The Quatum Leap of Letting Go

Mz. Blu has been a strange, but welcome presence in my life for the last two years. She is my friend, my roomate, and occasionally my big sister. One of her favorite hobbies, in addition to kicking people with wooden shoes and watching bootleg movies on-line is torturing guys she used to date. There is almost nothing, short of a banana milkshake, that brings joy to her faster than the prospect of watching an ex suffer. I used to think this practice was cruel and a waste of time, but I am beginning to realize I was wrong. Why, you ask? Because Mz. Blu gets over it. I mean it. Though her methods are sometimes drastic, she is able to move forward, and actually process her feelings, and most importantly she can let it go. She is practically floating for how baggage free she is, in that respect.

I on the other hand, hold onto shit with the GI Joe death grip. Even when I think I am letting go, or I spend time repeating in my head that I am letting go, I realize that this can't be what's happening because if I were truly letting go, certain things wouldn't bug me so damn much. So I had a bit of regression this weekend. I was mopey and moody and in general a miserable person to be around, but instead of letting me wallow, which is what I had hoped to do, Mz. Blue took me out for some Pies and Pints, and a couple of Washington apples (the drink, not the fruit).

Mostly she just laughed at me, and we talked about the Big Round Headed Loser, and my favorite illegal immigrant, and all the other not so recent exes that stay super glued to my subconscious in order to pop up in random dreams where I am trying to find them or trying to avoid them or just simply walking with them. I had one such dream a few nights ago, where I was being deported and packing my bags and running away, but then I had to go get my daughter, whose name I didn't know and who I had never met because apparently she lived with the Big Round Headed Loser. Dreams are so weird, but they helped me to realize that even though I changed my number, I erased all his pictures, and I avoid any location he might possibly be, I haven't really let it go.

Now here is why. I am a notoriously picky, closet romantic. I like to see the best in people, but if the best isn't working for me, I am quick to get rid of them. I don't treat guys like friends, because I get so attached to my friends that they can get away with way more than the people I date could. Well the difference is that with my last two boyfriends, I really fell hard. We became friends and I began treating them as such which means making allowance for all their many imperfections, but how much is too much? I'm still working that out, but at a certain point, even though I was still in love and still wanted to try, I hit my limit and I broke it off. But it was really weird and complicated because I was still so in love. Now, I'm not in love, but I feel like I never quite put myself back together all the way. So I went home and I cried and then Mz. Blu gave me some safety goggles and let me break all the bottles in the recycling bin, then we got dressed up and I put on my blue hair and we went out dancing where she promptly ran into the Big Round Headed Loser's new girl friend. To my credit, I kept on dancing (with the help of four WA apples and a seriously kick ass DJ), but the whole time I was thinking this sucks. How can he just get over it, and move on and manifest something new. But then I realized, it doesn't matter what he's doing. He's on his path and I'm on mine, but I just couldn't help having this moment of "if you really loved me, you could've tried harder to make it work. Do you love her enough to try or does she just let you get away with all your bullshit?"

So fast forward to the next day, when I was in a bad way from 5 or 6 too many apples, my favorite hair dresser called to see if I wanted to carpool to CSL, so I went and the topic was all about quantum leaps. According to Wikipedia "In physics, a quantum leap or quantum jump is a change of an electron from one energy state to another within an atom. It is discontinuous; the electron jumps from one energy level to another instantaneously." Being hungover and listening to science was a challenge, but I think I really got something out of it. If I'm the electron, even though I've only ever been one thing, something can happen and I can make a jump, I can change the pattern. This is all about the mental equivalent. Today I may not know how to let go. It just may be one of those genes I missed out on, but if I allow myself to meditate, not on the process, but on the actual outcome I can make the leap. I know if I focus on the process I will probably end up burning down my apartment from trying to burn symbols of what was, but if I can focus on what it is I want to get out of letting go, maybe I can make that leap.

So here is what I want. I want to be free. I want to be able to think about the past without dwelling on it or second guessing my decisions. I want to move into the future without the burden of all this overwhelming luggage I keep with me. I want to just let it go, so that the next person that comes in my life actually has a chance to just be that person...so that I'm not super-imposing all their bullshit onto my perfectly fresh start. I'm off to take a leap.


What

A New America

Barack Obama has been elected the 44th president of the United States, the first black man to ever be president, the first president to ever make me cry. I am so proud to be an American right now. I am so proud to, for the first time, glimpse an "America as good as its promise". I want to explain what makes this election different. We all know that Barack Obama is a black man in a world where black men (and women) haven't been afforded the rights, privileges, or opportunities that are said to come with our citizenship. But this is only one facet of what makes this moment so incredible. Yes, he is a black man, but truly he is also an amazing, brilliant, daring human being who has given so selflessly of his time and talents to the purpose of healing this broken nation. I (and I know I'm not alone) have been without hope for this country for so long, that it was a foreign feeling, a strange awakening that took place when I first read Dreams From my Father, almost two years ago. And even while I kind of hoped, I never really believed. I wanted to believe. I wanted to with every fiber of my being, but this country has been so miserable for so long. You don't have to watch Eyes on the Prize to be reminded of the injustices people of color have suffered and continue to suffer on a daily basis. In my case I can simply look at my life, listen to the stories of my family and friends, remember my own stories. I don't say this expecting pity. I refuse to be a victim. I just want you to understand the constructs of my consciousness, the experience of America that has led me to a point where I could feel so desperate...the weight of my country's ills, disparaging my spirit on a daily basis. Without night, would day be as bright?

I want to explain how it feels to witness the realization, the culmination of multiple lifetimes of struggle, but I just don't have the words. All I can say is that today everything changes. Today I am able to believe, to see the proof that what I've hoped for, for so long, can...is transforming into something more tangible than hope,that my hope and the hopes of so many Americans is now a reality. I now have a president of whom I can be proud. But more than that I feel amazed to finally be a part of an America of which I can be proud. My country is actually my country. And now it is time to work. Now is the time to give, to serve, to reconstruct this new America....now is the time to do what we can to expand beyond hope into creating a better reality. I promise you, I will do my part. Thank you Barack Obama. Thank you Michelle, and all of those who have helped to make today possible.

Waiting with baited breath...

Good luck! I voted...so I guess all we can do now is wait.

Dia de los Muertos

Here are some of my Dia de los Muertos Paintings. A few will be shown at the Phinney Ridge Neighborhood Center this Friday at 7:00pm.





Lately I have been obsessed with Day of the Dead. November, just after Thanksgiving, marks the 8th anniversary of the death of one of my best friends. She was a month shy of 21 when she passed away in a car crash while driving back to school after the holidays. I was living in Spain and that time, but I remember hearing the news and just falling apart. I was lucky enough to make it back in time for the funeral, but it was miserable. A few weeks ago while visiting Wisconsin, I stopped by her grave. Over the years the monument to her has grown from a small patch of grass in a cemetery near where we went to high school, to a large engraved headstone with two color photos of her. There are always flowers no matter what season and it shows that I am not her only visitor. She was a beautiful person, and even all these years later, something inside breaks to think about her...but the alternative is worse.

What happens when you die? I don't know if heaven or hell exist outside of our day to day worlds. I like to think that spirits are energy and as such are neither created or destroyed, but simple transformed into whatever form they need to take on in order to move on. When I think of the people I've lost: Robin, Sue, Bobbie Jo, Papa, Papi Howl, Non, Papa Thorp, Martha, and so many others, I give thanks that at least they live on in my head. I can still remember the sound of Robin's voice, Sue's laugh...

So this year, for my first year as a Spanish teacher, I decided to celebrate Day of the Dead with my kids. I was worried about how it might go, especially knowing that some of them had recently lost grandparents. What I discovered is that the kids, like me, want to remember. Even though most of my students are only in the fourth or fifth grade, they have quite a bit of experience with death, mostly in the form of Hamsters (one of my kids has had 17 Hamsters pass away under his care....please don't buy him anymore!)and grandparents. They all have their ritual though. Some like to bury pets in the yard, others like to celebrate by having a special dinner or just lighting a candle.

Together we visited an ofrenda at a nearby school and watched a short movie about Dia de los Muertos which is celebrated on November 1 and 2 each year, when the veil between the living and dead realms is said to be more fluid. Families visit the graveyard, setting up alters with ofrendas...or offerings. It's a Mexican holiday greatly influenced by Aztec and also Catholic traditons. Alters often have four levels, representing the four seasons, the four directions, the four stages of life, and the four elements.The alters are decorated in bright colors with papel picado (tissue paper cut in beautiful patterns), pictures of the deceased and things they liked to do or foods they enjoyed. Marigold are said to light the way for the spirits. Some people make sugar skulls or pan de muerto (bread of the dead- a sweet egg bread made with anise). The whole point is to spend time with your family and friends, both living and dead.

Warrior-A Kid Rock Propaganda Film

A few years ago I visited the lovely country of Thailand. It was a harrowing trip jam packed with three near death experiences, a very un-traditional Christmas eve at a club in Bangkok, and a lot of shopping. While there, since I was there a whole month, I went to the movies. Before the flick, in addition to the normal previews, there was a moment where we were all asked to stand for the for the National Anthem. Though it was different and unexpected, I didn't think too much of it until a friend of mine whispered into my ear that if you didn't stand you could be taken to jail. Intense huh?

Well, I never really followed up to find out if that's true or not, but it was one of those many cultural differences I filed away as something that would never happen in the States. Flash forward to last weekend. After the conference, I met up with one of my favorite people on earth, my Dad. We decided to catch a movie and arrived ridiculously early. Really that just meant there was more time to eat popcorn. While we waited there was a movie quiz stuff interspersed with some seemingly innocuous pre-trailer commercials, one of which was a music video from Kid Rock. Well actually it was a little more than a music video, really it was a National Guard propaganda film masquerading as a music video.

So there is Kid Rock: cue the sexy baseline and the electric guitar. And in roll the US tanks across a dusty middle eastern country. Lyrics begin with: "Now don't tell me whose wrong or right when liberty starts slipping away... And if you ain't gonna fight, get out of the way. 'Cause freedom makes us free when you're breathing red white and blue. I'm giving all of myself, how 'bout you? And they call me warrior. They call me Loyalty. They call me ready to provide the need, the help, wherever you need me to be. I'm an American Warrior. Huh! I'm an American Warrior, Citizen Solidier...." And it goes on, all of this is interspersed with images of the National guard blowing up buildings, rescuing a soccer ball from being squashed by a tank, building a damn, racing cars, and I don't know, whatever glamorous patriot crap you might happen to be doing in the National Guard. I had a moment akin to slack jawed amazement. No we don't live in a country where if you sit during the national anthem, you are sent to jail, but apparently we do live in a country that says you aren't a patriot unless you agree with government and immediately enlist in the National Guard.

I mean let's not question whose wrong or right when liberty is at stake, let's just get out the machine guns and blow up some foreigners. Sometimes I feel such a deep shame to call this my country. Oh land of the free, where we are free to be bigoted and ignorant, where we are free to promote mindless propaganda that some poor misguided innocent might end up buying into...but let's talk about the reality....how many soldier have died in this bullshit war? How many innocent Iraqis have died in this bullshit war? So let's talk about patriotism. In one country you could go to jail for not standing for the national anthem, in this country you could die for actually buying into the propaganda of what is now considered patriotism. I implore you to think again. One of our few remaining liberties is our freedom to disagree, our freedom to call bullshit out for what it is, and to create our own working definitions of patriotism. Perhaps more than freedom, we have a responsibility...a duty, as real Americans to not take on blind faith that what our government is doing is right or something to be agreed to without question.

Soy una maestra...scary huh?

Friday was my first teacher's in-service day. I used to love in-service days when I was a kid because it meant there was no school...well now I am a teacher, and there actually is school. Such is my life. If it's true that what you resist you become, then my entire career is the fruit of karmic retribution. I loved school, until about the third grade, then I was just over it. Despite going to college and even eventually (under duress) graduate school, I would still put going to school on par with cleaning the bathroom...a necessary evil, but nowhere near as fun as sex, liquor, and salsa dancing and certainly not something I want to get stuck doing for the rest of my life.

I digress. Now, I am a teacher. When people ask me what I do for a living that is the answer I give (the whole writing and art thing are central to how I think about myself, but lets face it, teaching is the money making thing I do). I spend a great deal of time lesson planning or actually being in the classroom, and yet sometimes I have to admit, this all feels like some big practical joke. I mean it at least made some kind of sense when I was an English teacher. I know English. And when you are in countries where English isn't the #1 language, even if you didn't graduate high school, you can still claim some kind of expertise by being a native speaker.

I do speak Spanish. My Spanish is much better than my Japanese. I communicate and people understand me. I can even tell jokes. It's true, I did spend close to 10 years studying Spanish, including one and half years spent living in Spain and Chile respectively. But when I was learning how to order a mojito and the most colorful way to tell someone to go fuck themselves, I wasn't really thinking about how I would teach these particularly important phrases to others....which is actually good, because I can't really teach any of that to my fourth and fifth graders. Sometimes I feel like a big phony. I'm doing my best, but there is so much I don't know. I still mess up the gender of things. I mean why is table feminine and pencil masculine? It all seems kind of arbitrary.

And then there is the whole Spanish teacher thing. All the Spanish teacher I had were really kind of strange people. There was the one that called herself "La Bruja" (the witch) and screamed "Ingles es kaka" every time she caught us using English. I had Spanish teachers who made us wear costumes or squirted us with water bottles. I always kind of thought that you had to be kind of crazy to be a Spanish teacher, or at least very dramatic (melodramatic).

This weekend the other Spanish teacher at my school (we'll call her Sra. C because she comes from Colombia-el pais, no la universidad) and I attended the WAFLT/ COFLT conference in Vancouver, Wa. WAFLT stands for Washington Association of Foreign Language Teachers. COFLT is the Oregon acronymn. Sra. C and I spent a lovely 5 hours on the train getting to know each other....no sarcasm implied. Yes, the train ride was freakishly long, but she is just super cool. I am so glad we got to kick it. Once there, we spent 2 days in session after session all about how to teach a language.

Stupid joke repeated throughout the conference: What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages : Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages? trilingual. What do call someone who speaks one language? American.

When I survived my demo lesson and my all Spanish interview last year and actually got this job, I thought "Hey, maybe I can do this after all." I mean I still had some insecurities, but then I got into the classroom and realized that while I might not be the Goddess of Spanish, I certainly know more than a fourth grader. Moreover I remembered how much I like teaching....being at school is way more fun when you're not the student.

At the conference I learned a lot. I have a whole list of new activities, dances, songs, and games I want to try out. In that sense it was great. I also got to meet a lot of other teachers.


Top 5 things Spanish teachers like:
Speaking in Spanish (even when they speak with Oregon accents)
colorful scarves
coffee
making their students do embarrassing dances
sombreros

Many of the teachers I met have been teaching longer than I've been alive (literally). While it was cool to pick their brains, it was also totally intimidating. Also, the majority of the seminars were all in Spanish. There was one put on by two amazing ladies from the UW all about dichos (expressions) in Castillano...the Spanish of Spain, vs. the Spanish of Mexico. This was really interesting, but out of the 20 or so examples the put up, I only knew two. How is that possible? I still have so much to learn. If this is really what I'm going to do as a job, I know it is my responsibility to get more information, but God knows I really don't want to go back to school. :(

My temporary solution is Mexico. Yup, I am applying for a grant and headed to Mexico this summer for an advanced course in Spanish and Spanish teaching pedagogy. If I have to go to school, at least it should be somewhere hot.

Weekend with the Ladies and Henry

Last weekend Shoshana, Coco, Mz. Blu, Greta, and set off for some rest and chillaxation at Greta's grandma's house in Snoqualmie.I don't know what I enjoy more, leaving the city and feeling the excitement of escaping my everyday life, or coming back to city and getting to sleep in my own bed. Greta's grandma is lovely lady and owner of a very comical white french bulldog named Henry. I am not much for animals. Contrary to popular belief, I never had any really negative animal experiences, other than living with Jupiter, the cat from hell, getting thrown from a horse twice and getting pissed on by a rabbit sometime during Kindergarten. I just never had a pet, so animals, to me are kind of like other people's children, not my responsibility, and something that should refrain from licking or jumping on me. Henry in definitely a jumper, but there is still something really endearing about him.Mz. Blu, adores small dogs, so she spent her entire weekend alternating between playing with Henry and trying to get him to jump on me (thank for that).

But that aside, it was really awesome to just hang out. Coco couldn't join us until Saturday, so the rest of us had a leisurely dinner at Yanni's, a fabulous Greek place not too far from my house. Then we drove to Snoqualmie and made it in time to see the second showing of the debates. I worked on some painting and we all just drank tea and chatted. The next day Greta and I were the first up so we ran some errands and ended up taking a moment to get some pedicures. By the time we got back the other women were awake and Coco had arrived, so after a nice brunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup, we broke out the canvasses and started to paint.

Like me, most of my friends were discouraged from painting. I remember one of the art teachers I had when I lived in Colorado made some sarcastic comment about drawing just not being one of my gifts. Well, like most of the teachers at that school, she was wrong. Maybe she wasn't entirely wrong about me lacking perspective...but she was wrong in that she had no right to assume that she could measure my potential aptitude. Thankfully I ignored her. As we sat around the table there were lots of "What should I paint?" and "I can't do this, I suck at art". And then eventually everyone just shut up and sat down and produced some fabulous paintings. It felt good to be a part of the process of watching my friends change their beliefs about themselves. Maybe they still don't think they are fabulous artists, but they lost some of their fear of trying. I think that's what it's all about. These wonderful people come into my life. They each have their gifts or special things about them and part of our friendship becomes nurturing that light in one another.

God I think this church is really turning me into a sap. The long and short of it is that the weekend was fabulous. It was a great chance to rest and renew and to reconnect with some very special people in my life. Thanks Greta for being a fabulous hostess.