending I knew how to play. (From the cemetery a player can resurrect with the angel who hovers there, transport “home,” and be done with the dungeon run.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">One night I’m playing in a dungeon I’ve never been to before and whose burial ground is in the middle of some crazy desert landscape with cliffs, and I am so lost for so long that my dungeon mates have “kicked” me. Not only am I running around a desert full of monsters who want to kill me, but I have no one to ask for help because once the group “kicks” you, you can’t talk to them anymore. Out of nowhere Kainis messages me: “I see you’re in the middle of nowhere. What are you doing out there? Are you lost again?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Being the knightly dungeon master that he is, he offers to come to me and help me home. He does find me and leads our toons to the top of a cliff where the toons lie down beside one another and we proceed to talk about the sort of thing single men and women discuss when they find themselves alone under a desert sky atop a cliff. I confess: I talked dirty online with Kainis, which may or may not be his real or assumed name either in real life or in game. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvGd7g7y5tg0P6Qviox8YczzQQ21UMVo4AxB6gYin-67i-6k_Ax8Jtd8LcPUR4m2RniHVnYH6-08JNtcMEXEe5gXCC34n6bKecfeMB0k1GbAiB8n8VrmK3g47MyEurMpuy1l6UKMaVQxI/s1600/NightElfBloodElf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvGd7g7y5tg0P6Qviox8YczzQQ21UMVo4AxB6gYin-67i-6k_Ax8Jtd8LcPUR4m2RniHVnYH6-08JNtcMEXEe5gXCC34n6bKecfeMB0k1GbAiB8n8VrmK3g47MyEurMpuy1l6UKMaVQxI/s320/NightElfBloodElf.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"> “But wait!” you say. “You are not single and the night sky is not real. Further, you are not a night elf, nor are you six feet tall and weight maybe 140 pounds with a huge portion of your total weight being devoted to your gravity defying purple cleavage!”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Cognitive dissonance, I believe, may be the term we’re looking for here. It is and it isn’t. It’s real, but it’s not. It <i>feels</i> real, but it doesn’t <i>count</i> in the same way meeting the real man behind the toon, Kainis, at a hotel midday would <i>count</i>. Or does it?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This may be a quaint confession in the minds of some. Twenty years ago a friend confessed to me that he liked to call 900 number chat lines to masturbate while talking with women who he was fairly certain were middle-aged pros who could no longer support themselves on the street. In my mind, there is a parallel here—anonymity, assumed personas and pretend bodies (every penis huge, every woman beautiful), the gentleman’s agreement inherent in the zipless fuck (that agreement being continued anonymity and emotional detachment), the pay-to-play element of gaming and 900 numbers—and the parallel is unsavory. I couldn’t take communion the next day because the act of contrition in every mass just didn’t seem adequate to my sin. In my mind, I had been intimate with another man. My husband thought I was being silly. It’s nothing like actually being intimate, he said; it’s virtual. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy2_pB6Cphx1cGQG7bmb7WIBWDlBcUAEaMv2dF4SbJPFLrXGlLI-N62BKm6Twa7uZRocQuM63vZErq0qkkTuQsXC_wjPVwnjJzM2SN8GKYPDwL7hfbLrb2mnGQLQ8gA5sI5jhEyH885zo/s1600/900nurses-300x224.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy2_pB6Cphx1cGQG7bmb7WIBWDlBcUAEaMv2dF4SbJPFLrXGlLI-N62BKm6Twa7uZRocQuM63vZErq0qkkTuQsXC_wjPVwnjJzM2SN8GKYPDwL7hfbLrb2mnGQLQ8gA5sI5jhEyH885zo/s200/900nurses-300x224.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Virtual. But it <i>feels</i> real. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My trash-talking gamer friend talks trash on-line like an adolescent boy. Trash Talk, it seems, is the <i>lingua franca</i> of the gaming world, combining entries from The Urban Dictionary website with dozens style assignations. Gamer delighted himself with introducing “me” as “a top into chocolate sauce”—which is not anything you would want to be introduced as (unless your fetishes ran in that direction—think German <i>shitze</i> films, which I feel compelled to note I’ve never seen and in which I have no interest). My toon fell into the role of providing comic relief: My elf would ask, “Are we talking about ice cream? I prefer chocolate ice cream, no topping, or vanilla with fruit, but I’m really a savory foods person. I like my fat with salt, not sugar” to the virtual howls of my dungeon group. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ1gaRLG99egkZuIQFnb4E5f30XbnlrriOCAktKcRzUTn6q-sweZFxjm2S3PY_HiVAPXa606X5QZxu8t-Mfmjakn9lffExle7UfzxqKCdM7so5LWRs8muVLfTEjjxhQdOxTw4anj59Rlo/s1600/urban_dictionary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ1gaRLG99egkZuIQFnb4E5f30XbnlrriOCAktKcRzUTn6q-sweZFxjm2S3PY_HiVAPXa606X5QZxu8t-Mfmjakn9lffExle7UfzxqKCdM7so5LWRs8muVLfTEjjxhQdOxTw4anj59Rlo/s400/urban_dictionary.jpg" width="325" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">There are many things I’d never seen prior to entering the virtual world of gaming and gamers. The Internet certainly gets its freak on. Lemon Party, Goatse, and Tub Girl are iconic images of hardcore fetish the savvy send as links to noobs. The unsuspecting open the link and freak out, to the delight of the epic. Lemon Party didn’t freak me out—just seemed like a threesome of middle-aged men enjoying one another’s company naked. I have no judgments about Goatse, but I do worry for him; while it is his body, that can’t be healthy. Something about Tub Girl just doesn’t seem consensual, and that really bothers me, as does the dark video involving a man and a horse in Seattle. I sincerely hope the accompanying news stories are a hoax—otherwise, I have been unwittingly duped into watching a snuff film. My imagination, my sexuality, <i>I </i>don’t run anywhere near as dark as that stuff. If images leave the realm of the consensual and enter the realm of the tragic, I don’t want anything to do with them. Unfortunately, once you’ve seen something, you’ve seen something.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Have I <i>done</i> something though? How responsible am I for the feelings of the man lurking somewhere out there behind Kainis? Is it possible to hurt someone in the virtual world? Am I accountable for the promises my toon makes? I think the answer to all those questions is “YES, absolutely.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgenE9eV8u4tfim8YGudKfwgvK-kREnop0TL2LUgzxleFliEwRpMnHSd8yGuFKo8ZUFXqjbH5u95wNhRL9mJmaV7wGwdCCSk14R8FB5MDx7mhqHT6OjfZ5lS78WqKh-gwD9iU2nWC4H_8I/s1600/Angelina-Jolie-Hackers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgenE9eV8u4tfim8YGudKfwgvK-kREnop0TL2LUgzxleFliEwRpMnHSd8yGuFKo8ZUFXqjbH5u95wNhRL9mJmaV7wGwdCCSk14R8FB5MDx7mhqHT6OjfZ5lS78WqKh-gwD9iU2nWC4H_8I/s320/Angelina-Jolie-Hackers.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">My impression, though, is that many people would argue with me. They would say the lack of accountability is the point of the virtual world. They would say it’s all theater, make-believe play, pretend. They would say the power of the virtual world lies precisely in its ability to nullify the signifiers at play in real social interaction: class, race, gender, education, beauty, experience, age, geography, you name it. In the virtual world, we are who we say we are and no one will know any different. In the virtual world, I look like Angelina Jolie in <i>Hackers</i> and I’m a super smart, super confident 29 year-old vixen who owns not only her own sexuality, but likes to make anyone who takes an interest in it into her bitch. I wear shiny shiny, shiny boots of leather online.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs2AAoDuno6R9aGP2u8lJEUHix7qfofahQ6wnXPq1zITsJENdMfrH57A9WAgNYERB7h3znyrA_OWV3zLOKB1V_uAHrPtqT679O6JbjPgu_lewJMyY1gXF3bMgKggScNqwtmmHeqJlAItk/s1600/venusinfurssheetmusic.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs2AAoDuno6R9aGP2u8lJEUHix7qfofahQ6wnXPq1zITsJENdMfrH57A9WAgNYERB7h3znyrA_OWV3zLOKB1V_uAHrPtqT679O6JbjPgu_lewJMyY1gXF3bMgKggScNqwtmmHeqJlAItk/s1600/venusinfurssheetmusic.gif" width="240" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Over the last few months I’ve “met” many new people—a stunning variety of personalities. Scuutor was especially helpful ingame; he helped me with gearing up my toon and explained some of the benefits of guild membership. My game realm, Proudmore is home to LGBT gamers. One member of the guild was a 16 year old exploring her real world options in the virtual world of gaming. She had a girlfriend in the real world, but allowed as how boys were not icky entirely. The adults in the guild, of whom I may have been the youngest, surrounded her protectively. The tone and content of conversation shifted rapidly to coming out stories and college entrance essays as soon as she revealed her age. The members of BloodBathandBeyond are models of virtual accountability and ethical behavior.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Some relationships I’m still confused about for a variety of reasons. “Stranger” may be ready to hire an attorney and sue me, or he may just be pushing for more talk of the sort we started out throwing at one another. Whichever the case, my husband said, block this guy. And I did, but not from chat. Because the conversation we shared was intense and edgy, part of me feels responsible for whatever psychodrama I lifted the curtain on. While we were talking, he asked if I were “real,” and I answered, “Yes, I’m real,” but I qualified that I was “playing” with him. “Pretend,” as any actor will tell you, feels “real” whether it’s in person or online, physical or virtual. And then he said something to me that I had said to my gamer friend; “It <i>feels</i> real, though.” If he needs to talk with me again, he can.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When I said, “It <i>feels</i> real, though” to my gamer friend, he had reduced me to tears ingame. By that, I mean I was sitting alone at my keyboard with tears trickling down my face typing furiously about how unfair he was being. I was frustrated and my feelings were hurt. I was trying so hard to master World of Warcraft, and nothing I did that night met with anything but taunts and criticism from him in the public chat line of the dungeon group.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Even in a pretend world, levels of public and private disclosure are in play. It was one thing for Gamer to taunt me through private “whispers,” quite another to be dressed down in front of the dungeon party or, worse, on the trade lines, which broadcast to the entire virtual city. Before I learned these distinctions, I accidentally told one of those stories (for which we only use the “whisper” feature of messaging in real life) on the guild chat. Or, at least, I think I did. When one of the female guild members whispered, “Are you ok?” in response to what I thought I had told only Gamer, I realized my mistake. I was too embarrassed to pursue confirming my gaffe, and rapidly realized that no one but Gamer knew who I really am, in real life. How embarrassed can I be on behalf of my toon? She isn’t me, after all, is she?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5HI8fnIQsFJ2GhDG8nW5ClK05a9Sy_9Pp8Xti35IGgzVvw7aJMmJOyWybp5vW1vOpjNrgY6u0KoOqjEvrorLz6cXThbXHaJqLaL17JTx_SZOEnElaOz0XBYS0LaXiJcJRCXERBbj6QWU/s1600/goldenlandscape.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5HI8fnIQsFJ2GhDG8nW5ClK05a9Sy_9Pp8Xti35IGgzVvw7aJMmJOyWybp5vW1vOpjNrgY6u0KoOqjEvrorLz6cXThbXHaJqLaL17JTx_SZOEnElaOz0XBYS0LaXiJcJRCXERBbj6QWU/s400/goldenlandscape.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">“In real life,” IRL in the virtual world shrouds itself in hazy golden light. In the virtual world, to reveal one’s irl self is to invite the possibility of irl friendship. Irl friendship is revered online. Other players defer to irl friendships. If Gamer revealed to a dungeon party that I was his irl friend, the tone and content of conversation changed to align with his tone and level of familiarity. Even on line, on a LGBT server, in a world populated with men pretending to be women (albeit of various species), the socially prophylactic properties of falling under the “ownership” of a man are at play. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Irrationally, one would expect the virtual world to conform to our fantasies of a libertine world unfettered by the signifiers that shackle us irl. The only problem is that we inhabit the virtual world and bring ourselves with us when we log on.</div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-25721343998833004712010-05-21T13:09:00.000-07:002010-05-21T13:55:36.210-07:00First Fruits: Not Barren<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAtO5iB76VV4IhyEv6CdKtAN8v3bZCHOoa0c-2UyQTI7OxVc1x98OyLtxEDmKcVhTXRNRCWtxI2srr8CYALdaJW042iDPWvX7bMDeI6pv87RHtvh4AFaFZoafr_PAnn4bbxhSZirIbdI8/s1600/watermellon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAtO5iB76VV4IhyEv6CdKtAN8v3bZCHOoa0c-2UyQTI7OxVc1x98OyLtxEDmKcVhTXRNRCWtxI2srr8CYALdaJW042iDPWvX7bMDeI6pv87RHtvh4AFaFZoafr_PAnn4bbxhSZirIbdI8/s320/watermellon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">We are called to offer the universe the best of what we have to offer. This arrangement works out nicely as it is often in our best work that we find our most joy. Even before I could read, it was clear my greatest talents lay in language. I attempted my first novel, a romance, when I was in third grade. It was three typed pages long. It was horrible and endearing. The following year, I wrote doggerel poems for my spelling words instead of sentences and read a few dozen Nancy Drew novels. Writing is my succor and in it, I am saved. And yet, the idea that I am meant to write whether anyone else thinks so or not, I have struggled most to accept. More than my mortality—it is easier to accept that I will cease to be, than it is to accept that I am meant to do something that might not be exceptional, but that even to me might be merely acceptable. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj736KwF9uXfz7Orf1yjfBCIYSeR-2cRpQdmnH2MWtQiM7wsTP8xEvf4ArC3Hz_T3e8PkVwM1WS9JcTmQPM4RiiUXS5YDZ4fUlL4EcvKjCIbu3XnGuQzCXuanr54ZzRq7z9Rtk-bJ2WAI/s1600/barren_badlands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj736KwF9uXfz7Orf1yjfBCIYSeR-2cRpQdmnH2MWtQiM7wsTP8xEvf4ArC3Hz_T3e8PkVwM1WS9JcTmQPM4RiiUXS5YDZ4fUlL4EcvKjCIbu3XnGuQzCXuanr54ZzRq7z9Rtk-bJ2WAI/s200/barren_badlands.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Acceptable to others? Accepting that following my calling might be humiliating at best has been its own struggle. The calling is what it is. The harvest is almost beside the point: the planting and tending make the garden. There are no fruits without gardening. The choice, then, is between productivity and barrenness. Better to yield a few withered yellow zucchini than maintain a patch of rocky soil.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">During my late adolescence, I had episodes of major depression, dropped out of college and dropped back in. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIXKhQcHel_d0n8GMdZCN41Tjo2DitKBO4jImlUIYjXTnET2LMEj6J0CNduvX3LlKq0I-gW2zDKUofsXGYFm_TSy6WVuLRPSmoUkcxAVmSTyDtgOmJf9AmFIErFzk9QEyGgfZFCyKNN7c/s1600/Princess_Mononoke_Stream_I_by_haftelm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIXKhQcHel_d0n8GMdZCN41Tjo2DitKBO4jImlUIYjXTnET2LMEj6J0CNduvX3LlKq0I-gW2zDKUofsXGYFm_TSy6WVuLRPSmoUkcxAVmSTyDtgOmJf9AmFIErFzk9QEyGgfZFCyKNN7c/s320/Princess_Mononoke_Stream_I_by_haftelm.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Slogging through the fog of unrecognized and untreated depression is maddening in itself. On top of the symptoms of depression itself—insomnia or exhaustion or despair or everyday sadness that is notable only in that it never lifts—not knowing what is wrong with oneself is an extra layer of madness. The internal dialogue of unrecognized depression is this: <i>if I can just get enough sleep, I’ll be able to whatever</i>, or <i>if I stay up all night working on this since I can’t sleep anyway, that will help</i> (never mind that it’s the third night in a row), or <i>I’m failing. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I wake up in the morning? Why have I suddenly become an idiot? Why don’t I understand this? Why isn’t anything sticking? I read and nothing gets in. </i>Everything—reading, conversation, people’s names, experiences—washes over the depressed and is gone; nothing is retained. Living in a fog, the depressed can’t see what depression is until she’s left it and is standing on a hill somewhere looking down on its dark mass. As long as she’s in it, her visibility is limited. Occasionally something emerges from the fog or she stumbles into a clearing, but mostly she lives in it, until she doesn’t. Unless she gets treated.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvVhNkyJAwiUqlQHteNCdbxGo-b29yonyjyY6PwW2YbW1wZqu-0K2VyjQl-miKHHcj4n9m_p-u30BECQxd-u3deztp1X4cy7ai7HY6QZ5-PwiwsyxHpyQlCFAe0C7FSTFkTgrg-F09IQM/s1600/watermellonPeony.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvVhNkyJAwiUqlQHteNCdbxGo-b29yonyjyY6PwW2YbW1wZqu-0K2VyjQl-miKHHcj4n9m_p-u30BECQxd-u3deztp1X4cy7ai7HY6QZ5-PwiwsyxHpyQlCFAe0C7FSTFkTgrg-F09IQM/s320/watermellonPeony.JPG" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Writing was always the clearing. As long as I was writing, describing the experience, I was safe. Everything else might be a stinking smoking compost pile, but within the context of creative work there was clarity, purpose, accomplishment, even the occasional joy. I never sang merrily with the forest creatures, but the sunlight filtered through the trees revealing the rocks, grass, trees and flowers in the hyper-focus of the bright parts of chiaroscuro.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The problem with creative work that saves us is that it often saves no one else; that is, it sucks. It is interesting merely as the byproduct of some trauma. It often is incapable of standing on its own in the company of the pros. It is precious to us and us alone. If it accomplishes something of value, it is as curiosity not as masterpiece; the literary equivalent of coffee mug scrawls and the twee odes to catastrophe or God sold as framed prints in mail order catalogues.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj22tgAXPCTzVGvY9BXzAyOXdTp-UBcOuwp8krHxez_Dw5Rz_6UKecISNlncyQ4f0AK1i7vBJvqvEYFhLGTgPkYJR74AX5Ygo8kWd__kK-c6tdY7RBtsNICTIdQQ0-H0BfgmhKwKzufCc4/s1600/eucalyptus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj22tgAXPCTzVGvY9BXzAyOXdTp-UBcOuwp8krHxez_Dw5Rz_6UKecISNlncyQ4f0AK1i7vBJvqvEYFhLGTgPkYJR74AX5Ygo8kWd__kK-c6tdY7RBtsNICTIdQQ0-H0BfgmhKwKzufCc4/s320/eucalyptus.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">On a pleasant afternoon, probably a Thursday because we were gathered for poetry writing workshop, some classmates and I were standing on the back terrace of the English and Comparative Lit Building under the shredded bark of eucalyptus trees. I told them ruefully, that I was an idiot savant. I was absolutely certain that the only reason I was accepted to graduate school was my talent: having a spotty undergraduate record and the lukewarm support of my undergraduate mentor, my portfolio must have been the only thing that got me in—that and a letter of recommendation from an important editor. My work and I had charmed him when he took up the post of my mentor, who had taken the obligatory post-tenure tour-of-Europe sabbatical. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">When I still felt doors opening along my path as an undergraduate, my editor/teacher/friend agreed to an independent study consisting entirely of sending out poems for publication under his direction. I sent poems out. I got a few published in places astonishing for both their cynicism and lack of editorial standards—Win cash! Poetry contest! – and a few in places astonishing for the chutzpah of their editor/publishers, who were not much older than myself—zines associated with the punk rock subculture.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I did my best in graduate school, but when graduate school was over, I had impressed no one, least of all myself.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I knew I’d had enough of whatever it was that was the graduate school experience. And if that meant I wasn’t going to be a writer, or if it meant I’d be a different kind of writer, so be it. I was exhausted and directionless. Creative work had soured with the attempt to “professionalize” it. Somehow being a professional writer had become entwined with learning how to teach recalcitrant teens how to write short essays and research papers. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMZLYWGhOACVDkHO4i5xJjFBssd_T50nC2HGXi5HA9g5jYzhzcNE3yWIwWE3MU_dirF1ODRTm05WtiiSpjrQO3E3i1dKe_Im_UcBUq9vr8wNabAfW5cayvVK8etoXt8X1lkrs_OvIwX-0/s1600/fruitbowlcarved" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMZLYWGhOACVDkHO4i5xJjFBssd_T50nC2HGXi5HA9g5jYzhzcNE3yWIwWE3MU_dirF1ODRTm05WtiiSpjrQO3E3i1dKe_Im_UcBUq9vr8wNabAfW5cayvVK8etoXt8X1lkrs_OvIwX-0/s320/fruitbowlcarved" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The career center had no sage advice beyond referring me to the job board and suggesting I attend one of the corporate recruitment days. I couldn’t live off the job board offerings, and I didn’t understand how a person with experience mostly in music store sales and university physical plant work would manage to land a corporate position of any type, especially in the thick of the recession that was 1992. (In Orange County, California— an area that includes the coastal wealth of Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, and Balboa Island— people were so desperate, they were voting democratic.) I didn’t know what to do next.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sitting at my desk in the living room of an apartment adjacent to what we called “Drug Street” in Santa Ana, I continued to write halfheartedly, promising myself that it would save me. It would change everything: All I had to do was continue to write and my life would become what it should become.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I didn’t, but it did.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And now, here I am, twenty years later, having tried to find my calling down other avenues. I never really stopped writing. There were always journals. There were extension courses. Novels begun and abandoned. A screenplay about meth addiction and prostitution</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">begun under the direction of friend whose own gambling and other habits seemed strangely similar to that of our protagonist—also abandoned. Forays into writer’s groups that fizzled out. Letter writing on a prodigious scale. I never really stopped writing, but I never really started either. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I was busy making a living. Getting married. Having children. Trying to find a career. All of those goals are still in process. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some writing students enter and leave school with a kind of crippling grandiosity. Some students like myself. I never subscribed to the ridiculous ideas about artists being subject to rules different than mere mortals. Sure, there’s much to be learned along the road of excess, but dissipation as vocation just seemed stupid to me. My particular Janus head of doom consisted of grandiosity paired with its ever-present twin, self-loathing doubt. The grandiosity amounted to a delusional belief in my talent as something far different and superior. The truth—that talent is as individual and as <i>common</i> as, well, individuals—floated at the top of a pool of self-loathing around work ethic, procrastination, self-doubt and fallow periods of creativity. Accepting that what makes a writer is work has been hard won for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFYm9Vcui1o86NftYSVnJklQpxJKACewKtzEhA-T1hmD7gTpeAyKgOvjz-8rpnDpldpa0qMNtals3dJ0yDVsHhkpv8QbwuojKU0lyfqk4tjQqqGj4SMCztj9iOBl6gDkdRyqlyO2tGBvs/s1600/GAULOISES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFYm9Vcui1o86NftYSVnJklQpxJKACewKtzEhA-T1hmD7gTpeAyKgOvjz-8rpnDpldpa0qMNtals3dJ0yDVsHhkpv8QbwuojKU0lyfqk4tjQqqGj4SMCztj9iOBl6gDkdRyqlyO2tGBvs/s200/GAULOISES.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">When Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman were promoting their movie <i>Runaway Jury</i>, Hoffman told an interviewer that being an actor starting out in one’s career is hard because you don’t know if you’re conning yourself. The same can be said for writers. You don’t know if you’re conning yourself at precisely the point when blind faith is most needed, that is, when you have no publishing history to assuage worries that whatever made you think you were entitled to a career in writing was wholly misguided and delusional. At precisely the moment when you’re called to work harder than you’ve ever worked in your life, the idea that all that hard work and poverty might net nothing slouches in the corner snickering, smoking a Gauloises. The grandiose can’t help but ask what the point is, if one isn’t going to be A Great Writer. Juvenile. Embarrassing. But there you have it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So, there is a pruning process during which the number of writers whittles down to those too crazy to do anything else or too cocksure to admit any other possibility. I fell into neither category. I just kept writing or sublimating creative energy into other outlets thinking that the world of real creative work was something outside and beyond whatever it was that I happened to be doing at the moment.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTa7s9dvFODYG5p7rIWGi9v474cXGVEBQRLhu2W4zHlqgKc7iR05ireOqvFj51uzUuMJrQwSNMF46nb4xExsUCl8OmDLPWhKUS0IdJ_HfZfgCHJoGP2cxQ7VN47L1rdikPQ4n9nkaZFLY/s1600/blueberrypapayaThaiCarved.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTa7s9dvFODYG5p7rIWGi9v474cXGVEBQRLhu2W4zHlqgKc7iR05ireOqvFj51uzUuMJrQwSNMF46nb4xExsUCl8OmDLPWhKUS0IdJ_HfZfgCHJoGP2cxQ7VN47L1rdikPQ4n9nkaZFLY/s400/blueberrypapayaThaiCarved.jpg" width="267" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Like being in love, having a baby provides an important circumspect vantage point. Having produced a living human being, I’m less inclined toward preciousness regarding my creative work. I’ve made a person: what do I need to prove beyond that? The people I’ve created are a source of wonder and are more remarkable every day. What do any concerns about one’s career status ultimately matter? We are here briefly. We don’t know what’s important until after we are long gone from this life. Think in astronomical terms. Or geological. What remains of us? What remains of what we do or of what we fail to do? Our actions are infinitely important and infinitely unimportant. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">For this lifespan in the millions of years that is life on earth, what will I offer the universe? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">All I am capable of offering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-42426770533055349252010-05-07T16:18:00.000-07:002010-05-10T23:05:42.058-07:00Further Negotiations: Glamoured<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHe2BM4CJFg1Fl1SMAwcdZs-7aL6Np9-8nj1mrgiCXHgnwkvJ7nyEIdv-oI8-sMYh36_AOM2s03oiTz9zRhY1fHWgZLPVX3l4s0sGRDQrhN4cvu6cn1vIbb1tvPIu6Cc26taplnRluR8s/s1600/woman+symbol+peace+sign.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHe2BM4CJFg1Fl1SMAwcdZs-7aL6Np9-8nj1mrgiCXHgnwkvJ7nyEIdv-oI8-sMYh36_AOM2s03oiTz9zRhY1fHWgZLPVX3l4s0sGRDQrhN4cvu6cn1vIbb1tvPIu6Cc26taplnRluR8s/s200/woman+symbol+peace+sign.png" width="143" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
When I was in my early twenties my confirming church, First United Methodist, called to wonder where I’d been and if I was still a member. I told the caller that I was no longer worshipping a white male god; I was a feminist pagan. In my social milieu, people wore jackets customized with emblems, slogans, and images that broadcast one’s worldview. Some wore black leather with skeletons dancing across the back. Some wore Air Force hooded fatigue coats with red, white and blue bulls eyes carefully painted in primary acrylic. My Levi’s jacket had a white women’s symbol, the tail an upside down cross, the circle a peace sign, all outlined in metallic gold. Around this central motif twined a five- candled wreath of purple flowers, green leaves and curling vines. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I could probably wear this jacket, if it still fit, without much consternation. It summarizes nicely where my spiritual head is at. I do not subscribe to a stern father model of God. I do not believe God is gendered. I do believe that “feminine” energy is the source of creation—how could it not be? —Why would a universe organize the visible world around a symbol system that is diametrically opposed to the spiritual world? I don’t think it would. Though, admittedly, the upside down cross now strikes me as disrespectful, juvenile and overly simplistic.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyQIGojjeZJXatk3cv8_UfArnxI9jDlLAwJAkZnmDQ3E8G0RAO2wFJJ6N7DaWPry49vVdB4rydb4cU63Gzm50QRXqOvjJcbJ8YQPYQ110fcnDJfYsZ-ag3gSDZ3OVBDUltrsE0F54zcB4/s1600/badreligion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyQIGojjeZJXatk3cv8_UfArnxI9jDlLAwJAkZnmDQ3E8G0RAO2wFJJ6N7DaWPry49vVdB4rydb4cU63Gzm50QRXqOvjJcbJ8YQPYQ110fcnDJfYsZ-ag3gSDZ3OVBDUltrsE0F54zcB4/s200/badreligion.jpg" width="177" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">In the 80s an upside down or X’ed over cross, such as those on Bad Religion T-shirts, sought to comment not on Christ or the crucifixion, but on the organized religion the cross symbolized to those of us up on tip toe peaking in the church windows — or kicking at the turf from a safe distance across the street. Tammy Faye Baker, Robert Tilton, Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, the Trinity Broadcast Network’s talking, weeping, and painted heads—the airwaves were full of an image of Christianity that was obscene and far off Gospel message. Sex scandal after scandal involved “righteous” men who had many judgmental and moralizing opinions about the sex lives of others. Jerry Falwell declared AIDS a plague wrought by god to punish sin. While they weren’t busy opposing the Equal Rights Amendment and proclaiming God’s hatred of homosexuals, they were busy laying the groundwork for a prosperity gospel—they were happy shiny people who were happy and shiny because God wanted them to be the happy shiny owners of air-conditioned dog houses. In the thick of it Bono chided from the concert stage, “My god ain’t short on cash, mister.” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKNVZvErizaQzR1-5IF1v3LAUNKDU_r2SMrWTflmzhkxcREE0t2pF2Xrfxi3w44yVmID4wjsRCk6dnATrDM0CgXWM2YPirGoO78uYK079fSvJoXzMoAE58zuusxnKoFgvvH_T2IdXcyCw/s1600/falwell&reagan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKNVZvErizaQzR1-5IF1v3LAUNKDU_r2SMrWTflmzhkxcREE0t2pF2Xrfxi3w44yVmID4wjsRCk6dnATrDM0CgXWM2YPirGoO78uYK079fSvJoXzMoAE58zuusxnKoFgvvH_T2IdXcyCw/s320/falwell&reagan.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">For people raised outside an organized faith tradition in which they otherwise might have familiarity with the Gospel message, Christianity looked pretty vacant: self-righteous, self-involved, narcissistic, money mongering, whore mongering. As the “Religious Right” aligned itself with the Republican Party, the jokes about how the hookers don’t like to work the Republican Convention because those guys are really twisted when it comes to their predilections applied equally to Religious Right practitioners. They were one; upon regressive politics and policy they could both agree, and upon the subjugation of women they could both agree. By extension, the Democrats embracing their sexuality and essentially fallen state, had a healthier relationship with sexuality all around and weren’t dabbling in anything half as dark as the kinky freaks across the isle. Or so it appeared to many others and me.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">For those familiar with the Beatitudes or the Sermon on the Mount, the spectacle of weeping and/or penitent millionaires was simply obscene. I suspect I am not the only person who turned away from Christianity when its public image coalesced with the Technicolor show that was the Religious Right. (Thank God for Bill Moyers and Sister Wendy!) </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgizCgAeWdPG7iLpe8Xg9qb7LbF2zyP1HfNcNB8tGj4riEDrzEOEZDDROjlSG8ywlXxBtA2QK39T_IJ4ABJGcUAS6VCWun8sT9mK2xYmDqGJLv2XEhmtlKJUBS4zqPouWJiASIISdsZoXE/s1600/jesusbeatitudes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgizCgAeWdPG7iLpe8Xg9qb7LbF2zyP1HfNcNB8tGj4riEDrzEOEZDDROjlSG8ywlXxBtA2QK39T_IJ4ABJGcUAS6VCWun8sT9mK2xYmDqGJLv2XEhmtlKJUBS4zqPouWJiASIISdsZoXE/s320/jesusbeatitudes.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">When I turned away, I turned toward a practical application of The Beatitudes—which in my mind means some form of socialism or a form of pure Marxism divorced from the nastiness of some of its previous incarnations. For instance, I once read about an agrarian province in India in which universal healthcare and near 100% literacy are the norms. No one is wealthy, but no one has a starving intellect or belly, either. Like Steinbeck’s preacher, I like to think that once and only those needs are met, spiritual hunger will lessen as well. It’s hard to believe in a benevolent Universe if your starving child lies in your lap too weak to swat flies. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM5zkyXdgwBWY5NXH815Go-QnrhCMwKxumXsxgfOnakcSFWgcGn-chk75fqwk4UVdRN6KBn0PAF9rFlvuL5N7QQd1dkhL5pWJB-Uxj6lYB-GHHdhSniVpdpS-uX9bm3WAkUm8U5d2liJM/s1600/Sappho.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM5zkyXdgwBWY5NXH815Go-QnrhCMwKxumXsxgfOnakcSFWgcGn-chk75fqwk4UVdRN6KBn0PAF9rFlvuL5N7QQd1dkhL5pWJB-Uxj6lYB-GHHdhSniVpdpS-uX9bm3WAkUm8U5d2liJM/s200/Sappho.jpg" width="186" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Mysticism is my natural inclination. I like to think about God much more than I like to do God’s work. So I spent a lot of time thinking about God as understood apart from the Religious Right—as far apart as I could get. My bumper sticker at the time: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sappho’s Coming</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitB7SZx1F5KvJu2HvJWS0jYhmggw9jU7emsrYAov3fUZwy5oB-U-y-NRgoDo4puXWWjJc9CBCk4SZjvV8kg4zxEiqvrrQLWE4aR_s8Hce_DWqJ3Wh6VTL7qNRuu6jc6Hxw6kHZLjkWo4c/s1600/willendorf_fertility_goddess.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitB7SZx1F5KvJu2HvJWS0jYhmggw9jU7emsrYAov3fUZwy5oB-U-y-NRgoDo4puXWWjJc9CBCk4SZjvV8kg4zxEiqvrrQLWE4aR_s8Hce_DWqJ3Wh6VTL7qNRuu6jc6Hxw6kHZLjkWo4c/s320/willendorf_fertility_goddess.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">My sister is making me a rosary to commemorate my confirmation into the Catholic Church. It will be made of garnet beads. She isn’t making it with a crucifix; she is opposed to crosses and crucifixes. As she explained in a recent phone call, “It’s like memorializing Holocaust victims with shower heads. It’s the least important part of the story.” (I’m certain a phalanx of Catholic priests would disagree.) She intends to include a goddess figurine where the crucifix would normally go. I see no problem with that. None. I am a cultural relativist. My god isn’t their “God.” “They” are people who are not cultural relativists. My god certainly isn’t some bearded and middle-aged 16<sup>th</sup> century Italian with white hair. My god is nebulous: The Universe. My god is everything that reminds me I am infinitely insignificant and infinitely connected in relation to everyone and everything else. My god is an acknowledgement that none of us mortals know what god is or isn’t. Not me. Not the magisterium. Not the priesthood. Not the Pope. S/He who cannot be named is my god. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnKdlvPwFB3JHgUVQf7nna2lYSrJvUaVIA8oOXcYQag_FgMEEe1nNL0QWLdqcjoQZDkfNqUHooUa297YyQIP-ArqzkVe2ueEqyY-WB7djl5ByAxeDFk3zloizVljEbG_RqdSALsogXmn0/s1600/ChanelLipstick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnKdlvPwFB3JHgUVQf7nna2lYSrJvUaVIA8oOXcYQag_FgMEEe1nNL0QWLdqcjoQZDkfNqUHooUa297YyQIP-ArqzkVe2ueEqyY-WB7djl5ByAxeDFk3zloizVljEbG_RqdSALsogXmn0/s200/ChanelLipstick.jpg" width="159" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Around Easter I made a new friend at work, Mote It Be, whose own blog (because he’s a big fat copycat) can be found at <a href="http://noobiewicca.blogspot.com/">http://noobiewicca.blogspot.com</a>. Mote It Be made no secret of his interest in paganism. He quickly became my friend. This relationship has raised questions. If I am drawn to a Wiccan newbie right as I am learning the Nicene Creed by heart, what is the Universe trying to tell me? If I am drawn into an intense friendship with a man who is everything I have renounced for the sake of my marriage, in what is the Universe trying to school me? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This morning my youngest daughter carefully applied lipstick and sat in my white leather living room chair cradling the lipstick in her hands. The lipstick was tucked succinctly into the purse case it lives in, usually at the back of big sister’s bathroom drawer. (Big sister inherited all of her grandma’s makeup.) The purse case this tube lives in once held my only tube of Chanel lipstick, which cost somewhere beyond $20. The lone and prized tube of Chanel ate it when big sister drew on a wall or all over her clothes or completed some other tragic comedy years ago. Mote It Be is my tube of Chanel lipstick.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuZmirF7UPYHQVFgrMOqfTriU8MV370tiZTa-mkMMH6PltUiJ1xj5W3A2n7YQZYkD7lliHQNkrfmU5UcxDa9ZRe853GkOrhSLoL5jaKUmZFIP9O8mkh3txSP_Vk4aX5X-Q3PNEcJ4Ebac/s1600/maidenmothercrone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuZmirF7UPYHQVFgrMOqfTriU8MV370tiZTa-mkMMH6PltUiJ1xj5W3A2n7YQZYkD7lliHQNkrfmU5UcxDa9ZRe853GkOrhSLoL5jaKUmZFIP9O8mkh3txSP_Vk4aX5X-Q3PNEcJ4Ebac/s320/maidenmothercrone.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">It has been nine years since I was free to get up in the morning and decide my day free of the influence and obligation of a committee of domestic terrorists. I am on-call 24 hours a day. I chose that. I still love what it means to be a mother and wife, but nine years is a very long time—long enough to forget that it is not unreasonable to ask for and receive several hours a week to one’s self. It is not unreasonable to maintain friendships that have nothing to do with one’s husband’s professional contacts, one’s children’s playmates, the network of mommies and daddies and neighbors and colleagues and church friends that make up the routine life and friendships of the stay-at-home mom. Mote It Be, then, is my tube of Chanel lipstick, garnet with flecks of bronze and smelling like, well, Chanel lipstick (though he actually smells like some spell oil intended to incite lust—smoky, sweet and masculine essential oils).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhufnhM6XYEwr8_cAwCS_JyicGWe9TFY9CXZbjq3Gz1gZjl8M1PPEiPLD7C4TtPyNQDMdTPq_PTIvOSIbAWtdnsj3IDFZtUwfGtHRWbzmjyLI1MTdYaodmHL7LvFQTGn44OoF0HzBlid1Y/s1600/buttwipe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhufnhM6XYEwr8_cAwCS_JyicGWe9TFY9CXZbjq3Gz1gZjl8M1PPEiPLD7C4TtPyNQDMdTPq_PTIvOSIbAWtdnsj3IDFZtUwfGtHRWbzmjyLI1MTdYaodmHL7LvFQTGn44OoF0HzBlid1Y/s200/buttwipe.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Over the last few years on Face Book, I have been gathering my friends who knew me when nothing about me was a secret. Mote It Be is the kind of friend I used to have before being someone’s wife and other people’s mother primarily defined me. Being known, it turns out, is important. Being known for the person you truly are when you are without fear, humble and naked before the universe is important because being that person and being ok with being that person—that buoyant homeostasis—like savasana—is one of those times when the universe bends down and kisses your forehead tenderly. Profoundly connected, whole, at one.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I have been drawn to Catholicism from the start because it echoes paganism. The liturgical calendar follows the seasons of birth, growth, and death—maiden, mother, crone—at least in the northern hemisphere. The Virgin Mary’s primacy in Catholicism is particular to Catholicism, but it is also an echo of the Goddesses that historically precede her and an obvious cooptation of the fertility cults the Roman Empire supplanted. (According to the Encyclopedia of Women’s Myths and Secrets, several Madonna and Child statues in the United Kingdom, when examined carefully, reveal themselves as pairs of female figures.) Communion has its parallels across more than one faith tradition, including paganism. Voodoo is an amalgam of Catholicism and West African faith practices. And in these ways, Catholicism holds more attractive symbolism than do the mainstream Protestant traditions with which I’ve had experience. My heathen soul is glamoured by the allure of The Mother Church.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-47332568269860283052010-04-25T12:02:00.000-07:002010-05-04T21:05:59.966-07:00Loving Someone<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlVuEFqaBmMfvNf7bY_QJpgeLGHxvYU35wscjk3g7957GJ_-mKcfadiY1XIjr-5aFrJbR-yZXYVfx5ebLWDIR7s-VBOGCG56QU3ePfyBFtp1J5mpaKqt1kDkcjY35oaL9QtrDyZwhbacc/s1600/Fox-Theatre-Circa-1958-317x255.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlVuEFqaBmMfvNf7bY_QJpgeLGHxvYU35wscjk3g7957GJ_-mKcfadiY1XIjr-5aFrJbR-yZXYVfx5ebLWDIR7s-VBOGCG56QU3ePfyBFtp1J5mpaKqt1kDkcjY35oaL9QtrDyZwhbacc/s200/Fox-Theatre-Circa-1958-317x255.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Holding hands in the twilight of the Fox Movie Palace in my hometown. I’m in sixth grade and prepubescent. I am holding hands with Mike Dahl and suddenly we’re kissing. It feels like the heavy velvet curtains on the proscenium have turned to gauze and are falling, slow-mo in billowing liquid folds forever down and down, sinking, the endless swoon that becomes nothing more or less than what it is: the kissing of virgins. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPLBiA2We-v3mxcWCYNqIpoHCpYl0s2eu57Ek0ClWV3AMAvD4tZZJytYxE5IEMFaAFX4uyTWcCGUpWLDUIbdGfUpqcNtBud3an6h3F0DrKQ2Fu_rtPrMOVTTRKz75umuU8YoNc05mMxNw/s1600/thehunger1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="105" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPLBiA2We-v3mxcWCYNqIpoHCpYl0s2eu57Ek0ClWV3AMAvD4tZZJytYxE5IEMFaAFX4uyTWcCGUpWLDUIbdGfUpqcNtBud3an6h3F0DrKQ2Fu_rtPrMOVTTRKz75umuU8YoNc05mMxNw/s200/thehunger1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">The attic in <i>The Hunger</i>. Catherine Deneuve weeping atop the coffin holding David Bowie’s still animated body—doves cooing, a breeze lifting the gauzy drapes. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Countess Olenski and Archer sharing a carriage ride. Archer kissing her wrist with the delicacy and care and bated breath normally reserved for parts that change color with kissing. Countess Olenski asking, “Shall I come to you, Archer?”</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The glorious breathless waiting, vulnerable and abject, for the telephone call, the text message. And it being there, exactly when one could expect it reasonably to be.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzfIfw-woYXp23txOtjTNjPKvkdAYYyOgF1RLe9Mf1qRICadTVKDhv2gRlXd51vtSGWC6fuLFaTzNNN17DteTvM9T0C8ukumORRXs8F5iPrMjAUVrY-bzQRMcfWOBu2ghgX77jENprsnA/s1600/Age-of-Innocence_l3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzfIfw-woYXp23txOtjTNjPKvkdAYYyOgF1RLe9Mf1qRICadTVKDhv2gRlXd51vtSGWC6fuLFaTzNNN17DteTvM9T0C8ukumORRXs8F5iPrMjAUVrY-bzQRMcfWOBu2ghgX77jENprsnA/s200/Age-of-Innocence_l3.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">The last is the only one that stands up to the demands of adult life. It is the only one that can hold a candle to marriage. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I am married. Not just a little. And not even because I want to be anymore. I no longer know where one of us begins and the other ends. I no longer know how I would begin to excise my beloved from my heart, even when I want to, even when I spend hours imaging myself the executioner of a Viet Cong prisoner, arm outstretched and ready to fire.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And the last example is intoxicating only because it holds the promise of a release from being bound, against one’s will, against all rationality to another. You can’t shoot them, and toying with another only reinforces the bond.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Deep and inviolate. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk86i2rX-8n1vagfBRFr0LZIxu9rXwiFmY6NtiP9rbLmcHjPuzHVU6r92JBGKdezFkbuut58OJgXtm7jQ1pVa9Z7p9XLr_2NywsX9pn9w9alMqFwins1oi3LjdVo3ybX4FPlSLUqW7XWU/s1600/bound+heart+pink.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk86i2rX-8n1vagfBRFr0LZIxu9rXwiFmY6NtiP9rbLmcHjPuzHVU6r92JBGKdezFkbuut58OJgXtm7jQ1pVa9Z7p9XLr_2NywsX9pn9w9alMqFwins1oi3LjdVo3ybX4FPlSLUqW7XWU/s320/bound+heart+pink.jpg" width="320" /></a>Every argument I can make against loving my husband, every move I make to extricate myself, every scenario I play out, only serves to make more clear the horrible and beautiful bondage of the heart that has been given over completely to loving someone. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Who has forgiven me more?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Who has loved me more?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Who has bourn more? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Who has been as steadfast, as trustworthy, and as ready to sacrifice all for me?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Who has been all that to me and laid beside me, winded and sweaty, stroking my hair and kissing cathartic tears off my cheeks?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This may be all I will ever know of heaven. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">It may be enough. </div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-70071939318534710832010-04-22T16:50:00.000-07:002010-04-23T16:41:32.695-07:00Being a Fat Woman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpZnpJYvPvUF7yx1N-cocgmZ6gxhdYswSinSumvqLCJ7FOUhGceEjtRfbRaGCfpJv6vP6qzrmkex0-FaY2FS8KfQVQT6m2n9nvnqDVm_fqSm3UcS33rF8BIRJU507mEvZVsgOjx6bd7HA/s1600/IntheCompany.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpZnpJYvPvUF7yx1N-cocgmZ6gxhdYswSinSumvqLCJ7FOUhGceEjtRfbRaGCfpJv6vP6qzrmkex0-FaY2FS8KfQVQT6m2n9nvnqDVm_fqSm3UcS33rF8BIRJU507mEvZVsgOjx6bd7HA/s200/IntheCompany.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Being a fat woman when I saw <i>In the Company of Men,</i> the cruel game at the movie’s core didn’t come as a huge revelation to me. While Aaron Ekhart’s sadistic character, Chad may feel writ large, if somewhat familiar, Matt Malloy’s Howard is the guy who always seems to hover near the fatties wringing his hands and rending his clothes because he just can’t seem to get it right. I know that guy. Entirely too well. I’m not sure there is such a thing as getting it right, but I know for certain, these guys don’t. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr9hpM-2Kx123cvk0KkQSCQYKMO4fcwc9c8VRUn8FWf1YHqNa32NLS-q0ktlV95VHCma0IvoYRFRQNelkODKwSrz-_cOSdqNZ18uJ6RirScY9pxSCMhY-2C-YqBaaGMdNR56Zv1b9B0Yo/s1600/big+ass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr9hpM-2Kx123cvk0KkQSCQYKMO4fcwc9c8VRUn8FWf1YHqNa32NLS-q0ktlV95VHCma0IvoYRFRQNelkODKwSrz-_cOSdqNZ18uJ6RirScY9pxSCMhY-2C-YqBaaGMdNR56Zv1b9B0Yo/s320/big+ass.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Be a fat woman long enough, and you will undoubtedly encounter the man who doesn’t know how to place his feelings for you. He likes you. A lot. He’s overwhelmed to some degree with his feelings for you, but for the life of him, he cannot figure out what to do with you. He certainly can’t drag you before his friends as his latest trophy. Still, he wants to hug you and stand too close to you and touch you, but he can’t quite get over a certain queasiness when it comes to thinking about you naked. He spends all his spare time with you. He gets jealous when you spend time doing something else. Or someone else. But for the life of him, he swears, you are just his friend. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO-uEPLfXi8JUw0UESL5pntksQCuuRzOz-uMGtXHSVhWtxfMJeQOPmOYuRcNN1CdGeaaBFYnR6l6moVBYShwY_La__m4mZoOk48u6i3UoXsu7fz4ADF1nTPCvBT0n9wPJSvqPQEPSXMHs/s1600/nakey+fat.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO-uEPLfXi8JUw0UESL5pntksQCuuRzOz-uMGtXHSVhWtxfMJeQOPmOYuRcNN1CdGeaaBFYnR6l6moVBYShwY_La__m4mZoOk48u6i3UoXsu7fz4ADF1nTPCvBT0n9wPJSvqPQEPSXMHs/s320/nakey+fat.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">This scenario is tremendously hurtful all the way around. He feels like he’s shallow, and you really can’t argue with him (nor do you want to). Depending on how much he wants to flex his Alan Alda, progressive, liberated male bullshit, he may spend more or less energy being operatic about the whole hand-wringing thing. On your part (my part) I once was heartbroken. I now pride myself on wising up earlier rather than later.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRwjJe0e9d1YQpfRM0K-l9r7fDuksG5BptXUuVnCoufgVJTv7n-emBeIaNffXPUkTEpBy5ArCH-2GnJIy-nczNiVQzxFoEOZlLydTZ-lY8hHm0gp_fwDQL81_uJdgHTcXAllpt9S0UaiM/s1600/costa-body-624.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRwjJe0e9d1YQpfRM0K-l9r7fDuksG5BptXUuVnCoufgVJTv7n-emBeIaNffXPUkTEpBy5ArCH-2GnJIy-nczNiVQzxFoEOZlLydTZ-lY8hHm0gp_fwDQL81_uJdgHTcXAllpt9S0UaiM/s320/costa-body-624.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">I once was heartbroken because I loved them back. Fat girls don’t often get that kind of attention. Doors don’t get opened, chairs aren’t held out, and no one offers to carry heavy items for us. If we are admired, it is usually for our utility—we’d make good farm wives, we’re troopers, and you can’t get a better secretary than a fatty. Everyone knows we’re good cooks. So when a man showers you with attention, can’t stop talking to you, always has a hand on your arm or knee, it gets your attention. And for my part, I still can’t tell whether I’m misunderstanding it. Because the thing about being a fat woman, is not only do other people have a hard time believing anyone can feel romantically toward you, you have a hard time believing anyone can feel romantically toward you.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So, by the time you notice how you feel, having ignored how you feel, because how you feel is so very often wrong—you’re in deep—riptide deep—sucked under and flailing. And who’s there to save you? Some wimpy guy who can’t stop wringing his hands long enough to throw you a life preserver. Worse, some guy who finds the whole scenario so repugnant, so alien to the person he feels he is—the player or the judger of fine wines and seducer of hotties—that you become the locus for all his self loathing about feeling the stirrings of love for you. How dare you confuse him like this, you disgusting thing!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitWFFoQR6UgCY97uQNY8UGqV4WVd5IbjVxQFQgNu5VzvJkwFVGtDrNjMf1g7VmosAkWSHtomPKWWA9AfvmkCBkKGAfCipRpR91HDCCy6ySaj5dg6aOZ5KOI2Mpr6pT3Wa9lg6wYWvZoP8/s1600/adele.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitWFFoQR6UgCY97uQNY8UGqV4WVd5IbjVxQFQgNu5VzvJkwFVGtDrNjMf1g7VmosAkWSHtomPKWWA9AfvmkCBkKGAfCipRpR91HDCCy6ySaj5dg6aOZ5KOI2Mpr6pT3Wa9lg6wYWvZoP8/s200/adele.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p>This bizarre situation can play out a million different ways. The variants are endless. The one way it does not play out: he does not, under any circumstances, declare his love in any way that would dispel the crazy—atop a table in the break room at work, or from the balcony of the fraternity house, or hire a skywriter, or buy a big diamond. There is no real life equivalent to the Lifetime Network Movie. Invariably, it ends badly. Most often with the fat girl (me) not knowing what hit her, or if any of it was real, or if she should be feeling as bad as she does, because it was all in her mind anyway, wasn’t it? </o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Like Adele, you were the only one in love.</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnwMOOXuOZ-lcDH4gADKLq8WeEm51BOO2ZWHjGASfda3CdzIiLbeE6OfV0zgz7JVQPSLHW3usVGPaJ7RII8W5ps7flag28zhnnLlS-O3Rpbnp1QlSvZdUXQliWLTz48v26O70g8YDhJoQ/s1600/fat+fetish.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnwMOOXuOZ-lcDH4gADKLq8WeEm51BOO2ZWHjGASfda3CdzIiLbeE6OfV0zgz7JVQPSLHW3usVGPaJ7RII8W5ps7flag28zhnnLlS-O3Rpbnp1QlSvZdUXQliWLTz48v26O70g8YDhJoQ/s320/fat+fetish.gif" width="229" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">The first few times, I tried to review the tapes in the cold rational light of the morning, weeks, months or years afterward. In the case of one R.M. I still don’t know what it all meant, but I still care. Most of the time, the caring is pretty easy to get over because the encounter itself is nothing more than a weird dinner or a strange implication-laden conversation full of conditional clauses. R.M. gave me enough material to file this field report.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Until you’ve been down the same road a few times. Then it just seems tired and silly. And you wonder how you could have possibly fallen for it again. Such is the nature of hope and romanticism: no one would ever fall in love if no one ever suspended suspicion. Normal people are able to form healthy relationships because they haven’t sustained the kind of damage that would prevent them from greeting some new bright and pretty personality with anything other than a deep sense of well being and fearlessness. (Who do those people think they are? And shouldn’t we all take a moment to hate them?)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Maybe only damaged people think that way. Consolation: I know I’m not the only one.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0L2vpUWzH0HgsRR_-OUQiB0ZtJTJa-HrHJo6o2gXZQ9lpniv30yjVYUnhIrd7l0_rfA9ZFUOoj8WWbSQXpVdYg6WXANrLfogxqtOwJywXRqA3tqvwNpFNhleaOISXkrsS5BAKV07PtkI/s1600/mia+tyler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0L2vpUWzH0HgsRR_-OUQiB0ZtJTJa-HrHJo6o2gXZQ9lpniv30yjVYUnhIrd7l0_rfA9ZFUOoj8WWbSQXpVdYg6WXANrLfogxqtOwJywXRqA3tqvwNpFNhleaOISXkrsS5BAKV07PtkI/s320/mia+tyler.jpg" width="252" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">When I was in grad school, we only had two boys in the program. This was a fascinating opportunity for a roomful of “smart girls,” which are very different creatures than the “pretty” or “beautiful” girls. Smart girls may, in fact, be beautiful, but it is usually sideways—there’s something deeply asexual about us or some desperate flaw (an unfortunate nose, a withered hand, fat, freakishly short, a Brillo pad of unmanageable hair paired with the fashion sense of a bag lady). A side note: consider for a moment the number of cat ladies who carry a stunning intelligence and the ghost of an equally arresting beauty; they’re all single. Interesting.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is the brain rot of it: your husband is a freak—that is the only possible explanation for his bizarre affection for you. If men find you attractive, it is because of some dark fetishistic and vaguely unhealthy attachment to porkers; not a douche commercial perfect fusing of person and body, where you are a beautiful vision of chiffon and flowing hair, sweet-smelling and lovely (inside and out!) and he just can’t get enough of the stuff you use. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXLyTAcSnnrQNVlaGMbp_tIW8KLV4NrLoE67ujZUQRvZNkxCoTSC2rJ_tRnvlL-np8LQBZZjDbY7KATKm2UEcLxoOTddmULDzie3X3iPb_Fp0YpubW1_AEbduFs7eSFoxbeu9ewllVrOQ/s1600/dogfight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXLyTAcSnnrQNVlaGMbp_tIW8KLV4NrLoE67ujZUQRvZNkxCoTSC2rJ_tRnvlL-np8LQBZZjDbY7KATKm2UEcLxoOTddmULDzie3X3iPb_Fp0YpubW1_AEbduFs7eSFoxbeu9ewllVrOQ/s320/dogfight.jpg" width="221" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Back to grad school. One of the men confessed that he had participated in dogfights—like the movie of the same name staring Lili Taylor—only our boy was competing for the ugliest date bedded rather than presented for inspection (though, the bedding of the ugly is sort of the point of the dogfight—easy pickings). Three guesses what we wanted to know: Did we want the story of the ugliest girl? No. Did we want to know how many times? No, isn’t once the same as fifty? Did we want to know if it ever went like the movie with Lili Taylor? We were the smart girls, remember? No. We wanted to know the criteria for judging. We wanted to know if we’d have been declared winners. Our friend was forthcoming. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">No</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cave Mouth, you are a beautiful woman; there’s no way you could win just for being fat. <o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoiQsMtjfgRXEzWIk5pjdmLzr9ZU9dVMBiu0dpZV4QTrhxSzkzTA7iAteKLryxPJuD23gmh4zkhlnkrGspTrEXzYGtbInqAQiJseoZJcInqvd57NOf5x3cbmQ4I-gDuHMqGiyFJg1v-Mo/s1600/glamour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoiQsMtjfgRXEzWIk5pjdmLzr9ZU9dVMBiu0dpZV4QTrhxSzkzTA7iAteKLryxPJuD23gmh4zkhlnkrGspTrEXzYGtbInqAQiJseoZJcInqvd57NOf5x3cbmQ4I-gDuHMqGiyFJg1v-Mo/s320/glamour.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">It is notable that this admission was the first time a man had described me as beautiful. I was around 25. Fat girls aren’t beautiful. We are well dressed. We make an effort. We have beautiful features. Such pretty faces. We’re like chubby china dolls. We look like plus size models. We look like Adele, Romeo Void, Helen Terry, Rosanne, the fat sister of Liv Tyler. We are never simply beautiful. Our beauty is qualified: we are beautiful to our beloved. We are examples of “true” beauty. We are big— and beautiful. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">So what do you do with all that? When by some freak accident you stumble into bed with a guy who is fascinated with you not as a grotesquerie or a mark of his sexual adventurousness, but because—somehow—you both managed to greet each other without a shit-storm of damage foregrounded, but blessedly forgotten for an evening? You marry that man. You marry the first man who says you’re the most beautiful woman in the room no matter the room.<br />
<br />
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</div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-55197677003426864142010-04-14T08:41:00.000-07:002010-04-14T09:01:05.412-07:00Further Negotiations: Half Crazy: My Easter Miracle<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5WcogoKuoyqDLmvNEJCJGwt8rYC1-9XThFITbMudq31RCPazHQnUqVXZv2J7X9vxkEEbFOwwlG_FqtU8Cg0THxRg7bs6RO6XZfD7R0LLnqRsGsPhOzv9Zu6eeu35v_LL9qZ2ZlWUz-Ec/s1600/ObjectOppenheim.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5WcogoKuoyqDLmvNEJCJGwt8rYC1-9XThFITbMudq31RCPazHQnUqVXZv2J7X9vxkEEbFOwwlG_FqtU8Cg0THxRg7bs6RO6XZfD7R0LLnqRsGsPhOzv9Zu6eeu35v_LL9qZ2ZlWUz-Ec/s320/ObjectOppenheim.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Catholics believe in transubstantiation and transmogrification. When Catholics take communion, they believe they are receiving the body and blood of Christ. Literally. There are complex theological arguments as to how this is so. For me, the least convincing arguments borrow the language of science. The arguments that elicit a “fair enough” response from me reference the various gospel accounts of the last supper. My favorite explanation of how this could be so, I came across in Wikipedia: The physical properties of a hat do not make the hat a hat. A brown felt hat is not known as a hat because it is brown, nor because it is felt, nor even because it takes the shape of a hat—an object could do all those things and still not be a hat. I am reminded of Meret Oppenheim’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Object</i>, a fur lined teacup; it isn’t a teacup. Just like Rene Magritte’s pipe isn’t a pipe. No, a hat is a hat because at a metaphysical level, it is a hat. Its essence is hat. Fair enough.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As confirmation and first communion approached, I began paying attention to the consecration of the host. The communion wafer, by all accounts, is just a wafer until it is consecrated. Something happens up on the altar.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJgFaHBJv-G1tOarzjIBCfKczchRYdN9YTxG-ImT4Sy8IZz-iCO641bnzq1W1UrTJYFWpId-Um9meTEJ66mwfut4opfVYKk-BjAAwznzMIAjF8sA_4CqE4CZdaYP8lgkJhm9Y-h_LuQqU/s1600/Bell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJgFaHBJv-G1tOarzjIBCfKczchRYdN9YTxG-ImT4Sy8IZz-iCO641bnzq1W1UrTJYFWpId-Um9meTEJ66mwfut4opfVYKk-BjAAwznzMIAjF8sA_4CqE4CZdaYP8lgkJhm9Y-h_LuQqU/s200/Bell.jpg" width="145" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Prior to Vatican II, the priest consecrated the host with his back to the congregation. (For us liberal types, Vatican II is a great thing—no more doom and gloom, greater transparency of what exactly is happening in the mass. It must have been difficult for those who didn’t pay attention in CCD to know what was what with it all going on in Latin. No wonder someone needed to ring a bell.) Now the priest consecrates the host facing the congregation. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In my heathen mind, I understand this ritual as a spell, as ritual magic, and I commented to my husband, that Vatican II got the consecration of the host wrong, as ritual magic. The combined prayers of the congregation combine to call down the Holy Spirit. The priest is the locus of the binding together of prayerful petition and under the original rules the congregation and the priest formed a spiritual flock of geese, their energy focused on the wafers and wine before the priest and beneath the image of God on the crucifix hanging on the back wall of the altar. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But then I started to think about why the magisterium might have decided on this shift. In the old magic, God is called from outside the congregation and the priest. God does not reside inside even the priest, nor among the parish, but is called down from on high, alien to our daily lives. In the Vatican II ritual, God resides among the congregants and magisterium—priests and pastoral assistants, deacons—everyone on the altar and in the building working to bind together the prayers toward the purpose of consecration and communion. (My heathen mind can’t help but draw a parallel with the pagan circle of worship.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Communion. Truly.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Confirmation happens during holy week. Holy week includes the Chrism Mass, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and Easter Mass. Sometime prior to the Easter Vigil, candidates for confirmation must attend their first Rite of Reconciliation.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Rite of Reconciliation, or confession, is one of the seven sacraments of the church. As far as I know, it is the one sacrament in which any Joe off the street can partake. Anyone may walk into a confessional during confessional hours and unburden herself. No one will check your Catholic credentials. My godfather (second baptism at my confirmation into the United Methodist Church) came home from the Second World War haunted by the face of the Jap he shot, and who shot him. He often went to confession at Sacred Heart. He came from a Jewish family, but had enlisted as Christian for a complex of reasons best known to him.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgItFIOsAMN_lDYvV1LA9KjnYXG3S0cgg1cF32GhpipqMamlFZVL32UzXn2So71_r9-fLlAhX8ErHr6wPZ_p5oHDyRhp9rYdDVHhu1dZrFNDBOFXHei3a5jtLPaLY9Wvhq93r87zo6fYVA/s1600/Inanna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgItFIOsAMN_lDYvV1LA9KjnYXG3S0cgg1cF32GhpipqMamlFZVL32UzXn2So71_r9-fLlAhX8ErHr6wPZ_p5oHDyRhp9rYdDVHhu1dZrFNDBOFXHei3a5jtLPaLY9Wvhq93r87zo6fYVA/s200/Inanna.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">I scheduled my first confession with the intent of making a thorough inventory of my shortcomings, in the spirit of twelve step programs. I intended to arrive with a long list of every bad thing I’d ever done through commission or omission. That didn’t happen. I ran out of time and not only failed to make my list, but arrived late to the mass after which I had scheduled my confession. My intent was to discuss, among other things, my friend Christine with whom I had been close as an undergraduate.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSMJvlCJDR7e-4w-ccH4v8IdyZD6Y4JX9HRQQwOksZBoZdufdpu2bJhzCFZGmVZI0jyqw9JYh5jmVbs1KCfBBe-317LxN4AY13yd5DOtfpEbjw_VnSatYNAGh1ebl7fmobTCFkqMZGDlQ/s1600/bohi+tree+street+view.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSMJvlCJDR7e-4w-ccH4v8IdyZD6Y4JX9HRQQwOksZBoZdufdpu2bJhzCFZGmVZI0jyqw9JYh5jmVbs1KCfBBe-317LxN4AY13yd5DOtfpEbjw_VnSatYNAGh1ebl7fmobTCFkqMZGDlQ/s200/bohi+tree+street+view.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Christine and I had attended the same Women’s Spirituality course with several of our closest friends. We each had our own reading list. I read Mary Daly, Christine Downing, a then-recent translation of poems to the Goddess Inanna, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myth and Secrets</i>. Christine was raised Catholic and read texts some of us (i.e. me) dismissed as patriarchal and arcane. We shared the books, all purchased at the Bodhi Tree bookstore in Los Angeles. (We all piled into the ancient Civic hatchback I had at that time—which I had to park carefully with a preference for hills because its reverse only worked occasionally and the car would only start with the throttle pulled all the way out—a hill is helpful if the throttle fails to get a stick shift going. The hatchback was light enough that I could push it uphill if needed and with five strong women pushing it, city parking was no problem at all.) </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sometime around graduation, Christine and my best friend at the time, Mary, had a huge falling out. Mary was upset because while Mary sat out a semester at home, Christine didn’t contact her, or something along those lines. Mary wanted allegiance. Disloyal and stupid, I shunned Christine under the flag Mary had raised: you can’t call yourself <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">my</i> friend and still be friends with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">her</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We all graduated, went to grad school, got married, got divorced, and along the way, Christine gave birth to her first child. Her child died. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I didn’t send a card. I didn’t call. I didn’t acknowledge the heartbreaking reality of it. I didn’t give Christine or her child as much thought or care, as I should have. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Over the years since, I have made a point of telling mutual friends to tell her I’m sorry without explanation: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If you run into Christine, tell her I’m sorry</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">High on the list of Shitty Things I’ve Done, that sin of commission and omission was on my mind when I scheduled my first reconciliation. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sometime prior to my arriving late for mass and getting reconciled, Christine responded to a brief message sent via Facebook. I had asked if she thought I’d lost my mind in pursuing Catholicism. Her response was perfect: Faith isn’t about sanity. Faith is about choosing to believe things firmly rooted in the irrational—or at least in a part of the brain that doesn’t work chemistry problems. There was more. Enough that feeling like she’d accepted my apology was secondary to the sign I took her response to be—all of it together, her forgiveness and her encouragement, amount to one of those messages The Universe sends occasionally. I am again blessed with having Christine in my life. I don’t deserve this consideration, but I’m willing to try to deserve it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFYaoQPwVOWmoWcJEXtcaNzp4jQEjCXD209D37Vu-pkDwI9AbFS5Yydjdj1PRsVWqJyudrb3kk4momzrCP14Lnp4-bYFGhVaEEhT8slk13zvXQ8MCNREg-f7b7tTXIQ8pEEhKttUXQi0I/s1600/Bishop_Chrism_2008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFYaoQPwVOWmoWcJEXtcaNzp4jQEjCXD209D37Vu-pkDwI9AbFS5Yydjdj1PRsVWqJyudrb3kk4momzrCP14Lnp4-bYFGhVaEEhT8slk13zvXQ8MCNREg-f7b7tTXIQ8pEEhKttUXQi0I/s200/Bishop_Chrism_2008.jpg" width="125" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Chrism Mass happens at the local cathedral. At this special mass, the Bishop blesses all the three oils that will be used in the Rites of the church, including Confirmation—for which Chrism is used. The blessed oils are then distributed to all the churches of the deanery and are presented to the individual parishes on Holy Thursday in a processional.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlmYBewqrHPanIO0nFPyCF95fmHH0usOCSRlOpdK1pRZna-zci4FulS0WseDbH6kC-AWTduRZ-tM-_NUEtL_gBn6AAJqVK7AydZxQtl0_Bugyo39eisrcmsT6quEm2TPSiRLzEcuJsRXA/s1600/venerationCross.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlmYBewqrHPanIO0nFPyCF95fmHH0usOCSRlOpdK1pRZna-zci4FulS0WseDbH6kC-AWTduRZ-tM-_NUEtL_gBn6AAJqVK7AydZxQtl0_Bugyo39eisrcmsT6quEm2TPSiRLzEcuJsRXA/s400/venerationCross.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">On Good Friday the veneration of the cross was beautiful. Person after person came up and kissed, or knelt and kissed, bowed, or placed a hand against the wood of a six foot cross standing in front of the altar. I pressed my lips to the side of the cross, foot level. When I returned to the pew and kneeled, I wept for the elegiac beauty of the ritual and the idea of living and dying for others. I felt the principle of self-sacrifice venerated—putting others before self—sacrifice for the sake of others. I’m sure my interpretation is not strictly adherent to the Church’s teaching, but the idea of being for others first is tremendously moving to me—more so than the idea of my eternal life being purchased by the death of another—though I’m sure that purchase of eternal life is exactly the point the Church would like me to take away.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I like to think I behave myself well, when I do, not because I’m afraid of Hell or jealous of Heaven, but because it’s the right thing to do. I don’t need metaphysical ransom to behave myself, which isn’t to say that I don’t often resemble the old lady in “A Good Man is Hard to Find:” if there had been someone there to shoot her in the head every day of her life, she would have been a good woman. Though, in my defense, the realization that we’re all equally beloved isn’t quite as hard won for me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At the Good Friday mass, the priest lifted the bowl of communion wafers and I felt a burst of energy—imagine a tiny chrysanthemum firework going off silently and invisibly—the brown felt hat without the brown, the felt, or the hat shape. The small burst’s locus was the glass bowl of wafers. It came and went as fast as a flash bulb. My chest tightened. I took a deep breath and questioned whether or not the experience was real. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCQLRrz5J_giWCJgrG5D-uwN5VCPoA5j6M1J4C80nMTd9PvPrfHUtxyCqB8T1RZIWhVwNyOp7zoNX_4SXrJt-VmIwqh-wZgFRxFqiFSD13ZWv-R0eE3uwk9N-QjslCtZD5s8VW6XvMsdk/s1600/EasterVigilBonfire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCQLRrz5J_giWCJgrG5D-uwN5VCPoA5j6M1J4C80nMTd9PvPrfHUtxyCqB8T1RZIWhVwNyOp7zoNX_4SXrJt-VmIwqh-wZgFRxFqiFSD13ZWv-R0eE3uwk9N-QjslCtZD5s8VW6XvMsdk/s200/EasterVigilBonfire.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Was it real? If that’s what it feels like for the spirit to descend, what does it feel like to take communion after the spirit has descended into it? Had I experienced what I thought I experienced? Did I need to revisit my Prozac prescription?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;">Easter Vigil mass is when the Catechumen are baptized, the candidates confirmed. The Vigil is the mass of first communion for all RCIA students. Easter Vigil is a long mass with nine readings tracing communion from Genesis forward. The Vigil mass begins in darkness, lit only by the candles the Priests and congregants process in, lit from a bonfire outside in the Mary grotto. The congregants sit with their candles and the altar attendants light the Pascal and other two candles. The procession includes an incensory, and the air is thick with sacramental smoke. We sit in darkness and listen to the readings and choral responses.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQEf3HzZjyTWRPUefTlnrdpHMj-VPoIZQLCdhCZv4H5ybPr-zjIS7tih7ZJUvWwtrJRA06J2taT4wleGM1VSadzkLmD60vLsOBiZQxVOUKY7C4o-9SzUzCNC93bVoucKuvKilL6mAhIaU/s1600/Easter+Vigil+Mass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQEf3HzZjyTWRPUefTlnrdpHMj-VPoIZQLCdhCZv4H5ybPr-zjIS7tih7ZJUvWwtrJRA06J2taT4wleGM1VSadzkLmD60vLsOBiZQxVOUKY7C4o-9SzUzCNC93bVoucKuvKilL6mAhIaU/s320/Easter+Vigil+Mass.jpg" width="236" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the liturgical year, Christ rises during the Easter Vigil mass. When the mass readings reach the risen Christ, the carillon chimes, a bell is rung, and all the house lights come up. It is a gloriously theatrical moment. I am fully present for the beauty of the ritual.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Catechumen are baptized in the baptismal font—most by full emersion, kneeling in the water, their faces pushed into the water three times, in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. (Some only knelt while the Priest poured holy water from a pitcher over their heads in three draughts. Baptism by full emersion is optional.) The Catechumen exit to the conference rooms to change into Sunday clothes.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">While the Catechumen change their clothes, the Priest blesses the congregants and the choir sings. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu2UrKIwsuKHl_GP8ei5DWkTG_4Ja_GUuFlN4FnioGxKY_3YMq7cyrQgoQ3oS2M-gEXFNl69FCKoOtmRdr9J0sqnkIOEeoE9-ISOPupHygBrCKzlhIud0bAvrs-Ldpz7nAf87LcLc0jJ4/s1600/baptism.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu2UrKIwsuKHl_GP8ei5DWkTG_4Ja_GUuFlN4FnioGxKY_3YMq7cyrQgoQ3oS2M-gEXFNl69FCKoOtmRdr9J0sqnkIOEeoE9-ISOPupHygBrCKzlhIud0bAvrs-Ldpz7nAf87LcLc0jJ4/s200/baptism.jpg" width="145" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When we are all seated again, we are called up to the altar to receive anointing with Chrism as full members of the Catholic Church, our confirmation. (Chrism is oil— mostly olive, blessed by the Bishop and scented with sandalwood, patchouli, and floral notes. It is both dark and smoky and light with flowers. It smells wonderful. I intend to ask whether I can have some of last year’s batch. It smells that good. I’m a consumer of high-end perfumes, and this stuff is . . . wait for it . . . heavenly.) My husband introduces me to the Priest; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I present my wife, Cave Mouth</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">with the saint name, Dorothy</i>. (There are two martyrs named Dorothy, but my Dorothy Day has not been officially canonized. Shhhh, it’s a secret.) The Father spreads Chrism on my forehead in cruciform, says some things, and we hug. I experience a moment of pure happiness.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I am now a Catholic. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The mass continues with the consecration of the host. (There is a moment in the liturgy when the Holy Spirit is supposed to descend. At that moment a bell used to ring. I’m not sure I felt the spirit descend at those times or not, but I don’t think it matters.) When the Priests outstretch their arms in a pushing gesture to bless the host, a rush of energy blows down the tops of their arms and from their palms toward the altar. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqTLPcFNKZ4xBxzLDiibGiS5iEBY_3K50uI6LXxzS6RoUjq4cX8kFpmPwSBcai8t_WXVwf_b6mCUGtUsNnKXXrq4Y4zT24F2G1DTFi5pjpjkjVbGfPfj9_X1SWKBfstci5scZvjIq7Zag/s1600/candleSpirit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqTLPcFNKZ4xBxzLDiibGiS5iEBY_3K50uI6LXxzS6RoUjq4cX8kFpmPwSBcai8t_WXVwf_b6mCUGtUsNnKXXrq4Y4zT24F2G1DTFi5pjpjkjVbGfPfj9_X1SWKBfstci5scZvjIq7Zag/s400/candleSpirit.jpg" width="357" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">There was nothing to see, only the experience of an animated presence. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This time, I am certain of what I am experiencing. It is more than enough. Actually taking communion now seems beside the point, but I do with some amount of expectation. The wafer is simply a wafer in my mouth. The wine surprisingly good—much better than the crappy grape juice they serve at Methodist communion. I feel I have had my miracle, and I have no room to complain.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On Easter Sunday the candidates and Catechumens are no longer. We are Catholics. We take communion with everyone else. Unlike the Easter Vigil, which seemed to be attended by only the RCIA people and their guests, the Easter Mass is packed, standing room only. One of the three altar candles gutters out under the weight of the brass follower. When the Holy Spirit descends this time, it is perfunctory, a quick poof and gone.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Clearly, I have lost my mind. Maybe I’m not merely depressive; maybe I’m manic-depressive! Maybe I’m just flat out nuts and need to rethink my absence from the couch for the last decade. I don’t feel crazy. But not feeling crazy is a sign of genuine insanity, right? As long as I was fretting about being sound of mind and body, I was ok. Since I no longer obsessively fret…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">With a deep breath to gird myself against my embarrassment and fear that I have lost it completely, I share this experience with the RCIA class at our regular Tuesday night meeting. The director offers reassuring information: people report light falling on them and all sorts of phenomena during the process. I am relieved: mystical phenomena are part of the program. Ritual exists to occasion precisely this sort of experience. Sure, there are scientific reasons rituals produce results, but I’m not convinced that an explanation based in the sciences, hard or soft, matters. The experience is the experience. Crazy or not.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinM1TNKOgWtUmQwuxPi2XxwvyCNobx7MrK4v-qQwXTfT0PxXzdyEZ0DndquQsFwHt85TKWlLzdPs6g18gITHPtouYqE6qXkj0p6VXqsPAFiWRfPY5umx9JG2uoIQNwmKJPl-vouwqi0gw/s1600/kundalini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinM1TNKOgWtUmQwuxPi2XxwvyCNobx7MrK4v-qQwXTfT0PxXzdyEZ0DndquQsFwHt85TKWlLzdPs6g18gITHPtouYqE6qXkj0p6VXqsPAFiWRfPY5umx9JG2uoIQNwmKJPl-vouwqi0gw/s320/kundalini.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">My friend Amelia, a yoga instructor and Buddhist, wants a debriefing mid-week. I tell her, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I sensed the descent of the Holy Spirit. I think I have lost my mind</i>. She asks if she’s ever told me about her Kundalini rising. When her Kundalini rose, she kept touching the top of her head to make sure it was still there: She felt like her head had been replaced with a swaying lotus bloom. Further, the corollary of confirmation for Buddhist is "taking refuge" in the Buddha, the Dharma (the teachings) and the Sangha (the community of Buddhists). When Amelia took refuge, the instructor blessed the graduating class and the air was so thick and electric with blessing that the rice she threw on the yogis danced in the air around them. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">No</i>, Amelia said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you aren’t crazy; it’s real.</i> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Light from light. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">True God from True God.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Easter lasts eight days. It is a liturgical season like Christmas and Lent. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When I return to church for my first regular mass, still during Easter, I have a trembling feeling about taking communion. I’m afraid because suddenly it’s a really big deal. (We’re sitting out in the Narthex because our children are free-range and cannot be relied upon to sit still for any length of time—high energy, spirited girls.) This vague and dull terror is irrational. Still, my chest is fluttery as I make my way down the aisle. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Father R smiles brightly as he holds up the wafer: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The body of Christ</i>. I bow my head. (I like that he seems to take pride in our conversion and seems genuinely fond of me—even though, as you have likely guessed, I was the kid at the back of the room who always had another question.) I have made an altar of my hands for the wafer. When I put it in my mouth, the wafer itself seems to have the properties of wafer, but my chest is still fluttery scared and it seems extra important to remember to cross myself after receiving it. (I forgot to cross myself at the Vigil.) As I make my way back to the narthex where the families with kids who can’t sit still sit, the trembling feeling remains in my chest, but also I feel a light—basketball sized and glowing. Kneeling seems like a very good idea at this point. I pray. Hard. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For the life of me, I can’t remember what the prayer was; maybe it was just communion with the spirit.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Light from light.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">True God from True God.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">One in being.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the car, I tell my husband about my experience. I tell him, <i>I must be half-crazy</i>. His answer is, <i>Yeah, but it’s the good half</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aw</i>, I think, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that’s one of the reasons I love you</i>.</div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-80560593079058733262010-04-11T15:01:00.000-07:002010-04-12T11:18:03.734-07:00Further Negotiations: There’s Something Stupid in Every Religion –or- That Guy and Other Dumb Stuff<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikbajTb6iplLYj12i4La9imESJMaeL9Fx9zqNbCxm9JuMIO1ODxotAGc8gP4HE0A9HDnC045ZjliOT7RhWiMq2kxM9HbsDywgPl57XOK_XIVxx414CJp6fD-2H1NPvok4b9lf-pQfENUg/s1600/BerkeleyShambalaCenter.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikbajTb6iplLYj12i4La9imESJMaeL9Fx9zqNbCxm9JuMIO1ODxotAGc8gP4HE0A9HDnC045ZjliOT7RhWiMq2kxM9HbsDywgPl57XOK_XIVxx414CJp6fD-2H1NPvok4b9lf-pQfENUg/s200/BerkeleyShambalaCenter.gif" width="200" /></a></div>When my husband and I were arguing about whether or not our daughter and I would be attending The Shambala Center in Berkeley, California, my Buddhist friend Amelia wanted to know how I could possibly believe in all the stupid stuff associated with Christianity: The stories are predated by remarkably similar stories in other cultures and faith traditions. The idea of a red devil with pitch fork and horns. The elaborate accounting and jailhouse that is the Catholic afterlife of Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, in which numbers of prayer hours net years off one’s sentence.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">[Editor’s Note: Amelia respects Christianity and the beliefs of Christians. She believes the purpose of religion is to help varieties of people reach an understanding of God. As a Buddhist, she believes Jesus is a guru among the many gurus—a great teacher who has lead countless billions to a deeper understanding of God. She does not believe Christianity is stupid. Our conversation related here was not a serious one, but another moment of irreverent levity in many we have shared in the overall context of a great respect for one another’s beliefs. Obviously my memory is subject to the vagaries and unreliability of memory; Amelia tells me that dumb guy is a she, not a he.]</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></div><div class="MsoNormal">At that time in the bookstore of the Shambala Center, there was a print or painting of a demon with a mouth full of huge fangs hung near the ceiling above the bookshelves. To me, it looked kabuki—curling graphic stripes of primary yellow and red, with that odd jade green and gilding particular to some Asian art. I had asked Amelia about it. Who or what is <i>that</i>?! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">She had answered that it was the demon who in the afterlife rips the jugular from the perverters of the dharma with his long, frightening fangs. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF-4xYl_BTfsb-RT9zk0CQII9StYNoFPfL9lAqyXkxlSeTvIzkiQVMLzP0Mz1mWTEOLttvbocQuaGIcTMMz2g9FYdK6m8gFG6F-_mYy36xMegKVi1FFGQikCpP0Wr4hwZuZrq1omWbJH8/s1600/cheney_satan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF-4xYl_BTfsb-RT9zk0CQII9StYNoFPfL9lAqyXkxlSeTvIzkiQVMLzP0Mz1mWTEOLttvbocQuaGIcTMMz2g9FYdK6m8gFG6F-_mYy36xMegKVi1FFGQikCpP0Wr4hwZuZrq1omWbJH8/s320/cheney_satan.jpg" /></a></div>In response to her questions about how I could believe that dumb stuff, I asked, Oh really?! What about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> guy?! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This response seemed to satisfy both of us. There’s something stupid about every religion. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There is an element of superstition and the bizarre to every faith practice—the compulsion to cross oneself when an ambulance passes, my mother-in-law’s panic around our slowness in getting our children Christened (as if any God we believed in would condemn the souls of babies to anything less than Heaven), fish on Friday (as if fish weren't meat), vampiric demons, dietary restrictions, those weird Ayurvedic practices involving cleansing internal cavities of one sort or another (with all due respect to the netti pot, which must certainly be a Divine gift to those with sinus issues). Any one practice, any one idea, any one story taken out of context can be held up to ridicule.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Then and now, my feelings are these:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">1. It isn’t important what I think; it’s what I do. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGW8rusnEdHqnGofA8tebGmwe1_apffaPUSp4bGSFeodrnPWlUDZyRkfae-g52GTRRtMI4oTO5-m5Q7JLQ86XgxnafDlF-hTbUKvaGcf2782USPI6i1A2tPzfqqMhv9PIHKw5WOxrekC8/s1600/power_of_myth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGW8rusnEdHqnGofA8tebGmwe1_apffaPUSp4bGSFeodrnPWlUDZyRkfae-g52GTRRtMI4oTO5-m5Q7JLQ86XgxnafDlF-hTbUKvaGcf2782USPI6i1A2tPzfqqMhv9PIHKw5WOxrekC8/s200/power_of_myth.jpg" width="129" /></a></div>(That’s a challenging precept for me. I’m all about language. The best gift I have to offer is my ability to write. Sure, I can bake cookies, I can show up for the St. Vincent de Paul warehouse weekend, I can write checks, I can volunteer for all manner of civic and church events, but the first fruits are right here. Writing is an intellectual exercise. Sure, I try to work from trance, to leave myself a vessel, and otherwise attempt to be a conduit, but my brain is all over this. And the brain is a dangerous organ because it can be convinced of anything. It’s the heart that tells the truth. Is writing doing or being? At the least, I try to make writing be about being. For much of my life, it has been while writing that I am closest to purely being, which is one way to know I am following my bliss—or living an inspired life— or following a greater plan.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">2. It is important for me to have a faith practice, more important than having faith. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhskrAbjwiXUgrbmETsVhV86KXI4LUnp1TEvvN0UiqQ_U957RBSW6p9N-aYBLfnh5JDSJRRCvibpLFTFCrXH2zOKfb-8d-PgyROFOBzznTcJYEw0wgzRZseQW6E5V-XKG1WWaakQSaDB-w/s1600/motherteresa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhskrAbjwiXUgrbmETsVhV86KXI4LUnp1TEvvN0UiqQ_U957RBSW6p9N-aYBLfnh5JDSJRRCvibpLFTFCrXH2zOKfb-8d-PgyROFOBzznTcJYEw0wgzRZseQW6E5V-XKG1WWaakQSaDB-w/s320/motherteresa.jpg" /></a></div>Faith is good, but without practice what is it? I say religion that is merely belief is superstition. The Church Lady has no faith practice beyond attending church and praying. She certainly doesn’t treat other people with Christian charity. I’d be willing to bet she doesn’t vote with the common good in mind either, but with a preference for punishment and judgment. Practice, though, practice creates a change in my self and the world that is demonstrable. It is the thing I can point to when people ask, what’s the point of religion? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
The point of religion is the practice of compassion, forgiveness and love in one’s interactions with the world. Feeding the hungry. Comforting the sick. Loving one’s neighbor as one’s self.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
It is through the discipline of faith practice that I most easily experience the divine.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The Catechism and the Nicene Creed (which Catholics repeat during most masses) feature a belief in the afterlife—“we look forward to the life to come”—and when most religious talk about their belief, they eventually wend around to “eternal life in communion with the Father and the Saints.” I wouldn’t mind that; it sounds great. The afterlife does not motivate me. What kind of person would I be if that were my sole motivation?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc8zLU-lC2JWfWnysamePuzMFDSPJC-ILsjMd9lgOnvDYMGDno7SXDRHPrPW2ilfg6iwR3K4hpcU54jC9VWbJiqsfnO7dpI_VBmXARY-_uk225QTVnjUc9nMCiovWNR0H3Ic2owR_jtmg/s1600/church_lady.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc8zLU-lC2JWfWnysamePuzMFDSPJC-ILsjMd9lgOnvDYMGDno7SXDRHPrPW2ilfg6iwR3K4hpcU54jC9VWbJiqsfnO7dpI_VBmXARY-_uk225QTVnjUc9nMCiovWNR0H3Ic2owR_jtmg/s320/church_lady.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>I like to think most people chose to be good because it’s the right thing to do whether there’s a reward involved or not. Sure it’s a good thing to return the lost wallet for the reward; it’s an even better thing to just return it because you can imagine how you’d feel if you lost your wallet. I don’t need a reward. I just want everyone to be happy and kind. It would be fine with me if I died and nothing happened. Especially if I knew I’d lived a good life.<br />
<br />
3. The practice of choosing to believe in those things that blow open my heart to an experience of myself as part of a mystery bigger than myself is a good thing. If a belief of one sort or another guides me to a better, healthier, more authentic version of myself, it’s a good thing in which to believe. So, while I have yet to memorize the Nicene Creed, I say it along with the parish in the hopes that— in choosing to believe— my rational mind will eventually catch up with my heart.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">4. Prayer works. Every specific request I’ve made has been granted—to my surprise and embarrassment.<br />
<br />
I’m surprised every time a prayer is granted, even though I know beforehand that, so far, God willing and knock wood (yes, I'm aware of the irony), I’ll get that for which I’ve asked; all my previous petitions have been answered in the affirmative.<br />
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I’m embarrassed because belief in supernatural phenomena (prayers being answered) and interaction with supernatural entities (talking with dead relatives or asking God for stuff) are activities most often shared by paranoid schizophrenics and manic-depressives. (To the best of my knowledge, I am merely depressive.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Py-hHIjHPpPmHzIG1XWXJbNmC8hghxeMoz0CcgOtlVxC9MKMib2DKeYhcsuTZVhzid5pHJq_TTVuaNbEWoFD6E_bG8aNf91COaFOFw4SAnDbcuB3DGtJ5BicoAcLFzNd_9pbISIalSw/s1600/TouchedwithFire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Py-hHIjHPpPmHzIG1XWXJbNmC8hghxeMoz0CcgOtlVxC9MKMib2DKeYhcsuTZVhzid5pHJq_TTVuaNbEWoFD6E_bG8aNf91COaFOFw4SAnDbcuB3DGtJ5BicoAcLFzNd_9pbISIalSw/s320/TouchedwithFire.jpg" /></a></div>Five years ago we were living in a dorm room with our two-year-old daughter in the San Francisco Bay Area. Beloved had taken a tenure-track job at a school just east of the Caldecott Tunnel. We drove through The Canyon and dreamed of a cabin in its dense wood. I pored over real estate listings and found a property we could afford if I went back to work. It was an hour <i>further</i> outside the Bay Area proper. A cute little early twentieth century house with a huge lot by California standards. It was 600 sf and had no closet. Not even a broom closet. It cost $250,000. There was no lawn. The house next door had two threadbare sofas on the front porch and a car on blocks at the curb. On that weekday afternoon, several men who didn’t look like college professors or industry types sat on the couches watching us warily as the realtor showed us the house.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">(Like many Americans at that time, we were deep in debt and had no net worth; in fact, our net worth was over fifty grand in the red. We wanted to own a house because we had a child. We were tired of paying out thousands a month on rent and not accumulating net worth. One of the reasons we were so strapped was a stubborn refusal to live in neighborhoods in Los Angeles that we could afford. If one only lives in accommodations costing less than thirty percent of one’s income in Los Angeles, one will be living in a neighborhood in the Valley, which is not Los Angeles, or in South Central, which is not very safe. )</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In January, my husband swore we’d have a house by the end of the year. To create good karmic cause for a house, he organized a school-sponsored Habitat for Humanity build. He said there was no way the Universe would give us a house, if we didn't help other people get houses. For my part, I prayed for a house every Sunday during mass. We closed on our house in September of that year. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Sure, it isn’t definitive proof, but what is? I like to think the Universe moved to answer our desire in the affirmative because we humbly asked for what we wanted and took steps to get it—all on terms the Universe probably is more likely to understand and value.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx5ksXcElwMjv_rbgmMabhXzjkM8OLxa1NNjAx-_yRd2effsqEjmxDfMVmU4IQYaWdLYG65rbTZ3EoT2T5O5axYP-6rWxd5Kq_CrVR1acjDsmEny9H0yzZPArXJxW19hnLlwVH0cds3ko/s1600/nicene_creed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx5ksXcElwMjv_rbgmMabhXzjkM8OLxa1NNjAx-_yRd2effsqEjmxDfMVmU4IQYaWdLYG65rbTZ3EoT2T5O5axYP-6rWxd5Kq_CrVR1acjDsmEny9H0yzZPArXJxW19hnLlwVH0cds3ko/s640/nicene_creed.jpg" width="536" /></a></div><br />
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</div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-86063109807424183572010-03-18T07:00:00.000-07:002010-04-12T11:14:45.885-07:00Further Negotiations: Fall-ing in Love<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">People still talk about our wedding: <i>The best party they’d ever been to</i>. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The most moving ceremony.</i> (Our prayers, the only part that could be truly individualized within the Rite, were especially moving for some of the guests.) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The most enjoyable reception. The most heartfelt and meaningful toasts. A magical night. Fun. Truly an expression of us as a couple.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Rite of Marriage was observed at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in the early afternoon of Halloween. A masked ball, the reception was held that evening on the back lawn of the University of Redlands Alumni House. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgouBav0asEhRTFVLzhbQmqVAAw3rQKfPu7H2FcSjKNW6Md8VhLoK1ItAw2MtBBWrKKJk0NkwNbzoVbByB9lDgT_QqMgLSeEBket_8e0OJTfNPc1xrNzvF9Y5pEafIiC7afFzpZr9IQqz8/s1600-h/alumnihouse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgouBav0asEhRTFVLzhbQmqVAAw3rQKfPu7H2FcSjKNW6Md8VhLoK1ItAw2MtBBWrKKJk0NkwNbzoVbByB9lDgT_QqMgLSeEBket_8e0OJTfNPc1xrNzvF9Y5pEafIiC7afFzpZr9IQqz8/s320/alumnihouse.jpg" /></a>My paternal grandparents were already gone; they had died within months of each other in 1993. The extended family all wished they could have been there, even my mother who as the ex-wife of their son and my father, hadn’t spoken to them in a dozen years. My cousin, Kathleen, a good Catholic woman, said she could feel them there at the reception, smiling over us. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t feel them there, but Kathleen wasn’t the only person who told me they were thinking of Grandma and Grandpa. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">(I just felt good, awash in the swirling magic of a romantic evening—Italian lights in the big live oaks around the dance patio and the pergola; paper lanterns in the trees; candle light flickering over everything; champagne and dancing under the warmth of a Southern California autumn night sky.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The problem with awe-inspiring weddings, priests are fond of reminding congregants, is that couples focus on the wedding and not on the marriage. Catholics speak of discernment a lot. Couples ideally should discern whether to marry one another. Discernment, as far as I have been able to gather, is prayerful decision making. I imagine that a person who is in the process of discerning, prays and meditates and waits for inspiration as to the correct course of action.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A brief perusal of Wikipedia and on-line Catholic Encyclopedia yields this paraphrase: discernment is between those spirits or angels who entreat us to join them in obedience to god’s will and those spirits or angels who entice us to rebel with them against god’s will. Within ourselves, the lower levels of consciousness, of the flesh, growing out of the fall, entice us away from god’s will. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinE0Sdl4XaTSU8ESokmfiq2Yv0nZ6fzlSFe4B3QGVGOMFdV00mnyoRjlnmwzOe0XQinKI3ThyrhM-JTMj8ZZ7-hqZiPqwSjadAO6X2nfKhyphenhyphenhmdxYwdNSIyfaTrknoxaTWC5-WzPHq_qvk/s1600-h/odalisque.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinE0Sdl4XaTSU8ESokmfiq2Yv0nZ6fzlSFe4B3QGVGOMFdV00mnyoRjlnmwzOe0XQinKI3ThyrhM-JTMj8ZZ7-hqZiPqwSjadAO6X2nfKhyphenhyphenhmdxYwdNSIyfaTrknoxaTWC5-WzPHq_qvk/s320/odalisque.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">In 1990, several weeks after meeting my husband in the men’s room at a graduation dance (that’s where the keg was being hidden), I was an odalisque on the turquoise Naugahyde sofa of an efficiency hotel room near Northbrook Illinois. My husband and I were staying there, as his mother, a good Catholic woman, would not allow me to spend the night in their home. We had spent the last twenty-four hours in bed. We had seen spots. We had been dazed. We had seen God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My husband, fleshy and recumbent on the bed, asked me if I wanted to have children. Technically, this was our second date. I said, yes. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That we would marry one another was a foregone conclusion pretty much from the first kiss on. When we met, we spent the remainder of the weekend together. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The morning of the men’s room/keg night, I told my mother that I had met the man I would marry.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Many years later, the year my paternal and beloved grandmother died, my beloved and I were en couchant when I sensed someone standing in the doorway to the bedroom. There was no physical presence there when I looked, but I knew it was my grandmother up near the ceiling. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grandma!</i> I thought fiercely, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this is not a good time.</i> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was mortified. (har har har.) She thought back at me, <i>I</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">t’s ok. I like him. He’s a good match. Blessings</i>. Her message wasn’t conveyed in language—more like sending the energy of goodwill with specific intentions. And then she was gone.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHITtThkN983TAm5RKqZkbPaLiQaWpGNhAnALK2BHWTIgkoraDOzf-Ie3euXBjgSpIx0hbyYtuw6vjKdtYGqLAb2DT8VJhkazoIP2s8KPlqD6O1WraK5me9TGRWiwTZ7DZvBVFCRBWK_Q/s1600-h/Sly+and+the+Family+Stone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHITtThkN983TAm5RKqZkbPaLiQaWpGNhAnALK2BHWTIgkoraDOzf-Ie3euXBjgSpIx0hbyYtuw6vjKdtYGqLAb2DT8VJhkazoIP2s8KPlqD6O1WraK5me9TGRWiwTZ7DZvBVFCRBWK_Q/s320/Sly+and+the+Family+Stone.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">That is my experience. It is true. And in it lies the kernel of another conflict I must negotiate. (Catholic teachings acknowledge the existence of souls, the tradition of living humans talking to dead spirits, most notably in our petition of the saints. I see dead people and the Church is cool with me talking to my dead grandma.) No, the problem is that in my metaphysics, flesh and sex and lust and romantic love aren’t an evil to be overcome, but a joy to be celebrated. (Cue up Sly and The Family Stone’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It’s Your Thing</i>.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sometime after I wrote my letter to the Bishop, my husband and I met with the parish priest at the Catholic Church in my home town a two hour drive east of Los Angeles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were there to take a compatibility test. We took our test booklets, Number 2 pencils and ScanTron bubble sheets into separate rooms, and spent the next forty-five minutes filling in bubbles with graphite in response to questions like “have you ever engaged in sexual activity with a member of your own sex?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">According to the ScanTron test, my answers raised several “red flags”—divorced parents, less than a Kinsey 0 heterosexual, no strong faith tradition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am a sucker’s bet as marriage material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Maybe the Church screens for perfect 0 heterosexuals and thus has a constituency that is naturally inclined to favor an ahistorical, literal read of the Leviticus dictates? Just a thought.) Our officiating priest sternly told us that the test results did not predict a successful marriage. (My husband denies that this happened: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Not to my recollection</i>, he says, in the same tone his mother uses when she says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oh, I don’t know anything about that</i>, which means, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’d rather not do that and I’m not going to</i>. In his language it means that he will not tolerate a less than romantic version of the story of our courtship, betrothal, and eventual marriage.) </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2UKE82oMI6TYjf3qQLchySTdowviv5ZxaSKEqBASuCJTFAtFlp3EStCfXGP8LB_rFzhhsB5PZJKKAvJ9o9AeOZpSNndBFXkk2vc1N9O1KRlgCluCBGQwxe15WVD_rqBcgbQtlPsJvmF4/s1600-h/kinseyfrontsmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2UKE82oMI6TYjf3qQLchySTdowviv5ZxaSKEqBASuCJTFAtFlp3EStCfXGP8LB_rFzhhsB5PZJKKAvJ9o9AeOZpSNndBFXkk2vc1N9O1KRlgCluCBGQwxe15WVD_rqBcgbQtlPsJvmF4/s320/kinseyfrontsmall.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">I remember Rich responding that there was nothing the test could tell him about me that he did not already know, and then a pregnant pause while the priest waited for us to change our minds, call the whole thing off, at least postpone. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The priest rubbed his hands on his knees and inhaled deeply. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">So, I suppose we should discuss the ceremony</i>, he conceded. Rich told him about how we planned to name our first child Rilke, boy or girl; how we had felt God in our relationship from the beginning; how we are matched as friends, lovers and spirits; how fond we were of Rilke’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Letters</i> on marriage (two bordering solitudes); how he felt he had seen God in the Face of Love I had shown him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I’ll have to remind myself to read this paragraph when I’m looking at a table full of cereal bowls no one could be bothered to bus for themselves: He’s not just that annoying guy who leaves his socks everywhere.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR2z1bwLqoNhvt0PVZevrcwNe4AxhD2tTTIe2xuSaP4z4NjTcrEbGffPDdbHicGU_sqpE8snk3LGDDY7yOXkLzpb8q1HOKycqNp9ONwQT_7B3kHF4cS8X7BmwB9sHXSlZ6Gmop5ttMR2Y/s1600-h/rilke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR2z1bwLqoNhvt0PVZevrcwNe4AxhD2tTTIe2xuSaP4z4NjTcrEbGffPDdbHicGU_sqpE8snk3LGDDY7yOXkLzpb8q1HOKycqNp9ONwQT_7B3kHF4cS8X7BmwB9sHXSlZ6Gmop5ttMR2Y/s320/rilke.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">There were lots of questions on the test about whether we were worried about the cost of the wedding, whether we felt the reception was overemphasized. I remember answering <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">no</i>. We had a budget. Sure, we’d overspent a little here and there, but the point of a wedding, we agreed, was the public affirmation of what is essentially private and unknowable—a mystery to outsiders. The wedding wasn’t really for us; it was for our friends and family. The wedding was meant to invite a celebration of that mystery. (Admittedly, the wedding party table was the only one to be served from a bottle of Dom Perignon, and we dispensed with those parts of the tradition we found tedious—no receiving line.) On a purely pragmatic note, I told more than one person, even if you believe marriage is an arcane, outmoded arrangement concerned with inheritance and property rights, it is for those reasons alone that one should marry before breeding, and we were ready to breed. That’s why you “make it legal” or “get married,” right? To fornicate and be fruitful in the context of social, legal and economic stability. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On a summer afternoon in New England in the early 90s, I officiated the wedding of my friends Mary and Matt. Matt had paid the twenty bucks and done the paperwork for me to become a pastor in a likely evangelical and definitely mail order church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My homily went something like this: We are gathered to formally acknowledge a marriage that has already been lived in the hearts and bodies of Mary and Matt. There were elaborations, examples, flowery musings on marriage being a vow made in the heart language of a couple and the fruits of its expression being all that others are able to witness. That was the central talking point. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It is probably because of my husband’s shared belief in such ideology that he feels he can “call” a marriage. Every ceremony we’ve attended, every newlywed couple we’ve encountered—at some point he leans in and whispers, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I give it ten months, two years</i>, or simply, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This one’s doomed</i>. Or, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This one’s a keeper</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You’re either married in your hearts, or you aren’t and no amount of paperwork, Church or civic, can increase or decrease your commitment to one another or the institution. We all know people who while married, hold in the institution and their partner in contempt. Equally, we all know people who hold the institution in contempt but live together in what for all intents and purposes is a loving marriage for multiple decades. Think of Susan Sarandon and Tim Robins. My husband and I for the first eight years of our relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the gay men and women of a certain age who met one another before the era of same-sex marriage, and who twenty plus years later are still together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Decisions that grow out of our debased, fleshy nature. Hmm. While I will confess to the sin of gluttony, I have a hard time believing that the fleshy union of my marriage has anything to do with an absence of God or a retreat from God. I have every reason to believe that this relationship was anointed long before the Father at Sacred Heart knew we existed. Not only did Grandma come back from the dead to bestow the blessings of The Universe on our union, she picked her moment. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><!--EndFragment-->Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-59759782082358619322010-02-17T11:28:00.000-08:002010-02-17T13:14:42.431-08:00Further Negotiations: The Bishop & The Badly Behaved Boy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg6O_nJCMx9wT0qp421CzKdwwmJTsH8vabVXsYkc3lz2VzwgTeP1e36M2Mr52WieaLUS7re1WrUxUZgt01GjiG__UeYfMDf1G4D4iuXftLMCI-rSNMFZFy1bBFROgIXxwBn9c2O5T2EBs/s1600-h/beyondgodthefather.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg6O_nJCMx9wT0qp421CzKdwwmJTsH8vabVXsYkc3lz2VzwgTeP1e36M2Mr52WieaLUS7re1WrUxUZgt01GjiG__UeYfMDf1G4D4iuXftLMCI-rSNMFZFy1bBFROgIXxwBn9c2O5T2EBs/s200/beyondgodthefather.jpg" width="132" /></a>Before my beloved and I could get married in the Church, I had to write a letter to the Bishop explaining myself. The talking points included supporting my husband in his Catholic faith and my commitment to raising Catholic children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was also to address my reluctance to convert, which is to say make a case for my refusal. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwxgHM_qncvCPLfiyeJRwcHb6eIFqixgIuJd8gqwvxt48f22K7qwqlZgx86kA_MRVdWAwhVELq_ltPeZGI7MfsNl8TLcuxvywSnsmTIR7Netv6OIZfXof4YCBexGlrk7LeqJWMlzTKWAQ/s1600-h/Mary+Daly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwxgHM_qncvCPLfiyeJRwcHb6eIFqixgIuJd8gqwvxt48f22K7qwqlZgx86kA_MRVdWAwhVELq_ltPeZGI7MfsNl8TLcuxvywSnsmTIR7Netv6OIZfXof4YCBexGlrk7LeqJWMlzTKWAQ/s200/Mary+Daly.jpg" width="145" /></a>I own an autographed copy of Mary Daly’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beyond God the Father</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I could have stopped right there.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><!--StartFragment--> </div><div class="MsoNormal">Daly, the author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gyn/Ecology</i> went on to write <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Webster’s’ First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language, Conjured in Cahoots with Jane Caputi</i>. Long before I met my husband, at the book signing for the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wickedary</i> in a small bookstore in Claremont, California, I offered up my copy of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beyond God the Father</i> for her signature. My roommate and I had driven 40 minutes to sit with a handful of other women and listen to Daly read. She looked nothing like we expected. We expected what Janeane Garofalo looks like now. Daly looked like a grandma—soft in the middle with the tightly permed gray hair favored by women of the Great Generation. She was wearing a quilted vest with multicolored appliqués of battleaxes on the sides—a friend had made it for her, she joked, from one battleaxe to another. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji7tNHMgJMORsenG9e4t16qXxDVtmxTHRWYr-lUPp6FsYlGc3Gap9zKa7Tbzig0OGhgj7QISOpf5t1hsv3V2U5O5u-7hKFzGDRKwp6d3or9tVTwUNz9LJQbEuQboEe0qhxPHoIza_-hBE/s1600-h/janeane+garofalo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji7tNHMgJMORsenG9e4t16qXxDVtmxTHRWYr-lUPp6FsYlGc3Gap9zKa7Tbzig0OGhgj7QISOpf5t1hsv3V2U5O5u-7hKFzGDRKwp6d3or9tVTwUNz9LJQbEuQboEe0qhxPHoIza_-hBE/s200/janeane+garofalo.jpg" width="188" /></a><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">How do I unpack that paragraph for anyone unfamiliar with Mary Daly? Officium Libri Catholici published her first book. I’m pretty sure that means her 1966 book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Natural Knowledge of God in the Philosophy of Jacques Maritain</i> got the thumbs up from Rome. Two decades later, she was fired from Boston College, a Jesuit university, because as a feminist separatist she refused to allow male students to attend her graduate seminar on women’s spirituality. As a feminist separatist, she believed that the patriarchy is so pervasive, entrenched, and toxic that the only way for a woman to retain authenticity and integrity, is to foreswear men and make a politically motivated choice to sleep only with other women. (Women with daddy issues unite! Closet lesbians who need a good excuse unite! I was the former, and my roommate was the latter.)</div><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><!--StartFragment--> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj38XRADqi-KtLYWPOq6jaBaHFuVz40pR5kHplVtK54zT06fVQiRv4c4uWfvHBBDrFnLfNd6tEuxFQi8snXkq3iFKhXCsvUaIfZ-eFFHxPCOaJoJc0LEqaS6H5wrPVJ-vafsAMOL6wbs08/s1600-h/off+our+backs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj38XRADqi-KtLYWPOq6jaBaHFuVz40pR5kHplVtK54zT06fVQiRv4c4uWfvHBBDrFnLfNd6tEuxFQi8snXkq3iFKhXCsvUaIfZ-eFFHxPCOaJoJc0LEqaS6H5wrPVJ-vafsAMOL6wbs08/s320/off+our+backs.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">I “went to art school” and by that, I mean I kissed a girl and I liked it (though not the earlier mentioned roommate). I also kissed a much larger number of boys, and I liked that too. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For many years, the split between my mind and body was so deep, bodies were irrelevant to me in many ways, most notably irrelevant to me was their gender. I did not fall in love with bodies; I had crushes on people. (I didn’t really know what love was until I met my husband—and, as we all know, every angel is terrifying.) </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ok, so here we have a person who at one time described herself as a radical, but not separatist, feminist (and still does). A person who proudly attended the Los Angeles March for Women’s Lives and still has her ticket stub. A person who believes in her heart of hearts that Christians as a category and Catholics in particular are overly obsessed with what other people are doing with their mucus membranes and with whom—as if the marital relationship, the love relationship, at its core is best understood by Tab B fitting into Slot A—and not just any Tab and not just any Slot, but specific Tabs and Slots owned by specific souls—do souls have gender? I wonder—but not really, because I am certain that they do not. But there’s no point in bringing it up with the Church. The Church is obsessed with keeping penises out of anuses and keeping female mouths and hands away from vulvas. </div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><!--StartFragment--> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJxgl7qUeb2KBmZuvdTHJUzv5YGWWq5SUqeHkIZeqbHcmYBoYvIZAFia4n_FVKCluTfs7gMioPOB4-Lon8XG_L14AKx5flEV0knl3JXxBr_YbK-MvddaWbf7DQJPsT4wr_YouVmniZ56c/s1600-h/amadona25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJxgl7qUeb2KBmZuvdTHJUzv5YGWWq5SUqeHkIZeqbHcmYBoYvIZAFia4n_FVKCluTfs7gMioPOB4-Lon8XG_L14AKx5flEV0knl3JXxBr_YbK-MvddaWbf7DQJPsT4wr_YouVmniZ56c/s200/amadona25.jpg" width="155" /></a>To this I say, they should give back all the art produced by sodomites. Sell it all and give the money to orphans. For starters: The Sistine Chapel as presented by Verizon Wireless. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ywWVqKpW-QfiHXt18DkN_Y_9p4BWkSiZy0kWaDX4sTGG1ucT7NR8yAwED3X_Z9tnJy8ZCWbbsPdbD5dbzleJnv3gGxpJwPhp1v7dkFib_UMToieQHF50LDzSZqtb-iiY-oXLGHRGpYk/s1600-h/madonna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ywWVqKpW-QfiHXt18DkN_Y_9p4BWkSiZy0kWaDX4sTGG1ucT7NR8yAwED3X_Z9tnJy8ZCWbbsPdbD5dbzleJnv3gGxpJwPhp1v7dkFib_UMToieQHF50LDzSZqtb-iiY-oXLGHRGpYk/s200/madonna.jpg" width="181" /></a>So, it probably comes as little shock that my husband warned me to stick to my talking points in my letter to the Bishop. (A recurring theme in our relationship—with each other and mine with the Church: Don’t tell the whole truth. Don’t dig too deeply. Don’t pick at it. It, whatever it is, is a mystery.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I didn’t mention the book or my views on same sex marriage, women in the priesthood, or the importance of women controlling their bodies and owning their sexuality, but I did tell the truth.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDuhrLgATx2rE45bLA4RMyUGdW5NHJEsF9SAaMSCI-oi86QKr9uM7J4iet8tZT94amsl_rRwJ8kYE5xWiQIxJn-LRsS7eWtRv9lBDHnPUwB-M3xnhIzusWH-lJxp853GOLaXKByVSTOjE/s1600-h/MadonnaAndChild.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDuhrLgATx2rE45bLA4RMyUGdW5NHJEsF9SAaMSCI-oi86QKr9uM7J4iet8tZT94amsl_rRwJ8kYE5xWiQIxJn-LRsS7eWtRv9lBDHnPUwB-M3xnhIzusWH-lJxp853GOLaXKByVSTOjE/s200/MadonnaAndChild.jpg" width="141" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">The draft I shared with my husband included the following thesis: While I do not think I can be a good Catholic, I am certain that I can raise good Catholics. Since I do not come from a strong faith tradition, and since we believe having a faith tradition is important, I will support my husband’s faith practice.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My husband sat down at the computer and deleted the phrase, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">while I do not think I can be a good Catholic</i> and all of its supporting statements, whole paragraphs.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkRsxbASqJa0QEGulDyFgYfGHt_7ZCmBRUOSlrvLx6MPaywMmjbakO0O8Wtp7r29k-00qczGb-L5PciIfq8TF9e3p_a1D0d2PDz2IUL_EUQ_PuG5b6CsaZVljqL8Yz-8CviKzWdco9uAg/s1600-h/Dissected_lactating_breast_gray1172.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkRsxbASqJa0QEGulDyFgYfGHt_7ZCmBRUOSlrvLx6MPaywMmjbakO0O8Wtp7r29k-00qczGb-L5PciIfq8TF9e3p_a1D0d2PDz2IUL_EUQ_PuG5b6CsaZVljqL8Yz-8CviKzWdco9uAg/s200/Dissected_lactating_breast_gray1172.png" width="200" /></a><o:p> </o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">At the time, I believed he was simply doing the tap dance his mother needed to be happy with our union; and in order to do that tap dance; he needed to do another for the Church. (This raised many questions about his integrity.) For many years thereafter, I believed his insistence on having a “Catholic family” was more about imposing his will, getting his way, winning in a long series of power struggles in which getting his way seemed more important than any other principle that may have applied. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">While all of those things are true, it is also true that—when we hadn’t been to any house of worship for a few years except in the company of his family or mine, and I said I would be attending the Shambhala Meditation Center in Berkeley, California with our eldest and then only child—he refused “to allow it” and said he and our girl would be attending mass at our local parish.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgfzdarvQBFgmDiPvtJ2RKxk2DsOi1CLiRhuXKzFvSCk46Wb4TXIp_RBEiJDZWP_jhH3FuKblWy56pHH_u_qagj-SqCfDvk7kXyWNiINrm5EZhscr84AEBR-o0BDfK1achZe3_oZeajiM/s1600-h/burningWitch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgfzdarvQBFgmDiPvtJ2RKxk2DsOi1CLiRhuXKzFvSCk46Wb4TXIp_RBEiJDZWP_jhH3FuKblWy56pHH_u_qagj-SqCfDvk7kXyWNiINrm5EZhscr84AEBR-o0BDfK1achZe3_oZeajiM/s320/burningWitch.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Because I was not lying about anything in my draft, his “refusal”—if pompous, and I may add in the spirit of Daly, Dick-tatorial—was fine by me: at least the family would be attending worship services with greater frequency than an obligatory genuflection at Easter and Christmas. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Five years later, I have been to mass most Sundays give or take family vacations and household DIY project weekends. Because I think it’s important to worship as a family. Because I don’t like the idea of driving the hatchback by myself to the nearest Unitarian church while the rest of my family attends mass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because when I made my vows, it was clear that while my conversion wasn’t mandatory, it wouldn’t hurt. Because when I made my vows, I meant them. I intended to be The Face of Love in my husband’s life. (While he may claim I am the embodiment of a mean and spiteful Old Testament stern father ogre, I have tried to be the embodiment of the compassionate and forgiving New Testament nurturing mother archetype. What we most despise in ourselves…) Because whether any of us like it or not, the Catholic Church is my faith community—we’re stuck with each other. Because when you raise Catholic children—they go to Faith Formation classes, they attend special masses for children and first communicants, there are parent meetings—there simply isn’t enough time to uphold another faith practice if you are the primary caretaker of said children.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGIB4cd2psnCbZkoSmmW_og7h5tUPiAxVZayN1EKn4OBmJRjNYuiwEIBwDnI-8fswVzDhPIfLxkPwcOt2D-nTHnMmC2HXX44GsyCCQn-iOZSa9UxQmUF0eUBOs94c2QayxBBNMcChxPoA/s1600-h/malleus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGIB4cd2psnCbZkoSmmW_og7h5tUPiAxVZayN1EKn4OBmJRjNYuiwEIBwDnI-8fswVzDhPIfLxkPwcOt2D-nTHnMmC2HXX44GsyCCQn-iOZSa9UxQmUF0eUBOs94c2QayxBBNMcChxPoA/s320/malleus.jpg" /></a><o:p> As my husband is fond of reminding me, no one is twisting my arm. That’s true.</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">However, his “refusal” has shut down the other possible options.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would be cruel and confusing and counterproductive and undermining of the whole worshipping-as-a-family project to change course at this point—but then I spend a lot of time thinking about what would be best for the kids. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yep, no one is twisting my arm. I chose all of it. The husband. The children. The family. The Catholic family. I expressly did not choose a traditional marriage in which my husband “puts his foot down” or “refuses to allow” or announces, “this conversation is over.” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I will get more from conversion than it will cost me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>He would get more from conversation than his refusal will cost him.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgh-2ZSNG-qYQAeQ4eovwdhz4BoaWsirHTKYm3uijFmNYGUVf8dwMviRcHEoBjJj_kv6SRSHTNTeHiz2WrIDqMsFgzIUe8_DMQu7QR1wd9qzV5NkR6nkXkNPqHp1GhktPU0K-7gydCKOM/s1600-h/Dorothy+Day+RGB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgh-2ZSNG-qYQAeQ4eovwdhz4BoaWsirHTKYm3uijFmNYGUVf8dwMviRcHEoBjJj_kv6SRSHTNTeHiz2WrIDqMsFgzIUe8_DMQu7QR1wd9qzV5NkR6nkXkNPqHp1GhktPU0K-7gydCKOM/s400/Dorothy+Day+RGB.jpg" width="310" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">So, how does a person, me, get from Point A: The Catholic Church is the Patriarchy (Malleus Maleficarum/holocaust of women, The Crusades, Eve was framed) to Point B: The Catholic Church is full of mystics, radicals, and progressives (Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Romero, Sean Penn, Fr. Gregory Boyle, Sr. Helen Prejean, Fr. Robert Drinan)? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">One possible answer: the universe (God) made sure I found people in whom I would see a possible reflection of what I might become, a reflection in which I was Catholic, the way they are Catholic. Like the kente cloth/Peruvian hat and braids image, my list of Catholics (not all in good standing with the Church) tells me it is possible be a Catholic and still be me. </div><!--EndFragment--> <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnfoqqCxu2jfAc6-xAihWoTJDVmMzmKfNKibCqAAxh55buc7gy33O5A02-aP9mwu93vZYqlouqfCMvlafxvAjk7SRnEolJ9se_0jlXmdENkrtwVfLLcLCJpVM_W64u45JQe1sQ9ELm1yc/s1600-h/milkyway.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnfoqqCxu2jfAc6-xAihWoTJDVmMzmKfNKibCqAAxh55buc7gy33O5A02-aP9mwu93vZYqlouqfCMvlafxvAjk7SRnEolJ9se_0jlXmdENkrtwVfLLcLCJpVM_W64u45JQe1sQ9ELm1yc/s320/milkyway.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-BUz6GzKN77Ak9YWwagmSSsuZlevydtGtx0QIJaX9udMqNRUKGvLhsZsWVoNFuHDs2Yw-IGvph8g3OeKzUczZ1LENaelmyXhvaBSdbNJdq0_ZHx7rktyNJHWgWOJ1tNKUEXbb0OrKwqE/s1600-h/prejean_helen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-BUz6GzKN77Ak9YWwagmSSsuZlevydtGtx0QIJaX9udMqNRUKGvLhsZsWVoNFuHDs2Yw-IGvph8g3OeKzUczZ1LENaelmyXhvaBSdbNJdq0_ZHx7rktyNJHWgWOJ1tNKUEXbb0OrKwqE/s320/prejean_helen.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"> Sr. Helen Prejean </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVsadRRIYUxbZLnlLXtQHnysKDdEMoQrELZhfG8JuOhvKy_6dEZkaFbGoWKEcKIUV0vA_akBRGnx7aPt6395DZhq0rYJrpuRpimFTDPAddPa3BqJrzXVHrTjAGGy7cZ84G_PzdQGO85bQ/s1600-h/father-greg_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVsadRRIYUxbZLnlLXtQHnysKDdEMoQrELZhfG8JuOhvKy_6dEZkaFbGoWKEcKIUV0vA_akBRGnx7aPt6395DZhq0rYJrpuRpimFTDPAddPa3BqJrzXVHrTjAGGy7cZ84G_PzdQGO85bQ/s200/father-greg_001.jpg" width="196" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Fr. Greg Boyle</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_4VnZ6zOFE3k95qLP1IGe-12ZrKRNeDk_Tpv2wzwoefxqAa9W26EnBlrHDTKjhBfTvoCZTKr1M31Sm7OI1shDkGqkMEDwwiFkljtFE7WFBxlgokjiIwUNW6sQhryyTTwHiaXh6p2L4-I/s1600-h/Romero.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_4VnZ6zOFE3k95qLP1IGe-12ZrKRNeDk_Tpv2wzwoefxqAa9W26EnBlrHDTKjhBfTvoCZTKr1M31Sm7OI1shDkGqkMEDwwiFkljtFE7WFBxlgokjiIwUNW6sQhryyTTwHiaXh6p2L4-I/s320/Romero.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<!--EndFragment--> <!--StartFragment--> <!--EndFragment--> <!--EndFragment-->Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-77482505516373653522010-02-05T07:10:00.000-08:002010-02-08T08:20:40.657-08:00Further Negotiations: Prayer<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPksije3ojhG-Dtqe8iexEgSnYSG04LRx8mTLvMtnyj88R-2dhXgfV7LrCOb-Vwmy8qIc-OjIwKc-fjSMVxREOKQhqNrRkBfulDiqbU8EvR6jWxPzTnBHAcbJED_zNvinT0j-OJ3Jj6Yc/s1600-h/bakasana@hh-beach.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPksije3ojhG-Dtqe8iexEgSnYSG04LRx8mTLvMtnyj88R-2dhXgfV7LrCOb-Vwmy8qIc-OjIwKc-fjSMVxREOKQhqNrRkBfulDiqbU8EvR6jWxPzTnBHAcbJED_zNvinT0j-OJ3Jj6Yc/s200/bakasana@hh-beach.gif" width="200" /></a></div><span style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"> </span>Sometime prior to 1998, my best friend Ken, Jay—his lover of many years—and I sat on mats in the yoga studio on Larchmont, which offered free introductory classes once a month. (Larchmont is a street and a shopping district in Los Angeles just south of Melrose Avenue and adjacent to the big houses lining Highland Avenue.) We were listening to an instructor talk about yoga as a fitness and spiritual practice. She demonstrated some showy <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">asanas</i> or poses—inversions like head and hand stands, the gravity defying switch from down to up dog, and the pretzel-like balancing act of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bakasana</i>, crane or crow pose. (I eventually was able to hold bakasana, and if you’ve seen the size of my behind…well, getting it airborne and balanced atop the fulcrum of my arms is quite an accomplishment.) </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">The instructor introduced a petite woman who spoke about what yoga meant in her life. She was one of those twenty-something sylphs who does not yet look like an adult. She had been raped, and yoga had helped her to live in her body again. She demonstrated a sun salutation, bridge (a backbend), and spoke for a while in a headstand leaning against the wall. The instructor concluded the talk portion of the freebee with more discussion of how yoga helps to fuse the gap between mind and body, how it allows people to get out of their heads and live in their bodies. At some point prior to a recititation of the discount packages available, the petite twenty-something folded slowly down from the wall and quietly excused herself.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We began the workout portion lying on our backs while the instructor encouraged us to feel ourselves in our bodies. At this time I was a size 24 and had been for about a decade. I was and am fat, pleasantly fat, but fat, not plump or big-boned, fat—the polite Midwesterner, my husband for example, would call me a “big gal.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Inhabit my body? Why on earth would I want to do that?</i> My reaction is visceral: the sort of reaction one would expect from a woman who had lived most of her life deep inside her head pretending that her body had absolutely nothing to do with who she was or how people treated her despite sometimes shockingly cruel evidence to the contrary. I shook it off, like trying to shake off spiders.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn9CpXeKCCQiMd7k_guC8XRMMUAbv-Hwdk1ABTMpR_pmxHJvk4wuLynNgKpGoUUQzNUGHHLoXddUoxoeWK_ZsauMAuc49N-mcpPq7XRE4oXj78UofoSJf-SfqKCFnVBGXM4UKlPp0J_Vk/s1600-h/Gyros.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn9CpXeKCCQiMd7k_guC8XRMMUAbv-Hwdk1ABTMpR_pmxHJvk4wuLynNgKpGoUUQzNUGHHLoXddUoxoeWK_ZsauMAuc49N-mcpPq7XRE4oXj78UofoSJf-SfqKCFnVBGXM4UKlPp0J_Vk/s200/Gyros.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Inhabit my body? Are you out of your fucking mind?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The class concluded. We rolled and put away our mats. We went to lunch at the Greek place up on the corner. I ordered the gyros with tzatziki. I did not think about yoga again.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">My husband and I rolled along—planned a wedding, got married, and were married for four years—before we decided to have a child. The pregnancy and child became the focus of my obsessional thinking. I resolved to be the best pregnant woman to have ever conceived. I began walking three miles three times a week at the USC track with my husband and his best friend, Johnny. I signed up for Bradley Method, hospital-sponsored, and doula-led birthing classes. I hired a doula. I read a small library of childbirth and infant care manuals. I bought my first fitness magazine, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fit Pregnancy</i>. Because more than one source recommended it, I paid upfront for ten pre-natal yoga classes on Larchmont. Then I paid for twenty more classes and received an even deeper discount. I attended every class and managed to be the ridiculously gravid woman who proudly announces from her mat that she is forty-one weeks pregnant.</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRKJ1RxoNktdvMvmFOOJKXhn7FCm7Kubtbir-FTySI_DzvqKkogotG1-QnWHaGZrh0XnokH1gy6fpdfKjTSzfCIVaFasqy88IOL9zWLZNpZrUzWn5di3jRkzmeUqmeSjvMadYFar1lwf4/s1600-h/bradley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="96" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRKJ1RxoNktdvMvmFOOJKXhn7FCm7Kubtbir-FTySI_DzvqKkogotG1-QnWHaGZrh0XnokH1gy6fpdfKjTSzfCIVaFasqy88IOL9zWLZNpZrUzWn5di3jRkzmeUqmeSjvMadYFar1lwf4/s200/bradley.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>In my zealotry it does not occur to me that a person who has yet to bridge the gap between her mind and her body will not be able to insure a successful birth through what is primarily an intellectual and ego-driven effort. My first child is delivered via caesarean section in the shadow of the Harbor Freeway, downtown at Good Samaritan Hospital.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ouch. And the c-section recovery was no picnic either.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">New obsession: I must model health for my child. I must change my life. I must remake my world and my place in it so that my child will know how to be healthy and loved and at peace in the world. I’m sure I’m not the first or last woman to make those vows while intoxicated with the scent of newborn skull.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I lost almost 100 pounds. (<i>How</i>, you ask? A herculean task, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. For me, that task involved spending several hours a week at the gym, four hours a week in meetings at UCLA’s Risk Factor Obesity Diet Program on Saturday mornings, and several more hours a week walking my first born around Los Angeles in her stroller. I weighed and measured all my food and calculated the calories. I calculated the calories burned—at 600 calories an hour, swimming is the best calorie per hour activity other than cross-country skiing. I calculated calorie intake minus calorie output per week with an eye toward hitting a calorie number below the calories needed to maintain my weight at 100 calories per pound. Under no circumstances make yourself miserable eating for a 120-pound person if you weigh over 200 pounds—that’s just crazy making—and you’ll feel like shit while you lose your mind. And that, my friends, is the only way to lose weight and maintain its loss—you do that and continue to do it for the rest of your life. It’s the “for the rest of your life” part that trips everyone up—and I suspect that’s part of the popularity of the 12 step programs—but I digress. There you have it: the secret formula.) </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It took two years. I was finally the same size I wore in high school, not small, not even close to small, but I could pass for big boned, rather than fat because all that exercise tightens up stuff that would be lax otherwise.<br />
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I hold bakasana indefinitely. I work on doing a headstand. Butter and oil leave our lives. Cabbage replaces rice. Fruit replaces bread. I feel good. I practice <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ujjayi breath</i> during all forms of exercise, save swimming. (According to Wikipedia, “This breath is especially important during transition into and out of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">asanas</i> [or] postures, as it helps practitioners to stay present, self-aware, and grounded in the practice, which lends it a meditative quality.”) I experience the love of God while prone on my yoga matt listening to an instructor chatter about being present, self-aware, and grounded. My ujjayi breath joins the chorus of ujjayi breath in the sweat-smelling studio.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
(Size 14 according to Lane Bryant, but no one else, I was sitting in the dry sauna at the 24 Hour Fitness next door to Amoeba Records in Hollywood. It was Friday night and this woman comes in. This woman is a type. This is the type: she has been beautiful all her life and her expectation that she will be treated exceptionally because of her beauty is deep and inchoate. Now, pushing 50, she has to work harder to be beautiful, maybe for the first time at all, and there is panic welling somewhere deep and next door to her expectations for her life. But, part of being that woman is that those sorts of thoughts aren't acknowledged, maybe ever. So, she sat down across from me, and I could feel her assessing me <span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">—</span> my eyes were closed <span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">—</span>I was doing ujjayi breath <span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">—</span> sinus problems. Then she says, <i>excuse me, I don't know what your journey is, but you know I stopped eating bread and it has changed my life</i>... and on she went... she had a date later, she liked to work out to get in a good headspace before going on a date, and on and on, on the premise that I needed to lose weight and needed her help, I was Ugly Betty and she would be the magic life coach who would sort it all out for me. Fuck her. After a few <i>I just like to breathe quietly in here</i> had been ignored, I tried to practice compassion. By the time she left <span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">—</span> <i>thank God!</i> <span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">—</span> I understood she was just trying to build herself up for a blind date. Still, fuck her.)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib-oCiY2PTaPPxM5w2pS-CCsMfD5cD1jqrnG3rC3Oo8gFWoxHbosajYEmGIXI4w77eDEDhLmlGCZCW08d336lzpXumeqoNVmP18UXG8s4tVlsN_oQljmx5BVO2PO8en363k3RvbIpoVQA/s1600-h/blue+stacking+chair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib-oCiY2PTaPPxM5w2pS-CCsMfD5cD1jqrnG3rC3Oo8gFWoxHbosajYEmGIXI4w77eDEDhLmlGCZCW08d336lzpXumeqoNVmP18UXG8s4tVlsN_oQljmx5BVO2PO8en363k3RvbIpoVQA/s200/blue+stacking+chair.jpg" width="125" /></a></div>More recently, our RCIA class gathered for one of our Tuesday night meetings at a neighboring parish to hear Sr. Mildred speak about prayer. The chapel of this church is lit to a low glow. There is a statue of Mary draped with several rosaries of varying quality—cheap plastic beads, pressed rose petal beads, semiprecious stone beads. (In my irreverent mind, I am reminded of Mardi Gras beads and imagine Mary happy on Bourbon Street.) The room is absent the bank of candles I associate with Catholic churches. (All the churches in Europe had banks of candles back in ’91.) There is a lectern, a small folding table, and rows of upholstered metal stacking chairs.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
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<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQwtksoNJUjVOMZKWxYOF85wbGyTjmLU5pv1io9OxvIm-dpRCqecNrIZzg1NWmL6ZNCzOqXUroGe2i_0o_lg52Is2kcXhC2Y58Zp0IIw6zftZweaSgUPpS6KYMBbhbGzzMgeTloJf5cj8/s1600-h/mark_rothko_blue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQwtksoNJUjVOMZKWxYOF85wbGyTjmLU5pv1io9OxvIm-dpRCqecNrIZzg1NWmL6ZNCzOqXUroGe2i_0o_lg52Is2kcXhC2Y58Zp0IIw6zftZweaSgUPpS6KYMBbhbGzzMgeTloJf5cj8/s200/mark_rothko_blue.jpg" width="151" /></a>Sr. Mildred tells us that prayer is the means by which our quotidian physical experience is brought closer to the extraordinary plane of the spiritual where God, Mary and the saints exist. She moves her hands in a horizontal stripe, one atop the other running parallel about six inches apart, from her right to her left. The point of prayer, she says, is to bring the two together. This time her hands do not run parallel, but converge on her left at a disappearing point on an imagined horizon. (I am reminded of the painter, Mark Rothko <span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">—</span> and Thomas Merton, his friend <span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">—</span> and how for a while I was obsessed with the metaphor of landscapes <span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">—</span> not in any scholarly way, but as an object of meditation and fodder for my own writing.)<br />
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Until I listened to Sr. Mildred, my understanding of Catholic prayer was limited to what it must look like to many Protestants looking in: Catholics recite from prayer cards, Catholics pray the rosary, Catholics participate in call and response prayer during mass, Catholics do not talk with god except in extemporaneous requests for the blessing of church sponsored events. Catholics do not converse silently with God: they offer praise aloud and in groups.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwf63kdjpY9i3iqMjCNWDwZyJot1sRFhB_5V1YtzoP3KKofBFQw3qtv852y1YhPtQik_nASVqR7UTu_QXE_ROt96ShGJrsOROyfsSQe6nnMBw3t6wt38vZtsZi6z87mzLy49wLoMGKui4/s1600-h/peruvian_hat_braid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwf63kdjpY9i3iqMjCNWDwZyJot1sRFhB_5V1YtzoP3KKofBFQw3qtv852y1YhPtQik_nASVqR7UTu_QXE_ROt96ShGJrsOROyfsSQe6nnMBw3t6wt38vZtsZi6z87mzLy49wLoMGKui4/s200/peruvian_hat_braid.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>Sr. Mildred reminded me of another nun who spoke at a Women’s Center-sponsored conference at the University of California, Riverside in the mid-eighties. As I remember it, the speaker at the UC Riverside event was the directress of a Los Angeles halfway house for women leaving prostitution. She spoke about the day-to-day operation of the house, interspersed with individual success stories—she could have been any random type of progressive giving a presentation on the socially valuable work of her organization. Then she told how above her desk in her office is a picture of a woman of color from another culture. This picture, she tells the crowd, is her picture of God—where others would hang a crucifix, she hung the portrait of a woman likely wearing kente cloth or the ubiquitous Peruvian hat with braids. The Sister tells us that once speaking with one of the women living in the house, the woman asked about the picture. Hearing the Sister’s explanation, the woman began crying; it was the first time she had conceived of a cosmology in which a woman like herself could have anything to do with God.<br />
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The current Catholic definition of prayer, Sr. Mildred tells us, is “conversation with a real and present God.” She asks us to consider the word <i>conversation</i>, which implies both expression and reception—talking and listening. We forget as Catholics, she says, to listen to what God needs to tell us because we are so busy asking for things. She presents the various types of prayer: chant, novenas, the Lord’s Prayer, the rosary, petition, meditation, journaling, prayer cards, etc. In this discussion I am moved because she confirms as legitimate Catholic spiritual practice those forms of conversation with the divine with which I am most comfortable and practiced: journaling, meditation, silent conversation with God.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaufIvNGeFqVBm74lWI4L0StkKf4CPNsDFHZsP0cgozh2Pu2THDAeqiNQzOz5QXWLbepHGp-07MbSu22ljtAqF9t3zxjios4gAWRZezt4wJ8qpMnrJBPQT-EMy-EXycU8FpbaP819Kg-M/s1600-h/u18016252.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaufIvNGeFqVBm74lWI4L0StkKf4CPNsDFHZsP0cgozh2Pu2THDAeqiNQzOz5QXWLbepHGp-07MbSu22ljtAqF9t3zxjios4gAWRZezt4wJ8qpMnrJBPQT-EMy-EXycU8FpbaP819Kg-M/s320/u18016252.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></span>So I have begun to try something Sr. Mildred suggested: simply listening. Not meditating on the yoga matt, simply allowing myself to experience and appreciate health as an expression of grace—having gained back every ounce and then some over the last five years, my yoga practice and experience of good health is limited at best—but praying silently with a question mark hanging over my head. Instead of asking for God’s will to manifest in my life and the life of my family during the offering of petitions during mass, I make myself receptive. I dial the number and leave the line open.<br />
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</div></div></div></div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-42020376773852697542010-02-01T11:40:00.000-08:002010-02-01T12:01:45.897-08:00Further Negotiations: Zealotry is Scary and Dangerous<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="154" id="ipfts_uIjRCy-ymQM:" src="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ts_uIjRCy-ymQM:http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/09_03/HamsterREX_468x362.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; vertical-align: bottom;" width="200" /></div><br />
When I was tiny I attended Creative Playschool, a cooperative preschool that my mother helped found. (Faculty wives got together and got a Montessori-style preschool up and running.) I remember marching around holding construction paper circles stapled to drinking straws while singing along to a song about the colors of the rainbow sung by Joan Baez, Judy Collins, or Joni Mitchell. We had a tractor tire to play in, and a sailing dingy filled with sand. We had clothes to play dress-up in, and a class hamster.<br />
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One of my classmates murdered the hamster. Because she was stupid. Really.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"> <img height="124" id="ipfe2BkUWuzUxQmlM:" src="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:e2BkUWuzUxQmlM:http://www.communityservices.qld.gov.au/family/parenting/general-parenting/images/circle-children.gif" style="border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; vertical-align: bottom;" width="92" /></o:p><o:p style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">.</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">We had on hats, the fifties style ones meant to be pinned to a French twist, and old lady dresses, meaning big flowered prints with buttons up the shirtfronts from the elastic waist to the men’s style collars. The dresses dragged on the floor. For some reason we were playing in one of the large rooms under the University of Redlands library instead of in one of The Village apartments—cinderblock rows of apartments built to house GI Bill students. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ginny. I want to say her name was Ginny. Ginny was holding the hamster—maybe it was a mouse. We loved it. It was soft and pretty and gave us tiny nibble kisses on our fingers. She was taking care of it. So she wrapped it up in a Kleenex blanket and tucked it in to bed in her plastic coin purse. <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img height="200" id="ipfva8L8NGgzgCo_M:" src="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:va8L8NGgzgCo_M:http://www.dreamstime.com/white-mouse-thumb2331178.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; vertical-align: bottom;" width="200" /></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">I said, <i>No, you can’t put it in there; it won’t be able to breathe. </i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">She looked at me blankly. Deep breath, then, <i>They have lungs. They need air. They have to breathe like us.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Blank stare, then, <i>Nuh-uh.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Yes, it needs to breathe. You have to take it out. Now!</i> I grabbed for the purse and missed.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">She dodged me and kept flitting around the room with her purse full of mouse.<br />
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I told her again, panic rising, <i>You can’t put the mouse in the purse; you’ll kill it. </i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>No, I won’t. </i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Yes, you will. You’re killing it!</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I was wide eyed. I ran for the teacher: <i>She’s killing the hamster! She’s killing the hamster! </i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And then the teacher calmly asked where the hamster was…<i>let me see it…Oh. My.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The body of the mouse hamster curled in a limp little half moon on the teacher’s palm. Ginny burst into tears. I stood back, outside their little circle of grief and consolation, hating Ginny, hating the teacher, and then completely flummoxed by the other adults and children joining the circle, all feeling bad for stupid little homicidal Ginny.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Nuh-uh: evolution is just a theory. Nuh-uh: global warming is an unproven theory. The Big Bang? Says you.</i><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3152/3114458478_6267002f2a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="http://patriotroom.com/images/upload/Tea_Party_Signs_1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3152/3114458478_6267002f2a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3152/3114458478_6267002f2a.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none;" width="150" /></a><img border="0" src="http://patriotroom.com/images/upload/Tea_Party_Signs_1.JPG" style="-webkit-user-select: none;" /></div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://images.oprah.com/images/tows/200904/20090410/20090410-tows-ted-haggard-1-290x218.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://images.oprah.com/images/tows/200904/20090410/20090410-tows-ted-haggard-1-290x218.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none;" width="200" /></a><br />
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Oprah’s guests recently included Ted Haggard and his wife, Gayle. She explained her choice to stay with the reverend Ted and work through their problems. He explained, what? How grateful he was that she stayed? Theirs was a confused message. I came away from the broadcast clear that Gayle has written a book about her experience and <i>Why I Stayed</i> is now available at major booksellers.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n115/LordAsmodeus/random%20stuff/sociopath.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n115/LordAsmodeus/random%20stuff/sociopath.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none;" width="200" /></a>I believe they are sincere in their faith and their commitment to each other. They appear to be people who were blindsided by the truth of their lives—a truth that remains obscured by a world view that will not allow for such a truth, however much concrete, experiential proof is served up on a silver platter by Providence. I imagine they grew up in “caring Christian homes” attending Bible Belt churches several times a week. I imagine old Ted is as stymied by his behavior as is his wife. They have the look of people with a faith so deep and deeply illogical that it lives next door to denial and delusion.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
Or he’s a sociopath—which is a distinct possibility—you can’t lie as well as he does without some kind of crazy going on. His lie is without the panic of the guilty. Sociopath is a distinct possibility. That’s scary. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
Blinded to the truth of himself is scary too.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:L7t4HcqJIFW8eM:http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/b2/57/c374d250fca0f127f6ad9010.L._SL500_AA240_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="110" id="ipfL7t4HcqJIFW8eM:" src="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:L7t4HcqJIFW8eM:http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/b2/57/c374d250fca0f127f6ad9010.L._SL500_AA240_.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; vertical-align: bottom;" width="110" /></a><a href="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:8hrWwUix3sOzqM:http://www.wrongsideoftheart.com/wp-content/gallery/posters-d/deep_throat_1_poster_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" id="ipf8hrWwUix3sOzqM:" src="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:8hrWwUix3sOzqM:http://www.wrongsideoftheart.com/wp-content/gallery/posters-d/deep_throat_1_poster_01.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; vertical-align: bottom;" /></a>Linda Lovelace comes to mind. Lovelace became a born again Christian sometime after her <i>Deep Throat </i>years. <i>Ordeal</i>, her story of degradation in the porn industry, reads suspiciously like the other texts I read for a graduate course titled Pornography and Melodrama. It didn’t read like <i>Thinking Through the Body</i>, a serious feminist study; it read like <i>My Secret Life</i>, a very old amalgamation of naughty stories. Pornography for good Christians. Stories of enemas and spankings and all manner of fetish told in the context of testimony. Clever. Probably lucrative. </div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="http://americanshelflife.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/cash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://americanshelflife.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/cash.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none;" width="200" /></a>There are times when I watch people lie to themselves and others in an open lie everyone has agreed to a priori—the sick days taken around holiday weekends, for example—and I see the social utility of the exercise. I understand completely when it is accompanied by the half smile, or the jovial nod, or the practiced questioning of coughing fits prior to the long weekend. Kind of like when the closeted guy everyone knows is closeted, walks around the office singing Evita songs and tells stories of fabulous vacation exploits in which one need only change the genders of the players to arrive at the truth. The clueless are allowed blissful cluelessness, and the clued don't have to feel the contagious crazy of denial.</div><div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">There are other times —when everyone seems to have genuinely lost sight of the truth underlying the communal lie —when I get frightened. Visceral fear: increased pulse rate, wrinkles between my eyebrows, fluttery chest and tight stomach.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When the zealots start talking, I am four years old trying to save a hamster from stupid Ginny.</div><br />
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</div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-50174245668323055652010-01-27T06:59:00.000-08:002010-04-11T15:34:27.220-07:00Further Negotiations: I’m Here for the God<div class="MsoNormal" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="151" src="http://www.metrosantacruz.com/metro-santa-cruz/12.14.05/gifs/davey-0550-family.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none;" width="200" /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In third grade Stephanie Bruce and I become good friends. On Sunday mornings we ride the Spirit Buss to Temple Baptist Church together. On the bus a teenage youth counselor who even in the eyes of 8 year olds is overly self-impressed, plays guitar while leading a sing-along of One<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Tin Soldier (The Theme from Billy Jack), It’s Time to Rise and Shine and Give God Your Glory Glory Children of the Lord, This Little Light of Mine, We Shall Overcome, If I Had a Hammer, </i>and inexplicably <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Puff the Magic Dragon</i>. It is the thick of the seventies.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Every Sunday, they usher us into the children’s chapel where we hear a lengthy plea for tiny sinners to come forward and get born again. Then we attend the sort of Sunday school classes that I imagine Christians of all flavors attend: Bible story, Bible story-themed craft project, recitation of memorized Bible verses, bestowal of gold stars for well-memorized verses. Then back on the bus for another round of singing songs surely penned in a haze of marijuana.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3a/Shepard_Halfway_Down.jpg/250px-Shepard_Halfway_Down.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3a/Shepard_Halfway_Down.jpg/250px-Shepard_Halfway_Down.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none;" width="240" /></a>I am told I was christened as an infant. As proof I offer a well-loved copy of A.A. Milne’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">When We Were Very Young</i> whose inscription is on the occasion of said christening. (My mother-in-law made certain my children were christened: I have Certificates of Baptism from the Church to prove it. Said certificates will be needed if my girls ever get married in the Catholic Church.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Between my christening and third grade, God exists in my world as “God Talk” on Wednesday mornings at Trinity Episcopal Preschool and in Saturday morning broadcasts of Davey and Goliath. My parents do not talk about God. They talk about sunsets and wonder and goodness and peace. They quote the Bible, but do not read it. My sister and I are taken along on visits to art museums. My father uses Jansen’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Art History</i> as our picture book as often as not, and through those discussions we hear Bible stories. My parents read and discuss Aesop’s Fables with us. Politeness, kindness, and compassion are emphasized.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.sai.msu.su/wm/paint/auth/mantegna/st-sebastian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.sai.msu.su/wm/paint/auth/mantegna/st-sebastian.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none;" width="106" /></a>One Sunday, I skip happily off the Spirit Buss to find my mother ironing in what was once the trunk room of our Victorian house. (It had become the kitchen for a second floor apartment prior to my parents buying the house and restoring it to a single family dwelling, so it had a counter cabinet with a sink and the rusted outlines of large appliances on the linoleum. Inside one of the cabinet drawers lay a package of rolling papers printed like draft cards and a long ribbon of sewing notion trim woven in an American flag pattern leftover from mom decorating one of my dad’s Levi jackets.) That Sunday, I had big news: I had been saved.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Without looking up from my father’s collar, my mother says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That’s great, Honey. Good for you.</i> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I say, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">No, Mom, you don’t get it; I’m going to live forever in the house of the Lord and I will have His gifts visited upon me</i>. (I like to imagine that I twirled my skirt with the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gifts</i> part, but I know I didn’t because I usually wore a pair of overalls with a large rose embroidered on the bib.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mom put down the iron and looked at my earnest face. I smiled waiting for a response. Mom picked the iron up and went back to work saying, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You know, you don’t have to believe any of that crap</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And so began my relationship with organized religion.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Three decades later I am lying on my back, arms and legs akimbo for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">savasana</i>. The instructor of the yoga class is doing that chatter that all yoga instructors do throughout class, but especially during <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">savasana</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Savasana</i>, or corpse pose is a relaxation posture usually assumed at the end of class. While meditative, it isn’t recommended for meditation because there’s a good chance you’ll fall asleep pumped full of endorphins and exhausted from an hour or more of sun salutations. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Savasana</i> is a post-coital experience. (Maybe it’s called “corpse pose” because it feels like you’ve just experienced the “little death”? I don’t know.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">One literalist instructor suggested imagining our flesh <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sinking into the earth, our presence retreating deep into our skulls to float in the eternal dark, our bodies rejoining the earth to become part of everything, as we always were part of everything. Imagine, </i>she said,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> your flesh falling gently from your bones, your bones sifting away like powdery sands… <o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My moment comes with another instructor. (This particular instructor chattered less often than the corpse pose literalist.) This instructor says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">breathe deeply-- enjoy the peace of this moment-- remember this peacefulness, the peacefulness of the contented infant-- it is the peacefulness we rose from and will return to-- it is the way we would be all the time, if we would only let ourselves</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> And this is the closest I have ever been to God outside of the bedroom. (They don’t call it ecstasy for nothing.) It is my greatest chaste experience of the divine. It is in this moment that I realize, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yes, the universe is a benevolent place and we are beloved of it</i>.</div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-4508796063076280392010-01-25T09:46:00.000-08:002010-01-25T10:03:50.579-08:00Further Negotiations: Pre-Cana<div class="MsoNormal">I’m not sure what we expected to find at the Pre-Cana class held in the reception hall of another parish, but I was a little shocked by what we did find. We were by far the oldest of the couples at 32 years old—most were in their late teens or early twenties. We were not pregnant, nor had we already had a child together. We were not starry-eyed neophytes holding hands dreamily secure in our shared faith.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="200" src="http://www.folding-chairs-tables.net/sc_images/products/372_large_image.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none;" width="155" /><br />
</div></div><div class="MsoNormal">At the time, we attended mass sporadically at the Wilshire Boulevard Our Lady of Angels, which in my Los Angeles sits between a very nice synagogue, The Wiltern Theater, The Piccadilly (an aging nineteen twenties high-rise apartment building in which we had considered renting the penthouse soon after the riots when the rents were down, way down) and The Ambassador Hotel (of Kennedy shooting fame and whose own demise has been too painful for me to watch). Our Lady of Angels had an adorable cantor with a lovely voice, huge stained glass windows, interesting sculptural Stations of the Cross, and nicely polished wooden pews with squeak-less kneelers. The Pre-Cana class would be held at another parish.<br />
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</div>Google map clutched in my hand, we sat in our Civic hatchback in the parking lot and questioned whether what crouched before us was, in fact, a church at all, but maybe a public or parochial school. The buildings had the flat-roofed exterior walkways propped atop metal poles favored by California elementary schools, libraries, and UC system campuses. We followed other couples who looked like they knew where they were going into the reception hall. Metal folding chairs in that dark, institutional beige. Speckled linoleum tiles in bisque and fawn. Cement block walls painted a tasteful Navajo White, the wall color favored by apartment management companies everywhere in So Cal. So much for the pageantry and romance of a two thousand-year-old faith tradition.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">We spent an entire day sitting in those beige folding chairs. I remember only a few things.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">We prayed. Everyone knew the prayer. Everyone but me. Catholics have lots of prayers that they all seem to know the words to—like their own private Beatles sing-along in a world in which only Catholics have ever heard of the Beatles. Protestants say the Our Father, observe a tasteful moment of silence, or chime in with a heartfelt <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Amen</i> at the end of the pastor-lead prayer. Twenty years in, I can now report that Catholics like to keep prayer cards handy, they say the rosary, novenas, several prayers during mass that do not change, a universally used meal blessing. They all know these prayers. And, unlike the Metropolitan Opera, there are no subtitles.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">A priest flatteringly introduced the couple leading the seminar. They had been married for seven years. They had four children. He was active with St. Vincent de Paul (a charity), and she taught natural family planning and organized bake sales—or something like that. Very nice people. Warm. Good intentioned. Active in the parish.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">We participated in several exercises meant to demonstrate the various blessings and obligations of married life. I don’t remember most of them. I do remember we were asked to exchange wallets with our partners early in the morning and hold them until lunch break. Rich and I laughed at the discomfort of the youngsters around us: we knew each other’s PINs, mothers’ maiden names, social security numbers. When my husband and I got married, we had already been living together for eight years—the point at which most couples in California call it quits. We not only had been shopping with each other’s credit cards, we knew enough about each other’s financial identities to buy a house in the other’s name if we felt like it. <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, the skinny 19-year-old girl primly sitting next to us gingerly handed her eel-skin wallet to the gangsta-fied dandy slouched in his folding chair next to her, backwards baseball cap jauntily color-coordinated with his blue-striped boxer briefs. The toothpick in his mouth was an extra. When the couple leading the course suggested, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we aren’t going to ask you to give your partner your car keys, but you might as well do that too</i>, backwards baseball cap grinned around his toothpick and said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yeah, like that’s going to happen—ain't nobody touching my ride.<o:p></o:p></i><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">The couple asked by show of hands, how long each couple had been together. One month: almost everyone. Two months: a few hands drop. Six months: several more couples down. One year: several more bite the dust. Two years: a quarter of the room still has their hands in the air. Three years: just me and Rich and the only other couple over 25. Four years: just us. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">So, how long have you been dating</i>, the man asks. (His wife barely said a word the whole day.) We giggle, Rich coughs, and I pipe up: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We’ve been living together for eight years</i>, I say proudly.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">This was not, apparently, a point in our favor. But it did generate another round of questions by show of hands: How many of you have children? How many of you are expecting? How many of you currently live together? Catholics are nothing if not fecund. There were a handful of sinners with multiple children already between them. At least two buns in the oven. And a scattering of couples like us merely living in sin.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Natural family planning was discussed. And by discussed, I mean we were handed pamphlets directing us to organizations and persons who could inform us about natural family planning if we were interested. We were sternly reminded that the church does not condone artificial means of contraception. The couple said they practiced natural family planning, and they reported, it worked pretty well for them. I’m guessing child number four had netted the “pretty well” qualifier. See, fecund.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">I looked at the cover of the pamphlet and asked, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">so, you interested in spinning this roulette wheel?</i> Rich shook his head no with the seriousness and vehemence some of the other men had reserved for their wallets and car keys.<br />
</div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-54933086402037140912010-01-24T09:42:00.001-08:002010-01-24T09:59:51.588-08:00Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults: Stories of My Negotiations with the Catholic Church<div class="MsoNormal">My husband is Catholic. He is and was a “cradle” and “cafeteria” Catholic—which tends to mean for Americans attendance at Sunday, Christmas and Easter mass, practicing “unnatural” birth control, tithing irregularly, lax observance of the holy days of obligation, and a jovial and comfortable disagreement with Rome on a wide range of topics. What he wasn’t comfortable with was getting married outside the church.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">From that concession—<i>yes, I’ll get married by a priest in a Catholic church</i>—came a snowballing avalanche of other concessions. When Protestants get married, they order their clothes, plan a reception, and schedule a date with the pastor for whatever site they have chosen for the vows.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">There is process by which one is married Catholic. Catholics can only take the Rite of Marriage, one of the seven sacraments of the church, on consecrated ground, normally a Catholic church or chapel. Catholics must prepare for the Rite of Marriage by taking Pre-Cana; a course on marriage usually taught by a married couple whose relationship is exemplary in the parish. After taking the course, the unmarried couple takes a several-hundred question Scantron compatibility test and discusses the results with the priest who will be performing the marriage. The bride, if she is not Catholic and does not intend to convert, in this example, me, will have to write a letter to the local Bishop requesting permission to marry the Catholic, explaining why she will not be converting, and promising to raise all children conceived in the marriage as Catholics. Finally, it is necessary for the practicing Catholic to take the Rite of Reconciliation prior to receiving the Rite of Holy Matrimony. At some point, the couple provides copies of their baptismal records—the practicing Catholic also providing proof of First Communion and Confirmation in the Church.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">And then you have to plan the wedding and reception.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">When the couple finally marries, they give each other the Rite of Matrimony; it is the only rite of the Catholic Church in which lay people minister to each other—or so our officiating priest told us.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Each step in the process of marrying a Catholic posed a new set of discussions and compromises. Twenty years into this relationship, I am still in the thick of negotiation with the Catholic Church. My husband does not appear to be negotiating anything, but as he is fond of reminding me, I cannot possibly pretend to know his soul. I let him think so.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">This, then is the story of my journey with the Catholic faith told in bits and pieces as it occurs to me when it occurs to me.<br />
</div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9178844664525181555.post-35364554803682808252010-01-11T09:02:00.000-08:002010-01-11T09:09:43.501-08:00Avatar: The Apple, CandiedHayao Miyazaki's <i>Princess Mononoke</i> and <i>Castle in the Sky</i> filmed as live action in the visually lush style of Terrence Malick's <i>Thin Red Line</i>, but with all its symbolism articulated in leaden expositional dialogue. Eye candied Gia-land as the setting for a culture war fairytale pitting tree-huggery against corporate avarice...not as good as Miyazaki's or Malick's work, but as an immersive environment in I-max 3-D, there are much worse places to spend an afternoon.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/11/19/article-1229191-0711226C000005DC-106_634x405.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/11/19/article-1229191-0711226C000005DC-106_634x405.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="http://vschneider.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/laputa_castle_in_the_sky001-710x533-440x331.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://vschneider.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/laputa_castle_in_the_sky001-710x533-440x331.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
</div>Cave Mouthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11462830510842947802noreply@blogger.com5