Filed under: Uncategorized
The other night I sat on the couch talking to my friend. “You know,” I said, “I remember, there was this point in my life when I was reasonably content. I thought I’d finally gotten there. It wasn’t a state of utopia, but I wasn’t excessively reaching forward into the future, like I’d always been doing as a teenager and in my early twenties. I was always thinking that my life would begin when I graduated high school, when I graduated college, when I found whatever it was I was meant to do with my life…”
She nodded.
“And somewhere along the way, I was just okay with where I was. I remember standing in a friend’s garden at her mother’s house with plants and cats and dirt. I remember telling her that everything felt just right. And then even this summer, I started to realize that it was even easier to achieve these in-the-moment experiences of grace…But now, I don’t have it anymore. I feel as though I’m wading through mud, trying too hard.”
“Things don’t stay static,” said my friend, “Clearly you’re in a new part of your life. You need to adapt to that…”
Funny, how easy it is to forget that nothing stays the same, trying to maintain that homeostasis when really you need a system overhaul.
Today was a shiny, happy Texas fall day. I accidentally broke (yet another!) glass in the kitchen sink. And my boyfriend made our bed. Today I smiled after I made myself go on a bike ride. I sat on a bench with blue Christmas lights strung in the tree branches overhead and I watched the pink sky turn dark. And I got a close parking spot in the supermarket because for once in my life I went there in a non-peak time. We’ll see if I can perhaps more lovingly adapt to where I am, instead of beating myself up for not being as I was…and we’ll see if in another couple months, when I am thrown into a new environment I can keep remembering, while enjoying being overwhelmed, that this too shall pass.
Filed under: Letting Go, Photography, Small Things That Take on Epic Proportions
I lent my boyfriend my camera when he went on a short trip to Ohio. “It’s just a few days,”I thought, “I won’t miss it.” I knew there’d be lots of moments there that he’d want to photograph. I’d be busy. I knew I wouldn’t make the time to go out on a photo shoot. And the flowers outside our house, the uncurling new fern, they could wait until his return for further documentation.
So now, just 24 something hours after he’s left, I find myself seeing potential pictures in everything I look at. Longing after a camera to take them with, instead of being happy to just enjoy the images I see. It’s not that I miss the camera. If it were here on the shelf right next to me, I might not necessarily glance in its direction during the next couple of days. But I’m hyper aware of its absence. Wanting what I don’t have just because I don’t have it. And so it goes.
I look forward to seeing his photographs.
The Hibiscus and the Butterfly
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
We had just made it to the changing rooms when the lifeguards blew their whistles and shouted, “Out of the pool! There’s thunder!” Our smiles turned into frowns.
“It’s not fair,” said the older sister, age 14.
“I know,” I commiserated.
“Well, at least we’re still dry,” said the younger sister, age 11, as we walked back to the car. Dark clouds were forming overhead.
“Yeah,” I laughed, “Who said we even wanted to go swimming anyhow. Swimming’s no fun at all.”
“Yeah right,” said the older sister sadly.
So, we sat at a bench at the Dairy Queen eating glorious mixtures of cream ice cream and chocolate.
“Wouldn’t it be funny,” said the younger sister, “if it rained people from the sky?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied, “That might hurt. Or maybe people would just end up in funny places. Like maybe you’d be on top of the tall Dairy Queen sign out there. I can see you shouting, ‘When I said I wanted to go to Dairy Queen this isn’t what I meant!’”
She giggled.
I grabbed us more napkins.
Her older sister sat with intense focus trying to find a Prima J video for the little sister on YouTube on my iPhone.
It started to splatter rain just as we made plans to leave.
The older sister, with a shirt balled up above her head stood out in the rain while the younger sister and I made a mad dash for the car.
“The rain is so weird,” she said finally joining us, “It tickles the skin but not really.”
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
I should be working on a paper that I care about. I’ve been researching it and reflecting on it for a couple months now. I worked on it all day yesterday and didn’t even leave the house. I think I’m just at that point where the dream of writing something eloquent and fabulous that makes people go, “Wow” has to surrender to the reality of just getting it done. And worrying about how fabulous it is or isn’t after the words are on the page in a coherent fashion.
And so I here I sit at the dining room table where I sat yesterday. And before I get back to it, I think it’s time to make a list to help re-fashion a day I spent almost entirely inside a house sitting in the exact same location just trying to get closer to a rough draft.
Some lovely parts from yesterday:
* An hour’s worth of yoga in the morning on my mat on the living room floor in between the TV and the coffee-table.
* Pineapple facial scrub in the shower
* Warm black tea with evaporated milk and agave nectar to wake me up
* A green plant, that I thought might bite the dust, still proudly alive and enjoying its new position in the center of the table
* A break for lunch where I got delve back into the joys of reading “The Hakawati”
* Getting “good” mail from the postwoman instead of bills
* My mother agreeing that she would be the perfect person to read this rough draft when it’s done.
* An evening visit from a friend involving conversations about yogurt-making, cats, Russian fairy-tales, airline companies and trusting strangers
Okay, now to get back to that paper.
Filed under: Actions, Dusk, Love, Moments of Grace, Small Things That Take on Epic Proportions
Imprints
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
The first story I’ve really felt in months happened on my birthday. A very hot, eye-squintingly bright day in June. Into a quotidian experience of supermarket shopping and errands, I blended a birthday bike ride to a macrobiotic restaurant and some happy yoga on a mat in the living room. I spent the early evening accidentally burning cookies with the young woman who I mentor.
The actual story began when I was bringing her home. Her mother, Jane, and younger sister, Susie, were at a pharmacy a few blocks from their apartment. We pulled into the parking lot and walked into the story to find them. I chatted blithely with their mother and hugged my mentee goodbye. Before I turned to leave, Susie bounded towards me and gifted me an exuberant hug. “Happy birthday!” she announced smiling as she hugged harder and stepped all her body weight onto my flip-flops with her sneakers.
I heard a little crunching sound and winced slightly all the while grinning and saying goodbye.
I began the trek down the linoleum towards the brightly lit exit. I glanced down and saw blood oozing out of my big left toe. Susie called out my name and I turned back to see her performing a hyper dance for my benefit. I gave her a thumbs up sign and walked out, watching as blood colored my whole toenail a bright red.
The sky was the glowing blue of dusk. Birds congregated on telephone wires. Car lights streamed down the thoroughfare. I got in my vehicle and eased out of my flip flops. I found myself driving home barefoot having forgotten to check out the toe. Every time I pressed down on the clutch, I felt its persistent pain. For all I knew I was dripping blood all over the carpet.
I felt in awe about the experience though. Just sort of jolted into feeling part of something so much bigger than myself. I was the object of a gesture full of such love and meaning that in turn caused me pain. I kept thinking about how this is the sort of thing we must do all the time to each other – just because we imbue our actions with such well-intentioned kindness doesn’t mean they don’t also hurt the receiver a little. And really, even though I now had a potentially cracked toenail, I couldn’t harbor any ill will towards the child who had just expressed her love so sweetly and fully.
Back home I sat on the side of the bathtub washing away the blood under the tap and telling the story over and over again to my boyfriend as he presented me with a band-aid. I was trying to turn the experience this way and that to possibly shake even more out of it. And as I limped back out to the car so we could go see Up in 3-D, I felt so much love for this little girl and her happy birthday hug.
Truth is, had it just been a hug, I might have forgotten it by the time I had left the store. Now, don’t get me wrong. This is not an invitation for everyone to come step on my toes (please don’t!) but perhaps more of an ode to these moments that give us a heightened awareness of the beautiful intentions of others no matter how they actually play out in reality.
Filed under: Uncategorized
A Pretty Afternoon for a Walk in the Woods
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
Sometimes in winter
Shorts, a tank top and water
Light in between trees
Filed under: Uncategorized
My flight leaves at six.
I’ll miss the winter colors:
Reds, purples and browns.
Filed under: Austin, Chronicles of Misplaced Rage, Stuck in a Moment, Tired, Urban Landscapes
I was standing on the corner of 6th and Lamar waiting for the light to turn. I’d just bought David Byrne & Brian Eno’s new album at Waterloo as a congratulations-for-making-it-through-a-semester-of-social-work-school present. Nuzzled into my sweatshirt pocket was my iPhone, which I do love though I keep feeling as if I have to justify owning it.
I was listening to a PRI Selected Shorts podcast about a woman with alcoholism and her despairing husband, who just couldn’t save her. My white earbuds were conspicuous in my ears. It was dark, just after sunset. I was in a good mood. I needed to find some appropriately vague holiday cards at BookPeople and then I was going to settle down and continue reading “Last Chance in Texas – the Redemption of Criminal Youth” because although my academic semester had just ended, my work hadn’t.
A Jeep with no doors pulled up at the light. It looked like a clown car there were so many people inside it, jam-packed into corners and crevices. They were shouting and loud. It sounded angry and mean-spirited.
It took me a moment to realize that they were shouting at me. I couldn’t understand why. I furrowed my brows. I didn’t want to take my headphones out of my ear because I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of that kind of impact. Still, their faces were scrunched and righteous. Eventually one line rang loud enough: “Your iPod won’t save you!” I broke into a grin at this and smiled blankly at them. But, I was pissed off.
The crosswalk light changed and I started to cross in front of them. They continued their shouts, loud and vociferous. I glanced back at the woman in the driver’s seat. Her face contorted as she unleashed something at me. I couldn’t hear or understand the words. Still, the disdain was palpable. I felt like I was being proslytized by being debased. In their eyes I was some incorrigible sinner. And by my reaction, I started to feel like one.
I was disturbed. And I was scared because I was so angry. I don’t consider myself an angry person. I have a pretty even temperment that gets me through a lot. But, it scared me how quickly even I could turn. I wanted to rip my headphones out of my ears and charge that Jeep. I wanted to swear and curse and scream and perhaps punch someone in the face. Who were they to judge me? Should we take out rap sheets? Is this what they were doing to make the world a better place?
It was awful. I was scared because I can restrain myself from violence. The world has been very kind to me. But what about someone who the world hasn’t been kind to? What about someone who was born with so many barriers in place that they have to fight just to break even? What happens when a car full of people starts shouting at them for no good reason? If I can barely hold back from throwing out the middle finger and screaming expletives, what happens to them?
And it hurt that there was nothing I could do – no magic words I could say to make the Jeepsters realize that they were going about it all wrong. That they were just disrespecting the human spirit. Anti-iPods? Fine, whatever. There are other ways to protest. There are other ways to make people hear you. All you’re doing this way is breeding negative emotions. Jeez, as I write this I still want to kick their asses. They make me feel angrily righteous, which isn’t how I want to feel.
I work with people all the time who are stuck, stuck in patterns and cycles and who aren’t sure yet if they want to change or even if they can. I guess that’s the fundamental question – how do you get folks to take a step back and look at what they’re doing? How do you get someone to examine, reflect on, question and perhaps even change their actions? And you can’t really – they have to do it – you can help them through it, but you can’t force them to see something they’re not ready to see. People are their own experts. It’s presumptuous to think you know better. Although that’s easier said than done.
As a social-worker-in-training I have to get used to anger and conflict. I have to get used to not being liked, if that’s what’s necessary to be effective. I feel a bit like it’s a war zone out there with so many people striving to be good people and “pass it forward” and so many people — like the Jeepsters — trying to dismantle the spirit of good will. Even now I keep wishing there was something I could have said as they screamed at me.
Instead, I furrowed my brows and walked uncertainly to look at piles and piles of Christmas cards all proclaiming, “Peace on Earth!”
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
I got tested for HIV on Monday morning.
Why?
Well. I was watching a presentation in one of my classes on HIV and AIDS in South Africa and I realized that the last time I was tested was in 1999, my freshman year of college.
I consider myself a pretty good girl. I don’t generally engage in risky behavior. But being pretty good is not the same thing as being perfect.
Several years ago when I had to get Plan B, no one asked me about my sexual health or my sexual history. No one said, “Well, clearly you’re getting this because you’re scared of pregnancy which indicates that you’ve had unprotected sex at least once. So, what do you think about getting tested for STIs?” And I didn’t think of it either. I filled the prescription, swallowed the pills, and was incredibly grateful when my period arrived. End of story.
In class, I listened to the horrors of the epidemic in South Africa and I realized that it was presumptuous of me to think that — just because I was a pretty good girl and I’d been in a serious, monogamous relationship for years — I didn’t have HIV. I’m good. I use protection. But, mistakes happen. And I haven’t exactly hired a private detective to investigate the sexual picadillos of previous partners.
I felt a bit nervous. Did I really think I had HIV? No. Did I have any symptoms? No. But those can take up to 10 years to show up, so that’s not much of an indicator. Was it within the realm of possibility that I had HIV? Yes. Was it a tiny, tiny, tiny possibility? Yes. But, wasn’t I still incredibly irresponsible if I didn’t find out for sure? Yes.
So I called up a clinic the next day and made an appointment. And I have to say that even the time period of waiting to make the appointment sucked. It sucks. Waiting is the most awful thing. I think that’s why I try to push these things to the back of my mind and pretend they don’t even exist. Part of why there were 9 years for me in between HIV tests is I think I was scared of re-living that first experience with it.
I hated it 9 years ago. I hated the week I had to wait before the results only to find out that they hadn’t arrived and the realization that I had another week to wait.
I hated it now. My fingers trembled as I punched in the keys. My voice wavered as I explained what I wanted an appointment for.
Driving home that night I called my boyfriend to tell him that I was getting tested in 4 (looong) days time. I didn’t really want to tell him either but I knew I had to. How could I possibly say after the fact, “Oh by the way, I don’t have HIV. I know it for sure. But I was intimate with you when I didn’t know for sure.”
Damn it, once you realize something, you can’t feign ignorance any longer.
I was surprisingly calm this Monday though. Or perhaps not. I was so sleep-deprived from school work that I wasn’t thinking right anyhow.
Seriously.
When the health form asked me what the gender of my sexual partners was I actually checked the box next to “female” even though I am – and have always been – straight.
That certainly resulted in a confusing conversation with my health care practitioner as she tried to understand certain aspects of my sexual history. I couldn’t understand why I was being asked about penetration. I kept thinking, “Duh!” until finally she said, “Have you ever been with a man?”
“Uh, yes,” I said.
“Well, all you checked off was women” she said.
Eventually she ushered me out of the office and into the lab – no doubt wondering if I perhaps needed to contemplate my sexual orientation a little further – where they drew my blood.
Even that was easy. I watched my red blood flow out my arm and into vials and chatted pleasantly with the technician.
And that was it.
Except of course for the wondering and dreadful waiting which could either be two days – or depending on how long the tests took – all through Thanksgiving break.
You know, there are all these questions that come into your mind when you’re waiting on something like this. How would this affect my life? If the tests are positive, what do I do? Will I be strong enough to keep going or will I crawl into a ball under my bed in a state of paralysis? What does this do to my relationship? Could it endure something like this? How would the experience of intimacy change? And then, children. Yes, I know there’s adoption, but I’ve always wanted to give birth to a child.
For two nights I went to bed with my heart pounding. I’d think to myself, “Rationally, there’s just such a tiny chance. You don’t have HIV. Stop worrying so much.” But then I’d continue the conversation with, “Yeah, well, maybe you do have it.” Ah, the war of the mind. I felt like I was gearing up for battle. Am I exaggerating? Perhaps, a little, but I think there’s a certain amount of bravery required just to get through these things…and bravery really isn’t an absence of fear, but going ahead and doing these terrifying things regardless of all your fear.
And so today the e-mail came. Yes, it was an e-mail but a secure message. I’d opted for it despite the risks because otherwise it meant I’d definitely have to wait until after Thanksgiving to find out the verdict.
My heart rate quickened a bit and I cursed my internet connection for being so slow.
When the words came up they were at once anticlimactic and a huge relief: “Your tests for HIV and syphilis were negative.”
Negative.
I don’t have HIV.
And I don’t have syphillis either. When the doctor asked if I wanted to get tested for that one too I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Sure. Let’s go for it.”
Phew! Now I can kick all those awful what-if questions that were plaguing me back out of my head.
I knew as soon as I signed up for testing, that I’d write about this on my blog. Why? Well, although this is so intensely personal that only my boyfriend knew I was getting tested, I’m probably not the only pretty good girl (or boy or whatever one’s gender identity happens to be) out there that needs to do this too. Because it’s better to know for certain and not just assume. Ignorance is pretty damn far from bliss in this case.
