Another year of Reagan

It's official I am 34. This is actually day 4 of my 34th year of life. Part of me feels lucky. People ask me if I am a birthday person and I always say yes, because I always think of the friends I've lost and know that having a birthday is much better than never having one again. But another part of me wonders why my life has outpictured so much differently than I imagined it. When I was a kid I had notions. I was going to go to Spelman like my mom, and get a PhD too, maybe write some novels and become president. Something like that. And get married and have kids.I did write some books. That has to count for something right?

For what it's worth...

One of the most revolutionary ideas I'd ever heard was that my job wasn't the source of my income. I always thought that  the whole purpose of having a job was to have an income. But just that simple idea, that God is the source of my income, not my employer was so radical, so empowering. I had been unhappy in my job for nearly two years, before someone told me that and within two weeks of hearing it, I was able to transition into a position that was much better suited to what I wanted to do (and paid better too).

Lately I have spent a lot of time thinking about money and worth. Part of this is because I have been charged with organizing all the Walmart solidarity actions for the state of Washington during the Bentonville Strike. In leafletting Walmart I was met with a myriad of responses. Some employees were very receptive and excited that other employees were banding together to make change and to demand better working conditions. And some were very hostile. One woman in Mt. Vernon made a point to tell us we were way out of line and that it was none of our business how Walmart treated it's employees. She was the first lower level store employee I have ever heard defend their wage and it kind of threw me for a loop. Some of the managers make really great salaries, but for the most part the hourly employees are at or slighly above the minimum wage. Here in WA we have the highest minimum wage in the US, $9.19 which is still barely enough to make ends meet.

I don't mean to keep harping on Walmart, actually this post is not about Walmart, but rather about what people think they deserve. What I am realizing is that everyone has a different idea about what they are worth. Salaries are just one way that it's expressed. What is "good enough" for one person might be wonderful for someone else, or insulting. I once interviewed for a position where I would be running programs for a non-profit. The salary was competitive and the programs were very compelling, but then the funding for the position dried up. I was then invited to reapply for the position, but as an AmeriCorp volunteer. Sure the job itself would have been the same, but I couldn't imagine getting up everyday and working my ass off just to be eligible for food stamps. That is certainly not why I got my MA degree. But isn't that reality. Do the people who work low wage jobs work less hard? Is 8 or 10 or 12 hours of their time away from their families really worth so much less? Just something on my mind...

Why This Fight is My Fight

Month 5 of being a community organizer. It’s well past quitting time for the day and I’m in a cramped conference room at the library in Federal, Way with a bunch of Walmart associates who are getting ready to get on a bus for a cross country road trip to Bentonville Arkansas. There is an air of excitement mixed with a buzz of electric anxiety. Striking is a total “oh shit” moment. Jobs are on the line. It’s a moment of overcoming fear and anchoring the deep conviction that what you believe in is more important than what you have been taught to be afraid of. For most of the people who work at Walmart there is no huge financial safety net to fall back on. So this is serious.


At the end of a round of introductions, one woman raises her hand and asks: “For those of you Community Organizers who never worked for Walmart, why are you here?”

Strangely this is the first time I’ve been asked this question. Almost 10 years ago I watched the High Cost of Low Prices and I have been a staunch Walmart hater ever since. The more I’ve learned the more I’ve been disgusted. No one in my circle of friends or family even batted an eye when I told them I would spend the next 6 months taking on Walmart. I’ve never had to justify it before and don’t know where to start. Luckily another organizer starts to answer.

She talks about all of her family having similar poverty wage jobs and growing up and being treated poorly in her job. One by one the other organizer tell the same story. They talk about this fight being a fight for their family and friends, for themselves.

This is my fight, but this is not my story. I never worked at Walmart. In fact I grew up in mostly urban communities where there was no Walmart. I haven’t had a minimum wage job since high school and after getting two degrees, I haven’t even had an hourly job for several years. I make a good living and so do most of the people in my family. But when I wake up in the morning lately Walmart is on my mind.

In the end I didn’t have to answer the question for the group, but I can’t escape needing to answer it for myself. Why is this fight my fight?

I could talk to you about the facts. I could tell you that the average Walmart super center is costing tax payers $1 million dollars a year because the employees there get paid so little that they rely on welfare and foodstamps to get by. I could tell you about the numerous lawsuits that Walmart has had to settle when women and particularly women of color have been faced with systemic discrimination and not been able to advance in their careers. I could talk about the $81 million dollar settlement Walmart just had to pay out because of their crimes against the environment in California. I could even talk to you about meeting Sumi Abedin a survivor of the Tazreen Fashions Factory fire in Bangladesh that killed 112 workers that supplied clothing for Walmart.

But really what I would be trying to express is that there are some things that cannot be ignored, some injustices that can not be allowed to continue and for me Walmart’s standard business practices are beyond deplorable. No I don’t work at Walmart. I don’t even shop there, but I am still impacted every single day whether I admit it or not. Walmart has become the new business model that others want to replicate, but in doing so they are perpetuating a trend of poverty wage jobs that keep people stuck. This is not the world I want to help create. I want the legacy of my generation to be that we leave behind a prosperous economy where workers are valued and treated with the respect that they deserve.

So why Walmart? Because Walmart is everywhere, in countries around the world. They set a standard that others follow. What gets me out of bed in the morning is knowing that I can also help to set a standard that others will follow. I can put my skills and degrees to use as an advocate for self-empowerment. Standing up to live better may sound like a clever catch phrase, but to me it has become so much more. There is a light that comes on in someone’s eyes when they realize that they are worth more, that they deserve to be treated well and to work in jobs where their work is valued and respected. And once that spark catches, it spreads and it creates transformation. Sometimes it is a fragile fire. People let their fears stamp it out. Who wouldn’t be afraid when you have a family to feed? These jobs aren’t hobbies, many associates depend on Walmart for their livelihood and I never want to jeopardize that for anyone. But once associates take that first step and face their fears, everything begins to change.

Change is the nature of life. If you don’t change you die, but the way that Walmart has been changing lately has brought about several deaths both literally and figuratively. Literally if you’ve been watching the news about Bangladesh you know the death toll grows daily from the factory collapse to the numerous factory fires in locations where Walmart has not taken responsibility for creating safe work conditions. But the other murders are also insidious, the death of sustainable wage jobs, of employment with dignity, or fair treatment from management. It is truly time to stand up to live better and if standing beside someone helps them to have the courage to speak up for what they deserve, then I am honored to contribute to this fight.

Sumi Abedin, Me, Kalpona Akter at End Death Traps Rally Renton, WA

Bangladesh: Why should we care?

Last week I spent the afternoon with seventh and eighth graders at Pinehurst Alternative School. I was invited, along with the Executive Director of the Washington Fair Trade Coalition to talk to the youth about the End Death Traps Tour we coordinated last month. For those of you who missed the article, Seattle was privileged to be one of the 12 cities visited by former garment workers and activists Sumi Abedin and Kalpona Akter.


Sumi is a survivor from the Tazrene Fashion’s factory fire that killed 112 last November. Kalpona is a long time labor activist and the Director of the Center for Bangladeshi Worker’s rights. You might have seen her picture in the New York Times standing in the burnt out remnants of the factory and holding up the fade glory label jacket as proof that Walmart clothing was produced there (they denied this initially). We shared some video footage of the forum that took place at the University of Washington last month where Kalpona talked about the fire and also about the labor challenges in Bangladesh.

Why should we care about what happens in Bangladesh? We asked the students to take a moment to look at the labels on their clothing. Just within one classroom there were labels from Vietnam, Honduras, China, Indonesia, and yes Bangladesh. Bangladesh is second only to China for the amount of clothing it produces for export. In the world we live in, globalization is the norm. We are a part of a supply chain that links us together with a wide variety of exporting countries. The question now becomes are we responsible for each link of the chain or just what happens in this country?

Since 2006, over 600 people have been killed in factory fires in Bangladesh. That number does not include the body count from the fire that happened just hours ago (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/world/asia/new-fatal-fire-at-bangladesh-clothes-maker.html?_r=2& ) or the more than 1,000 people who were killed in the building collapse two weeks ago. At the end of our presentation, one of the seventh graders raised her hand to say that while she had learned all this information before, seeing Kalpona speak gave those numbers a face. I hope you will take a moment to think about the people behind the numbers, because when you do, I think you will come to the same conclusion that those seventh and eighth graders did…that yes, we are responsible.

There are many things in life that we can’t change, but these fires are preventable. People do not need to die in order to make our clothes. Moreover they don’t need to work in poverty either. The minimum wage in Bangladesh is $37 per month, which works out to roughly 18cents per hour. Now there is a difference in the cost of living, but even still most Bangladeshi’s would need double that to survive. How much do jeans at the Gap cost? Clearly there is money in the industry that is not trickling down to either the garment workers or towards building safety standards. We, as consumers have the power to advocate for change. Kalpona and Sumi were very clear in stating that they do not want us to boycott Bangladeshi clothing because even poverty wage jobs are better than no jobs at all. But there is one thing we can do. We can call for Gap, Walmart, and all the other major corporations to sign the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement.

United Students Against Sweatshops and other organizations have already begun pressuring the Gap locally in Seattle with the support of many important community allies. They will be continuing throughout the summer, just as we will be continuing to work on Walmart. Next week Walmart associates from around the country will be caravanning to Bentonville for Walmart’s annual shareholder’s meeting. To follow their efforts check out the Making Change at Walmart facebook page. Also to find out more about what USAS is up to check out http://gapdeathtraps.com to learn about our national efforts.

Day 17 of my 30/30

Dear Random Man dancing on the corner of Orcas and Beacon Ave S.,


Hallelujah! I thought I was the only one to hear the music. No one else tapped a toe, snapped a finger. They waz all spines vertical and hips horizontal, bearing stoic crosses on the trudge towards coffee. But me, I woke up to disco balls flashing glitter against the blacks of my eyelids, and they didn’t dissipate in the bright tangerine of dawn. The beat grew stronger, a robust and complicated rhythm jiggling through my thighs, fluffing up my hair. I felt maracas in my kidneys, tambourines in the slap of my heels, trumpets in my pancreas, trombones down the line of my shin bones. I woke up with violins in my liver, not that mopey longing stringing things, I mean mariachi staccato leaps. My toes were wiggling piano keys. Thank God you can hear it too! Feel the marimbas fluttering up through shoulders. Shake it. Pop and lock it. Shimmy like a Christmas jello mold. Let the vibe wail out like a joy siren. Are we the only two people who got the memo? We can’t be the only ones on earth to wake up to this miracle. Keep dancing Sir and I will too and maybe they’ll start to hear it. Maybe it’ll sneak up on them, their mouths curled up at the corners, getting all crinkly around the eyes, that tell tale sign that this beat is contagious.

Power of My Word Poems

These poems were written as a final project for a class called the Power of My Word. Power of My Word was the second to last pre-req before I can begin practioner studies through Amazing Grace, a church of Religious Science (not the same as scientology). I grew up in the Episcopal church, and it was an awesome place to grow up. I am not like my recovery Catholic friends. I don't wake up in a cold sweat freaking out about all the things I am doing to write my one way ticket to hell. But I did hit a point with the Episcopal church, where service didn't feel the same. I began to become numb. The words that held so much value to me as a kid lost some of their magic and all those question that I never really felt got answered...well they were still there for me.

Fast forward several years. I found myself at the Center for Spiritual Living. This was my first introduction to Religious Science and after that one service it took me 6 months before I was ready to go back. I like it. It was powerful, but it was also kind of overwhelming. So over the last few years I have been easing my way into the church and into a deeped understanding of the teachings of Ernest Holmes. One thing I love, is that I am encouraged to question, to find my own answers, to wrestle with what I believe. These poems are expressions of what thoughts I've been working through lately.

When I told my mother I was going to be a practitioner

When I told my mother I was going to be a practitioner
she said of what?
and I answered Religious Science
and there was a silence
that filled the spaces between us like a canyon,
a breath that rattled days, whole seasons
of inhale and exhale
a stillness etched in rock and color
river water and wind,
with a sky on time lapse,
night and day of slow dancing clouds
gathering and releasing rain
for the simple gentle beauty
of completing another cycle
before she asked:
But what does that mean?
I’m going to be a professional prayer
I told her.
And there was again the loving silence
of a parent whose child
has just expressed an improbable dream
like being the first Black American Queen of England
or a democratic president of the NRA.
No one wants to say
No Sweetheart, you can’t fly with paper wings,
on the off chance that just this once
they will lift and bend beyond law
to the higher nature of children’s dreams
but no one wants
to be the parent that didn’t explain gravity well enough
to keep their child from leaping from the roof.
I had seen this look before,
the measured belief tempered with a healthy skepticism,
a mommy pragmatism
that is always followed up with gentle reminders
about mortgages to pay and how health insurance
is really a great thing to have.
I felt the weight of doubt then,
What is this thing I have been called to do?
Do I even understand it enough to achieve it?
The intersection of mind and spirit,
law, word, and speaking truth into experience.
I imagine myself like Oprah
praying forth new cars and dream vacations,
the squeal of elation,
the jumping up and down
of my own captive audience,
or a Houdini
disappearing need
with flashy hand claps and tambourines.
I might need a theme song
and a roving band of musicians,
at minimum a chorus of Hallelujah girls
to punctuate the miracle
of every shimmering, gold star treatment.
But what happens is very quiet.
Within the canyons of gentle space surrounding
the field of my dream,
the No is carefully withheld
a deep swirling measure of glitter swells
with the in breath
before my mother tells me:
Well that’s cool.
If you blinked
you might have missed it,
but I didn’t.
Another answered prayer to check off the list.

On Praying
There is a part of me that is afraid of getting what I really want. Call it superstition. Knit evil eye covers and toss salt over left shoulder. Genies are never to be trusted. And wishes, carefully meted. No one wants the Midas touch, or to pray for rain from drought only to call in floods. And yet there is a want in me, a river I shade with palm fronds to muffle the rapids, to make it look smaller than it really is. But this water is deep within me and never still, a rushing of please and yes. I don’t want to want too much, don’t want my need to run naked through the streets flashing all my insecurities. To pray is to admit to longing. I would rather these unpleasantries be handled discreetly in back alley way deals with devils and demigods, with contractual agreements that mitigate things like miracles, place reasonable limits to what you can expect so that no one can say you didn’t know what you were getting. I’m not sure anymore if I am more afraid to be surprised by my good or by my bad, it is the never knowing that haunts me. The best surprise is no surprise, but that is the one that never shows up. Do I wade now? Baptize myself in the truth of what is missing then call on sun to dry me on the shores when I am made new and ready to receive? Or do I stay in the forest of my discontent another season? Place my bets on just enough to get by.
Some thoughts on God
How I wish you were a vending machine
filled with Tahitian vacations and diamond chokers,
a huggable life-sized Snuggle bear
that would pull me into your embrace on bad days
or better yet, a magical remote control to stop and pause
rewind and recreate my life until it is just right,
movie perfect and Hollywood happy ending worthy.
But you are God with a capital G
and I neither understand you
nor feel your hand in mine.
I might have seen you before,
from the corner of my eye,
the flint of you,
felt the warmth of your breath
at the nape of my neck.
You have made the hair there raise up in surprise,
But every time I turn to see you
You are not where I think you will be.
I am tired of hide and seek.
You win.
Ollie Ollie Oxen free,
Come out and explain to me
What this all means,
This messy hodge podge of miracles and disease,
Of free will and destiny
Can you just tell me
PLEASE
I promise I won’t be pissed
At the spoiler.
The Release
Letting go is the hardest part,
I think I am,
but hands and mind and heart are sticky with want
gooey with greed for things un-promised.
I can name and claim
with the best of them,
stand in knowing and gratitude abundant,
but I don’t want my prayers to disappear.
Once they’re out of eye sight
I get nervous,
like a babysitter with roving toddlers.
There are sockets to stick fingers in,
fragile plants to knock over.
Every time I close my eyes
I know my prayers are
falling down stairs or wandering into traffic,
swallowing bleach and playing with matches.
I need to gather them back to me
to make sure they’re okay
then I might venture to send them out again
when they are a little older
a bit more developed.

Joy...

My poetry is always kind of gritty. The Leader of my spiritual community recently described it as something that will make you laugh, cry, and sometimes want to punch somebody in my face. I took that as a great compliment, though I would like to expand my emotional range to the other side of the spectrum. It's not always easy to talk about dark things, to be sad, angry, or hurt on paper, but harder still is trying to capture and translate joy, happiness, elation. Maybe it's because I understand happiness less, whereas I am intimately familiar with depression, rejection, and rage...plus it makes for compelling writing. But as I explore the power of my word, I have learned how to purge. I have learned how to use my writing as a forum to release my demons, but now I would like to start invoking my good. I want joy to resonate. I want peace, fulfillment, a sense of happy expectancy to vibrate out...so I guess I have to get to writing.

Being a Plus-Sized Diva

Where I work we have cubicals. I know this is a somewhat standard practice, but I don't think I've ever worked in a place with cubicals before. I sit in a block of six. There are three of us Organizers and three Reps. Store reps, by the nature of their job aren't at their desks very often. They are the people who visit the stores and make sure workers are being respected by management...actually I am discovering that they do way more than that, but I digress. The reps come and go and we say hi to each other when they are around, but it has been a very slow process getting to know them, given their schedules.

The Rep closest to me is a black woman too. We've discovered that we live near one another and have some things in common. She is a person who really cares a lot for her members. Sometimes she gets sad. I watch her fight for them. I see her struggle. Sometimes she goes all day without eating because she just keeps working. I have taken to leaving fruit on her desk from time to time, just to remind her to eat. A few days ago I left a poem on her desk to remind her to breathe...it's a poem I wrote a few months ago after the Oscars when the Onion called a 9 year old black girl a cunt. It was a bad day for me as a black woman. I took it really personally, so I wrote a piece called On Being Black and a Butterfly which is kind of my homage to self love. Well she really liked it, and instead of rushing off to work, she lingered to talk to me.

Somehow we got on the subject of weight. She is a self proclaimed Plus-Sized Diva. I have always been weird about my weight. It exists, but I would prefer not to talk about it. I was like that 40 lbs ago, even when I was in shape and practically lean and I am certainly like that now that I am growing into my roundness. I have never once considered myself a plus-sized diva. I've seen Monique on tv making her jokes and wearing her fabulous clothes and while I admired her, I never really thought about it as something I could relate to. But when my friend said it, when she claimed it the way she did, I thought well why not? Why not celebrate where I'm at today, the beauty I am rocking this moment as opposed to holding my breath, sucking in my stomach and saying well I'll be a Diva once I lose that 40lbs. What if I never lose weight? Will I forever be waiting to feel good about my body?

I guess before I thought when women said that it was like a defense mechanism, but when she said it, it didn't feel defensive, it felt peaceful, like she was really the person who should be leaving poems on my desk to remind me that self love is an iterative process, and ongoing initiative that I have lots to learn about. So today I am a Plus Sized Butterfly (Diva still doesn't quite resonate with me-I don't think it will in 40lbs either, so I claiming my own terminology). I am a woman of consequence, a beauty of grand proportions, thick and curvy...and beautiful.  

Absolution

Forgiveness. Yes. It's a concept. It exists. My recovering Catholic friends tell me that Jesus will absolve you of all your sins if you just admit them and say you're sorry. And it's not a one time thing. You can do the same bullshit over and over again and still get right with the Lord. Though I am not sure if they even really believe that. And Jesus is usually not the person I feel like I need forgiveness from anyway.

Here is my deep dark secret. I have hurt people, really cool people, people I love. And I realize that intent is irrelevant. I realize it because they have hurt me too, sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident and the end result is exactly the same-total suckage.

So now what?What happens when you have confessed your sins and apologized? How do you move forward? How can you trust those other people not to hurt you again? How can you trust yourself not to hurt them either? They say scar tissue is the strongest tissue in the body, but no one talks about the fact that it is rigid, that it doesn't bend the way the unwounded areas do, and there is strength in flexibility. So I have started to pray, as though this might stretch my scars. I pray for true mutual forgiveness, for freedom from suckage, for protection from future hurts, for unicorns, and winning lottery tickets. And so far, no lotto.

How long does absolution take? Is it coming? Can I put my ear to the rails and listen for the rumble like an oncoming train? Just wondering...

Love and Guatemala: The Launch

Thanks again to everyone who came out for my book launch. It was an awesome experience to be able to share my work and little of what went into it. Love and Guatemala is a collection of poetry and one not very short story written over the course of several years. The Guatemala section was written as a part of one of my five trips to Guatemala. The love section are just my from time to time poems. The story was inspired by David Levithan, one of my favorite authors and editors. Here is the video of my launch. Special thanks to Jeff Jordan for filming and of course to Rev Allen Mosely and the Amor Spiritual Center for hosting not only my launch, but also my monthly writer's group.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2vCH4AkpgE

My Evening With The Missionaries

Last night I went to a friend’s house and met some missionaries. As a rule, I tend to avoid any situation that involves religious proselytizing, but I really wanted to see my friend and her baby and if that meant hearing the spiel so be it. It was actually very interesting. The missionaries were a husband and wife who had “so much love in their heart for the Cambodian people” that they moved to Cambodia 12 years ago to spread the message of Jesus. This is usually the time when my more sarcastic, social justice self righteousness kicks into hyper drive and I am internally sermonizing about the objectification of brown people and the fallacy of the great white savior come to heal the brown heathens. But as I said, I was in the home of a friend, so I chose to suspend my skeptical annoyance long enough to really consider the merits of what this couple had chosen to do with their life.


They started by trying to help Cambodian Christians strategize for how to get the word out about Christ, but through their work they realized that there were other pressing issues facing the Cambodian people, such as lack of literacy, basic hygiene standards, and the proliferation of human trafficking. They talked about how other White people had visited areas of rural Camobia theoretically to provide the community with food and clothing, then they asked the villagers to sign letters verifying they had received the donations. Being illiterate, they were allowed to simply ink their thumbprints, but in doing so they were not signing the documents that had been explained to them, they were signing away their land rights. A few weeks later, they were forcible removed from their homes by White People using their very thumbprints as evidence that their land did not belong to them anymore. Familiar story?

So the couple began hosting literacy classes and eventually started their own orphanage. They also teach adults how to lead groups and they prep Cambodians to educate other Cambodians about the dangers of sex trafficking.

While I may not agree with their need to Christianize Cambodia, I have to admit that I was touched by their sincerity and also it sounds to me like they might actually be making a difference. They are following a calling, but I suspect it is one that is much deeper than spreading religion. They are spreading literacy and self empowerment, which to me seems even more important and special.

Why is it so hard to see your own footprint? To have a genuine understanding of the ripple you are making on the world? As I am preparing for my book launch tomorrow, I have been in long conversations with a number of supportive friends. I have come to realize that what I am doing, in choosing to self publish my work and teaching others to self publish, has already had a much greater impact than I ever anticipated. People are telling me that I am inspiring them to follow their dreams. I don’t know about all that, but it is my hope that I can walk through my life with some measure on integrity and that even my mistakes might somehow make sense in the long view of things. I guess we’ll see.

Wal-Mart: Seeing evil for what it is

I start my morning most days by reading everything that has been written in the last 24 hours about Wal-Mart. Needless to say it's often not the most upbeat way to start the day. This week it's been bribery scandals in Mexico, empty shelves here in the States, and of course their lawsuit against UFCW for helping workers to stand up for themselves. The articles change, but the core thread the runs through all of them is that here in our country exists an entity, a multi-billion dollar company that is so vast it has literally saturated the US rural market and additionally become such a huge part of the supply chain that it actually dictates what standards of pay and condititions will be set internationally. That is almost unfathomable power. And to quote Uncle Ben from Spider Man "With great power comes great responsibility."

Here lies the problem. Wal-Mart does not take responsibility, not for it's workers stateside, and certainly not for it's workers internationally. My grandma and I have often argued over the fact that she shops at Wal-Mart. She says as a senior citizen on a medicare budget, she simply cannot afford to shop elsewhere. This makes me sad, partly because Wal-Mart's brand is so strong that my own grandma, a highly educated woman will not do the research to discover that prices are comparable at other stores, but also because in shopping there she has become complicit in maintaining a class of working poor. Wal-Mart markets itself an advocate for the working class...a place where the fiscally challenge can find everyday low prices, but at what costs.

Here are somethings I have learned from my daily Wal-Mart briefings:

• The average wage of a Wal-Mart worker is $8.81 an hour. (compare to Costo which pays $11 starting)
• The majortiy of employees are part time.
• Scheduling is done by favoritsm and is not transparent making it difficult for people to arrange childcare or attend school.
• Wal-Mart has lost of settled lawsuits totalling in the billions from employees who have been discriminated against on the basis of their race and gender. (Side note: Just yesterday I met a man who was a manager a local Wal-Mart for 2 years and was asked to fire a black female employee who has been exemplary in every way, and even sold $200,000 worth of jewelry the week prior. When he refused, he was pulled into an office and berated. The employee he refused to fire was attacked with racist epitaths. They both quit.)
• Wal-Mart has also been sued (and lost) by customers who have been racially profiled...there was a case in one Alabama store where Mexican American customers were being asked to produce docements to prove that they were legal residents before being allowed to shop at Walmart.
• The majority of Wal-Mart employees are not eligible for healthcare due to their part time status and those that are can't afford it due to astronomical premiums.
• Wal-Mart employees make up the greatest population of people draining our social resources within the state of Washington. That's right, they are paid so poorly that they qualify for federal assistance. This is actually a national issue, not just local.
• Workers internationally are paid even less and do not have OSHA regulated working conditions as evidenced in the Tazrene fire that killed 112 Bangladeshi workers whose families have still not received one dime of remuneration...not to mention those who survived.

I could go on at length, but the picture is pretty clear. So now what? We have the David and Goliath battles. There are employees and organizations not affiliated with Wal-Mart who are coming together to try to raise awareness about these issues, but change is hard fought and not easily obtained. Every few days I read something positive about Wal-Mart. They are bringing grocery stores to food deserts, hiring Veterans, buying products from women owned businesses, but I can't erase the rest of it. Because while these things are happening, Wal-Mart has invested more money in frivilous lawsuits and meaningless PR than in listening to it's employees. While Costco and Trader Joes are advocates for a higher minimum wage, Wal-Mart has done everything it can to lobby against it.

And what it all comes to down to for me is compassion. Behind every organization or corporation, no matter how large, are simply people. Wal-Mart was started by one man, Sam Walton, who had a vision of helping people save a dollar. And it is being continued by his family and the board of trustees. So just this once, I want to put aside the adversarial tone and implore that we get beyond greed and defensiveness to the basics of human necesities. We all need food, water, and shelter...and in this wealthy country, we have the capacity to provide this for every single person. Moreover the majority of us aren't asking for these necesities to be free. We are willing and able to work. But another basic right that often goes unstated is respect. The members of OUR Walmart, more than asking for just economic compensation for the work that they do which makes the Waltons their daily billions, are also asking that they be treated like human beings. And the evil I see, the sadness of my morning reading is that they have not been met with compassion. They have not been met with basic humanity. They have been severly mistreated then told that if they don't like it they should just get over it because that is the cost of low prices.

I guess, for me, it's just too expensive to shop at Wal-Mart.

Lessons learned from my magnolia tree

Last week we had that one sunny day. In Seattle this is akin to Jesus coming to visit. There is that kind of buzz. People don't even say hi to you, they say "Oh my God isn't it beautiful," as a greeting. And if you glance around the office, you will notice that you are probably alone or stuck with some pretty miserable people, because everyone else is outside. It's seriously that deep.
And then it went back to that colorless sky, on again off again chilly rain that is our perpetual default. I would be annoyed except, if you've ever been here you know it's not an ordinary gray. Seattle is too beautiful even on a blah day, that perfect alchemy of green with water and mountains and a killer cityscape skyline. I digress.

So it was another one of those gray days when I stepped out onto my back porch juggling all my work crap, trying like hell to make it to the car, when I noticed my Magnolia tree. Just the day before it had been barren. Now suddenly it was decked out with porcelain looking buds, silky white but blush wine colored at the base. It was enough to pull me out of my morning mania. When did that happen? How did I miss it?

One day it was winter and now, my grass is growing again and the blackberry bush is puffing out, threatening to take over my whole back yard. And I wonder about the comparable processes in my life, all the unseen unfelt evolution within me. I want to wake up tomorrow budding, ripe to bloom. I want to wake up with so much beauty within me that it can no longer be contained by any semblance of barreness. Rumi says flowers celebrate by falling apart...I don't want to get that far overjoyed, if anything I am hoping more to fall together, connect all the pieces of what I want, what I love, who I am and what I do to make a perfect blossom of divine right purpose and soul prosperity.

Satisfaction Guaranteed?

I get to this point in my day where all my meetings are finished, my high priority tasks are complete, and there is still work to be done, but it’s nothing that I can’t do tomorrow. That’s when I get into trouble. Idle hands you know…and internet access. But today instead of spending the next two hours killing brain cells on facebook, I’d like to pose the question: Is this all there is?

Seriously. I finished high school, then college, and kicking and screaming even made it through grad school, all with the mantra looping in my head that this was what I needed to do in order to have a successful career. I mean unless you’re Bill Gates or Kanye West, drop-outs tend to have some tough prospects. But here is the thing, maybe there is one thing they got right, both Gates and West made a choice to pursue their passions.

Me, I made the choice to go to school, even after years of re-discovering all the ways in which being a student is not my passion. But it was all worth it right? Just out of grad school I landed a prestigious job with a nice title, an office with a window, and even an assistant. But it was terrible and at the end of two years I transitioned into a less prestigious, but better paying job, which was great, for a while. But then I got bored and I got this nagging voice in my head that said “Is this really why you spent all that time and money on grad school?” So I went on my big vision quest, took 7 months to travel and lounge, meditate, eat good food, visit friends, work on my novel, and really decide what to do.

I came back and landed my “dream job” with better pay, a better title, free trips to Guatemala, and a chance to really be that international education nerd I had studied to be. In some ways it was awesome, in others it was not, and for the longest time I worked hard to really make it work. And it did, until it didn’t. And then once again I walked right into another job. And I like it. I’m learning a lot, I love my co-workers, and I have a lot of opportunities to meet different people. BUT. There is always a but.

Is this what the next 30 years is going to be like? Get up, go to the gym, eat healthy, go to my job, sometimes love it, sometimes be bored out of my mind, live for the weekends, get melancholy on Mondays. Repeat until retirement. Um, I might need some Prozac or a mojito…or a case of mojitos and some chocolate cake. I don’t know what it would take to make me feel better about this. But that’s life right? That’s what everyone says it’s supposed to be.

Still there is a part of me that keeps crying out for more. Not just more money or less time at work, just more…more joy, more excitement, more fulfillment. I want to make a difference and I feel like day by day I do things that resonate. I contribute to my community, but somehow even this isn’t enough. Am I the only one out there with this insatiable need to live a life that isn’t just about struggling to make it to 5:00pm?

Words in my mind

What is the power of my word? If you don't read this will I still write it? If I don't post it, will you still feel it? It was said that the entire Universe was called into being by one word, the word of God made manifest in a bang. If no one heard it, was there still a sound, and what was that first sound like with nothing to compare it to? What would anyone's life be like with nothing to compare it to, no sense of good or bad, right or wrong?

Last night I started a class called The Power of Your Word and it has left me thinking about words...the words I choose to say and the words I never say. I woke up in the middle of the night filled to bursting with words I wanted to say. So much and yet, even in the privacy of my own home I felt censored by my own judgement. I want to say what I mean. I want to mean what I say, but sometimes what I have to say isn't pleasant. It isn't clean and tidy. It isn't easy. Should I still say it?

We talked about affirmations, mantras, using words to sow thoughts into our consciousness like planting seeds of what we will want to say later. There were some beautiful words, deliciously juicy and powerful in their sequence, but as I lay there in the middle of the night, those were not the words that came to me. As I listened to my own mind run and ramble, my inner words betrayed my fears, my sadness, my shadows. Are these unspoken words as powerful as the joy I choose to speak? Sometimes I feel like they are, like even if I only say the "good" things, it won't erase the inside words.

So how do you change your word? Your world is an out picture of what you think, but how do you change your thoughts. Are mantras enough? Memory created through repetition? I'm searching for the magic words.

From Whence We Came Final Project: On Choosing and Choices

“I say, do not choose; but that is a figure of speech by which I would distinguish what is commonly called choice among men, and which is a partial act, the choice of hands, of the eyes, of the appetites, and not a whole act of the man,” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Plan Be
I say do not choose
for it is chosen.
Do not believe
what is not your highest good.
Don’t walk in shadows
when light is available,
and it is always available
for you to choose,
but do not choose,
let the choice be made for you,
the Universe has your coordinates
pre-programmed into the GPS,
just follow the directions.
It’s okay if you arrive at a dead end.
That is simply an illusion,
turn around and try again,
pay attention this time,
make the better choice
by not choosing to go that way
this time.

I once wrote a reflection paper for a class on Practitioner Inquiry. It was a course all about research and formulating questions and theoretical frameworks. I didn’t understand it at all. That is the synopsis of my paper. In response the Professor wrote across the top of the paper “This is great! I’m glad you are getting comfortable with ambiguity!”

For the record, I am not particularly comfortable with ambiguity. In fact I find ambiguity to be mostly very uncomfortable. I think one of the appealing features about Religious Science is the clarity. I grew up in the Episcopal Church, which was actually a very lovely place to grow up. I liked the smell of the incense, the glow of candles, the way the words from the Book of Common Prayer echoed through the chapel, but there came a time when I outgrew it. I still loved the liturgy and the community, but I had more questions than they had answers and after a while I stopped wanting to go.

Fast forward to about 2006, a friend invited me to CSL. It was a prayer service and one of the first things that struck me was how different their version of prayer was. I grew up thinking of prayer as a kind of letter to the Santa of the sky. It was a one way letter, not a correspondence. And it was good to add in promises as incentive for God…I promise to be a better person if you just make me physically healthy again…that kind of thing, and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t, but overall the process felt about as powerful as wearing lucky socks to a soccer game.

This prayer was different. This Emma-like passionate demanding of things as though we were entitled to them…well it was very different. And then there was this whole concept of personal responsibility. I was used to the idea of taking your troubles and giving them to Jesus. I don’t know what he was supposed to do with them exactly, but that was standard protocol and then you were free to keep crying rather than try to fix anything yourself. So here I was, not only responsible for my life, but this God presented to me seemed like some cosmic vending machine, and there was Kathianne handing me quarters and saying: You can have what you want. You deserve it. Now choose.

This is where things get complicated. I have to say I never really understood why God would have given us free choice, especially after centuries of humanity proving itself unequal to the task of making good choices. This has been one of my biggest struggles. What kind of life should I choose? Central to this overarching choice is the conundrum of my divine right employment.

“We must hold a man amenable to reason for the choices of his daily craft and profession,” wrote Emerson. As I read this passage, I felt annoyed by the reoccurrence of old ambiguities. So we can choose, but we are pre-disposed to our choices. While this is true…I can tell you I am definitely not pre-disposed to take up any trade requiring math or science, these natural delimitations are only useful informational tidbits, they don’t make the decision for us.

“There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one,” Emerson continued.

Maybe my river is wide and with a swirly multi-directional current. I feel pulls, rip tides and undercurrents that pull me first one way and then another. And the only clarity throughout this process is that I could do these things and make a difference. I can and have been a teacher, a writer, an artist, a box loader, a Program director, a study abroad coordinator, and community organizer. And at times these things have made my heart sing, but I still have no idea what will make it sing consistently. Or more honestly, I don’t know how to combine the pieces to make a sustainable career. Say I do become a novelist and make hella money, will I miss working with kids? Will I miss being an activist? “Has he not a calling in his character?” Emerson asks, to which I respond. YES. Many callings. But do I have to choose?!

I will leave you as Emerson left me, with no perfect conclusion, but instead with some more insight to what I am thinking. The first poem will appear in my next book Love and Guatemala. I wrote it during one of the other classes I took at CSL (can’t remember which one) but it’s pretty applicable to this experience as well and speaks to me relationship with what I should know vs. what my mind recognizes. I wrote the second poem a few days ago as a response to the ugliness that happened during the Oscars, but the more I read it, the more it seems like both a love poem to myself and an instruction manual on how to be myself.

Through my poetry I am attempting to map this river that Emerson is talking about. I’m not sure how great of a cartographer I will prove to be, maybe only time will tell, but this is where I am with it so far.

Consciousness
The irony is in forgetting,
in having these ground breaking moments
and then not remembering what shifted,
only the end results,
only the here and now of what is
and who I am
and everyday even that is erasing itself.
I try to write it down,
take a picture,
but truth isn’t digital,
clarity is un-photographable,
un-reproducible,
just like love is simply
a four letter word
that never really says what I want it to,
because what I mean is so much more.
How I feel is a puzzle of missing pieces
and what I wanted to tell you about me,
what would have made it all come together,
I can’t quite remember.

Yes, the irony is in forgetting.
I sit in meditation
to know what I once knew,
to remember the secrets
God whispered to me
before pushing me through the womb
into this backwards
carnival of illusions.
In my heart of hearts
I am a foreigner in my own world,
blinded by the trappings
of skin and bone,
this time and place,
this incarnation.
But in the stillness,
or in the blur of
colors,
the blare of music
and spinning
and spinning
and too much rum,
when you are standing too close
and I am holding on too tight
and letting go
all at once,
there are higher truths all around me
like a rain of shooting stars
blinding in their brilliance,
perfect in their moment
and gone in a blink.

And I know that it’s all in there
somewhere woven into the spaces between what I think
and what I feel,
the knot of gray matter.
It’s the truth that rests
on the tip of my tongue,
the dream just beyond the reach
of my cognitive abilities.
And sometimes it comes to me.
And sometimes it’s gone
and I’m just trying to remember.

On Being Black And A Butterfly
Even our cocoons must be Kevlar.
No spindly feelers breech the bud,
no filmy wings, slick and paper thin
greet this dawn.
We emerge fully present to our
enduring capacity to remain unbroken.
Our wings are boned in titanium
framed with panes of
shatterproof stained glass.
No wild summer breeze,
nor gale force hurricane
will set us to flit and flutter.
Us with wings of leaden gold,
us with wings like eternity
improbably heavy,
must create our own currents,
raise ourselves sturdy and skyward
to take flight by surprise.

We must fall in love
with our own industrial beauty,
never expect to be recognized
for the glorious celestial beings we are,
learn to swat daggers with every wing flap,
learn to embrace wholeness
the way Vampires learn to love
the curse of immortality,
those cuts will never kill us,
might sting, might bleed,
but we will remain unbroken.
We must learn to love and
understand the gift of our
impenetrable vulnerability.
We must learn to be held
and to hold others,
but know it is only
in the cradle of our own arms
that freedom is really free,
only in the understanding and sweet embrace
of our own souls
that love is fully expressed.

It is up to us to be:
Be the butterfly,
Be you, be me.
Be the night sky,
Be the stars,
Be the Universe,
Be the traveler unafraid of new adventures
Be the road that wraps back around on itself,
Be the song sung by a child when no one is awake to hear her,
Be the humming wings of quick moving birds,
Be the steady pulse of the mountain,
Be the river arching out to ride the wind across the desert sands,
Be the rain that makes love to each grain of rice in the fields,
Be whatever and whoever we dare to be,
Be the fulfillment of a universal promise,
Be the butterfly,
Be the little black girl arms and smile outstretched with no fear of poison daggers,
Be the little black girl with nothing to lose and the whole world on a yo-yo string already in her back pocket,
Be the Kevlar butterfly, bulletproof and daggerproof and wordproof and poisonproof.
Be the proof that black girls can fly.

The Ghosts of Boyfriends Past: Getting The Lesson Already

Sometimes I am a little slow, not always, not often, but sometimes it takes me a while to learn the thing that is probably obvious to everyone else. Okay, so for those of you who might be in the middle of learning this lesson. Please take a moment to live vicariously through me...I mean why should we both have to suffer?

For the last two years I have been beseiged with the Ghosts of Boyfriends Past. That's right, I don't get dead white guys in chains, I get that phone call from the soldier I haven't seen in 8 years or the business owner turned cab driver I hadn't seen in 3 years. I look up from my treadmill and there is that dude who ditched out on going to the Me'Shell NdegeOcello concert with me (so indisputably his loss) or I round the corner and there is that thick Haitian-again.

*Side note: I once went back in reverse chronological order and wrote a haiku summation of every boy I've ever dated or not exactly dated. Trust: it's the best set of haikus you will never read.*

I digress, so after a few of these incidents which I admittedly did not always handle with the grace of a cool head, I realized that this was going to be some kind of theme. So I began to be prepared. I stopped flinching so visibly, even managed to exchange pleasantries. Maybe this was the Universe telling me to grow up or something. And then I got it in my head that it was the Universe giving me a second chance. This may be a spoiler, but let me just save you the suspense... that is not what the Universe was trying to tell me. I speak English. I am fluent in Spanish. I can get by in Japanese and even know a few words in French, Thai, and Portugese, but somehow I never know what they hell the Universe is talking about. Hate to be Republican about it, but really Universe SPEAK ENGLISH already.

As a result of my brilliant misinterpretation I actually found myself on some dejavou dates. I mean not every guy I've dated is a total douche bag...there were some quality candidates in that rejected pile. And that was in part a nice discovery, that I actually liked and had something to talk about with a few exes. I might have even salvaged a friendship or two from the Ex rubble (going against my solid rule of date and ditch foever), but as for romance. Nope. Not even. Time is not a cure all. Mostly what I discovered is that the reasons we didn't work were mostly still the reasons we didn't work.

So as for the lesson, got it. Trust your first instinct. If you aren't attracted to someone, if they aren't emotionally available, if you're not sure if you can trust him...you are right. So that was it right Universe? I got it, so you can stop sending them back my way. I am ready for new mistakes.

Finding Center

Has it really been that long since I last wrote? Damn. So here is the update, life is a bit like a pendulum swinging from one extreme to another, passing through moments of center, trying to slow and feeling the momentum pull me to the other side again. I'm sure there is some clinical term for it, but I just call it everyday.

I'm not sad exactly, not elated either, but rather wary. I take the good moments as they come and do the same with the bad and that seems to be enough to keep me getting up each morning. I will claim that after my two month job detox and a series of other letting go, I have found myself with more energy. There is that fire in my belly again and words in my head in a voice that sounds clearer, cleaner, more like who I used to think I was than who I would venture to guess I might be now. So I'm writing it down. And editing and reading, and re-reading and re-writing and kind of loving it. I got the galleys for my next book last night. It's called Love and Guatemala and I am actually pretty damn excited about it.

And there are other projects, a children's book, three novels, one of which is actually pretty complete. So I guess this is what this is like...to be a writer with books. I've dreampt of this so long it feels a little anti-climatic. Oprah hasn't called me yet to tell me God, Hair, Love, and America is one of her favorite things...but I still have hope.

Yup. I'm actually doing pretty good.