thoughts on 30 things, or two

My friend Lynnette and I were born during the same week in 1978. She messed with Texas while I threw off the equilibrium of the Keystone State. Savvier than myself, Lynnette recently made a list of 30 things she intends to do during her 31st year; one commitment is to take a photograph a day. I, a day late and a dollar short, decided to think about 30 things I would like to do during my 31st year.

Number one: I aspire to ask more questions.
As open and extroverted as I tend to be, I could use some improvement in the area of inquisition. Academia is driven by questions, and I thrive in that environment. But when it comes to my personal relationships, I think I tend to tell people how it is or ignore how it is rather than going ahead and asking how it is. Maybe that is a means of protecting myself. So, ok Lynnette, I will show your thirty things with one thing: As a thirty year old woman, I aspire to push myself to ask questions everyday.

Another thing I was thinking about, is the notion of accepting where people are, outside of any relation to me, really and truly. When my Dad turned 50 in 1992 he told me, “I no longer give a shit.” I am pretty sure that with getting older certainly life is getting easier. Of course, more problems seem to appear, and there are certainly moments of utter devastation, but I have to say, life is a lot easier than when I was, like, 22. But, still, betrayal is an animal without definition. And the world is full of peoples' pain.

According to Dr. Bart Ehrman, there are three sorts of premises in Christianity: 1) God is all-powerful; 2) God is a loving God; 3) There is suffering. In friendships and relationships, I think only one of these tenants reigns true: 1) Neither party is all-powerful; 2) Both parties are capable of behaving in unloving ways; 3) And well, yes, suffering plagues us all.

But what if we had a rapprochement, and what if we assumed - - about one another - - that even when unloving acts are committed that there is an intention to be ultimately loving. How would that help to inform responses to our own suffering? Would suffering built upon suffering cease? Would yielding one another a grace of real forgiveness - - even for that which is unconscious and unconfessable or inexcusable- - help with our own happiness? Is that what it means to no longer “give a shit”? Unconditional forgiveness? Is it better to just disappear rather than acknowledging – you’ve gotten too close to me – I’ve told you too much – you’ve hurt me here’s your bag in a punitive manner; here’s a formal email about the weather; here’s me disappearing. See, I have disappeared.

I’d like to think that any option is ok.

After all, people need to take care of themselves.

The world is broken and we must cope in order to live.

But I can’t think that way.

I just think it is much better to stay in the messiness. The only way out is through, and as I travel on my own path of suffering, my inclination is to stay in the mess with others.

But then again, I think my inclination is probably wrong.

Sometimes it’s ok to let people go away.

Sometimes that’s easier. Well, it is always easier.

My 30 years have at least taught me one thing.

a narrative i can't seem to tell. right now.

In the past several weeks, I have made so many notes of things I desire to write on:

- Senator Kennedy’s words at the DNC convention, “And this is the cause of my life -- new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American -- north, south, east, west, young, old -- will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege. We can meet these challenges with Barack Obama. Yes, we can, and finally, yes, we will. Barack Obama will close the book on the old politics of race and gender and group against group and straight against gay.”
- The journey, comforts, and dismay of my summer.
- The displacement of a million people in Haiti because of storms and flooding.

But I am weak and uninspired, and incapable of writing. I would rather be numb. I watch TV now. Passionate note-taking no longer leads to actual writing. Stress does not translated into motivated creations. The constant cerebral stimulation and scholarly shallowness have been replaced with a shallow Capote-style cocktail party conversation with the same people, and a holding pattern 18 hours a day inside an apartment on 16^th Street.

The most live things in my sphere of physical life are the presence of the white house at the end of this street, and playing tennis, nearly a week ago. My first in a year. Neither of which have a sustainable or survivable presence in this storm of limbo.

I want nothing more than to write, and think, and cite, and feel, and love, and encounter the textures of this life, most intimately. However, those textures became all-too close in Haiti, and after, I had to retreat, and recover. I am going home to California for a couple of weeks.

“What are you writing?” I made a mistake and asked.
“I am writing the best I can. Just as you do. But it’s so terribly difficult.”
“You shouldn’t write if you can’t write. What do you have to cry about it for? Go Home. Get a job. Hang yourself. Only don’t talk about it. You could never write.”
-Ernest Hemmingway, A Movable Feast

kill your television, or that annoying couple on the eharmony commercial

I’ve been watching an enormous amount of TV lately. What at first was a treat has since been a reminder of why I don’t own a television, (despite my angst of baseball-season-separation and lack of opportunity to conquer the Daily Double). For me, turning on the TV exposes my most sacred peace to the chronic illnesses of consumerism, anxiety, fear, and reality TV shows (that I somehow can watch numerous episodes of). But please don’t reduce my aversion to TV to an assumed, snobbish, distaste for that which lies outside of the intellectual, because through the internet and grocery check-out magazines, I too indulge the absurdities of pop culture. All-in-all, I guess I understand my distaste for TV to be founded on the same reasons I don’t like Las Vegas: too much stimuli and not enough space or time to sort it out. My basal ganglia can only handle so much.

During the past couple of days, on the couch coping with illness, it has just been me and the TV, while my books and pens lie neglected on the floor, lonely, and unused- - all of us wondering when - - if ever - - energy and focus will allow utility again. These days of re-exposure to TV have evoked a new reason for my dislike (and now distrust) of TV – there are families, and couples, and committed people all over TV. Everywhere, a culture where people couple-off and reproduce, and society encourages and rewards them for it. For this togetherness is not a communal one. I am not witnessing community where it ‘takes a village’ – rather, I am told (and learning) that it takes a husband, and a Mom, and there are usually heavily deciduous dogs running on freshly cleaned, white tiled floors.

Oh God, every time I see that commercial about the cell phone Family Plan Free Minutes and the spilled milk, I first wonder why I can’t seem to understand what the milk connection is and then I just want to cry my eyes out because I feel so lost. Oh, and on “Trading Spouses” today- I had endure witnessing two families as they experienced the longing for the temporarily traded spouse, but I kept on watching, almost dreaming that someone was missing me. Is this what it is sometimes like for kids of divorced parents? Is this how my gay friends feel in this heteronormative society? Or is just me, and somehow, I have step-by-step and year-by-year violated the governance of American society? I have noticed that the weather reports cause a similar sensation for me. Like the storms in the northeast yesterday - - I kept watching and it made me think about growing up in New York, and having a family, and listening to the scary rain on the roof at night after I moved to my room in the refurbished attic of our little house.

But I also discovered a new good thing about TV today. The Country Music channel. While tuned in there, I feel understood. There, exist others who feel alienated, too. They’re always on the outside looking in, too. Although, that Jesus Take the Wheel song freaks me out a little bit. I am not so sure I want Jesus driving my car.