Friday, December 02, 2011

Schools, bullying, Facebook and legislation.

Another teen lost to suicide because of bullying

So, my homelife was really variable - sometimes wonderful, sometimes horrendous.

My school life was also variable. I loved schoolwork, enjoyed many of my teachers, and liked being challenged.

I had no friends most of the time.  I was odd, fat, initially christian fundamentalist and strange, poor, MPD, and not always hiding it well, and living in my head to cope with trauma a lot.

My best friends were from books, and starting at about 8 I wanted to be a vulcan so I wouldn't have to feel anything.

I was bullied.

JK- Gr 1 -  Her name was Elever, and she bullied me in the Christian school I went to.  When I left, she told me she didn't hate me.  I had no idea.

Grade 2 -  I went to a school I could walk to when I was 7, I was chased home by bullies, Chris and some other guy, who kept me from getting into my building, and beat me up.

Grade3-7 I was bullied by the gym teacher, and a rich girl named Heather at the gifted program I was bussed to. She and I had a rivalry, but she was clearly better, and we both knew it.

Grade 7, my one friend left, because the people in the school were jerks.

Grade 8 I got sent away (which is the subject of another post, maybe, someday), but I came back to a girl-disaster in my school, and re-friended a best friend from years ago.  We spent the year being chased to the bus, getting mooed at, and being ostracized.  The group accepted her back, but not me.  Maybe it's because I don't forgive and forget.

Grade 9 I survived on auto-pilot, with no friends, attending a "group" for students with difficult home lives - an emancipated minor, two siblings whose parents beat them, and a few others I don't remember.

Grade 10, I switched to a private boarding school - I was the wrong kind of person, not christian enough, and again everyone hated me, but I met my best gay friend who kept me alive for the next 15 years.

Grade 11 Half a year at the boarding school, I try to kill myself, and am expelled, then out to a public school, this time an Academy, so uniforms, and try to get out as fast as possible.  I join the SAC, get some credit for university.

Grade 12 - keep my head down, pass unnoticed, get out. No one hates me, and I make it out.

I used to escape onto the BBS network, and talk to people online.  I used to escape into books.  I used to escape into making friends from other schools, who didn't know the people who were hating me.  I didn't have many, but a few who didn't know what a freak I was.

If I'd had a Facebook with all the hate and rage and bile from the people who were maing my life miserable available not only during my school life, but also all the rest of the time, as well as for the entire world to see, I am not sure I would have been able to compartmentalize things well enough to avoid ending my life.

I attempted suicide once, and almost succeeded.

I self-harmed, I had eating disorders, I hated myself.

I can't imagine having available to me a public forum for other people to help me hate myself.  Especially as a teenager when I was already so incredibly vulnerable.

As a society we need to teach our youth to be better people.

The culture of difference, of "othering", of sameness and conformity, and media bombardment by imagery of perfection - these are all contributors to the issues causing bullying.

Girls gain status in social realms through possessions, boys and bullying each other.
Boys through sports, achievements, possessions including girls and money, and violence.

This is the problem.

Girls are still left with very few "legitimate" avenues of gaining status in our culture, particularly teenage culture, and bullying is one of the ways to gain status.

Achievement needs to be a way to gain peer status among girls. Whether at sports, intellectual pursuits, or other skillsets.

The commodification of "girl power has been a horrifying phenomenon, as it has eliminated the essential ideology behind the original message which was the egalitarian ideology that girls are as good as, and as valued as boys. Girls have the same innate abilities, and the same potential for achievement, and that it is possible to be a girl, and to achieve whatever one wants to, in whatever way one wants to.

The concept of "girl power" has become little more than a motif to be emblazoned with a few flowers onto a toddler t-shirt.

It is appalling.

Girl power needs to be rethought, and re-empowered as the potential for change within adolescent female community as something to create powerful social networks without status deliniation, without harmful class and race boundaries, and without the necessity of gaining power at the expense of another.

The lack of intersectional anaysis including the powerless nature of femaleness and childhood becoming adulthood leaves a gap where lives are slipping through.

Can we legislate the gap away? close a loophole? Put the lid onto the pandora's box opened by the internet's ready availability of blogs, facebook, free hosting, and all the tools available to legitimate authors, as well as those with the intent to do harm?

I don't think so.

I don't know what we can do.  Some people are suggesting work camps, harsh(er) sentencing for bullies, loss of privilege, school sanctions.

I know that when bullying was brought to the attention of the school in my case, they held a "talking circle", and the bullies promised to stop, later threatening me and the other girl with renewed violence in the event of further reporting.

In most cases, it never occurred to me to report it. Bullying was a fairly constant part of my school life, and it was easier to avoid other students than to report it or deal with them. Reporting it often exacerbated the situation, as schools are powerless to deal with violence off school grounds, and parents are reluctant to become involved in what is seen as"normal."

Perhaps in the age of Facebook, where these things are documented, there is greater accountability. 

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Connecting with the cosmos, and becoming sXe

I see drug use as a form of the sacred. A way of connecting with the cosmos, moving outside yourself and gaining greater awareness than you might otherwise have.  Marijuana helps with pain and seizures, and made a big difference to me.  Psychotropics engage parts of the consciousness and the brain which are normally disengaged.

That said, I have made a conscious decision not to, anymore.  I do not drink, because it interferes with my seizure medication.

I don't think we make enough space for the magical in our spirituality anymore.  There is no room for personal experience, for mysticism, and for experience.

My transcendent experiences were pretty much all positive, I was either with good friends at wonderful, community events, in loving homes, or outdoors in the beauty of nature.

The worst that happened was that I got sunburnt.


Monday, November 28, 2011

Pretty boys

They're pretty, young, handsome, perfect, able-bodied, well-loved, social, have families that love them...

In fact, the young men in Get Up's new 'It's Time' campaign for equal marriage have only one obstacle to their idyllic life - marriage inequality. 

And that's the problem with this campaign which is entirely lacking in intersectional analysis of any kind.  I can hear the advertising agency now:

Shouldn't we include a person of colour?
Don't make it about issues.

But don't gay people have problems with their families?
Families will love them when they conform to societal ideals.

Aren't we making this unrealistic?
We want to make it simple for people to understand.

Aren't we making them too perfect?
They should be likeable, you know, TV likeable.

The message:
Gay people are just like us, only gay.  All they need to fit in is marriage rights, and then they'll be as close to normal as possible, and stop all this messy, sexual identity politics nonsense.

Some of us are republicans, or not, some want 2.5 kids, some want a house in the suburbs, some are urban, some rural, some want to be single, and have sex in tearooms and bathhouses, some want to pay for sex, some want a multitude of partners, some want a multitude of relationships, some want monogamy, some polygamy, and the variety is endless.

Marriage equality will be true when all queers can get married, in the ways they want to get married.

Legal rights offered to those conforming widens the gap further, strengthening pressure from family and society for gay couples to marry and conform in the way that common-law heterosexual couples experience it.  But queer relationships have a history of not conforming to the status quo, and encouragement to conform to a heterosexual model stresses queer relationships more than heterosexual ones.

I think that perhaps the pressure of producing children on childfree couples might be a similar one.  Childfree couples live a life that is radically different than what is considered "normal" within heterosexual culture, and the pressure to conform by producing children requires not only that they push back, but also explanations, many of which are intrusive and personal.

I was married.  I wanted to be.  It made a great deal of difference when I was in hospital, and when I was sick.  Saying that my wife was there, was vastly different than saying "my partner", or "my girlfriend."  Regardless of the comfort level of the hospital staff, there is a certain level of respect that is required legally when someone is a spouse.

It's very different.  I'm scared of being different again, but I still understand that it is not acceptable to take a privilege at the expense of someone else.  Some privilege I cannot help but have.  I can be aware of those, and notice them, and deal with them, and do what I can to mitigate the impact of that privilege on others.

I can still try not to grab for things which others do not have.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

The second time

I had been having trouble with being tired, and being out of sorts a lot.  Couldn't figure out what it was, exactly, but it seemed like I was just short tempered. 

That day, I felt dizzy while walking down the stairs. I passed it off as jitters about going out, needing to eat.  It wasn't the first time.

Less than half an hour later I came to, sitting on the sofa, surrounded by firemen and paramedics, having just had my first tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizure, and then heading to a local hospital.  It was New Year's Eve.  I spent it in the ER.

That was the first of the seizures, and the first of the strokes. Altogether, there were 3 strokes, and 5 or 6 major seizures, and innumerable minor ones.  They figured out it was Lupus, with blood clotting disorders, central nervous system involvement, seizures, obviously, and I got a bunch of new medications. 

That was the second time I was given a 50% chance of survival. 
That time it was surviving the next 5 years. 
I have 13 months to go.

It would take another two years to figure out that the short-temperedness had to do with being in pain, because I have excellent internal mechanisms for blocking pain, and gritting my teeth to get through what I have to get through.  It just doesn't leave much room for interpersonal interaction.

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

The first time

The car is dark.  I remember blurry lights, and it feels like it's raining. It might not have been, but that's the sensation.  The man driving is very very angry, but also very kind to me. He is angry at the passenger, who is the Dean of Students at my boarding school.  I am passing in and out of consciousness in the back seat, and he keeps reminding me to stay awake, gently, saying my name.  his voice is kind, not like the others here, who do not like me.  I am different.  I disrupt their ideas of "nice".   I have always  disrupted people's ideas of nice.  There was always more to me, more to be seen, more going on. more.

I don't remember arriving at the hospital. I do remember drinking activated charcoal - yeuch. And lying in a hospital bed, alone, with an IV, and that steady drip, and everyone being very kind.

That was the first time I had a 50% chance of living through something.
On that occasion, it was through the night.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

Judge Adams, and being triggered, again...

I watched that seven and a half minutes.  It took forever, and it alternately felt like my heart was breaking, like I had gone back 25 years, and like I was losing my mind.

So, yes, it was triggering. The out-of-control impotent rage of an adult who has been defied, and feels no other recourse.  The bombardment of questions once the subject/child has been broken down and is willing to apologize. "Yes Sir", "Yes Ma'am", but really these are not the sounds of obedience, beaten in, they are the sounds of calcifying rage and hate.

The initial shock and horror at being dehumanized, screamed at, handled roughly, told to leave, or threatened with being disowned is replaced with gradual acceptance of a way of life which includes uncertainty and fear. 

POWs come back damaged because of being confined, shouted at, terrorized, beaten, being subjected to confusing and illogical routines of punishment and humiliation, a lack of privacy and autonomy. 

There is a reason why we see C-PTSD as a crossover in abuse survivors and veterans. It's the ongoing nature of the trauma, and the inescapable nature of the situation that do the worst damage. Survival becomes automatic, and escape an impossible dream.

It's not the beatings that do the worst damage, honestly. It's the terror. I was scared of losing my home. I got sent away a lot, and got terrorized by the people I got sent to as well. None of them laid a hand on me, but similar tag-team verbal abuse happened on those sleepovers, and I won't ever get over that.  Having two grown-ups attack you, discuss you as if you don't exist, devalue you, and then have you beg for the right to debase yourself and apologize.

Yeah, it's all too familiar.  I'm glad she got the word out, and I hope she sees justice done. 

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Day 20 – the one that broke your heart the hardest

J,

The longer this goes on, the deeper my understanding.

It wasn't that you broke my heart, but my heart did break that last year.

I needed things to be over. It wasn't fair to either of us for me to continue like that.

I had a lot of issues - rage, pain, fear, hate, self-loathing, shame - none of which were your problem, and all of which came screaming to the forefront when I got sick.

It's not like things weren't bad because of what we were each dealing with already, but having what felt like a death sentence dumped on top of that made trying to keep things under control feel pointless.

I am so sorry.  I did not see it.  None of it was so consciously thought out, but "what was the point of trying to be nice, when there was a decent likelihood of being dead in the next few years?" was my thinking pattern.

It is something I still struggle with from time to time.  I have a year and two months left on my 5 year deadline.  (50% chance of living through the first 5 years of Lupus, remember?)

I am just learning to talk to someone about what it takes to express needs as someone with Lupus.

I could barely manage it before, although I did, sometimes, it wasn't great, and I wasn't a great listener, and I had all kinds of problems, but any added vulnerability, and it threw me for a loop, and left me lost, panicking, and full-on claws-out.

I see that.

Needing is scary.  Really needing is petrifying.

I really am sorry that I wasn't able to find words to talk to you. Sorry that I hurt you.

-me

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Day 19 – someone that pesters your mind, good or bad

D,

I miss you.  We were friends, and a kind of family.  We were close.  I fucked that up by being judgmental.

I do comprehend that, I also could not see that there wasn't any discrepancy between what I was doing, the kind of messy I was, and what was going on with you. It wasn't my place to say anything. Not remotely.  Expressing concern, maybe, but that's all.

It's been such a long time. I wish there was some way to fix it.

-me.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Day 18 – the person that you wish you could be

Future me,

You've changed so much, varied so much, I don't really know what you look like now.
I got to try so many of them, but they were allvery flat and one-dimensional, wth very little understanding of the depth me. 

housewife - check
property - check
grrl - check
mac artist - check
boi - check
scholar - check
teacher - check
devout xtian - check
radical atheist - check
sick/disabled person - check

I tried to hard to be these things, and the messiness of the rest of "me" kept spilling out.  Kind of the way that when one cleans one's house there's all those extraneous, unquantifiable things, that have no place, but can't be goodwilled or thrown out. They just  keep showing up and getting piled around:
wristwarmers: are they accessories or mittens
hoodies: jackets or sweaters
sleeping bags: camping or blankets
the parts for the scanner
extra headphones
a spare flowerpot
some soil
that card i wanted to keep to call that guy
some things i wanted to send my cousin
the travel cosmetics bag

I want to offer you a framework to be all these messy things, to flow outside the space defined, define new space, close off old space, and change and grow as need be without feeling like there is a need to fit into anything.

I'm aiming there.  It's part of why I'm blank in terms of fashion right now. I have the long hair because it feels wrong to cut it. That's all. It's no statement. The other default option is bald - shave it off. I just know I'm going to want it long again - and the in-between parts are so much horror - the military cuts aren't bad, but I've had enough bobs, and I could do without another puff-head phase.

I hope you're happy when I'm finished being in this chrysalis. It's been a safe place, but it's getting kind of small.

-me

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Day 17 – someone from your childhood

A,

You blamed me. For being molested by your brother. For being sexually precocious when I was, in fact only curious. Heaped on me the rage and shame and anger that I can only presume you felt about your own daughter's sexual activity.

I know you were a friend of my mother's, and she left me with you when she was feeling overwhelmed.  Being trapped and then interrogated by you, until I invented stories of sexual sins sufficient to satisfy the fevered imaginings of you and your husband was a regular part of my life, and I do not remember much from that time beyond perplexity, guilt, shame, and fear.

Why you felt a need to terrorize me was, and is, unknown.

In the story of my life, there is much that is incomprehensible.  Being held hostage by evangelicals while forced to confess to sexual depravities when I had never done so much as kiss a boy is one of the more difficult ones to explain.

I wished you dead for many years.  Dreamed it. Hoped it. Prayed it when I still held to a belief in god.

You saw nothing wrong, still do not, I imagine.  I pity your children. And your grandchildren. Can only imagine the shame and fear and self-hate that you passed on to them. 

L.

Friday, October 07, 2011

Personal Intersectionality

I identify myself as Estonian, or Finno-Ugric, or a member of the Baltic diaspora.  I haven't often identified myself as mixed-race, or especially as black, or Jamaican, moreso as "my father is from Jamaica".  Or "I am Estonian/Jamiacan".

It's a strange thing, realizing that I have conveniently forgotten this half of my identity, in the same way that so many people of my community "forget" that portion of my identity in the way that they see me.  It's not difficult to do. 

I look white. Not perfectly white, the way that most Estos are, with their blonde hair and blue eyes, but euro-white, certainly, maybe Med?

People do ask, not so much anymore, but they used to:
Where are you from?
Are you Greek/Spanish/Portuguese/Native/South American/Mexican?

You're not black.
You're lucky you don't look black, don't have the nose, the hair, etc...

I do have fine, dark, wavy hair, unlike anyone else in my Mom's family, all of whom have fine light brown or blonde hair.

My half-sisters have slightly darker skin than me, but they look like me, and we all look a lot more like the indigenous people of Jamaica than like African people.

Last week I went to a film showing here of Reel Injun.  It's a great movie. Go see it. Seriously, go see it!  But, afterwards, the director of our Indigenous studies department and I got to talking, as I wanted to ask him about some interesting comments he had made:
An idea about the creator having given to Europeans the gift of travelling to places outside of their lands.  I can't wait to read the work it's from.  But, we were talking, and I was talking about the difficulties I was having resolving my Western way of thinking and approaching academic thought with Indigenous knowledge, and my inherent understanding of that, which for me connects to something outside of an educational context. 

His response was to ask me about my background, and to inquire about where in Jamaica my father was from, and whether I had heard of Carib Indians? 

I had, tangentially, but never as anything connected to me.  The idea has been making my head fall apart for a few days now, and I am still not really ready to fully connect with it. 

I feel like an impostor.  Much as I always have when confronted with issues of racialization in my life.  I have functioned as white, and been situated as white, with the only realization of difference being the "othering" behaviours that happen when people notice things that have to be explained away - Random frizzy hairs that sprout suddenly after a bath; my propensity to tan and not burn; the fact that I don't look like other Estos; my slightly darker skin.

Before all this I went through an experiment in oiling my hair. It felt amazing. It was curly, and shiny, and hung perfectly, except that it was taking effort to get it right, and white friends and relatives told me it was "oily" and felt nasty.

I just have to find out how to get it right.  I'm sure there's a balance.  Now it's dry and terrible.

Identity politics, racialization, hair, all this stuff goes together.

Day 16 – someone that’s not in your state/country

R,

We haven't talked in 18 years almost.  I have no idea what you're doing.  I wrote you the other day on 'the face'.  I hope you write back.  I hope you are well, and happy.  It sounds like you are somewhere nice at least. 

I feel like I am maybe settling into who I am supposed to be, which is a strange thing to be accomplishing at 38, but I'm glad to be here, and I'm happy.

I missed such a lot of your life.  So much seemed unreal to me, and because of the relatedness to D, I let my anger at him get in the way of getting to know you. I'm sorry for that.  I could have been someone useful to you, and I wasn't.

All the best,

me

Day 15 – the person you miss the most

M,

We talk a lot, but it's not enough, and I miss you.  The companionable silences, getting to hang out, and be around, getting to just do stuff together.  I'd like to live near you again someday, so that it's not so hard.  Skype isn't something I can just call you up and knit at you on, yanno?

I'd like to be able to go for coffee, or come round and see the kids, or take them somewhere.  I miss that easy familiarity of being nearby.  I've missed a big pile of your life, because of being broken, and from being crazy, not that that's going to change much, but healing is something that changes, right?

It was so nice to see you this summer.  I have missed you. I'm glad to be around you again, and I'm looking forward to more time like that. 

Love you,

me.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

One step further

I'm getting there. Slowly, surely. making my way towards this thing called sanity. Obviously I'm not, and I'm never going to be, but I'm working my way through the paralyzing fear of being an impostor here.  I know that I can do this stuff. Yes - I need some help. Yes - I need some guidance. But, really, I can do it. I belong in academia. I just need to figure out how to get all the reading done.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Day 14 – someone you’ve drifted away from

Dear L,

I'm going to have to mellow my stance on religion.  My rigid atheism, and your changing stance on faith is straining our friendship, and it hurts.

I don't want to.  I don't believe in faith, I still see it as something that people use to help themselves to feel better about their place in the world, and I wish that there was more self-awareness about that.

All things being said, though, I really want to be a part of your life, and arguing with you, and those around me about faith isn't really part of what I want to spend my time doing.

I need to talk about this stuff as theory though. Thanks.  Even conversing with you in a letter is enlightening.  I miss you.

L.

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Undocumented Life, or, a lack of photographic evidence

From this 12 months that is ending I do not have a thousand photographs proving that good things have happened to me. 

I do not have many photographs from this year at all. 

I still carry my camera with me at all times, but there has not been a tendency to reach for it when things happen.  Instead, there has been a conscious thought that I am living my life, rather than documenting it. 

I have had fantastically beautiful drives along the north road at sunrise, sunset, and under the full moon. 

I have seen moose, deer, bear, wild cat (lynx or bobcat with cubs), rabbits, hawks, bats, eagles, dragonflies, chipmunks, red squirrels, and caterpillars.

I have driven along the north and west shores of Lake Superior, and watched the sun  and moon rise and set, and seen the moon glitter over the Sleeping Giant.

I have been camping in Algonquin Park, and lain on a bench with my love watching the trees and the clouds and the sky dance together.

I have seen rainbows, tornado clouds, hurricane winds, fallen trees, torrential rain, flooded roads and tents, and been issued weather warnings by Rangers in Provincial and State parks.

I have driven with kayaks, and a sofa on the car.

I have listened to the sound of wind and waves while sleeping in my car at Lake Superior Park.

I have been loved and missed by my friends, and I have loved and missed my friends.

I have been welcomed as family, by those who love me.

I have made new friends, and experienced the wonder of sitting in a river in the heat of summer.

I have caught up with family, and found that I was lost.

I have calmed down.

I have fallen in love.

I have grieved.

I have come home.

It has been an interesting year.

Day 13 - Someone you wish could forgive you

D, my chosen big sister,

You won't respond to messages on facebook or emails.  I suppose I could try to call you, but I don't know how to find you, and I imagine that you are not much interested in talking to me.  It's sad, as I really miss you.  I don't know exactly what went wrong.  I know that I was a judgmental idiot.  That much I realize, I didn't mean to make you feel bad, and I didn't have a leg to stand on, as I was a pothead criticizing you for drinking.  I only saw one of those things  as self-destructive, and there's a saying, certainly, about eyes and sticks... 

In any event, there was more going on than that.  I was in the middle of drowning myself in a relationship, and one of the rules was not to talk about it, which made my friendship with you, where we shared everything, even girlfriends, kind of impossible. 

I'd love to tell you about my life.  Share the things that have changed.  It's so much more interesting now. 

I've tried to keep tabs on where you are at over the years, maybe i will try to get together when I am next in the city.  It would be good to see you.

L.


Day 12 - The person you hate most / caused you a lot of pain

I don't hate anyone. I certainly used to.

I hated my father for abandoning me, I hated my mother for being there, I hated the kids in my class for bullying me, and for being rich and white, and thin, and not being different, like I was.

I hated myself for being different, for not fitting in, for not making sense, for not being thin, and pretty, and "normal", and for not being either Elizabeth or Jessica, depending on the day or my mood.  (If you're an 80s girl you'll get the reference).

I hated the church, and christians, I would have to say I still hate religion.

I don't hate individuals though, except in moments of passion, when my ability to reason becomes overwhelmed.  That is a good thing.  I don't want to hate anyone.

People cause pain, but pain is a part of existence.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Day 11 - A deceased person you wish you could talk to

Granny,

I wish I could talk to you. I wish there was some way I could have come out to you (and Vana Isa). I wish I could have talked to you about things, like being crazy, and fashion, and what things were really like for you. I know you wouldn't have talked to me about them, because you had so much of what they used to call "class", and what we would now term stoicism.

You must have hurt so badly, and you were a victim of misogyny, and the patriarchal medical establishment, and buerocracy, and yet I remember you as being so wonderful, and beautiful, and fancy, and comforting, and elegant, and kind.

I also remember you being very regulated and regimented, like many people from that generation, keeping your demons at bay with a whole series of rules, designed to maintain safety and illusions.

I wonder.  And I miss you.

L.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Day 10 - Someone you don't talk to as much as you'd like to

Dear L,

I miss you. I miss talking to you, and just hanging out. We make sense to each other in lots of ways, and I miss having someone who gets those weird neurotic parts of me. You're also lots of fun.

I miss getting to just hang out.  Proximity was great for that, because being closer meant that we could just get together without it having to be for something, and I miss that too.  Being so far away kind of sucks.

I need a big dose of just hanging out and doing nothing much together.  Cooking, cleaning, whatever.  I feel like you're a good influence on me, and I miss that too.

Hugs,

Me.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Day 09 - Someone you wish you could meet

It's authors, really, and family members. 

Douglas Adams, except he's dead, so I don't want to meet him anymore, all decayed, and Stephen Fry, because I'd love to talk to him, and Patrick Califia, who is such a hero, and I'm sure just a person, albeit an incredible one.

I'd like to talk to my father's mom, who I never met, and Granny's mom, and I'd like to be able to come out to my grandparents, and have them understand.

On my more whimsical days I'd like to meet a cat, and really understand it, or a bird, or a fish, or whatever.

I would have said it was Richard Dawkins, but this whole *"sexism doesn't exist or matter in the western world because opression is so much bigger elsewhere", delivered in sarcastic condescension, just got my back up, and I'm not certain that we, as atheists need to be antagonizing each other as well as everybody else.

So, I'd like to meet some of these people instead, thanks all the same.

Cheers,

me

Monday, July 11, 2011

Day 08 - Your favorite internet friend

Dear 'french girl',

Your blogs have kept me laughing, crying, empathizing, terrified with worry, and wondering how you are for years now, and I don't think I've met you more than that once, years ago, when I shook your hand at a party.

We were both insanely young, and I doubt you remember me.  I was with someone else, and you were too, and it was a whole lifetime ago.

I have been so inspired by you.  You keep going despite living through hell, repeatedly, and you just have this incredible spark, and sparkle to you.  I hope you know that. I hope you know how much you mean to people, even if they're just some random grrl, half a country away.

I'm glad you're doing ok, again.  It's been a tough while, and I know what that's like.  You're amazing, and I know you're going to come out on top of things, there's no way that you could fail to succeed, how could you?  You're devastatingly smart, and gorgeous, and you'll make a fantastic go of it.

So, that's it.  My semi-anonymous pep-talk, to you,

Hugs,

Me.

Access Intimacy - A response...

 Access intimacy is defined in this incredible article as "the closeness I would feel with people who my disabled body just felt a little bit safer and at ease with."

It's not the complete definition, and you should definitely go read the thing itself, but the idea makes perfect sense.  There's something to be said for just feeling at home in your skin.

When you're someone with a disability that becomes something rather more fraught.  There's more fear around disclosure, more stress around limitations, and more worry on everyone's part.

Issues I've encountered are:
1. I want to seem fine so people keep asking me to things, don't want to slow people down/ruin the experience, or the mood, or otherwise be an impediment.
2. My pain or fatigue causes me to be less enthusiastic than I might have been otherwise, and I worry about being seen as a "downer"
3. Others worry about me, and that interferes with their enjoyment.
4. Others worry about me, and that interferes with my enjoyment.
5. It is hard to admit to not being able to do things, and so I seem flaky because I sometimes cancel or change plans at the last minute
6. My health is unpredictable, so I seem flaky because I cancel at the last minute.
7. I want people to like me, so I don't talk about what's going on with me as much as I should, and seem standoffish when really I'm just in pain.

It's such a fine line to ask others to walk as well:

Care about me, but not so that I feel smothered.
Offer to help, but not so much that I feel helpless. 
Understand that I can't always do things, but don't coun't me out in advance.
Don't take it personally when I'm bitchy because of being in pain, but when I'm bitchy, don't discount it, asking "are you in pain?"

Friday, June 24, 2011

Day 07 – your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/love/crush

J,

So, I'm supposed to be writing you a letter, and I still haven't gotten around to it. It's about 18 months now. About a year since we last spoke.

There's lots of stuff that we did wrong.
Myself, I was mean when I got scared, which was often, and I know that being scared doesn't make it OK, but know please that I never meant it to hurt you.
I also tried my best to deny my own disabilities, and was ablist in dealing with yours, so that I was unfair and unhelpful, not offering understanding when you needed it.
I didn't realize I was so mired in my own paradigms of relationships, and I didn't realize that I was looking for a rescuer instead of looking to stand on my own two feet.

There's also lots we did right.
We stood together through some of the worst moments of each other's lives, and some of the best.
We loved each other to the best of our ability.
We tried to make each other happy, and to care for each other.
We tried to care for others, and to build a future for ourselves and those we love.
We did our best to help each other grow, and learn, and be the best people we could be.
We had fun, and played and laughed.

I have some truly wonderful memories of you, and of the time we spent together.  I miss having you as part of my life, and I hope someday that we are able to be friends. 

L.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Day 06 – a stranger

To the beautiful boy with 'I'm Gay' written on his cheeks at T-Bay Pride,

You're awesome! 
It must have taken a lot for you to do that, and it was so brave, and you wore it with such defiance, and such hope. Congratulations!  

I wish for you that life brings you all the happiness that you could wish for, and that people are kind, and gentle towards you, and that you are loved, and cared for, and that your shine is not diminished in any way.

Remembering what it's like to be 20, and so completely excited about being queer. :)

Monday, June 20, 2011

Day 05 - your dreams

So dreams,
you're supposed to be right there, simple and easy to access, why do you keep shifting?

I know what I want to do, but I'm sure that I'm not sufficently talented, not creative enough, not interesting enough, not "great" enough, somehow.  I have things that matter to me, but I'm so afraid of failure, and obstacles seem so insurmountable.  I took my girlfriend's jeedy cat, and all it takes to keep it happy is to play with it a few times a day, and even that seems insurmountable.  What is getting in the way of things for me?  Fear? Is it that simple.

I want to accomplish you, if I can figure out what you are. I want to do things, but I'm researching you to death, and making myself batty trying to decide on the right course of action, and instead of simply getting things underway I'm procrastinating until they are undoable, and then feeling like a failure.

I am afraid of being bored, afraid of stagnation, afraid of being tied down, of rotting in one place, and also afraid of not having any stability. It's such a conundrum.   Lately I want to throw out everything I own. Just get rid of it all. I can't afford to replace any of it, but the truth of the matter is that I don't use most of it either. I'm not the same person. The games are a holdover from being the suburban family I was a part of with J. I like playing games, but apparently, they're not such a big deal to me right now.

I just want to be told what to do, and that's not working so well, because it needs to come from me. What are you? Where are my dreams? Why have you gone missing again? I used to know who I was and what I wanted out of life, and then it got lost, and now it seems cloudy again. I keep parrotting responses, and answers when people ask me things in the hopes that something is going to sound right, and it's all going to fall into place.

I want to create something, to make art, to think, to feel, to breathe, to live. And instead I am inundated by paperwork, and piles, and my fears of failure, and my stress, and my losses, and my financial stress.

OK, so... motorcycle course in July.

Small dreams:
getting my M1 licence
finishing River's quilt
finishing the 2/3 baby bags
learning to adapt to this insane orange cat
sticking to a budget
sending in one piece to the web anthology for Kicked Out. 

Medium size dreams
travelling to more Leather conferences next year
emptying my house of unnecessary things
making some friends here
M2 licence in the summer

Big dreams:
not being so f***ing poor
being able to trust this feeling of being loved, and relax into it
figuring out what I want to do next, and being confident enough to chase it
finally getting to write, like my voice has validity, and not everything has already been said
starting to sew the amazing things in my head
not feeling weighted down by stuff
being able to let people know i love them, fearlessly.

Seemingly impossible dreams:
feeling better, for real, and not being in pain every day
getting my intelligence back

Sunday, June 19, 2011

My heart breaks.

PRIDE in Utah » Another Life Lost To Hatred And Bigotry Another life has been lost to the hatred, bigotry and prejudice of the Mormon Church.

What collossal idiocy! Hating someone over sexual orientation, and declaiming it as a reason to excommunicate from your community, your family, your life.
And yet, this happened to me. I don't talk about it because it's in the context of a lot of other things that I also do not talk about, and it's difficult to maintain the pretext that everything is going to be fine, when, in fact, things just may not.

I'm not complaining in any way about my life, but I'm also, for once, going to link together the threads of intolerance and abuse, bigotry, hatred, class, and race that have plagued my life, and talk for just a moment about something bigger than all of that. 

We have to love our kids. Really. Love Them.  

As a community.  Not in the sense of loving the ones in our family, or the good ones, or the well behaved ones, or the ones from "good families", but all of them, because they are ours.

And not only because these are the people who are going to be taking care of us. Realistically, alzheimers runs in my family, and I have no problem with taking a gun to myself when the time comes, so I'm not worried about that.

These are the people who we are leaving our future to, our children to, our neices and nephews.  

I want the kids I love to grow up without any doubt that no matter what they are like, they will be loved.  I want them to have enough different people in their lives that they have someone to go to for every situation that can arise.  If they can't talk to their parents, I want them to have someone to talk to, if they can't cope at home, I want them to know that there are open arms in at leaast 5 other homes, and safe transport back and forth, and people who will be caring and set rules, and teach them other sets of life skills so they come out of the experience knowing that the world is full of safe havens. 

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Day 04 - your sibling (or closest relative)

C,

It's been great getting to know you this little bit, and I feel like I need to make more of an effort to keep in touch with you. I should, I guess. Things are tainted by my feelings about D. I'm never sure you'd want to hear from me, feel like you've got this great, interesting, fantastic life, and like I keep intruding.

I'm really proud of you. You're an amazing, neat person, and you've done wonderful, cool things with your life, already. It's remarkable.  I'm in awe of what you've accomplished already, and I would love to get to spend more time with you.

I will continue to make an effort, hopefully I'll get to see you one of these days.

L.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Day 03 - Your parents

M,

I love you. I was talking to you last night about your new bed, and I'm so glad you got yourself something nice that you really like. You deserve it.

I know things were bad when I was a kid. I know we come from a family of self-castigators, and nothing is ever right until it's perfect, but really, I didn't try to talk to you about things to hurt you, or to emphasize faults, I just needed the truth, my truth I suppose, to be heard, so that I could be done with it.

I see that you did the best you could, and in so many ways you did an incredible job. I was a lucky kid, in that I got to swim, and craft, and travel, and I have such a lot of great memories of going interesting places, meeting interesting people and doing interesting things.

Thank you for that.

L.

D,

Well, I don't know what to say. You've never really been a part of my life. I used to wish you were, and then I hated you at a distance and was glad you were not, and now I am innured to the idea.  You are who you are, I guess. It hurt for a long time that you had another family that was worth sticking around for, but without knowing the details of it, I'll never know how much that was worth to them either, or whether that was better or worse.  In reality, I suppose, it is quite likely that you were never the parent that I imagined as a child anyhow.

When I wanted a rescuer, and a protector, and a knight in shining armour, you were conspicuously absent. That said, I've had some truly inspiring men in my life, and I would not have traded the opportunities I had of getting to be under thier wings, and in their circles for any chance of being yours if I could go back and do things over again, so in hindsight, I guess things worked out for the best.

L.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Day 02 - your crush

P,

I saw your work this past weekend, and you are so amazing, and so hot, and funny, and playful, and just, wow!

I have a total silly school-kid type crush on you, which is even more ridiculous, since it is my warrior who wants to get to play with you.

I don't really know what else to say. I'm sure you get your fair share of giddy praise and honeyed eloquence from those seeking access to your skills, and I don't want to be just another st*rf*cker.

Of course I want to be special. Want my request for you to give me wings to be unique. My warrior felt, for the first time this year, the muscles that hold his wings in place, and being part of a female-bodied collective, he isn't going to be able to do anything about that, but he'd like a chance to set them free.

I feel like maybe you are someone who could understand that. The warrior likes to test his strength, loves singletails, and would like lasting proof of his valour if at all possible.

Thanks for listening,

L.

Day 01 - your best friend (30 days, 30 letters)

B,

I haven't had a best friend since you. I miss you. I feel like I fucked things up, and I know apologies aren't your thing, so I won't make a drama of it, but I was having this big new relationship /  married / suburban life, and I lost the bond we shared in the process.

I'm not the person I was then anymore. I'm not the person I was in between anymore, either. I tried to be someone assimilating her way into the middle class, and I'm not that, either.

I'm still not exactly sure who I am.

I have a cat now, again, an orange one.

I have a girlfriend too. I think you'd like her. She lives in a cabin in the middle of the woods, and has eschewed modern comforts in favour of economy and simplicity.  Right now she's in the US starting a travelling job, and I miss her.

I miss getting to shop the Goodwill with you, and I miss being catty with you, and I miss just hanging out and playing games and spending time together.

There was a lot about those early years that wasn't so great, but our friendship was one of the highlights.  Thanks for being such an awesome part of my life.

L.

Monday, May 30, 2011

30 days, 30 letters

So, this is going around, and it seems like a worthwhile timewaster/ writing exercise.

Day 01 - your best friend
Day 02 - your crush

Day 03 – your parents
Day 04 – your sibling (or closest relative)
Day 05 – your dreams
Day 06 – a stranger
Day 07 – your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/love/crush
Day 08 – your favourite internet friend
Day 09 – someone you wish you could meet
Day 10 – someone you don’t talk to as much as you’d like to
Day 11 - a deceased person you wish you could talk to
Day 12 – the person you hate most/caused you a lot of pain
Day 13 – someone you wish could forgive you
Day 14 – someone you’ve drifted away from
Day 15 – the person you miss the most
Day 16 – someone that’s not in your state/country
Day 17 – someone from your childhood
Day 18 – the person that you wish you could be
Day 19 – someone that pesters your mind, good or bad
Day 20 – the one that broke your heart the hardest
Day 21 – someone you judged by their first impression
Day 22 – someone you want to give a second chance to
Day 23 – the last person you kissed
Day 24 – the person that gave you your favourite memory
Day 25 – the person you know that is going through the worst of times
Day 26 – the last person you made a pinky promise to
Day 27 – the friendliest person you only knew for one day
Day 28 – someone that changed your mind
Day 29 - the person that you want tell everything to, but too afraid to
Day 30 – your reflection in the mirror

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Grad stress

So, there's some debate over whether I will graduate on time due to an assignment that didn't get done and it's stressing me out. I feel like crap.

I'm having my usual response to things being emotionally ok - which is freaking out.
It's stupid. I haven't got anough money. Of course not. That's not going to change for some time, but I am loved, which is making me all kinds of uneasy. 

I'll be ok. Trusting this is hard.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Lupus redux

I still have trouble with how radically different my life is.  I used to be such a powerhouse, and I'm not anymore.  It's hard for me to distinguish between laziness and rest, and harder (read: impossible) for me not to beat myself up over it. 

My house is a mess because I've been on placement. Today isn't enough time to get it cleaned up entirely. I'm not sure I could even do it, but it's hard not to hate myself for not doing it.

I reread the spoon theory today. It's exactly what I'm talking about.  having to consciously choose between things, all of which matter to me, in order to be able to keep functioning.  So, I sacrifice aspects of my femme appearance to be able to keep up with school work, and I sacrifice aspects of my creative expression to be able to get the housework done, and I sacrifice creativity in dressing in favour of warmth, and pretty soon I don't know who I am anymore.  Add that to being tired, working like crazy, and living in a mess because I just barely have time to get things that need to get done, done, like laundry and cooking, and that's been my year.

This is the original, in case it's not what you found:
http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory-written-by-christine-miserandino/

It's been tough.

I can't always differentiate between whether I'm being lazy, or whether I'm taking needed rest, because I'm used to pushing myself beyond what I can reasonably manage.  When I am teaching in school past the point where I can stand up without pain, and I'm doing schoolwork past the point where I can reasonably stay awake, and cleaning and carrying things at a point where my body is in agony, then it's really hard to tell whether my sitting and resting and reading, researching, or actually taking time off, is reasonable, or is avoidance.

I'm getting better at it, trying to rest a reasonable amount, no longer falling asleep on my homework, and going to bed at a reasonable hour, which helps.  

One more day to get through. Then finish getting the house ready, taxes done, and enjoy a visit with a friend.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Time for something infammatory?

I'm thinking about going to Michigan.  Thus a post about gender and sex yet again.  A recent note, about transphobia and being female-assigned-at-birth (FAAB) made me think, and I guess that I'm onto that thought process again.

So, there are necessary spaces for transwomen to be together, and to share their unique experiences. Then there are women/womyn/womon's spaces in which ALL womyn-identified people should be welcome.  Then there are women and trans events, which honour the FAAB history of many members of the community, while specifically excluding MAAB-still-male-identifying people.  I think it's important to include those folks who ID as genderqueer, and, frankly, those are often my partners, so it matters to me, but I know others who feel strongly that that's not right either.

For me, in that list, the space that's missing, though, is a FAAB-still-female-identifying space.  I'm not saying that's "women's space", but there's a unique experience to be found in having grown up as female, and having lived my life as female, and sometimes I want to share time with others who have chosen that same path. 

It's not "the right path".  It doesn't make me a "real woman".  It's more like I might like to spend time in the company of other femmes, or geeks, or other abuse survivors, or other Estonians, or anything else that makes up a part of who I am.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Personal blather

K was here for the weekend.  It was so nice to have her here.  I had a hard time with it.  I don't handle sadness very well, and pain, and I've been walling myself off because it's hard being at a distance, and loving people who are all far away.  I have to remember to try to keep my heart open.  It's so hard.  Now I have a great big project to do, and then a bunch of housecleaning and crafts before I start teaching kindergarten monkeys next week.

Thursday, March 10, 2011


I have been having trouble with some of the frustrating aspects of what I have been doing in school.  Some of it has been regarding the methods of presentation, some of it has been regarding the actual material being presented, and some of it has been with the limitations of the program, and with the need to regurgitate specific information rather than to formulate ideas, and do real thinking. 
I am a synthesist, and a global learner, and do my best learning by seeing things in  a larger context.  I prefer to view things in context, and would prefer to be able to consider all aspects of something before having to present a final conclusion.  I understand that often one way of looking at something may be enough to develop a functional approach to a problem, but more than one view can help to develop a multi-faceted view, and multiple views, while complicating things, can also allow for divergent patterns to come to light. 

I have been feeling very frustrated lately, and as a result, not being particularly impressed with aspects of the program, and not engaging with it very well.  Opportunities to explore things of interest to me have seemed few and far between, and with my very limited energy levels, and dealing with constant pain it is frustrating to have to choose between things of interest to me, and rote memorization of things for tests.  

I understand that having students do presentations is beneficial to us, as students, however, having us learn key concepts from these presentations seems irresponsible at best.  I have paid money to come to take courses from expert professors, and to pay to sit in a class while someone presents information from google or wikipedia is just frustrating.  Not a single ERIC reference, not a single journal article, not one piece of research, or data whatsoever to back up any of the information presented, so that if I wanted to look into the subject further there was a springboard for that.  This is what I find frustrating. 
Maybe I am too much of an academic for this professional course.  Maybe I don't grasp the concept of what we are supposed to be doing here.  I got in trouble for including graphic organisers in a project, because I felt that it gave a better understanding of my analysis to break it down into criteria, and to map it out. 
I have found myself reading through things for tests, and then flying off onto tangents, where I come across something fascinating, and wonderful, which captures my interest, drives me to distraction with my sudden need to know more, and takes me on a mad three hour search through journal archives in a furious tumult of needing to know statistics and details, only to realize that it is not going to help me on this essay or exam, and that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the task at hand.

Some questions I posed to myself recently were: Would it change if I saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate my accumulated learning?  If I saw the course as an opportunity to learn new things, and was happy about having the opportunity to learn?  Regardless of my personal views on the validity of learning these things?

I don’t know if I can be a Polyanna…

Thursday, March 03, 2011

I love House. 

I know it's a stupid TV show, but there is something to be said for a representation of a person who approaches the world with logic, and says the things that we are all thinking, but don't give voice to.

Maybe we aren't all thinking them...

I am, at any rate.

I just wish they didn't have to make him so... tortured.

Some of us 'logical mathematical' types find love even without getting drunk to say so, yanno?
Although, I would believe that many of us worry about it messing up our carefully ordered lives.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Apostasy

I have been having a lot of conversations lately, again, about atheism.

I really do think the world would be a better place without religions, and without faith.  I understand that ritual is the way that we organize the elements of our lives, and I apreciate that. Rituals mean a lot to me.  I enjoy them, but I also understand that they serve a function.

Ritual
- unites people for shared experience
- provides structure
- orders social interaction
- creates predictability and safety
- orchestrates meaning

Faith is something that provides a feeling of bridging between the known and the abyss.  Without that bridge, one has to stand on the edge of the precipice, and examine "the terror".

There isn't anything to fear about the unknown. We all have a place, and it is as large or as small as the space that we carve out for ourselves.

It would be a lot easier to believe in a pre-ordained plan, truth is, I don't.

It certainly seems that right now humanity isn't in a place to function without faith, but I dream of a time when we will rise above that need.  When we will be able to look at the world AS IT IS and find it beautiful.

That's all.  I don't desire to rip people's comfort's from them, and when I say that I feel like it's too bad that people have't evolved beyond needing faith to feel at peace with their lives and their world, I don't mean any specific people, I would like humanity to evolve to not needing it.  It makes me sad to see people I care about believing in fairy stories. 

I know that I say "things fell into place" or "must be what's supposed to happen" but I know that there's not a real plan for things, I KNOW that there isn't a higher power, and that when I see patterns, it's like seeing dragons in the clouds.

Perhaps there is some kind of cosmic ebb and flow, like tides, maybe we are moved like magnetic shavings.  I have too much on my plate, and not enough science background to read these things right now, but the thoughts amuse me.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

This almost-a-year in teachers' college has taken me from someone who was so ideallistic and wanted so badly to change the system and help kids, to someone who sees schools as an horrendous child-processing mill.  The way that the University shunts us through the courses, not caring whether we develop as people, as teachers, as human beings, not really caring whether the people in the class have any interest in social justice, or fairness, or whether there is any real concern for furthering the betterment of society - something that I think should be inherent to the calling of teaching.  How can one even consider teaching without a desire to make the world that these little people are going out into a better place.

Last night the Pride Group met here, and the reality of being queer and young here really hit me.  I'm scared and I'm a grownup.  I remember being thrown out, and how horrible it was, and I was a legal adult, with friends to go to.  All I had to worry about was finding a job, money, and a place to live, and getting through university. 

I didn't have the rest of my growing up to do at the same time. 

I want to make a difference.  I don't want to just process people who are going to be ok no matter who is there. 

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

C-PTSD

So, I have a private blog, in which I talk about the realities of Having Complex PTSD, but it's worth knowing that it's something that I deal with.

It's often discounted, and people with it, are most often written off as odd, cold, or otherwise bizzarre, because of the coping mechanisms that they develop to.  Complex PTSD comes as a result of trauma that is ongoing and long-term, to the point where the victim feels that they will never escape, be safe, or otherwise be free of it.

There's basically 4 main mechanisms that people develop as a response to this trauma:
Fight - where you try to exert control over everything in your environment
Flight - where you try to keep moving/busy constantly
Freeze - where you escape into fantasy or addiction
Fawn - where you bend over backwards to accommodate everyone else

Most people use a normal combination of all 4 of these in crisis situations, knowing when to fight, when to capitulate, when to negotiate, and when to keep busy and just get through things.  A C-PTSD survivor has become fixated on one or two of these coping strategies, and so can't move fluidly between them.  Additionally, a C-PTSD survivor perceives any sort of negative feeling as having the potential to turn into that original nightmare over again, so it re-activates the defence mechanism.

Here's some reading:
http://www.pete-walker.com/fourFs_TraumaTypologyComplexPTSD.htm
http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php
http://www.nctsnet.org/nctsn_assets/pdfs/edu_materials/ComplexTrauma_All.pdf

Monday, February 07, 2011

Non-sense (or devlution?)

There are things that make sense, and things that have meaning, and they are not always the same things.

I've had an exterminator trying to trap this thing that's been living in the crawlspace.  Well, we caught it.  Only, not in time, and he didn't check the trap fast enough, so when I went down there, there was a dead kitty in the trap.

I came upstairs and cried for half an hour.  I cried off and on for most of yesterday.  I'm not ok with that.  I had a feeling it was a cat, and he told me it couldn't be,so I believed him.

I feel so guilty, for being scared of the crawlspace, and scared it was a skunk, and not checking it myself, and so on.

Last night when I went to bed, I had the wierdest thought of making a blood offering, just putting a smear of blood on a stone, and burning incense over it and making an apology.  It was a thought I couldn't shake.  So, today I went and did it, and I feel much better.

Not ALL better, but it's a way of trying to come to terms with it.

YES, I know it has no bearing on the cat, or no impact on the real world, but that's what ritual is for, right?  It's a way for us to reconcile things which we otherwise can't come to terms with.

Personal ritual makes all the more sense to me for that reason.

Anyhow, that's what I've got today.  Back to the homework.

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

My Phys. Ed. Autobiography


H.A.E.S[i] is Health At Every Size.  It is something that is rarely spoken about in schools, in a health curriculum, or in a single piece of the anti-obesity rhetoric that is behind the QDPA (Quality Daily Physical Activity), increased physical activity, “more movement”, “less screen time”, movements.  Not that there is anything inherently wrong about the ideals behind these things, but that for the students who are coming from a place of low self-esteem, and negative body-image, this kind of program could be a nightmare to be endured, and not the boon it is intended to be.   So, do I complain about the fact that this article[ii] is co-sponsored by a company that produces tonnes of sugared cereals and an anti-obesity research organization?  Is it more productive to endorse the message, given that I am entirely certain that getting more physical activity helps to stimulate a child’s brain?

I grew up without a television, I did have a “Merlin” electronic game, a computer, and of course, I had books.  I was a fairly active child, who did extremely well in school, to the point of spending most of my life in a gifted withdrawal program.  I was also fat. 

I was a competitive swimmer, winning 50 and 100m butterfly as well as 100m crawl fairly consistently from ages 8-13.  I taught swimming at 14, was a lifeguard at 15, biked to and from the pool (a 1-4 km distance depending on where I was working), downhill skied, fenced – epée since girls were not allowed to do saber, and hated myself the whole time for being “fat and lazy”.

I had the same teacher for P.E. from Grade 3 to Grade 8.  My  memories of public school gym class consist largely of Mr. Peel shouting at myself and Blair, as we walked around the 1km track, the two fat kids, “Run, fattie, run!”  I remember deliberately refusing to run, and knowing that he hated me.  I remember not being able to climb the rope, not being able to do the right number of chin ups for the Participaction Challenge, refusing to even attempt to crawl under the bench for fear of getting stuck, and generally, just hating the whole experience of Phys. Ed. 

I recall the shame of the change room, not wanting anyone to see me naked, knowing that I looked different, because I was fat, and had different sized clothes than everyone else. 

I hated Phys. Ed, even though I played actively at recess.  Which was odd, since I was an active kid.  We had a cottage, where I ran, and swam, climbed up sheer rock faces, and trees, swung from ropes, climbed ladders, helped build a roof, and generally did everything that any other kid would do.  I swam huge distances – I was the only kid at the Art Camp I attended, to be allowed to accompany the waterfront director on her swim across the lake.

I knew my body worked, I liked it, and I was usually happy in my own skin, but somehow, translated into that experience of “gym class”, all I felt was shame, discordance, and self-loathing. 

It took a long time for me to reclaim that feeling.: the freedom of being me.  The need to “be good” at things, to master certain skill sets, to achieve success is often counter productive to the goal of being active.  We, as curriculum leaders, need to make a decision as to which one is more important.  If we are going to encourage our students to make an effort to be more active, then we have to decide that it is activity for the sake of enjoyment of the activity which matters, and not activity for the purpose of mastery and “success”.  I was always quite driven, and wanting to be the best, or to do better was a big issue for me.  Learning to enjoy something just for the sake of enjoyment was hard.

A few years ago, my ex-spouse and I hand-dug a 12x21 semi-inground pool in our backyard because we could not fit an excavator in.  It was a lot of work, a lot of physical labour, and it really gave me an opportunity to re-evaluate my fear of physical activity, stemming from that dreaded gym class.  No one laughed at me.  No one hated me.  There was no censure, no shame, just a person, with a body, enjoying the interplay of muscle, the kinesthetics, the movement, the growing strength, the joy of motion, the soreness after a good day’s work.

Those are the things that we need to find a way to communicate to our students  - most notably, the joy of the body;  the pleasure to be found in movement, the excitement to be derived from building strength and perhaps skill, as well. 
When I first walked into the gym here at Lakehead, with the smell, and the sound, it was fear that came flooding back, and I wanted to run away.  The fact of my perseverance, and subsequent enjoyment of the classes, says a lot for the efforts of my colleagues, and for the desire  I have to learn ways in which to create a Phys. Ed. Program which is welcoming to students of all ability and capability levels.   When I was on placement, I specifically asked to be allowed to teach P.E., so that I could have the opportunity to face my fears head on.  I am not certain that I did an outstanding job, but it did give me the opportunity to be there, in the gym in front of the class, looking at these people, and trying to figure out how to make this not only the least traumatic experience for them, but also a beneficial one. 

I think, often, as with the rest of the subjects, we teach to the middle of the class, and this is another area, where we need to look at how we can service those on the margins.  Obviously those with special talents are most likely going to be getting some kind of outside assistance or encouragement, teams or other extra-curricular activity, but what about the ones whose skills are not up to the standard?   I don’t have an answer to this.  When we build co-operative games and assume that all the students are comfortable with their bodies touching, then we invite shame into our gym class.  When we mark out squares on the floor of our gym class without a thought for the fact that not all people are that size, then we invite shame into our gym class.  When we create an activity where students have to shimmy through a tight space, or squeeze through a hula hoop, or otherwise measure a body they might not feel comfortable with sharing the dimensions of, we invite shame into our gym class.  

In this article on fatness in teenagers,[iii] there is an obvious correlation between the differing lifestyles of contemporary teenagers, and those of previous generations.   It  references these additional stressors, and the lack of free time between jobs and school, and the need to “grab food quickly “ between the two, but makes no allowances for the accompanying stresses of the hurried modern life.  The 2010 Active Healthy Kids Report Card[iv] recommends 90 minutes of Physical activity per day, and no more than 60 consecutive minutes of sedentary activity, that children walk to school, or play outside.  These are excellent suggestions, but without a change in the economy, the need of parents to work two jobs, predations concerns, and other societal deterrents, much of this is not going to happen. 

Given the emphasis on literacy and mathematics, the concern for teachers, is how do we integrate these things.  With a single 20 minute QDPA, and twice a week Phys. Ed. Classes, there isn’t enough opportunity to get the students up and moving.  

I did a lot of physical activity as a child, and it very probably contributed to my good marks, and my academic success, but it wasn’t helped by the negative attitudes of my gym teacher, or society’s fatphobic zeitgeist.    I agree that there needs to be more physical activity, less computer time, less television time, especially given the desire to prevent Type 2 Diabetes,[v] heart disease, and other illnesses not related specifically to fatness, but to inactivity.  We, as a species, are designed to be in motion, and do not do well, confined all day. 

Health At Every Size is about the idea of being active starting where you are NOW.  The idea is to take yourself, in the given moment, and to work to be as active as possible, now. It is about working to eat food that is good for your body, and nourishes you.  It is about loving yourself as you are.  Not loving an idealized version of yourself, or a future version.     Being able to incorporate this element of self awareness and knowing  into a Phys. Ed. Curriculum that is based on enjoying activity, enjoying movement, and enjoying the feeling of being active is really the point of the whole endeavour as far as I am concerned.  Children need to learn skills to bring them into healthy, positive adulthood, and to be able to translate those feelings of self-worth, and self-efficacy into other areas of their lives.  It doesn’t really matter whether they can throw or catch a ball, but feeling like they can do something if they learn the necessary safety steps, follow reasonable instructions, and then set their mind to doing it – that’s a life skill worth nurturing. 





[i] Bacon, Linda. (2010). Health at Every Size. Retrieved from http://haescommunity.org/
[ii] Active Healthy Kids Canada. (2009) Active Kids Score Higher: More Activity Time Adds Up to Better Learning.  Retrieved from http://www.ophea.net/article/featured/active-kids-score-higher-more-activity-time-adds-better-learning
[iii] McPheeh, Jennifer. (2002) Weighty problem Retrieved from http://www.nnsl.com/frames/newspapers/2002-11/nov13_02fat1.html
[iv] Active Healthy Kids Canada. (2010) Healthy Habits Start Earlier Than You Think: 2010 Active Health Kids Canada Report Card. Retrieved from http://www.activehealthykids.ca/ecms.ashx/2010ActiveHealthyKidsCanadaReportCard-longform.pdf
[v] Seibert, J. (2010). Phys-ed class sweat pays off in the long run. Retrieved from http://my.hsj.org/Schools/Newspaper/tabid/100/view/frontpage/schoolid/3291/articleid/392461/newspaperid/3404/Physed_class_sweat_pays_off_in_the_long_run.aspx

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Police State? (or state your policy at least)

Why are police hiding their badge numbers?  If they are doing their jobs as authorized, then they should be unafraid of repercussions.  If there is some unofficial policy whereby harassment is acceptable, but for accountability's sake reprimands will be issued if officers can be identified, then there is a serious problem, and when a lack of visible police identification becomes a trend, that starts to become a valid concern.

Unidentified Officers harassing anarchists again?

Especially when police are bringing shotguns to a peaceful gathering.  We are entitled to gather together as citizens to discuss, quite frankly, whatever the hell we want to. 

I saw the police at the G20, and I watched the G20 videos with tears streaming down my face, because we, as Mommas, and crips left before people started getting beaten up and arrested, for the sake of the kiddos we had with us.  It was the police who were getting ugly, not the crowd, that day, and as anyone who has ever been in charge of a group of people knows, there are ways to diffuse tension in a situation, and ways to escalate it. 

The Toronto police could use some training in de-escalation.  How to talk to people.  How to calm people down, How to be a human being.  There wasn't any need for the way that they behaved that day, and there wasn't any need to bring a shotgun to an Anarchist Studies Conference.  It wasn't violent.  No one was in danger.   Their "gun call" was a spurious attempt to gain entrance into, and to violate the rights of those present at an academic conference.

A Conference!  A place where people posit new ideas, and discuss innovative theory.

*sigh*

At least it's sunny here.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Cake boss!

Ok, hardly, but I have been enjoying baking lately, as a way of both getting through the winter blues, and of making nice things to keep me happy here.

Last week's treat was carrot cake with cream cheese icing.  It was fantastic, and for about $6 it kept me from buying takeout, and from treating myself elsewhere.  So, both an economical choice, as well as an enjoyable one.

This week I made a walnut, apple vanilla bundt cake.  It didn't turn out as well - got stuck in the pan, but it is pretty fantastic tasting.

Where I want to be in 10 years?

So, I'm doing this damned teaching degree.

I need to know what to do with it.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but being stuck in a classroom is really the last thing I want to be doing with myself.  I want to make a difference.  There is so much pain and hurt and hate, and awfulness in the world, and I don't think that teaching little people spelling is going to make a gnat's worth of difference to any of it.

I don't want to be stuck in a classroom full of kids from nice homes who are easy to teach, and easy to deal with, and who all do pretty much what they are told.

The kids who fascinate me are the ones who I have no idea what's going on with them, and who I know that something is wrong, and I want to help. 

Do I have a hero complex?  I'd be just as happy being someone who does a single unsung good deed, at least I think so.

Now I'm chasing grad school. I've found things I would like to study, cross your fingers for me, that it works out.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Winter in the Frozen North

So, today I cleared 6" of ice off the back steps. Lots of Ice Melter, my trusty cats' paw, and brute force. Go me!

No, it wasn't an Ice Storm.  Just the result of dripping from the meltwater from the eaves.   It's an ongoing battle.  The gas guy came and chipped the ice off the the gas meter with his Leatherman tool, then he installed an ice shield over it.  VERY entertaining to say "Leather Man" to the Gas Guy... tee hee.

The exterminator came, with his trap, and a pocket full of sardines (a can) to try and catch the occupant of the crawlspace.  I hope it's just a squirrel. 

I have also MacGyvered a drip-track for the run-off from a 12' piece of siding so that it directs the meltwater off onto the patio.  It's still going to be a huge pain, but maybe it will be manageable.

I made carrot cake yesterday, with a cream cheese & butter frosting, it's spectacular!  I've been eating it delightedly.  I debated making it, but it was definitely the right decision.  

Finally got the pipes unfrozen, they seem to be OK so far.  Unless we get another -37 day, I think I'm good.  So, off to knock the ice off my drip-track, and get to bed.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

A terrible tragedy, but not one of inaction...

Woman, 66, Wanders, and freezes to death.

 This is a horrible tragedy, but I don't think it is a tragedy of impersonal community, rather a tragedy of inadequate social services, lack of community support, inappropriate elder housing, and the very personal nightmare of dementia/alzheimers.

I know that I've lived places with lots of noise, as well as being a contributor to that noise at times...
You get used to it, and it becomes part of the background.   

The sad things, is that people with dementia often CANNOT be cared for in their homes, as with my grandmother, who had Alzheimers, and would literally shove my frail grandfather out of her way in her need to escape a place she could no longer remember.  It was a danger to her not to be in a secure facility.  My family had to move her, because she was escaping.  At times, neighbors saw her climbing the fence in the neighboring churchyard, and trying to get into the ravine.

The Alzheimers society includes suggestions such as disguising doors as walls, keyed door locks, alarm mats, barred windows, proximity alarms, hiding ID, purses and keys, and other jail-like methods to keep the person from "wandering". 

As a caretaker, the grief involved in having to watch your beloved's mind deteriorate, and then to have to cage them as well: horrendous.

My heart aches for her husband, and for her family.  Demonizing the neighbors, and the neighborhood isn't going to solve anything.

We could try providing more respite care,  alzheimers/dementia daycares, encouraging caregiving that is not always gender-determined, and re-thinking women's roles as automatic caregivers, more compassion in our eldercare facilities, better funding.

I don't have a solution.  I do remember how painful it was when my family was trying to do the best for someone we loved, I have seen other people trying to do the best for people they love, and I worry about what's going to happen to me.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Religious Incompatibility in Relationships and Atheist Life Philosophy

Having a tough while. In the midst of a bout of pneumonia, and it's making it hard for me to maintain perspective.

J and I agreed on a lot of things that were fairly fundamental, and that I took for granted.

Atheism is a big one. I assumed that my partner would be an atheist. I value my capacity for rational thought, and I really thought I would have a partner who would share that love of reason. Even when I am irrational, I know that I am being irrational, I can admit that, I know that it is something that I am doing for my own self-soothing, and I am ok with that.

I know that humanity has a drive towards connection, and that our minds create this interconnectedness where none exists. I'm ok with that. I go to the cemetary and talk to the dead grandparents. I know they're dead, and can't talk to me, but I miss them, and it makes me feel connected to them, to talk to them. I used to talk to them at the cottage too. Sometimes I talk to them at home, or camping. I KNOW it's not real, but if it mitigates the pain of their absence, then it's a form of self-reflection, more so than a form of spirituality.

K and I have had a few major arguments about "spirituality", in which I have asked that she not try to convince me that the stories are "true", or end them with a polemic. The last one ended with a statement to the effect that she can't believe that all of the most intelligent people she knows refuse to use the "full power of their minds", and refuse to open up their minds to the "full possibilities of the universe."

It's not even possible to have a rational conversation in that context, because one person is arguing that supersition is true, based on their personal experience, and the other is arguing that life requires rational thought, and scientific explanation.

It ends up degenerating into a "yes", "no" argument, to which there is no end, and in which there is no point.

I don't agree that this stuff is true. I am not going to change my mind on that. I think that people skew their stories in retrospect, to better fit the facts to their perspectives, and I think that coincidences happen all the time, which can be accounted for, but which also are really great, and there's nothing wrong with crediting the people involved, or the circumstances, instead of inventing/clinging to fantasy.
 
I understand why people want religion.  I want it. It makes sense to me to want to believe that there is something out there helping me. Some kind of purpose.  Most of my life is lived in terror and uncertainty over the fact that I am constantly facing the unknown.  I don't know what's going to happen to me.   I am afraid.  
 
I have people who love me.  I have community, when I can remember, and work myself up to get out and join it.  I have a brain that still works.  I am a glitter of cosmic dust, and a spark in the inky black of forever.  Overall, these are the things that mitigate the terror, and bring joy as well. 

As Douglas Adams famously said:

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

Why I am not brave - living with a chronic illness

Bravery is a short term thing.

Bravery is the adrenalin-fueled get-up-and-go, that keeps you moving through a crisis, because you know it's going to be over soon.

When I got sick I was brave.  I faced the tests, and the diagnoses, bravely.

"Surely," I thought "this will all be over soon."  We are used to movies, and stories with a crisis, and a dénouement.  Things reach a peak of emotion, and then there is a resolution.  The brave hero is rescued, or cured, and the crisis is averted, and everyone is allowed to resume their previous life.

Only it never ends.  The illness doesn't end.
You have to keep getting up in the morning, and things don't change.

The adrenalin starts to fade, and the bravery starts to wane, as the realization sets in that there is no end in sight.  Instead of being able to hope for relief, there is the realization that it is life that will have to change, instead of circumstances changing, and permitting life to resume.

Then the grief sets in.  There is a period of shock during which you mourn the death of your previous life, your previous self, your previous existence, and your entire future. 

One morning, you eventually realize that there are only a few options: continue to wallow in grief; end your life; try to build another life within these new limitations.

It is still sad, and there are lots of days in which I mourn my previous life.  Maybe that will change.  I hope so.  There are still lots of days where I struggle with the choice I've made, feel like there isn't much of a future for me, and feel like so much of my life got stolen from my by this illness.

I am doing the best that I can.  I am working to build a life for myself, despite being in pain all the time, and struggling with getting up, and struggling with my day-to-day life.  It's a huge struggle.

It's not brave, though. 

It's the condition of my every day life.