gender – queer vegan adventures

anne rice helped me find my superpowers

December 14, 2021December 28, 2021Tagged adventure, adventures, anne rice, bell hooks, gender, queer, queer vegan adventures, queer writers, relationships, teachers, vegan, writers1 Comment

it is that time of year again, the season of the winter solstice. this year i really want to come into it much more prepared, to be more intentional with it than just a quick meditation, light a candle, and welcome the light to come. so i have been contemplating what it is i need to let go of to bring in what i want to move deeper into my life.

so, a couple of days ago i woke from my dreams with many things from my past that i can now see differently and therefore can let go of and also celebrate. i woke energized and charged with a sense of direction as i moved through my newish ways of beginning my days. all the things i do before i allow myself to touch devices that bring in the outside world. on this particular day, the first piece of news i read was that anne rice had transitioned from this world. she was 80 years old. she had a stroke. that was the only piece of news i read then as my mind was only full of all the ways the works of this writer had influenced my life, perhaps in ways i am just beginning to understand.

i don’t remember where i found her, but i think it was at a used book store. the first book i read was…well honestly i can’t remember if it was queen of the damned or her first book on her family of witches. when i find a writer that brings parts of me alive, i just start reading everything they have ever written. i do know that i read the vampire books, not in order. and yes, i did read her books under other names. books that were categorized on different degrees of erotica. books that were about so much more than sex, but about all the different ways we people can relate and potential reasons one may want to. eyes were open. mind was blown.

i stumbled on this writer, already popular in the gay community, as i was coming out and trying to understand what that meant. i knew it couldn’t be just about who i slept with or how i was when i was in a relationship or my love for vampires and witches. there had to be more to it than that. it was way before i would understand just how much i want to tear down the binaries of well everything. it was her writing more than anything else i was reading at the time, especially gay and lesbian writers, that being queer could mean that i moved and viewed the world with a different lens. that being queer is a type of superpower i can use when moving through the world. that by breaking this binary into pieces the world could explode in color, sound, smells, tastes, bodily sensations….the sensations are limitless.

her characters, no matter what realm they existed in, lived deeply. the ones who, at first seemed weak or vulnerable, were actually the strong ones, the ones who carried the others in challenging and difficult times. she showed that we, that i could hold these contradictions all at the same time. the way she wrote these characters into being inspired me to go outside of my comfort zones to find deeper more lasting comfort. not some false sense of security that capitalism offers. she helped me understand why i could not find comfort in the ways that i was told would bring joy and success. and that i am the only one who knows how to find them.

i have always been a type of loner. i deeply enjoy doing things by myself, but i think it was her characters that gave me permission to do the perceived dangerous things alone. i would go out dancing, alone to meet my friends. i would dance and dance…learning to express my young newly queer self. i would leave a happy sweaty mess. if it was one of those fortunate nights where the dj spun just the right tunes that i left exhausted and high from the beat and rhythm of it all. i’d leave just before closing and find a place to just walk the back alleys of deep ellum, exposition park, or turtle creek. i would listen to the night winding down. the smells of a hot summer day hopefully cooling down. i’d walk until my heart calmed or i found a fountain to cool myself, then i’d drive to a parking garage, climb to some rooftop, an abandoned building, or an empty construction site. anywhere that i could get up above it all and watch the sunrise, usually with the cure in the tape deck of my car as the soundtrack of the moment. i’d sit there with sweat still dripping down my neck, my shirt soaked, my muscles wrung out, happy. once the sun would hit my face, i would get up to face what was next. usually, a shower to get to class, maybe a breakfast date, hopefully, sleep.

but i think it was her characters that gave me permission to do this alone, and then later backpacking and bike touring solo. the things i’ve been told weren’t safe for women to do not just by themselves, but without men. from outdoor adventures to walking or biking my city’s streets alone late at night into the early morning. i did try to go with others a few times, but then i would find out later that they brought weapons to the places i find peace, or they would spend most of the time questioning our relative safety. so, i stopped bringing people with me. if they wanted to meet somewhere, cool, but, nope, i am a solo adventurer with the exception of very few people.

one of the many things i loved about anne rice’s stories is her attention to everything. her depth of research is astounding. when i first read cry to heaven, i could truly imagine the unique sounds that the castrati opera singers performed or the smells of the vienna canals. she was able to find the only recording of one of the last castrati singers ever made and was able to give great detail to the quality and depths of their voices. she could describe places i have been and have lived to such a degree that i knew exactly where she was talking about. i could smell the unique scents in the depths of heat in new orleans as well as the bone-chilling cold that could happen there when temperatures drop and humidity stays high, so i knew i could trust how she described experiences i have never had, and probably never will. she kind of became a new type of history teacher for me before i found howard zinn.

she has also taught me, in very deep levels, that a fascinating person can be very complicated holding deep contradictions in wonderfully beautiful ways. i always knew her as someone who wrote about vampires and children who were vampires and witches and the deep dark nights of mystery and the otherworldly. then one morning i woke in new orleans early, before all my friends that i had road-tripped with, so while they slept i went out for a cup of chicory coffee and walked the garden district. i found a cute bookstore and naturally went in. as i walked around i heard a voice off in the kid’s section, sweet a storytime!? sure was and who was reading to the children who were so enthralled in what was being read to them but the one and only anne rice! i was caught up in this experience as well. how can one go from writing exit to eden to reading to children? we are not meant to be put in boxes and labeled. we can be many things and we can hold many identities all at once. we get to move through this world appreciating and loving so many different aspects of the world around us. it is how i gave myself the space to love going to hear chamber music just as much as i love going to a hardcore punk show or industrial rave. i can love dark goth and energetic dance mixes. i can be complicated and dive into depths that even i don’t understand, and she helped me find those places because she also held that for herself and for her characters. i also learned here to separate the writer from the person, the artist from the human.

there was a point where i stopped reading her. where her stories went to places i was not prepared to go. it happens. i have had this experience with many teachers, and friends. people move to different places, and i found other writers who picked up and helped me find other worlds within me, other worlds to explore. her transition from this world to whatever is next, reminds me how much i am because so many others have risked, have been vulnerable, have challenged the way things are to imagine how things can be, how we can be, how we can relate to one another and live in a way that uplifts the possibilities as opposed to smother and suffocate them.

as i was about to finish this post, i found out that bell hooks also transitioned, then so did e.o. wilson.

i don’t know how to put into words how bell hooks influenced me, my thinking, my education, my time in the university setting, my inability to stay in higher education. two books by bell, teaching to transgress, and all about love influenced me deeply. there are so many common themes in both books. one almost inspired me to be a teacher, but instead helped me move out of institutional education. the other taught me what love could be, how to begin to move this one powerful word from a noun to a verb, inspiring me to also move from being a noun to being a verb.

bell hooks showed me by how she lived and wrote that it is possible, indeed necessary, to live what we affirm, that our lives must be lived as an example of our politics. that my life is not just a theory, but a life to be lived. i could go on and on about how she inspires my to this day on how i look at the world around me. she reminds me that moving into a life that views the world contrary to the institutional lens is a painful transition, that there will be internal and external complications. but there is also great joy especially when we find pals doing the same.

i can not imagine who i would be without so many writers, storytellers, singers and songwriters, movie makers, and artists of all sorts to open up the imagination of brilliant lives. i am forever grateful for all of them, especially the ones i get to call friends, comrades, coconspirators, accomplices, those willing to go down the dark alley, the unknown path to see what there is on the other side….

thank you all for i am much more alive because of every last one of you and that is a gift that can only be repaid by living the dream they inspired in me and to attempt to inspire others to do the same in their way.

may you all enjoy the coming light

greeting the dawn with the joys of grief

April 22, 2021Tagged fujifilmxt20, gender, grief, queer vegan adventures, sunrise1 Comment

over the past couple years i’ve been growing more and more accustom to greeting the sun to start my day. it is one of the perks, let’s say, of living basically not in a house. so those months on bike tour or hiking the coast, or living out of paco-the truck; beginning the day in this way has become routine, habit, bodily memory, and ritual. little did i know until recently that this has also opened me in ways i am just becoming aware of. kind of like those first cracks of rays over a jagged mountain.

one of those rays is finding a wider understanding of grief. i believe that grief and loss is a type of blessing. to have the gift of beings in my life that i have loved and have loved me; those who nurtured my spirit, who shaped me in ways i may never really know, who’s loss i feel pretty much every day…well what i gift, truly. and it really only makes sense that when i no longer have those people in my life for what ever the reasons may be, it will hurt. the loss will be painful. but i don’t think that there is a hole from their absence, but perhaps it fills another. or, perhaps, the memories of them, the lessons or the effects they have had on us just keeps filling us wether they are near us still or not. there is an imprint that never truly goes away

but what has dawned on me recently (pun intended as this is about the sunrise), is just how wide grief can go, and how celebrating grief and the joy and love that it can come with, does indeed add to the beauty of the world. and as i explore this idea more and more, the more open i am becoming, or at least i am not as closed up as i have been.

let’s see if i can explain a little…

i left las cruces a couple months back to take a job in northern arizona. it was harder to leave than i had expected. in just over a year i was starting to build a little life of friends, connections i’ve been searching for…a spiritual community that i was missing for a long time. so i decided to take my time in arriving to the new job and map out a route that would take me to places i’ve been wanting to visit for soooo long. places like chaco canyon and bandelier national monument. homes to the ancients of this land, the ancestors of the land. as well as family that i don’t often have the opportunity to visit much.

there was a moment when i was sitting on the mesa over looking chaco canyon, taking in the view that people took 700 years ago, the same kind of moment i had at the gila cliff dwellings, bandelier, and aztec ruins monuments. thoughts i’ve had gazing at the petroglyphs and pictographs. views mixed with the teachings i’ve been trying to learn of the people who have lived and thrived with this land in this region, down into norther “mexico” and “south america” the toltec, mayan, aztec, inca people.

many of these musings i can not yet put into words, but some i can.

this one moment i experienced that complicated mixture of anger and sadness. eventually that emotional cocktail turned to grief mixed with the gratitude for the beauty and the love that is growing in me for cultures that despite settler colonialism, are still around and still teaching us.

the anger was in these cultures, these people, these lessons were never in any of my “american history” classes. in-fact, most of the things i have wanted to learn, i have had to go in search of. i have had, and have to, and get to, go find the teachers that i trust. teachers that i feel are reliable, and since most of this is not academic learning that i am searching out, it is also teaching me how to use and cultivate my intuition and to trust myself on who i want to work with, and who wants to work with me and trusts me…a white person. learning how to learn in different ways. not to expect that just because i pay a fee i should feel entitled to information, or just because i come curious, i should expect anything at all. i’ve also had to learn how to filter the teachings that may contain sexist, homophobic, transphobic, personal bias, or harmful teachings from the deeper lessons. because we all have flaws, but that doesn’t make us all flawed.

then this all turned into one huge lesson in gratitude for all that got me up to that ledge, that overlook. every being i have encountered. all the teachers that have crossed my path. all the work i have done and continue to do that helps me unlearn, and thus relearn, or maybe it is rebuild this relationship i want to have with this world and universe around me. relationships…really what else is there?

the reminder that i can not separate myself from my surroundings, from the air i breath, the water i drink, the food i eat. that everything every being that i come into contact with, every experience i have is a part of me, and just as importantly, i with them. that we, our communities, or relationships go so much deeper than our immediate surroundings. that indeed they can go back 500 or 800 years ago, and therefor we can go as far into the future, or further.

so today, this earth day, i walk and ponder, not so much what will i leave behind for those who join us next, but how will i continue to build this relationship, this love i have for this place, this space of unlimited unconditional love? and how grateful i am to be opening more, to be vulnerable enough to care enough, knowing that to have the joy and the depth of experience, of relations, is to know that we will also experience great loss and grief. there is no way to have one without the other.

just to have a magnificent warming of a winter sunrise…i must also experience the cold that comes with a beautiful winter sunset.

Ometeotl

fear the mind killer

July 28, 2020August 24, 2020Tagged adventure, adventures, bike, climate, desert, fear, fujifilmxt20, gender, meditation, privilege, queer, queer vegan adventures, relationships, vegan, walking, women who adventure, women who explore, wtf1 Comment

or silence = death.

this we learned in the 80s under a different plaque. our generation our queer generation learned that health, health care and human rights are intertwined. is it any wonder that we continue to refuse to remain silent. that we already know our silence, our complacency to obey = death?

i’ve been sporadically watching pose, and i can’t help but acknowledge so many similarities between the two pandemics. who uses safe practices, who fights for what, what gets shut down, delays in treatment and care, who does the care work, inept government….

we will wear masks we will social distance. we will care for our communities, but that does not mean we will obey. we have learned how to care how to protect and rebel at the same time.

since i started solo adventuring the one consistant question was about fear and safety: wasn’t i afraid, a woman alone is so vulnerable, would i carry a gun/knife/pepper spray, and so many what ifs. in response i would throw statistics around like women being safer the further they get from home. and men are more likely to experience “stranger danger”. and i would get funny unbelieving looks, like i lived in a whole other world. and now i totally agree with them. i do live in a whole other world. i learned that the fears they name say more about them.

i refuse to live in a world that controls peoples’ bodies, specifically non-straight-white-male bodies, the standard on which all else is measured and policed by. p.s. also a huge part of why i am vegan, their control of lives include all lives human and non-human, civilization vs nature.

as i write this, we are in at least our 5th month of a global pandemic, a huge economic depression, and people are rising up in the streets in protest of police violance: state sponsored corporate backed violence against the people of this country, specifically black and brown folks. the violence against people coming up from the global south is a whole other form of violence just as hanis and dispicable. and to be honest, this is just the kind of violence radical environmental and animal rights activists have been warning about since 9/11 and the enactment of the patriot act.

the common thread in all this that pulls at the fabric of the people is fear. if the powers that be get enough white folks to believe that their individual lives are in dangered by certain folks, or “our way of life” is in jeopardy by having certain people living amongst them, then they can control people on both sides of that fear line. if we live in fear of getting sick, or unable to feed and house ourselves and our families (however they are defined), of the police (and all other uniformed milatary like ice and homeland security). if we fear all these things, our basic ways of life really: health, safety, security then they can control us and force us to obey. or so they think.

and all this pisses me off!

it is the same tactic used to keep women, all who identify as female, from adventuring outside of their assigned place in the world. women aren’t suppose to love science and mathematics or travel the word and explore alone, or without men, or at all really. if we were encouraged to, our pant pockets would hold more than a tube of lipstick. we are also not suppose to love and support one another, but stay isolated and compete for each little morsel tossed at us, and be grateful for that crumb

this tactic of fear mongering mixed with lies and keeping everyone off balance and not knowing what to trust or who to trust, we know who not to for sure, but who can we turn to for good solid information to make the best decisions for our families, our communities. and when this lack of trust gets so widespread and so deep in rips our ability to be good and active citizens to pieces. we struggle to keep the worst out instead of the best in. and that, my friends is the end of democracy in action!

so what to do.

well this whole tirad started in my head in march when i couldn’t figure out why, in all the suggestions and guidlines from the cdc and who started coming out, i couldn’t find one article on suggested ways to build one’s immune system for this disease. so i started going back through my herb notes and other health resources for respiratory support. they were saying people who they thought were at risk for dying from covid, but not how to prevent it. aka we don’t have a pill to sell you yet, so stay afraid. so i started running again, keeping specific herbs and foods to support my immune system stocked, keep my anxiety down, and drinking lots of fluids. my routine has adjusted and changed as the seasons move. more than anything, i am doing all i can to keep my stress down, but my senses alert.

we don’t just need to build up our bodies, buy we also need to build up our local communities, local economies, our local water supplies, food chains (distribution, farmers/growers, small local stores, mercados). we need to remember the healing powers of movement, herbs, being in nature/a part of nature, food, water, the lessons of our ancestors. this moment in time has shown us not where we are weak, but who is most vulnerable, where we need to focus our resourceswe need to return to cooperative communities and let go of the false promises of capitalism. then maybe we can finally have the democracy we were told we have.

and we need to laugh as much and as often as possible

so, i dare say, take the power back! get healthy, stay healthy. and then when the cops chase us, we will have the strength to stand strong and force them back. the pandemic, the depression (they call a deep recession), the fights in the streets for black-lives/against the police state, climate chaos…all this is actually the perfect recipe for the revolution.

adventures with covid-19

May 27, 2020May 27, 2020Tagged adventure, adventures, biking, climate, climate change, desert, fujifilmxt20, gender, grief, hiking, meditation, microbrews, newmexico, privilege, queer, queer vegan adventures, queer writers, queers on bikes, relationships, rivers, running, sunsets, vegan, women who adventure, women who hike, wtf4 Comments

it may seem odd to think about living during a global pandemic as being an adventure, but its helped me move through it this way. it is an event that is changing how we organize our lives, interact with one another, and how we think about the ways we move through our lives: physically spacially spiritually thoughtfully intentionally, who we were before and who we hope to be after. how will the adventure effect us on the other side.

part of this being an adventure, perhaps, is choosing some kind of agancy in how i respond, aka choose my adventure. i am somewhat fortunate to, despite my great slacker tendencies, have a job in an essential business that is a co-op and not a corp. so i can still work and have a choice not to. i live in a state with a proactive governor who responded quickly, so there were/are resources available for people. hell i even bought a nice old truck just as businesses were being shut down. this huge piece of the adventure totally effects the choices i make as i continue in this adventure.

another aspect to this adventure in covid, for me, is i didn’t actually think i was going to experience this part of the climate crisis. sure i knew i would live to see the rise of the calamaties. i acknowledge that we are, and have been experiencing a great deal already: the rising seas, the increased intensity of storms and weather patterns, global political unrest. i guess i just didn’t think it would all start to happen all of a sudden so soon. i should have. i’ve been keeping track of this for long enough. i suspect the reader in me expected all the things to happen in chapters, or acts like a book or movie, not simultaneously…silly human.

a key part to how i am deciding my adventure is my level of privilege: a healthy (if a young 52 years), white, can pass as cis woman when people don’t identify me as male, i have a good grasp on having a healthy diet, access to clean water (for all the reasons this is important), fairly good mental and emotional health, have supportive people in my life… i have continued working so far, family took me in to recoup fund after bike tour so i have a roof over my head. and if weather really does play a part in this, we were already experiencing spring as it came to the southwest, so, that.

how is this situation impacting me? superficially i havent’ been hiking or exploring the area as much since places have closed down. i haven’t been able to go visit family in the spring. my skin is raw and cracked from hand washing and sanitizing. my thoughts have been derailed from projects to reflection and re-evaluating my health and well-being. the last thing i want to do is bring anything home to those who have graciously opened their home to me.

one thought loop i can’t get out of my head is reflecting back to the start of the hiv pandemic. who didn’t want to close the bath houses? or not wear condoms/practice safer sex? who was in denial? all the conspiracy theories and false narratives that fed fear and hatred. much of it continues today in various pockets. i don’t have any deep thoughts here, but i do recognize some serious similarities when i see white men not wanting to be told what to do.

my deeper thoughts are for the present future. now that i have woken up just a little more, i believe this virus will be with us for a while with or without an immunization, which who really trusts the government to inject anything into our bodies right now? and that immunization won’t be effective against the next big epidemic that comes our way, and one will. sooo wtf?!

well one day as i was walking, i remembered the words that came to me while camping by an alpine lake several years ago: “get lean, get clean, get strong”. i’ve pondered this several times, tossed it aside when inconvenient, but mostly ran away from it. but now? now i am embracing it, and it is probably the basis for how i am participating in this adventure.

almost as soon as this started around here, late february/early march, i started a running program. at first just getting out for a bit, then started the couch to 5k program, and this sunday the 10k program. it feels good to be running again. i don’t know how many times i’ve tried a new running program and been sidelined from an injury or pain. but this time everything has been good so far. well this week i had foot pain, so i am backing off a little….i’m susceptible to tight calves that lead to foot issues.

i’m cleaning up my diet a little more. it was pretty good. i haven’t had pizza or burritos since i left oregon (this is big, those were basic food groups for me). the only beer i’m consuming i get to-go from local breweries and limit my intake mostly because i’m one and drunk now). most of what i am cleaning up is what goes in my mind and heart. and this, i believe is what getting clean and strong is really about: clean thoughts and strong heart (lean is excess baggage and minimalist life not food and body so much). learning this is a heart/respiratory virus, i boosted foods, herbs, and activities that support my body, and continue to do the research.

i’ve learned to reach out to people when i feel the wave of an overwhelmed heart begin to shut me down and allow forms of ineffective fear creep in. i’ve made deals with a friend that we do this for one another. for the biggest fear i have around this? we won’t learn from it, as a culture. we will expect an ineffective failed state to give us a magic pill that makes everything go away, and that won’t help us one bit when the next pandemic blows into town on the wings of a virus that is typically kept in check with the delightful balancing act of biodiversity. my next great fear is that we will just go back to the old normal that continues to exploit the global resources that we have no business messing with the way we do.

but when these fears aren’t pinning me to the floor with only the stark white ceiling to respond to, i am excited and inspired for not just what comes next, but all the creative ways people are responding, acting, choosing their community adventure.

examples you ask? well how about biking and running communities doing virtual races/runs/rides? using these as fundraisers for community needs? at the co-op i chat with people (using physical distancing) that are getting groceries for neighbors/family/friends. i hear podcasts by herbalists that are sharing what they know about these kinds of illneses and what people can do for themselves and those in their community…so community action, that is what excites me. that we can do deeper community organizing and care work. to know what our neighbors need in a time of crisies, whatever that crisis is.

one action the federal government has inspired me to dig even deeper into, is local consumption. now, if you know me this is something that is always on my radar regardless of the adventure i am on: food, bike shops, bookstores, newspapers…so i have kind of made a deeper resolution to up my local game. i’ve been doing research on when i “need” certain things where will i get it.

so to sum it all up, like all adventures i embark on, this one too is about going deeper into myself to learn more about my personal edges. to learn more about myself and how i interact with the world i am a part of, the community that i am interdependent with, what skills i need to learn or become better at, or didn’t even know was a thing to know. these are the things i am excited to bring forward with me, what about you? what changes are you making that you hope to bring to post adventure?

time

March 1, 2020Tagged a history of the worldin 7 cheapthings, adventure, adventures, bike, bike touring, biking, climate, climate change, desert, fujifilmxt20, gender, meditation, midlife crisis, oregon, privilege, queer, queer vegan adventures, queers on bikes, relationships, rivers, sunsets, time, vegan, walking, winter work = summer play, women who adventure, wtf, yoga7 Comments

there was a moment this summer as i was contemplating if, indeed, time was flying while i was having fun or the tough days were dragging on. neither was true. time was just time and it felt natural (?) normal (?). i don’t know the word for it since time was created by time ass capitalist to measure and value labor (aka stolen time). so, since this is a leap year, and we just celebrated the extra day added to febuary, i though i would use this time to write about my thoughts on time.

whenever people hear about how i have chosen to live these past couple years, i get a range of responses, but a consistent one is “wow! you are living the dream!” and i must agree that i am. i am living my dream, for when they are white men with wife and child/children on a day hike, i really doubt that i am living the dream they imagine. i worked hard at carving out the many layers of living a life that gives me the space to be who i am as much and as often as possible, and part of that is a type of buying back my time. of owning my time. and in this process i have learned that the measurement of time by european capitalist methods is bullshit. i mean it serves a function and that function is bullshit. and i would like to point people to one of my current favorite books: a history of the world in 7 cheap things by raj patel and jason w. moore, a book i will be referencing a great deal in the foreseeable future.

let’s see if i can explain.

as a person who likes to hike/backpack/bike-tour on multi-day/week excursions (not thru-hike where i set an alarm to get up freaking early to make the miles to make the finish line by a finish day), i’ve found time moves (evolves? rotates?)…naturally. i wake as the sunrises, and fall into bed as the sun sets. sometimes a little earlier or later depending on which i wish to witness. or more simply, i sleep when i am tired. i eat when i am hungry, i race waterfalls, admire sunsets, and am amazed at every sunrise i get to greet…no clock needed. i have even been known to wake, pack-up camp just to decided to stay for another day and explore a side trail or listen to a river.

some days can be arduous, especially the full month + that i had heat exhaustion pretty much every-fucking-day, but they didn’t feel long, just exhausting. and those moments when the views blew my mind, and the water from a wild and scenic river was the sweetest water ever…they didn’t seem quick and fleeting…and the people i got to meet were a kind of elixir.

here is what i have observed, that time is just time. that thing we are told, and i have believed, that as we age time flies. or time flies when we are having fun. or a work day is just dragging on and on when it feels like drudgery. and mondays suck. but it doesn’t, or it doesn’t have to. my theory is that when we sell our labor to soul sucking jobs to pay for our lives in the hopes that when we get a vacation or we get to retire, and finally live our dreams. (p.s. i don’t know many in my generation and my socio-economic group, that believes we will get to retire and if i get to do what i want to make money, i don’t want to actually retire, but that is a different post)….wait where was i? when we get to live our lives as we want, with agency and without doing work for people who go against our values, morals, and sense of well-being, and we have the time and space (mentally, physically, emotionally) to do the things that excite us and feed our creative and spiritual nature…well time is just time. there is no need to measure it, sell it, borrow it from pto (i mean think of it, we have to borrow against pto-personal time off when we are sick, want to go to a family event, parents/aunts/uncles/grandparents/friends to school events for their kids, experience a solar eclipse, go on a bike trip…what the fuck, its our personal time all the time! you just pay us for some of it and then we get to eat and have a place to rest…) sigh.

but then i sit and meditate. ever sit and meditate for say 5 minutes? i follow my breath. i count in/out 1, in/out 2, etc then my mind is off and running down some rabbit hole of thought so i bring it back. one, two, three, four…just need to get to….shit! back to one… and those 5 minutes feel like hours. other times, i sit and my knees don’t hurt, i follow the breaths, i count to 10, and suddenly the bell sounds that 5 minutes are up. already? didn’t we just start? wow. so even all these times when doing something i choose to do (could be running, or writing, or whatever) measured time always seems different. even running a specific distance: one mile, 5, 10…) it should always feel the same, but it doesn’t. easy days go quick and challenges take forever….

my point? hmmm.

mindfulness. mindfulness is the point. it is always the point…(and “time” is maybe suppose to be measured on a larger scale as in seasons and solar rotations, phases of the moon and stars…

on this venture, time didn’t drag or fly or anything. i was doing what i want with my life and that is the point. sure, would i have liked more times with my friends? of course. would i have liked fewer moments of struggling with heat and elevation gain? yes. but i got to choose when to rest, when to stop for the day (as long as i had a place to pitch a tent), i got to choose the difference between pain and suffering. between how much i wanted to push myself in a given moment, or rest an extra day if i needed. i didn’t feel the need to go to work “sick” because i was out of pto or i needed the pto for a specific reason or i was out of pto because i was caring for a sick comrade.

this isn’t a piece of how capitalism sucks, but it does. we wouldn’t be measuring time if we didn’t need to sell it every since the feudal lords no longer allowed us peasants to grow/control the foods we plant on the lands we occupy.

i know, i know that capitalism is associated with democracy, but i regret to inform you that as far as labor goes, it is not. all we have is time, a life, this life and we must live it as we see best for us. the choices on how we live our lives needs to be ours and how we want and feel the need to contribute to our communities. and i am not talking about quantity of time we have with this life, but the quality.

i want my time to be measured by how i interact with nature and my community. like now is the time to plant….and harvest….and gather the medicine for….and to give thanks to the rain and sun and moon and all the moments that feed us and care for us and that acknowledges the transitions of our lives, not based on time but on when we are ready to walk, and to love, and to share knowledge, and to die. that we have never died too early or too late (i.e. suffered unnecessarily), but we lived our lives to the fullest. we live mindfully or perhaps it is heartfully.

so yeah, time shouldn’t be so complicated. if you have started a job and it feels like it is stealing your life and your time, quit! or go find another job then quit. well i guess i am choosing to live my life with limited funds, but wealthy beyond belief with experience and friends and family. the more i live the more i learn the less i “need” or maybe it is want.

the last 2 years sometimes felt like so much more than 2 years; they felt like a lifetime, because truly i have lived a full lifetime in these moments. i have changed in ways i can not imagine or explain. my patience for bullshit and excuses of ignorance for benefits is exhausting. but my love for life and relationships has expanded in ways i can not imagine. some of those relationships lasted for just a few hours, or a couple days, yet they have have fundamentally changed and my life will never be the same. and the people truly ranged from living on the streets to being financial advisors to the extremely wealthy, all of which have contributed to and reinforced my theories of the american economy.

so, back to time. i love measuring time by the sun and moon. by the tides. the windy season (as it is now in las cruces). the rainy season. the winter sports season. biking time (i.e. all the time), celebrations time, time for ceremony….none of which we need a clock or watch (what we used before cell phones), or a calendar. all we need is to pay attention. observe. be mindfull. or that is what i observe when i am mindfully paying attention to my life…

philly

October 20, 2019October 20, 2019Tagged adventures, bike, bike touring, biking, friends by bike, fujifilmxt20, gender, philly, queer, queer vegan adventures, queer writers, queers on bikes, relationships, rivers, vegan, women who adventure, writing

where to start.

i could go the linear way…today and the next…i could group it into activities…my thoughts i had there…humm

well let’s start with getting oriented and see what happens.

i left off with the arrival to philly, getting the basic rulelessness of philly and eating dive take-out chinese food that really hit the spot. i met the roommate and the house doggo. we caught up a bit before it was passed time to get some sleep.

i woke and listened to the city around me, then i got a text from with-in the house. it surprised me at first, but eventually i came to enjoy the quiet interactions from the comfort of soft clothes. usually it was an update on work schedules, ideas for the daily activities…

everyone went to work and it was just me and mr. dog. to get my bearings i went for a walk around the neighborhood. i found the local punk coffeeshop/cafe with lots o’vegan options (p.s. i really enjoyed this place and it was below a super cool bike shop that mostly i watched people of color go up and down the stairs with every day bikes and wearing regular clothes). i also found the all vegan donut shop, (yum), and the local co-op that i had heard a great deal about (not all good not all bad).

at some point i texted another friend of mine that i lived with for a minute back in the portland years who had moved to philly. we made plans to get together while i was in town. we had a good catch-up and they let me know about a couple of actions happening around the city that i would end up going to.

this first day (and most days i was there) the sun was shining. it was hot, but not humid and super hot. this part of west philly reminded me of portland 10 to 15 years ago. especially north portland. perhaps it is because of the cusp of rapidly encroaching gentrification of a historically black neighborhood. i could see myself trying to find a way to spend the summer here. these first few days it was super tempting to look at job and housing options for the season.

that night we met some of my friends’ friends for happy hour at the taco place and chowed on vegan nachos and margaritas…yum. the conversations were fun and lively with lots of laughter and smiles. it is always nice to get to know my friends other friends, especially friends who don’t live in the same place i do…to know friends are well cared for and loved is a wonderful feeling to me. also, one of the women hails from russia. while in n.c. i read part of a book on the oral history of punk music in russia that my friend did the cover art for. she actually knew some of the bars and places in the book. it was a super cool connection.

our days together were spent in lovely relaxed (to me anyway) ways. we went to the museum. saw a wonderfully disturbing exhibit as well as the rocky statue and footprints. it was remarkable to me how many people come to the museum just to see the rocky statue, so much so they moved the statue from the top of the stairs (you know where he ran up in the first rocky) to down and off to the side of the stairs. we walked the historic streets of philly (once crashing the filming of some t.v. show we had never heard of). we talked and caught up on what’s been happening in our lives, our minds, our hearts. we ate good food, consumed good beverages, and had lots of fun.

the moments we were off doing our own things, i walked the streets of philly, explored so many varied parts of histories that philly holds from pre-revolution to social justice actions, including an action against ICE that i went to with the other friend i have here. all the walking and wondering, the pouring over maps that listed important names as the names of parks or centers: malcolm x, paul robeson, du bois, MOVE, and mumia just to name a few. i tried to get to the edgar allen poe house, but just couldn’t get make the time for all the things.

one day i was walking around the historic area where independence hall is and the liberty bell, historic homes that had “servants quarters” i.e. slaves. i rounded a corner and spotted the “first bank” of the u.s. it stopped me in my tracks and i read the plaque. it talked about how it was proposed as a way to pay of the huge debt that this new founded country now had due to the war for “independence.” within just a few blocks i would run into at least the first 5 banks in the country. the last couple i ran into trying to escape the area. i was overwhelmed by the obviousness of the connection between war and banks and the merchant class and just how much we have not changed at all, the cycle this country spins to keep the capitalists of capitalism in control of the labor class. i needed to get away and clear my head.

there is a park by the house of the statue of liberty so i found a shady place and sat and calmed my thoughts and did a favorite activity of mine, people watch. there were people of all backgrounds speaking many languages, and i could not calm down. it was much more like a punch. normally this is a scene that warms me from the inside, but with the fascist want-to-be dictator that the u.s. has as a president right now, i was embarrassed (?), saddened (?), pissed for sure. that we as a country of immigrants (unless you are native american), that we would do any less than welcome those seeking refuge with open arms, is outrageous to me. granted these were tourists with some level of privilege ($$ everything in independence area cost money to enter except the liberty bell), and most likely would not have border issues when trying to return “home”, but i held some doubts for sure.

it was decided that we would take a day to go to the roommate’s parents house in jersey to swim, and break the city’s heat, so refreshing. what a great idea, go play and splash in a pool during the heatwave. it was a super fun day. we swam. we drank. we ate. we played games. we watched a couple thunderstorms roll by. we drove back to philly during another storm, tuckered out. i fell into a deep sleep.

i woke with the urgency of needing to make plans to get moving again. i couldn’t stay in philly. maybe i will return one day. there was a deep part of me that wanted to stay and see what i could get involved in, but i had a deeper need to get back west of the rockies. no matter how hard i try, i am not an east side of the country kind of kid. also, i could tell by the conversation i had with many people that i would most likely fall in to the cycle of working too much to make ends meet and consume things i don’t want to in the long run, and not make the time and space for the creative ventures i am trying to get started and move ever more forward.

eventually i found the route that would take me west. i chatted with my pals in oregon to make plans for my landing. and then i relaxed into my final few days in philly, and this led me to some great conversations that helped me work out some of my thoughts i’d been having while there.

my friend and i had a conversation one night about whether living so close to the deep history of the neighborhood, and racist history of philly, lent to having a sense of responsibility to that history? it is related, i think, to how i feel about living so close to nature and feeling a responsibility to protecting and making responsible choices in how i move around in my life. i mean, i can’t imagine white people calling the cops on black folks while having a picnic in malcom x park…just sayin’ but if gentrification keeps happening…

another night, at the first micro-brewery in philly that is right next to the punk cafe, i chatted with the bartender. he had recently returned to philly after going to school on the west coast. he was able to give himself the time and space to return and and come out to his family and the challenges of being a young gay black man in west philly (and the world). we talked about many things, including the similarities he is witnessing from his time in oakland and being back in philly around gentrification, housing, and wages.

but make no mistake, my last days weren’t all politics and heavy conversations. i ate a lot of vegan foods…went to the straight edge pizza place for amazing vegan “wings”. i had all the vegan treats i could get in my mouth. we went to an irish punk bar for some tasty vegan snacks and good beers. p.s. i do love me a good irish punk bar.

the morning of my departure was to be early, so we said our so longs the night before. i had decided to bike to amtrak instead of waking my friend and loading up the car for a ride to the station. this would be the only time i would bike in philly, and i am glad i did. i had been wanting to ride, but touring bikes are not really city prepared as everything is quick-release aka easy to steal. i rode away in the early morning during rush-hour traffic in busy bike lanes. it was a beautiful morning and a nice ride.

while waiting at the red cap post to be directed to where to load my bike i met a nun from a west philly church who encouraged me to get confirmed or something like that, just to be safe, like an insurance policy for my soul i guess. she was very nice about it. i told her i’m more along the lines of buddhist. she assured me that was ok, but i should still get to a catholic church. she reminded me of what dorothy day of the catholic worker movement might have been a little like. i also met a couple that would be on the train with me all the way to sacramento. little did we know what was in store for us in the coming days.

a couple of side notes. after getting into eugene, i read that the chinese restaurant we went to closed it’s doors the end of that month. rent was getting too high. the owner told the story of his family coming to the united states, and the support he has had since arriving in philly.

i also learned why a pizza shop i had tried to go to a couple times, but had a paper note that they were closed. seems that the staff believed the owners had fired a black employee for racially motivated reasons, so the staff locked up shop. the sister bar/restaurant did the same a couple days later in support. well that explained my confusion, and also reinforced my feelings that people were taking actions and not just sitting in meetings talking about the theory of racist management practices.

i can’t express just how much i am grateful for this friend, and this visit. we’ve known each other for over 20 years now i guess. we met when i lived in syracuse, and this is the second time we visited in person since i left ny. there are for sure gaps in our knowledge of the others’ experiences in those years, yet our friendship has stayed important and strong to us both. who knows where we will meet next.

i can’t wait to tell you about the adventures i’ve been having in oregon!

the apocalypse gives me hope

October 15, 2018Tagged adventure, adventures, apocalypse, biking, climate, climate change, colorado, gender, grief, hiking, meditation, music, octavia's brood, queer, queer vegan adventures, relationships, sci-fi, sunsets, vegan, writers, writing, wtf4 Comments

welp, this is my third, and final, attempt at this post. i started it in the spring as the snow was melting and revealing what people left behind to be covered up by the snow. mostly beer cans, bags of dog poo, lost socks, underwear (?!). it was also when i heard a new, to me, definition of apocalypse.

i listen to a great many podcasts at work…so many. one of my favorites is how to survive the end of the world. i wait with great anticipation for new episodes. being in this small mountain town with few people that i feel want to delve into these deeper conversations that i am hunger and thirsty for…that i crave…so i get that with these podcasts. they are all created by people of color; black folks to be specific, mostly all women, some identify as queer. this one, in particular, is by a couple of sisters, adrienne marree brown and autumn brown. the episodes are based around octavia butler’s writings and philosophies. not surprisingly, one of the sisters coedited the book octavia’s brood. if you haven’t held this gem of a book in your hands, i highly recommend it. it can be somewhat embarrassing to listen to this as i walk around town or at work as i’ve laughed out loud, cried, and scratched my head with each one. many i think of daily until the next episode pushes my thoughts deeper than the previous.

so apocalypse…the common understanding of an apocalypse refers to the end of the world, probably involving zombies. however, the origin goes back to latin, greek, old english, and old french. but the new to me meaning is what i want to dive deeper into. and that meaning is about the uncovering, to reveal. i, and many others that i have been reading and listening to, might translate these two meanings to say that maybe if we dare to try and give voice to the uncovering of history and stories to reveal what has been left out, we might finally be able to end this chaos of a mess. the result of imperialism, capitalism, too many power hungry that have drowned out the voices that we need to hear. the voices that perhaps, if we listened could cause such cognitive dissonance that we would have to stop this insane greed that gives way to the endless destruction of the planet….the climate apocalypse if you will.

it is also what is happening with the #metoo movement and much of our society in general. perhaps things are not getting worse, as mainstream media/social media would like us to think and fear, but the atrocities are getting uncovered, revealed. the truth of just how widespread the injustices of our society is. this unraveling of the patriarch and capitalism, of the pains caused by the few to the many, well it gives me hope.

some are afraid of just what will be unleashed. i’m curious about what we will learn about the ancestors, our neighbors, and ourselves. maybe we will learn that all our social and economic theories are wrong….once again showing us that science is ever-changing as we learn new things that prove the old knowledge is wrong…more storytelling and more myth-making…true joy.

the part of this unveiling of another meaning to the apocalypse that truly excites me, however, is the uncovering of the voices that have been vailed, covered, drowned out. something that has bothered me since i started the dive into animal liberation and social justice is this ego-centered idea that “we” are the voice for the voiceless…buuuuuull-shit. i deeply believe that everything that is of this world has a voice and uses it. but the more narrowly we define what is voice, what is alive, what has value to whom, the less we are able to listen to anything not human…english only speaking humans are probably the worse. believing that if one is not speaking english they can not communicate. i have watched how my co-workers who speak spanish and very little english are treated by english only speaking”bosses”. to be clear, i speak very little spanish, however, i am learning how to listen to them to figure out what they need me to know.

i think, and the more that i think the more i believe it to be true, that we have forgotten how to listen to anyone but ourselves. we are so ego driven in the western world that we are incapable to hear anything else. animals and trees and rivers and plants and fish and birds and….all have a voice. if we didn’t believe this to be true, disney would be fucked. and we wouldn’t try so hard to learn to understand when our companion animals are requesting something from us and us from them.

the earth is constantly trying to communicate with us. it is currently fall, almost winter here, and i see the trees getting my attention with the daily shifts in color. the flowers with their scents, berries with their sweetness.

but this voice for the voiceless myth has so greatly affected the voices of people. we’ve started to acknowledge this in our history books, creating special courses for women, people of color, black folks, queer folks. we are starting to realize that those who won the power dynamics tell the stories of even those they have been conquered. maybe people are starting to see this in other realms as well, like in movies and music. but white cis-male voices still dominate over all the other voices out there.

there are genres of writings out there that i didn’t think i liked until i read books written by women, black folks and people of color. i hated, and i mean hated, science fiction until i read octavia butler. she led me to le quin and then neil gaiman. but speculative fiction changed everything for me involving storytelling. then octavia’s brood came out and my mind/heart exploded with possibility.

so when i was at the whitefish bike retreat for the wtf bikexplorers and there was a bipoc panel FOR bipoc people not OF. this little shift in language is so key. i’ve organized and been a part of many organization’s panels of qpoc people but, let’s be real, they were for white folks, queer or not. this panel was moderated by a person who identified in the panel’s identity, and the q&a was FOR bipoc folks. of course, as soon as the q&a opened up, a white person tried to ask a question (the question usually heard at these events asked by good white folks “what can we do for you?”). the moderator was wonderful. she said you can shut up this is not FOR you…or something very similar. my heart burst open because so often i’ve seen such panels continue to serve white folks by answering their questions.

there was only time for 2 questions, both were great and led to wonderful conversations, but the people who organized the questions and discussions with this group was amazing. the conversations went deep. there were tears and much laughter. then a much needed and requested dance party!

for me, this panel of amazing people was the exclamation point to a heart blowing weekend. i didn’t realize how hungry i had been, and am, for these conversations and work. i listen to podcasts and read books and articles, i listen to music, and take in as much visual art on these topics as i can, but without people to share and learn with, well maybe this is the source of isolation i feel at times. these voices, these forces of life is what i am wanting to experience over the noise of pop-culture.

so for me, the zombie apocalypse is already on. it is all the people wondering around addicted to their phones, scrolling through social media looking for connection and validation that they are doing the sheep thing. but the other apocalypse is also happening, maybe on the same devices. we can start amplifying the voices that are pushed to the edges; raise their cultural dB sort of speak. put down the phone and listen to the water and trees. have a solid conversation with your cat…maybe she’ll stop pissing on your shoes.

my advice to those who ask, “what can we do to support you” google the shit out of those same people. read them, listen to the music, invest in their commerce, be a patron. because the answers are out there, we just have to be silent enough to listen. i, unfortunately, talked way too much at this event. i was so hungry for real talk that in my excitement, i forgot to shut the fuck up. i am searching for ways to apologize for that, maybe this post is a way to start until next time when i can practice active listening.

so my personal action for increasing the momentum of the apocalypse is to amplify as many voices as i can. to share the amazing wonderfully inspiring work of people i am learning from. to stand BEHIND them as they lead the way and step in front when it is time to deflect the hatred and violence away from them…to use my whiteness as a kind of shield when wanted.

there is so much i’ve cut out of this post. so many ways that i believe that the apocalypse can help us find our way. i believe that we can all start by asking who is missing from our communities, conversations, view…how can we (re)build relationships. how many different ways are there to listen, speak, give voice to…what happens when we embrace the apocalypse to facilitate understanding, empathy, curiosity, and understanding.

so i will do my best to listen more and to sharing the voices that are being silenced, covered up and overpowered. to start here is a small list of podcasts i listen to on the regular…that are not white, cishet males. it’s a start.

borders and boundries

July 31, 2018July 31, 2018Tagged adventure, adventures, biking, california, climate, climate change, colorado, desert, gender, grief, hiking, meditation, music, ocean, oregon, queer, queer vegan adventures, relationships, sci-fi, swimming, vegan, writing1 Comment

i have been so super grumpy these past couple weeks. grumpy like answering questions with grunts and silent head shakes. i’d like to say i don’t know why. maybe it is the moon, eclipse. but the world is on fire, again, or maybe still. each time there is another fire or shooting or idiotic political ruler says/does something stupid and people continue to act surprised. then a 3d printer gun….naw i have no idea why i’ve been grumpy.

then i started reading the book overstory by richard powers and the connections started gathering forces inside me.

i’ve been thinking a great deal lately about borders and boundaries, i kind of always have. as a kid, i use to wonder how water, rain, streams, ocean, birds, fish, bears, dear…knew when they crossed over to another state, country. but then i read about the bison massacres when they roam outside the national parks looking for food…migration doesn’t give a flip about borders or boundaries, but meat farmers don’t like competition for grazing on blm land….

then one day i saw a map of the united states without any state lines or national borders drawn on it or even time zone changes for that matter. that map looked so free to me, so wide open. it looked like such a wonderful place to explore and move about. but to be honest, it is not the imaginary lines that bother me, it is the internal struggles that crossing over into another state can have on my psyche. and this is what leads me to think that all these imaginary lines and borders and boundaries are not meant to provide a safe area for people, but to create a state of fear and thereby control people on one side and a false sense of security on the other.

as a queer woman, i use to get really nervous and anxious if i needed to drive through mississippi, lousianna, alabama on my way to florida to see my grandma. i would get in and out of the gas stations as fast as possible with as limited interaction with other humans…especially white men. later i reflected that at least in the “south” i knew how people felt about me. in the liberal “north” of pc country, it was said behind my back and supported by legislature and propaganda…aka a false sense of security.

but last week i went through the rocky mountain national park and my thoughts bubbled up again, mostly because of what people in the united(?) states are doing to people, refugees, from the global south. i see and hear the fear in the voices of my co-workers who have their “papers” but are afraid to visit family for fear of well so much fear. and i actually hear the arguments of people born and raised here that their family came over legally. really? reeeally? who stamped their papers? crazy horse? geronimo? chief joseph?

this resurrection of this particular fear is happening at a time when farm workers and domestic servants (damn what a horrible word) have been organizing and gaining momentum in their demands for fair wages and treatment for themselves and their children, especially farm workers. if you do not think these issues are connected, you are forgetting history: ceasar chavez, the bracaro project, the Immokalee workers

anyway, approaching the boundaries and entry gate to the rmnp stirred up these old feelings, but really what i want to know is why. why all these boundaries and borders? i believe deeply, that it is to keep people in and not talk to others. to keep the manipulation alive and well. to keep people in fear and control.

what i have noticed is that every time the global north enforces their boundaries, it intensifies the need for people to assert their individual bounderies and identities, which then reinforces the us/them fear and defensiveness.

margaret thatcher is known for saying “there is no society, there are only individuals”. this individualism fuels some of what is keeping us from making the changes we most need to make in this world, from climate change to foreign policy. it has fueled the fire of identity politics in an unhealthy way and i have been trying to figure out how we have gotten in our own ways soooofuckingmuch. so here is my theory.

identity politics is important. as gloria anzandula taught so many years ago at an international queer studies conference in iowa, to imagine one’s self as a tree and all our identities, all the parts of us that make us unique are our roots. if we don’t know all the different roots, and accept them and integrate them into ourselves as a whole, when the cultural winds come by, we will be knocked over. i’m not sure that anzandula knew about the intricate network of communication that the root systems of trees in a healthy forest provide all beings in a forest. the network of communication, of shared resources, of protection, for all, and that is all before they become nurse logs. if she had, well this analogy gets even stronger. a whole intact forest stands together in all its colors and shapes from the microscopic to the giant trees. yet, as lone individual trees, without interconnected root systems, we topple in one fell swoop, taking out our neighbors.

so what troubles me is that the more we identify with OUR individual identities, the more we isolate ourselves and others. the more we get offended when someone steps on our individual toes. and then more fear is fueled and the more isolated we all become. on top of it, we kind of refuse to be uncomfortable. we are told that these boundaries and identities will keep us safe. but i believe we need discomfort on some levels to push our limits, to go past these boundaries and commune with others not like us, to learn what the other side of the line needs so that we can all do this together. and perhaps grow over the lines and past the barriers. but western capitalism is what fuels the walls. it tells us that we can relieve any discomfort with a pill or a game or a new device. it keeps us in the cycle that makes reading howard zinne so frustrating, and important…and we are at it again. and we are more alienated and isolated no matter our number of social media friends we have.

capitalism”s magic bullet, if you will: naming. we love to name things. if we have named it, we know how we are supposed to feel about something or act towards it, and this includes gender pronouns. (doubt this? talk to someone who has been both he and she at some point in their lives, or someone who is intersex, someone who is willing to talk about the differences in their treatment based on perceived gender and self-identification…this is a life/death situation often). but if we “named” based on relationship instead of ownership, well that is different. a mountain “named” based on a cosmology of a creation myth will be treated differently than one named by conquest and ownership. the responsibility we feel for a place or person changes if we see it as sacred and part of all of who we are.

and that is the crux, right? maybe? that by creating these name/labeled boundaries and borders, we mark off ownership of areas and control of those areas and all that happens to be there: animals, water, minerals…people. but if things are “named” based on relationship, that is a whole new level of freedom and movement….and responsibility. you can’t control, manipulate, mine, and harvest what you do not own in one way or another. however, you are responsible for all that you hold some relationship to, and that is everything in this word: food, water, air, what you use for shelter, clothing, one another.

what if we were able to drop just a little of this border-mindset? what if we saw the people that were coming across the border for what they are: people. people who are in danger due to the violations and unequal trade/economic situations that “we” created. that turned these families into refugees, not immigrants. no one really and truly wants to leave their “home” for the unknown…to a country that is openly hostile and violent to one’s culture and people. no one wants to do this. and we as mobile amaricans don’t understand this. i’ve actually had arguments with (former) friends of mine on this issue. when your family has lived in a certain place for so so many generations leaving is not going to be your first choice. people and places we have denied our relationship to are in danger, and this is how we treat them? back to the tree/forest analogy, our survivals are interdependent.

so i ask, “what is more important? what someone’s label is or how they participate in community.”

i know my stance. and i believe that the only way we will survive as a species is if we return to relationship-based communities instead of isolationalist/nationalist idealism.

we need to make a choice, as a species. i have no doubt this world will continue, but most likely, without humans. unless we can make some changes really fast. and these will have to be internal, non-governmental. we can’t wait for the “leaders” to make the changes. we will be uncomfortable for a little while, but eventually, more quickly than we might think, we will find actual joy and happiness at leaving so much misery for so many behind us.

i know that this sounds a lot like preaching and pointing fingers, and it is. mostly at myself for sure. we all have a great deal to unlearn and re-educate ourselves. before we end up like this:

this week, 2 years ago, i would have probably given up hope for the humans, but talking to strangers…making connections with people i have no reason to except that we are sitting next to one another on the bus, bar stool, bike ride, campsite, sandy beach, at the wall, in line at the border…we all have stories to share if we are willing to listen…but like i said, its just a little theory i’m working on.

flooded by memories

March 28, 2018Tagged adventure, adventures, gender, grief, liberty press, meditation, music, parades, queer, relationshipsLeave a comment

today more than any other day

i think of you

reflections

the knowledge of your death has brought back so many memories

everyone talks about how deep the loss of you is for individuals and a community. why is that? you are not lost. infact, since learning about your stroke and inevitable death, you have been very much present in my life. but i do know that there is a deep chasm in a community that greatly depended upon you, counted on you, expected you to always, always be there. perhaps death is the only place you will find rest….

it was just a usual day of using facebook to distract myself from any of a number of projects i am working on. facebook is funny. usually within the time span of just a mere 10 seconds, i can go from laughing at some cat video to enraged over some gross injustice and back to some kind of benign version of whatever. this time it was like a punch in the heart. an old friend had died or was going to die. she had a stroke with little hope for recovery. i got a text on saturday that indeed she did pass.

as i kicked myself for not getting in touch with her last time i passed through town, my mind raced with the huge void that would be created in the community, and for her son. and the impact she had on my life. then i heard her laugh and say “what?! its cool! just be cool”. i don’t think i ever got to thank her for the inspiration, for her belief in our community, for the chance for me to build some skills and well just so much that amazing people in our lives do when they shake shit up for us.

it was the early-mid 90s when parker first walked into the lgb student group that the person i was dating at the time and myself kind of ran/organized. it was a group that welcomed all the people looking for a place to get involved, or just find their cohorts. she would come in her “work drag” as an accountant for an oil and gas company. it is a very specialized kind of accounting and that kind of creative attention to detail is what made her so good with all that she did.

quickly she got involved in other areas of the “gay” community of wichita. then during pride of 1994 i think, the pride guide got kind of dumped in her lap. then she started talking about turning the guide into a monthly paper for the gay and lesbian community of wichita and all of kansas.

i don’t know how many beers and tots we shared as she talked herself into it, and all of us into playing our parts. none of us could say no to parker. i offered to take pics since i had been a photojournalist in one of my lives. catherine was going to write. our friends who owned the bookstore contributed. from the beginning, there were regular columns.

great. could you go ahead and write the article/review….i’ve got to be at this other thing.

i don’t write

it’s cool. just write up something. oh and if you are going that direction could you drop off a bundle of papers?

sure

knowing what parker was up against trying to start a new press when others were shutting down or cutting back, how could any of us say no.

but wichita was ready, we were hungry for community. we were ready for pride events to be out of the bars and into the streets and riverside park and old town.

people started taking chances.

together we all got a community center started.

there was an informal speakers group and a way for teachers, nurses, and others to reach out and hear stories, to tell stories that opened doors for so many. none of us had emails then. all our contacts were our home phones. catherine and i had an answering machine that had 2 or 3 options to leave messages. one for us personally and the others for the groups we were involved in. many messages were people just looking for a group, some group, any group they could participate in. others were looking to be educated or find ways to educate their co-workers. maybe they were in the closest or had lost a loved one to hiv related issues or suicide. families trying to hold on. if your name was in a byline for the liberty press, you got a call.

i don’t know all the places we went. i know i was in a couple high schools, 2 local universities in (one catholic), a small baptist college in nebraska for diversity week, and a hospital north of wichita, and a bunch of groups around town.

we held dances for youth. i was the social coordinator at the community center and my focus was to have a place for youth to go so that they didn’t have to always jump the fence by the pool at the bar to find their people and be themselves for a few hours, or who they thought they were supposed to be.

parker and the liberty press was the center of it all.

i remember one events that parker and i were both at. somehow the pansy division was playing at kirby’s beer store. a place we had sat on the roof on hot summer days with a pitcher of warm beer and parker would put on patsy cline. this night it was packed! it was hot, sweaty and sticky. parker kept talking to me about whatever we were trying to get done next. i was in shock that i was actually in wichita kansas with the pansy division’s sweat flying my way! catherine, my partner at the time, was somewhere near. every once in a while some guy would hand parker and i a couple of fresh beers. we didn’t really think much about it. this happened often enough. whoever was closest to the bar would get the round and people would pass them through the crowded bar until they got to the intended people.

catherine came over and gave me a kiss goodbye, she was either going home to prepare for class, or maybe the bi group she got started, or something. soon this guy, a drunk white straight guy entered our conversation –

so all those beers were a waste huh

oh shit. those were from you?! thanks so much.

no no that’s fine. i just realized that those guys on stage-they are gay?

well, that is a giant penis on the bass player’s shirt

oh, yeah, now i see it. well have a nice night.

you too, can i buy you a beer?

no no. i think i am going home.

the conversation was on the side that was difficult for parker to hear so when i explained the conversation, she busted out laughing…whaaaaat? that is awesome.

soon catherine and i left wichita for syracuse for her to continue her studies. and we promptly broke up. i stayed involved a little with queer activism, but the more i identifies as queer, the harder it was for me to be involved in gay and lesbian issues. i had become vegan and got involved in more wide-ranging issues that would later be called intersectional. plus all the resources (time and money) started going into marriage equality, and i just couldn’t abide. it was leaving so many people behind. they said they would win this fight and come back….p.s. they never come back. youth suicide rates are out of control and continue to climb.

a couple years later i moved to the kansas city area. parker and vinnie had started a kansas city edition of the liberty press. one day i was chatting with kristi. i was stopping in wichita on my way to solo camping in colorado and try to figure out what was next. restaurant management suuuuucked for me.

why don’t you edit the kc issue? its too much for us to keep going back and forth

they were trying to get pregnant and time was ticking…literally. kansas was passing a law to keep single women (i.e. lesbians) from access to fertility clinics and insemination processes.

now, one of my many favorite things about parker was we could fight, and argue about all kinds of different things, but there was never a grudge. probably because even with different opinions or ideas about things, we knew each of us was coming from a caring place.

i remember trying to write about the attacks on planned parenthood and women’s health clinics that provided abortion.

kim, not all lesbians are pro-choice

ugh, how could that be? then i would remember those republican gays when i lived in dallas.ugh, why can’t they see the connection of control of peoples’ bodies?

but there was one place i told parker no

we were going to have all our writers and contributors participate in kansas city’s pride parade, but i was not going to wave or carry or be near a flipping rainbow flag. i did not search high and low to have non-sweatshop shoes and clothes just to carry a dang sweatshop rainbow flag anything. i was holding my ground.

no problem what do you want to do

and the i can’t even write straight shirts were born.

i don’t know how many of mine i gave away or traded. a few at post rugby hot tub parties.

eventually, they made the wise decision to shut down the kansas city issue. it was doing well, but pulling on the main paper.

they got pregnant and had jack. i went into massage therapy. our groups disbanded as we got involved in other things, but not parker. she kept it going. she touched so many people and so many generations.

i remember one visit to wichita, parker had me come and drop in on a youth group she and vinnie got started after catherine and i left. years later i was watching two of those young people singing on stage at a club in lawerence, one of them i worked with. just recently i learned about a trans-identified youth that my niece played softball with who found support with kristi.

there are so many good stories of kristi. she was always rooting for the oppressed, maybe its her, confusing to me, fascination with disney animation. she loves disney. even her dog gizmo, a little Pomeranian, had a special disney pillow he humped non-stop it seemed. whatever it was, she seemed to believe things would work out, if you worked hard enough and listened deep enough, the answers would come.

she never stopped, she rarely took a break. the only vacation i know of that wasn’t related to some lesbian or gay event was when she got to take jack to disney world. she was so excited to get to do this.

maybe this is why she died so young. (she is just a few months younger than me. a stroke at 49-damn). it would take death to make her stop and rest, but i doubt it. i don’t believe in heaven or hell or whatever, but wherever her spirit is, she is probably sitting with a group of people and trying to find a way to meet the needs of all the other spirits there, laughing and telling everyone to just be cool.

i am no longer in touch with any of those people that i was deeply intertwined with at that time. i didn’t lose them, we just went other ways. i almost reached out to a couple of them when i learned of parker’s death but it felt like an empty gesture; me reaching out to share stories with people who were there and understand or feed the memories. truth is, that is not where i get my support these days. i turned to my current family by blood or bond and fresh mountain air. for me parker’s death does not feel like a void, and why should it. there is no loss, parker will always have a place in my heart, a vast number of memories, and continues to impact my life.

p.s i use the lesbian, gay community because that is what wichita was at that point, and i feel still is. it never really took on a queer community attitude. catherine was shunned often for identifying as bisexual. i was questioned and pushed for being in a relationship with someone who identified as bi. the only place for the trans folks in the community at the time was our organization at the university. the community very much pushed for assimilation and acceptance/tolerance. i can’t speak to where it is now.

sounds of life

March 5, 2018Tagged adventure, adventures, bike, biking, climate, climate change, colorado, desert, gender, meditation, ocean, oregon, pacific coast, pacific ocean, queer, relationships, senses, swimming, vegan, walking, yoga3 Comments

[the sounds inspired 2 lines of thought so there will be two soundful posts]

I’ve been thinking a great deal lately about how the sounds in my life have changed.

It really hit me the other week when my waking and sleeping sounds of drip drip drip changed tempo. The temperature was slightly increasing but mostly it had been super sunny. one day it was in single digits but sunny. the snow was melting and freezing as it dripped down the branches of this tree i was walking by. i would have taken a picture, but there were these drunk white dudes in the hot tub in the background.

It’s been melting for weeks and it is February. But that isn’t what I want to write about today.

I’m working on that one.

This one I want to simply recognize the changes

So I woke the other day, and there was no drip

No dripping

No little trickle

It was completely silent.

No….no. nonononono

Is it mud season already?

It was around 3 am so I padded off to a window to see what I couldn’t hear

It was snowing!

It was snowing big fat fluffy flakes.

I needed to go back to sleep, but I just couldn’t bring myself to turn away. It was like the ocean all over again but not….the roaring silence of snow falling in a quiet mountain town (we were between music festivals).

I didn’t realize just how much I’ve missed the roar of the unpacific Pacific Ocean (as Brian Doyle refers to her in his novel plover).

She was such a companion for so long and it’s not like I forgot all the sensations, it’s just that I got distracted by others. There is so much to absorb in this world. But for more than a season, my rhythms and her’s were synched up. I paid attention to the rise and fall of her tide, so I was also aware of the moon, it’s phase and pull on us all.

I woke and slept to the crashing of waves, or the rare occasion when the ocean was still and smooth and reflected the sky in a perfect mirror.

Here my skin is rarely exposed to the elements. my hands sometimes. my face mostly. i miss the sun on my body. i don’t miss the sandy grit in sensitive places, but the white salt that would accumulate on me and anything on my body as i rode in record-breaking heat. i do actually miss that. i may for reals belong in a warm tropical environment.

And the smell of the ocean air…and its effects on my sinuses. I don’t think I realized just how good that air was for me until it was gone and my nose congested from the dry mountain air. a pot sits simmering on the stove when i am “home”.

I noticed the shift in my scent sense a couple days ago. It had been snowing for a few days. The air was crisp and clean and dry and I smelled pine. It was subtle, maybe from a fire, but I saw no smoke (most people seem to have gas fireplaces). But the smell was clear and it wasn’t sea air.

Nor was it the smell of dead fish, seaweed, or sea lion.

Nor the taste of the salt air in all that i eat. instead, it is the taste of snow with every breath as i pump up the hill each and every day i leave my abode. there is something clean, crips, and just a little sweet on my tongue most days.

I can’t say that I miss the ocean

I do but not really…it’s complicatedly simple

I miss her like I miss lovers and friends who are off doing their things while I do mine. I’m excited to hear about their adventures while I have mine

We had a mighty fine times

Very supportive

But now she is crashing on the shores as someone else gets to sit mesmerized while watching appreciatively wondering what is beneath those unseeable depths.

And I am gazing off at mountains barren or snow peaked in just as much awe.

So no I don’t miss the ocean

I am grateful that she is there and I know that from here I can still care for her and have an impact on her either positively or negatively based on how I live my life and the choices I make. that the snow i see now will melt and flow down through the rivers and merge into her waters.

An exciting thing about remembering to be in the moment is the noticing. it is a sensation i appreciate about meditation and yoga; paying attention to where i am now. the more i pay attention to specific moments, the more i recognize the subtle shifts and changes in myself and my environment. that means i go slower, i do fewer things but i do them more fully, hopefully…

The drips returned today…it was 1 degree when I woke up

One degree and warming.

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