Friday, December 31, 2010

Musings and Apologies

This blog was intended as a jump start to writing. But I'm not writing and I'm hardly thinking these days, so the blog remains dormant. When the mood's not there, it simply is not there. The saying that writing is 99% perspiration is entirely true. I just don't really have it in me right now.

This will come as no surprise to most but I'm feeling very ready to quit school. The comps are a strange creature. At first I felt pretty excited to read a lot of these books. The reason I chose York was so that I could tailor my curriculum and read and study what I want. I've bumped up against the canon, however, and I can't seem to find my way out of it. Boring white men saying the same thing over and over. Yet, I feel like I have nothing more to contribute than they. I think to myself - if this is me trying to make my life meaningful, I'm really off the mark.

This struggle is coupled with the feeling that reading alone in a room and grading mediocre papers and tests for students who kind of hate where they are and what they're forced to do is not how I want to spend the rest of my life. Even if it was a meaningful and important contribution to the world. A professor that I respect - one that guided me and encouraged me and eventually became a colleague - once told me that her friend, a long-time professor, walked into the chair's office one day, plunked down her pile of grading and said, "I can't grade one more paper. I'm done. I quit!" This sounds like an urban legend and I can attest that most teachers would find this story somewhat unbelievable. At the same time, most of us are on the brink of madness most of the time reading up to a thousand pages of redundant passive voice regurgitation. In those times, we can imagine such a moment. I write this as a pile of essays waits for me in the next room.

These feeling grow and their zenith (or nadir, depending on how one sees it) culminated in a g-chat I had last night with a friend who is currently hanging out in Chiapas. In the lead up to the part of the story he knew would drive me to the brink, he told me that Mexico is pretty much run by drug lords these days. The Zapatistas are a mere shell of what they once were. Subcomandante Marcos* applied for a job at SUNY Binghamton and WAS REJECTED. This story is telling in so many ways. Who knows if Marcos revealed his identity. I'm sure if he did, he would pack the lecture halls. My friend Hilton and I were imagining him trying to fashion his CV. In any case, Marcos can't get a job. Further, it's pretty clear that academia is where many radicals go when they retire from actually doing stuff (hence a lot of the post-68 post-structuralist writing). This is not always so and a gross generalization; my supervisor is pretty much superwoman and I can name other names. But Marcos's story fits the trend in the most radical and depressing way possible. I am a really lame Marcos. Who wants to be a really lame Marcos?






* For those who aren't familiar with Subcomandante Marcos, he is the spokesperson for the Zapatistas - one of the central groups that inspired the worldwide "anti-globalization" movement in the late 90s. Radical white kids flocked to Chiapas to understand how an autonomous, "anarchistic" community like them could be replicated. There is a lot of academic interest in them, as well as the MST (Brazilian Landless Workers Movement) and the Argentinian collectives that emerged after the collapse of their economy. But Marcos, he's the philosopher king of the global movement against neoliberalism.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

How do detect my mood this past month

It's pretty easy these days to tell how I'm feeling. Is Gordon eating? Yes? I'm happy! Is Gordon not eating? I'm going to cry any minute.

Gordon, my cat, is one of my favorite living beings on the planet. I love that little guy so much my heart feels like it's all Gordon some days. So when he fainted started losing weight this summer, I couldn't get over my horrible feeling that something was terribly wrong even though the vet could not detect any discernible problem. When I got back from my two-month stint in Baltimore - which is the longest I've ever been separated from Gordon - he was scary skinny. I finally took him to the vet when there was blood in his poo. He was diagnosed with colon cancer. Luckily, the cancer hadn't spread which I still have a hard time believing given the amount of time the it went untreated. Therefore, we (we meaning Chris) spend an ungodly amount of money having the tumor removed. He seems to be doing well, all things considered. But he's a more picky eater these days and the cat food I've been feeding him is of inconsistent quality. So, some days he eats and I think he'll live another 2 years. Other days he doesn't, and I prepare for his imminent demise at any moment.

It's really hard to watch someone you love die. That Gordon can't tell me how he feels and that I can't tell him that one batch of food is different from the other so stop looking at me with those big eyes as if I've purposefully taken away all that is delicious in the world and that I can't know when the tumor is returning... all of these things absent the power of language to communicate with him means that I watch Gordon like a hawk in order to figure out which moment will be the one where I have to decide whether I should continue his life or not. Already, one must intuitively communicate with their pets meaning that the relationship is very deep - if you let it be.

Living with this new reality is really hard. One's relationship with their companion animal is an incredibly intimate and personal one. I have lived with Gordon for over 11 years. I can barely remember a time without him in my everyday existence. As the years have passed, our relationship has grown quite deep and we know each other well. I am so devastated by the fact that sooner, rather than later, this beautiful little creature will slip out of my life.

And so I focus on his eating habits. Gordon eating? Happy Heather. Gordon not eating? Crumpled grieving mess Heather.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

academia is lonely

I am reading and reading and reading about mobilizations and lost times and communalism and here I am, all alone. I could have gone up the street and read with my friend Matt, but I didn't. I'm too sad. He's wonderful but I don't know him that well and I'm feeling really porous right now.

I'm finishing off the red wine that honors the 120 patriots who helped lead Chile to independence and wondering about the state and thinking, we want to figure out ways to organize ourselves outside the purview of the neoliberal nation-state and most people can't decide that a Wal-Mart is a bad thing to have in one's neighborhood. It makes me so sad.

Murray Bookchin, who I am reading now, is really sad about the single-issue activism that pervades leftist movements. Funny thing is, I would say that any other kind of organizing has made itself apparent to me outside of the last, well, couple of years or so. I never thought to think big to think that capitalism itself can be organized against. I guess summit protests were that kind of thinking big. I knew about it I guess, but it just seemed like such bygone era. And to some extent it is. But I'm so hopeful and disappointed at the same time.

Mostly I'm disappointed in myself. Like, I don't try hard enough. Nothing feels like enough. And maybe it shouldn't ever and that's precisely why the work continues. Radical and revolutionary social movement building, to me, seems so mired in ideology or guilt or meanness. I shouldn't say this. But I can't stop thinking about how movement building works and what kinds of methods folks want to employ to win folks over. What does it take not only to attract people but to KEEP them?

Maybe I am getting ahead of myself. If my students are any indication of the work that is to be done, it is first and foremost - oh, I don't know. Teaching them how to think or hold onto a thought for more than a minute? To act on those thoughts? To care in the first place? To be interested in being educated rather than perpetually entertained? I really don't fucking know.

Bookchin is so fucking obsessed with reason as the way forward. I don't totally agree with him. Something else drives revolutionary fervor and a sense of possibility. Katsiaficas calls it 'the eros effect.' I get it and I think there's something to it. But something more needs to actually keep people fighting and that's where I think Bookchin is useful. He wants to think through how do we actually take it a step further in those moments of eros? Richard Day thinks that the 'logic of affinity' means that the distinction between revolution and reform is no longer necessary. I don't agree with that either. I think there is a difference between actions that reform (or retreat) from the existing structure and those that can inform fundamental change. What is it? Is capitalism just so pervasive, so omnipresent in our material, psychological, and social lives that it's just impossible to think and act outside of it for more than a 'temporary autonomous' moment?

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

why am i an annoying leftist?

I'm not proofreading this. Don't judge me.

I have the best and the worst job. My job right now is to read about social movements and to teach people about the agency they have in their lives. I read from the left. And everyday, despite warnings that when I 'grow up' and have a mortgage (which I do), my politics will somehow soften and I will become less rather than more radical. I've worked in non-profits, I've explored the community service sector, and my analysis only became more radical rather than less. The problems I was addressing - poverty, sexual assault, domestic violence, drug abuse, incarceration - are the logical and systematic outcomes of the inner workings of a social structure designed to marginalize the many at the expense of the few. I scarcely believe, as the logic of survival of the fittest suggests, that those at the top are somehow smarter, better, and more worthy. As I read and think about how popular leftist movements work and what they are fighting for, I become more and more convinced that the world as I see it is common sense; that is, until I read mainstream press or talk to people outside my little bubble of indignation and struggle.

In The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life, George Katsiaficas writes, "In short, the conditions of life are being destroyed at the same time as previously independent realms of everyday life are increasingly subsumed by the commodity form and criteria of profitability" (2006: 6). He argues that the rise of autonomous social movements in the 80s in Italy and Germany (he focuses mainly on Germany), was an important, yet under-recognized current of social movements that understood both the state and corporate form as colonizing forces that not only perpetuated all of the -isms that continue to separate and marginalize, but also that increasingly make the psychic and physical landscapes totalizing and seemingly inescapable. He goes on to say, "Privacy continues to be invaded, family life destroyed, job security made non-existent, environmental conditions degraded, water made unfit to drink, and the air made poisonous to our health" (6). These conditions seem inevitable and the solutions remain in the hands and subsumed by the logic of those who created the conditions in the first place. That is, 'the people' let keep reaffirming the hegemony of the powerful.

Sadly, the popular upsurges in the US - the upsurges I follow in the corporate media - are the Tea Party or its 'countermovement' to restore 'sanity.' Neither of these movements are particularly appealing to me (the former, obviously not, and the latter only strategically in this moment). I don't believe in the kind of sanity defined by existing conditions 'cause guess what - existing conditions are totally insane. I don't believe I'll ever see anything close to the kind of world I wish to inhabit. But I will not lay down and I will discuss my logic and I will be called crazy and as much as I feel alienated, I will have a sense of humor about how the world works and continue, like a sad clown, to fight. The contours and intensity of my 'fight' will vary. But fight I will because I think if I sat down with most people and spoke frankly about my beliefs - not my beliefs as issue-based (What should immigration policy look like? Who should have access to health care and how should it be organized?*) - but my pie in the sky beliefs about a totally unattainable world, I am sure, if we suspended our political rationality for just a second, people would say - "Of course, sure, but that's not possible." So what? I'm sure it's not. Just like it's never possible to do a lot of things that we continue to aim for - how to raise the perfect kid, how to have the perfect marriage, the perfect job, the most fully functional economy, a free market - blah blah blah. We aim for the impossible all the time and fail. But we do it.

This system only exists because we allow it to. We accept it and the majority of people, especially in rich western countries, do not try to create new structures based on new logics because they are 'impossible' - people are too selfish (yet we see selflessness all the time in a system that rewards selfishness), it's too hard, it's utopian, you're a 'socialist' (yet people complain about toll roads and the cost of private school). Another world possible - or as David Harvey said, it's coming whether we like it or not. I believe that it can look so so different and that 'different' is actually a sort of common sense that we've been told from the beginning is naive. FUCK that.

Rambly rambly rambly...

*These are all important questions but stay with me for a moment.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Oh, and READ THIS BOOK

I was never a riot grrrl proper. But I was so inspired by the movement. It really gave me an initial framework for understanding my experiences - and then eventually seeing beyond them. This book is amazing. It takes the movement very seriously but doesn't cut it any slack either. It's well-researched and well-written. READ IT!





Ramblings

I had a really inspiring weekend. I actually think it's a culmination of events that are making me feel fairly welled up with possibility. I had a weekend long meeting with the editorial committee (EDCO) and advisory board (ADBO) of a journal I work with - I'm on the ADBO. It's an interesting journal called Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action (UTA) (www.uppingtheanti.org) and it occupies a curious position in the lexicon of journals as well as activist publications. It's fairly dense by the standards of "lay" publications; that is, non-academic publications. Yet, it offers a rigorous account of movements on the ground. And because it straddles a disparate set of worlds: academia - where the theorizing happens vs. activism - where the "action" happens; and because it self-consciously recognizes that these two worlds should not be as far apart as they are, it is doing something very important. But, the EDCO and ADBO are primarily (but not) comprised of white, middle-class grad students. One ADBO member remarked that people call the UTA folks "gradicals."

The separation of these worlds has always marked my reluctance to go back to school. I would very much like to think that we are, I am, doing work that materially advances my politics. I have absolutely no commitment to a value-free sociology as practiced in the United States. I want to take a position and learn how to defend that position. I want to create meaning out of the rad fucking things I see around me. I want to interpret the world according to my values. But I don't want to do in that right wing scary kind of way.

Anyhow, back to being inspired... UTA has been publishing for 5 years now. If you saw how and where the work is being done, you would be amazed that they've pulled it off. It's such hard work and it comes out of, well, kind of nowhere. There's no office, no staff - just a really dedicated group of people. The EDCO really works hard and long to make it happen. One of the reasons the journal is so outstanding is that it has really high-quality publishing standards. The challenge is that it's working with many on the ground organizers who may not have the academic training that many on the EDCO have, thus they may feel intimidated by the process of submitting and subsequently editing their work. That's been identified as a BIG problem. So, we brainstormed for a good long time about how to expand the EDCO's pedagogical capabilities - their bedside manner as well as their ability to unmask the writing process - in order to advance the journal's capacity to invite a variety of writers and over time expand the journal's ADBO and EDCO outside the privileged milieu they (we) don't seem to be able to address. I think that educational capacity is profoundly political and a precursor to broader democratic control over the journal in this instance, and our larger political lives in general.

I am under no illusion that what we do significantly turns the tides that I am observing in the mainstream political world. Toronto just elected a total douchebag as its mayor. The Tea Party, funded by billionaires, is the voice of the populace somehow - even though there are huge and important gatherings of left-wing thinkers and activists converging all over the fucking place doing amazing fucking things. I struggle constantly for people to change the terms of the debates in order to see that those terms have been set by the linchpin of history and power but it is in our obedience that they remain. I think that the world as I see it in my heart is entirely possible. I don't think that people are too dumb to see it. I see a psychic longing in my students all the fucking time. We just have to make our movements a place where they can tap in and feel at home. I don't think we've done that yet. And I think that the problems that UTA is facing is reflective of larger activist world to some extent.

It's exceedingly difficult to confront people at their points of privilege. It's never been easy for me to face, though those have been the moments that I've learned the most. I think UTA is struggling to see outside its own positioning and I think it'll be a stronger journal if it figures it out.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Why Work?

In my 'academic' work, I am interested in, well, work. I am not a vulgar Marxist. But Marx, to me, offers a compelling analysis of capitalism. He suggests that in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, people became 'free' to sell their labor on the market for a price. Of course, the 'price' of that labor is deeply tied to assumptions about what kinds of work is meaningful, skilled, and so on. And, the more that marginalized people occupy particular kinds of work, the less it is worth. Relatedly, marginalized folks often occupy 'less-skilled' positions in the marketplace.

Work is not the *only* arena in which social inequality reproduces itself, but the way in which work is set up is structures and is structured by other systems of inequality. Citizenship, gender, race, able-bodiedness, sexuality, 'professionalism', affective labor - all of these things structure how most of us are compensated for the work that we do, what jobs are available, and what people understand as worthy ways to spend the majority of their lives. Like, really, what the fuck to hedge fund managers do that contributes to the social world meaningfully? In my opinion, very little. In the opinion of the marketplace, that is if compensation were an adequate measure of social worth, they do a whole hell of a lot.

Furthermore, the need for global economic growth eclipses most other measures of economic well-being. As long as growth remains the yardstick for a healthy economy, people and the environment will suffer. PERIOD. Therefore, new economic systems MUST emerge that opt out of traditional measures of a healthy economy. This is important for several reasons:

1. Industrial capitalism is the primary lens through which social policy around work is structured - both in terms of the economic stimulus but also in terms of the traditional labor movement be they trade unions and even poor people's movements. This is a problem as it leaves unquestioned the fact that most of these jobs - selling and buying shit that nobody needs and that will wind up in a landfill - are soul deadening and planet killing. It's just the 'double movement' wherein the most egregious exploits of capitalism are somewhat alleviated but the system itself remains intact.

2. It's not that labor movements aren't important. They are. But I think work can very well be understood differently. In fact, work must be understood differently if this planet is to survive. That is, if economic growth is the primary driver of greenhouse gas emissions and both wealth and job creation in their contemporary forms create that growth (jobs so that people can shop so that industries remain profitable), then the way work itself is structured is profoundly flawed. Yet work (not necessarily jobs) is the means through which needs are met. And needs can be met in new ways - ways that allow people more time to creatively pursue their interests, have more "free time", and engage in a myriad of activities. What are those ways?

3. Not all, but a lot of work is soul-deadening. I don't think it has to be. And we do too much of it in its formalized incarnation.

4. Collective work structures can mean radically reshaping both the *point* of work as well as its processes. Forging new economic models can forge new definitions of work and radically alter the value structures upon which work rests - e.g., the work of caring, the work of reproducing everyday life - often the things we think of having to do *after* work (or hire someone else to do for us). It can give people the sense that they do have a say in the conditions of their lives. It can create ways of meeting needs that do not kill the planet.

These, to me, are profoundly political questions. From all of this, I need a focused research question for my grant writing. Anyone? Anyone?



Thursday, September 2, 2010

Deeper Tendencies

One thing I've learned to do over the years is control my temper. I know I've mentioned this in earlier posts. I would say that my two worse features are my temper and my tendency to needlessly worry about everything making me somewhat controlling. I've learned to let go a bit, but I'm by no means close to being able to let go. Imagine, then, a situation where I worry and worry all the while being pissed off.

I have learned over the years to observe myself in order to assess my behavior. I am not unreflexive. Yet there are times where I simply cannot control myself. I see myself and I know how I appear but still I can't control it. Why can't one stop herself in the midst of behavior she knows isn't benefitting anyone? After the fog wears off, I always feel a sense of regret and embarrassment. Some situations (and some people) just bring it out in me. What is that?

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Head in the Game

I am trying like hell to get my head back into school mode. It's weird, I have this aversion to reading ever since I started grad school. It's like reading has become a task rather than a pleasure. I think I have to ease my way back in with a novel or something (not too heavy - suggestions???).

I know I can talk some shit about Toronto and if you've heard me do it already, stop reading 'cause you will most likely be bored by my observations. I've heard two radically different things about Toronto. Most artists and musicians that I've come across call it (and I've heard this several times) "magical." I believe that "magical" Toronto must happen when I've already gone to bed. Then there is the Toronto I've heard described as "hard" and "cold". This, of course, does not describe its inhabitants individually. Rather, there seems a collective sense that one keeps to herself, does not talk to strangers on the street, and does her best to be "polite" when encountering others. It's cultural. This is not what I am used to.

A Torontonian friend of mine recently visited New York. This was his first visit to a major US city since he was a kid. He noted that people were so warm and friendly despite New York's reputation for having rude inhabitants. It's different, for sure. And juxtaposing Toronto and Baltimore once again, so closely, I am really homesick already. I miss the warm greetings, hellos and such.

I associate all of this with school. School represents to me anxiety, competition, and insecurity encased in a cold, hard city of people who would sooner run me down than say hello. Needless to say, I have to get the fuck over it and get myself started.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Really?

It's been fun working on the house with my dad and Ray. Chris has been feeling a little bit better but a lot of his energies have gone toward working on his actually paying job. I've been at the house weekdays from 7:30 am until about 4 pm almost everyday unless I have to work - write a paper or teach yoga or something like that.

Yesterday Chris was to finish his project and come to the house - we finally were going to get to work together. The couple days he's been there to work on the house have been great. In fact, the point of this whole thing was not only to have a home but to build the home together (with the help of my dad of course). It was supposed to temper all the struggling we've done in Toronto - his and my incessant schedule, doing tedious work in the same home - all of the things that makes life a bit tedious. Needless to say, I was really excited for us to work together.

Yet, fate (literally) hit me on the head once again. The kitchen ceiling/office floor had to be torn down and rebuilt. This week, my father and I spend our time measuring and building new joists. While my father was putting the plywood down, I was adamant about tearing up the remaining kitchen floor, eagerly awaiting Chris and looking forward to this week spent working together. I thought, "finally, we get to hang out and do this together as we planned." As I was struggling with the floor, my father asked if I wanted to come up and help him screw in the plywood. I, again, insisted on tearing up the floor so we could get our final dump run in. My father was sawzalling the plywood above me, the plywood got away from him and the sheet came crashing down onto my head.

I knew it was bad when my father, ordinarily NOT an alarmist, came running down the steps in a panic. I realized that my head was bleeding pretty bad. I called Chris who was at the hardware store, and told him to get there. He ran over, and we decided it was best to go to the ER. Between the tetanus shot I had to get last week for stepping on a nail, the ER bill that will surely be a doozy from yesterday, and the massive ER and ambulance bills from Chris's fall, we've racked up a load of medical bills. You'd think we'd learn our lesson and at least wear a fucking hard hat. The moment I saw Chris, I bursted into tears. It's been great but really disappointing.

The cut hurt. The staples they used to suture it is excruciating. The doctor was training a resident and while the doctor had a delicate and decisive click of the staple gun, the resident was much more hesitant and slowly drove the damn things into my head. Patsy told me that new residents start in July so it's best to visit an ER in May or something. I'll keep that in mind.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

week of destruction



The demo started this week. Day one started off well enough. We got a bit of a late start because we had to rent a Uhaul van to move our couch into the storage space. When I rented the storage space, there was a dude living next to the my cubby who clearly had diabetes and had swollen, bleeding feet bursting out of his shoes. There was a puddle of blood in front of his space. Did I mention that his space was next to ours? When Chris and I dropped off our bed the next day, he was still there and the blood puddle spread to what I can only assume is the bathroom. Finally, on day one of demo, we went to move the couch into storage and we were almost unable to gain access to the space as the blood was now all over our floor and a hazmat team was called in. Fun.

We demolished the living room and the dining room on the first day. I wasn't very strategic and advised the dumpster driver to put the dumpster in a space where it was almost impossible to open the door. Oopsie number one in what I assume will be a sea of mistakes and mishaps. So loading the dumpster was unnecessarily difficult the first day (Dad saved the day later on and I am now a master dumpster rearranger). The demo transformed our downstairs from this:





To this:



And here are the happy campers at the end of a hard work day.




Day two... well not so great. Chris and I were dogsitting for this gal a block away. I got up a bit early to walk the dog and meet my dad for demo day 2. I let Chris sleep in a bit and figured he'd get some coffee, take the dog for another walk and join us. When he got up, he was taking fan down the step and slipped on the first step and tumbled all the way down. He got up, tried to call me and my phone had no signal. So he walked over to the site after sitting and assessing his goose egg. He came over and lucidly told me that he fell down the stairs and asked me to bandage up his arm. I asked, "do you think you have a concussion?" He wavered, said, "whoa" and passed out in a house full of exposed beams and rusty nails. His head, and eye, scraped all the way down a very scary wall. I tried to catch him and think I might have diverted his eye from getting completely destroyed by the nail. It was very close and he was very lucky. He could have very easily lost his eye.

I had our friend Ray call 911 and wouldn't let him move. We were both very scared. The paramedics arrived and put him in a cervical collar and on a board as a result of his trauma. They had him in the ambulance for a while to work on him. It was an excruciating wait. We got to the ER, they stitched up face and did a cat scan. Luckily, he didn't do any damage to his eye and his cat scan was okay. The end of day two looked like this:


We were so lucky and unlucky at the same time... more later!

Friday, July 16, 2010

Out of the loop and in Baltimore

I don't know if anyone really follows this. But I've been trying to reorient myself to Baltimore, figure out this house thing, and write a paper. It ain't so bad. Writing will always plague me and feel like pulling my fingernails out. I feel like it's just the nature of academic writing and I am not sure if it'll get easier. I really miss (but don't) the formulaic style of journal articles. Lit review, gap in the literature, how I intend to fill that gap, methods, findings, limitations of my particular study, using those limitations to suggest future research and get myself tenure. Ta da!

This post is actually about the house. The ugly, soon not to be as ugly, house and our hopes for it. Actually, the kitchen is the room that's plaguing us the most. Other rooms are easy enough (until I really think about the bathroom). But the kitchen! Planning a kitchen from scratch - well from scratch with the parameters set up by the space - is so hard. First, most kitchen cabinets are u-g-l-y. Really. Chances are, if you are renting or didn't choose your kitchen cabinets, they're probably not the ones you want to look at. Given that ours can easily fall apart at the stroke of a sponge, we are just getting rid of the fuckers.

We've heard from several folks that Ikea has the most affordable, durable, and attractive cabinets around. Frankly, upon visiting, we really weren't that impressed. I had all these dreams for a penny round tile backsplash and wooden countertops and attractive, but sparse, white cabinets. Nope. Cheap and u-g-l-y. Unless one is willing to plunk down a hefty chunk of cash, it's pretty likely the cabinets she buys will be fairly unattractive. So, Chris and I, in a moment of clarity, decided on the module, free-standing Ikea cabinets. could this post get anymore boring, you ask? Sorry. I'm gettin' this down for posterity.

Here's what we're looking at:


From this:



To something like this:







Or some approximation of this kitchen given that we are not morons and know we cannot make this exact replica. But these are the units we're interested in. Now this question is: what color walls?

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

what a fucking week

I am writing to get down on "paper" what I experienced this weekend before it fades from my mind. Also, I am not entirely sure I can recount the events as I was in crisis mode, I felt, for about 72 hours.

I've been organizing for the G20 protests for a while now. I am by no means a central organizer. But I was involved with planning logistics, feeding protesters, and opening/running the convergence space. This gave me some semblance of institutional memory.

The week started off like a week of protests/actions in which people marched 'non-violently', expressing their discontent with the G20's mandates. I was only able to attend the Indigenous Sovereignty march on Thursday and I have to say, it was lovely. I was otherwise often at the convergence center or dealing with a (maybe) sick cat, knowing that the weekend would demand my full attention.

I was slated to feed breakfast to the tent city in Allen Gardens on Saturday morning. Therefore, Friday I was at the convergence center making hummus and doing general logistics stuff. I was to meet a friend coming up from the US Social Forum ("G") at the tent city on Friday night so just decided to wait, meet another friend to join me at tent city, and head over to Allen Gardens. In the meantime, I hosted the bike squad from Montreal as they prepared for their amazing bike bloc. They arrived earlier in the day on Friday, so my day was full of organizing organizers.

Friday night, after the tent city, G and I headed back to my house where I hung out with my visitors and figured out a way to get everyone access to a comfy place to sleep. They were meeting for a bit at my place so they didn't get to bed until a bit after 1 am, so I was up for a while which was no fun given that I had to wake at 5:30 am to prepare and serve the tent city breakfast. My wonderful friends volunteered to help serve and coordinate. G was amazing with all his support, given we had a coffee debacle and we were driving around the city amidst the first reports of my friends and co-organizers having warrants out for their detention.

The tent city event was great and No One Is Illegal prepared for a press conference. Given the intimidation that many organizers had faced, the mood was tense and there was visible fear on the faces of those who were eventually rounded up (http://www.mediacoop.ca/story/community-organizers-thrown-unmarked-police-vans-en-route-press-conference-targeted-arrests/38).

Strangely, when I woke up that morning, I said to G that I had a weird feeling about the day. I had no idea how right my gut was. The very nice man who drove us to the tent city was passing a kidney stone and after we fed folks, we rushed him back to the convergence center as he was in unbelievable pain. After that, we had to make our way back to my house in order to meet up with my house guests. One, from Toronto, asked if I was able to take charge of the TCMN van as the transportation person had been arrested in the preemptive raids. I agreed, saw my guests off, and was picked up by one of the other drivers in order to hand out placards to the Saturday march against the G20 entitled 'People First. We Deserve Better!'. I was admittedly disappointed that I could not participate in the march as it was quite large and very joyous.

In possession of the TCMN van, I then headed back to my place, picked up G, and headed over to the convergence space to see how I could be of assistance. Knowing that I had to co-facilitate the information session that evening, I was trying my best to stay abreast of the goings-on on the street. I watched the news and about an hour into the march, that's when things turned 'ugly'. The first thing I saw was someone break a Scotiabank window, then Starbucks, then Nike. I was a bit irritated as I thought this was pure theater and such a cliche. This, of course, will invite criticism by some, but I had no idea what was to come.

Many know what came next - police cars burned, businesses trashed. At the end of it all - by about 9 pm or so - there were 15 arrests (!). People gathered at the convergence center for the information session. We were trying to make sense of what happened. Why were the police so 'tight' during the week but absent during the 'rioting'? Why was the fence virtually unguarded? Why were those police cars just sitting there, empty in the middle of the street? During the whole thing, my friend H, who was a street medic, was reporting what was going on and he continuously remarked that the police were not arresting folks though they had every chance to. What the fuck was going on?

The information session was alright. We were still trying to make sense of what was happening. The reclaim the streets party was cancelled and we were trying to figure out how to act next. H was worried about the next day. Given his experiences in Seattle, he was pretty sure a crackdown was in the works. He was so right.

Saturday night was a bit scary as there were police at my house for a bit (I was not there). I advised the bike squad to clear out not knowing what risks there were. Civil liberties were clearly out the window and any and all repression and detention seemed entirely possible. We had meetings and organized throughout the night. Having had no sleep, I finally arrived back at my place around 1 am, fully prepared to be raided at any time.

I luckily got about 6 hours of sleep and returned to the convergence space early in the morning to prepare for a day of responses. I awoke to the news that the jail solidarity street party had been repressed and 30 were arrested. There was another jail solidarity rally in the works for Sunday and a lot of organizing around getting the accessibility van to its designated space and getting food to the jail solidarity rally.

Again, I was disappointed that I could not participate in any street actions as I was needed logistically. I waited for possible accessibility needs and then headed back to the center where G and helped R (amazing, amazing R) with food. R took her delicious wraps to the jail solidarity when I got word that the rally was met with tear gas and rubber bullets. The food was abandoned and G and I headed to the rally to possibly pick people up who were trying to get out of dodge. We coordinated with some folks and were headed back to the convergence space when we got word that it, along with the media co-op, were being raided. This turned out to be untrue and we got back to the center once again trying to understand what the fuck was going on.

There were reports from the streets that people were randomly searched if they 'fit' the profile of activist, particularly if they were wearing black. There was a press conference nearby the convergence space and when it ended and folks were headed back to the space, there was an increasing police presence and the searches grew more random. A graffiti artist was stopped near the convergence center and was found to have a 'gas mask' in her bag. At that point, the police could fully justify searching everyone around the space. They surrounded it, took everyone's name including several people who just happened to be passing by, had the place on lockdown for a couple of hours (footage available here http://vimeo.com/12928760), and began arresting folks.

Hearing of the lockdown and possible raid of the convergence center, a group of marchers were headed over to center for solidarity and were surrounded by police, creating yet another 'stand-off' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heb9BXjYcII). Tear gas and rubber bullets flew once again and more random arrests were made. After the police left the convergence space and the standoff was still happening in the streets with soaking wet protesters facing off with the police, we scrambled to figure out our response. G had to catch his bus back to Detroit and I eventually made my way down to the detention center where the responses of solidarity were strong and inspiring.

Knowing that I would need some rest, I went home, slept for a few hours, and on Monday morning, made my way down to the detention center where I franticly organized folks as they were getting out who exhausted, hungry, and increasingly traumatized. I was at the center for 13 hours and H and P provided amazing support. I was sad to hear that I missed a 5000 person strong jail solidarity rally with Naomi Klein among them (http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DrkQK9uP8ok0%26feature%3Drelated&h=66b2euXYPY5nOSrerzpuOHP23Uw). I then helped a gal find her friends at the courthouse, drove some food back to the convergence center, and met my friend Reana for a quick meal and home to get some much needed sleep.

Yesterday was a bit more of the same, though without the same complete overriding sense of urgency. The reports of police abuses and lies continue to trickle out and I am now trying make sense of this week. It's too bad I can't be around for the debrief as I believe it's really important.


Wednesday, June 16, 2010

thinking of sarah for this one

Writing is a job. I will say it again. Writing is a job. It should be treated as such. Because (for many) it does not require actually going into work, sitting in a cubicle, and punching a time clock, it is easily relegated to filling the space between all the other things that need to get done.

It's a strange thing to do and I am still not used to it. Last night, in a conversation with a woman who goes into work at a 9 - 5 job, we got to talking about my commitments. I told her that I was still finishing up my course papers. She said, "Oh, you're unemployed?" No. I am not unemployed. Just as I would not characterize a mother as unemployed, I do not consider myself as such.

As the G20 organizing is getting more and more demanding, and my deadlines are fast approaching (with a 25-30 page paper still unwritten), I am finding it harder and harder to say no to this or that meeting or 'bottom lining' this or that task. And while folks are sympathetic to my demands, in a meeting, when others are literally organizing 60 hours a week, it becomes easy to look at the gal who wasn't at the two or three other meetings that day and ask, "why can't you take this on?" But I have to keep telling myself that my commitments outside this space are important and worth treating as a job.

It will be my mantra. This is a job, this is a job, this is a job....

And here's where the insecurities creep in (c'mon, you knew they had to be in there somewhere). Again, I just don't understand why it takes some folks so little time to write a paper. It seems to take me forever and a day. And I feel like these papers are really really mediocre. Like, if I were to invite those I am working with to read what I've ignore 'the movement' for, they'd be like, "it took you all that time to write this?"

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

what is liberation *for* - and more importantly, what the hell is it exactly?













"An alleged triumph of corporate capitalism... our desire itself is taken from us, processed and labeled, and sold back to us before we've had a chance to name it for ourselves" ~ Adrienne Rich


In all this reading about love and desire in "development", I can't help but muse about what I am hoping for... what kind of world a "liberated" one would be. What I would be as an inhabitant.

It's funny how rhetoric and slogans swim around and one day, the actual meaning of it grabs you by the throat and holds onto your heart and then won't let you go. Of course many of you have probably heard, "I know what you are against, but what are you for?". One day, I played a little visualization game - who would I be outside of all the things that disgust me. I am not naive enough to think that I will exist in a world that won't make me want to vomit or that I could possibly insulate myself enough to live an existence that even comes close. But I am so jealous of those who are creative enough to live outside it in the moments they can. God, who would I be if I didn't have to fight all the time?

Life is characterized by a good amount of pain. And when I say that the pleasure, the happiness comes in hope, it also comes in the moment of the moment of the moment. Or retrospect. Of love. Love devoid of habit. Love in spite of it.

Liberatory potential in pleasure seems frivolous. Yet, it is what we all want in the form that it takes for us, no? The beauty of a wonderful meal, the satisfaction of a heartfelt laugh, the exaltation and release during and after an orgasm, staring into your lover's eyes, pregnant pauses, watching a child experience the world, experiencing the world as if a child... it can all be there. I know it can. Yet, all I see most days are poisoned oceans, dead activists trying to get food to colonized peoples, global financial cutthroat horribleness in which greed is understood as pleasure and encouraged as a means of transgression (and that's just the news today). Beauty seems so besides the point. Yet it is in those moments that we know what life is beyond its "bare" components (maybe I like Agamben more than I'll admit). It's so important to me to see my way beyond all of this and to force myself to be inspired by getting my nose out of the books and off the stupid internet.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

my mom is mad at me

I talked to my mom yesterday. She was at home and there was a party for my stepdad's son's kid - her stepgrandchild if you will. I'm not quite sure what happened but I think she feels a bit alienated from his family. She told him she didn't want to participate in the party because his family isn't her family - she'd set it up and clean up - but to her, because this isn't her family, why bother? Of course this hurt her husband quite a bit. He said, "How would you like it if I did this to Heather?" She answered, "Heather isn't having kids."

I told her that wasn't his point.

It was her point, though. She's clearly angry that she'll never prepare for my child's birthday party, christmas, etc. I think she's taking it out on her husband. I know that the dynamic in the house is more complicated than this and I know she feels made-fun-of and outnumbered. I told her, however, that I couldn't take her side on this one. She hung up on me.

This was all, of course, exacerbated by drinking. When I called Chris after the fight, his first question was, "Is she on the sauce?" The sauce causes much bad behavior at the Cadden residence. It has also caused much bad behavior at many Hax functions as well. As a result, I don't find drunken debauchery interesting or fun in the least. In my 20s, the weird shame/guilt thing I felt after a night of drinking was tolerable. In my 30s, not so much. I am also weirdly turned off by drunk people. I know it's a side effect of being surrounded by drunk family members, boyfriends, and friends who aren't accountable for their behavior while wasted. I am "forgiving" but I don't find it quaint.

People read this as such: Heather is a boring, judgmental stick in the mud. She goes to bed at 10 pm and only "has fun" on occasion. But what people find fun, to me, is kind of stupid. This *does* sound so fucking judgmental, I know. Yet, how is it that subtly making fun of me for going to bed early and preferring to do yoga to blow off steam rather than get wasted not a form of judgment? In fact, it really pisses me off. And if you know my family, if you know my friends, if you know my city, you know what booze does. You know what addiction does. You know what it has done.

I can't really discern why it is that I escaped. My sister has been a heroin addict for 15 years. My father is almost certainly drunk - really drunk - by 7 pm. My mother can sometimes turn it off but struggles with consumption-as-escape.

A long time ago, in the "myspace" days of blogging, I wrote something about possibility. I was reading all of these books about beauty and hope and I was feeling so inspired but also feeling a tremendous gap. Where is this life? Where are these people? What is this community I so long for? One of my exes commented, "Stop reading about it and live it!" He was right in noting that I had all but sunk into myself (see earlier blog about anorexia and going batty). At the same time, this was a reaction to the form of liberation available in Baltimore at the time - watching other people create stuff and later watching them get wasted. This isn't true anymore and there are communities of people doing really interesting things that don't involve the drunkenness I am describing. This is why I long to go home so badly.

Nevertheless, for many, drinking still the predominant recipe for blowing off steam. Just like having one's own kids is still the predominant recipe for living a full life. And because I don't fully embrace either as my path, I tend to feel pretty alienated. Less so than before, but it's still there. It bubbles up in the moments of anger from my mother and when I don't go out for beers after a long day. There's a shunning that happens and it's kind of lonely.


Wednesday, May 12, 2010

so much sad

There are many people I love who are struggling so intensely right now (five come to mind off the top of my head). My heart is breaking for all the abstract sadness and for all real life hurt that seems to be reverberating. I feel like this fist-shaped muscle will explode out of my chest right now with all the love and all the sadness I have. I can feel them right now, suffering, and I want to take it away as though I can absorb the pain for them. Maybe I am already.

Monday, May 3, 2010

do you remember a time when you were happy?

I have always been a moody gal. Anyone who's known me for any period of time knows that I have a fiery temper, though it's gotten much better over the years. I've learned to control it. You all can thank yoga for that too.* I am not a cryer. I generally only cry during SPCA commercials and when I am extremely frustrated. I don't cry at funerals. I cry in my dreams. I yell at people unreasonably in my dreams as well. The rage and sorrow are in me. I sometimes think they're going to develop into a stomach tumor or something. I believe the poisoned nature of the world, not just chemically but psychically, results in ugly growths in the body - lumps and knots and tumors.

Chris and I were talking last night about happiness. I asked him if he remembered a time when he was happy. Being Chris, he said, "What does happiness mean? I can only be happy to the extent that the world allows. I'll never live in the world I want to live in so I can't claim that I'll ever be happy in it. Have you ever been happy?"

Have I ever been happy? I guess this term "to be happy" is a loaded one. To be happy with one's life suggests that there is a state of equilibrium, that at some point nothing needs to change. Buddhist philosophy would say, "Hey you! Yeah you, the one with all the attachments. You are setting yourself up for a heap of trouble!" Like being newly in love. It's really easy to become attached to all that bliss. It fades. And being a partner, a real partner, is another sort of happiness. To me, being "happy" is the occasional thing. Strangely, I am usually happiness when I am full of hope. Hope is the closest I get.

I think Chris is right. I have opened my eyes to the world around me and while I have to close them in order to go on, or breathe deeply in order to get it out of my body, I can never forget. No matter how comfortable I get, I know that I am living on a house of cards. I find that frightening and sad. I know people who feel really blessed and really content in their worlds as they are in it now. I am not suggesting that they are naïve or they're eyes are "closed" or anything. But it does seem as if they can shake it off. I envy them.

At a panel on punk rock, my friend Katy said that she realizes that she feels things real hard. She likened living in this world as being inflicted with tiny little paper cuts all over her body all the time. One can keep moving, but it hurts. One gets used to the pain, but it's always there. I guess I am "happy" when I can forget for a moment, listen to a great song, laugh, breathe into the pain, and hope. I just wish I could cry.


*I am by no means suggesting that yoga is a panacea but it sure did help me a lot. I believe with every bone in my body that it's the reason I don't drink as much as I could, yell as much as I used to, and generally abuse my body in other ways.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

apples and oranges in the air

There was a time when I could burn the candle at both ends so easily. I remember in early/mid-20s when I was working almost full time, in school full time (then teaching full time though I was a "part-timer"), doing yoga full time, engaging in activist work, and going out with my friends. I just kept going and going somehow, juggling all of these responsibilities and inhabiting vastly different worlds simultaneously. One semester, I taught seven (!) classes, was in a new and demanding relationship, was working with SWAT to organize a living wage campaign, and working at a restaurant. This was around the time that the Iraq war started so I meagerly organized a walkout at Anne Arundel Community College for the five students who weren't in the military and gave a shit (these were different times in the US with a different brand of jingoism). Understandably, I burned out fast and hard.

I was also starving myself in order to gain some semblance of control over my life and freaking out about EVERYthing existentially. When I was in the thick of it, I didn't have my period for three years I was eating so little. The most disturbing thing is that I was proud of myself for having that much self control. I recall staring out my bedroom window and sobbing about how clock time was fucking up my life; a pressing weight that meant I couldn't ever do enough and could never relax because the next day would always come. And who were we to measure time in that way anyhow? How oppressive. (EP Thompson eventually confirmed my suspicions but way after the fact)

When it became clear that I would perish in Baltimore, fade away, I moved to San Francisco and went a little more crazy, but then got a lot more sane. Going out of my mind was a function of cumulative events to be sure - the death of my grandparents (anyone who knew me then knows why), the disintegration of my relationship, ending my MA, working and going to/teaching school since I was 15, a profound disillusionment with the political culture coupled with newly radical understandings of the world around me. All of these factors resulted in a loneliness so absolute it consumed me. This was coupled with an ethic that if I just stayed busy enough, I could outrun the pain. In SF, I let the pain catch me. And as a result, the pain and I could confront one another.

Yoga and cycling played a central role in saving me. I had to eat enough to at least exert myself that much. These activities got me out of my head and for those moments, I could be. In so many parts of my life I felt so alien. In the post-9/11, pro-George W. Bush frenzy that engulfed the collective consciousness at the time, everything I saw around me felt like a breach to my values and physical activity was the thing that I could rely on to escape all the vitriol that flowed through my body and poisoned my mind. I was also surrounded by lovely people in SF. One person sticks out in my mind most acutely and though she and I speak only sporadically, her presence in my heart fills me with warmth whenever I think of her. I loved my life in San Francisco. Yoga in the morning, tea in the afternoon, reading and writing, serving ice cream and burgers at night. But I wanted to teach and eventually found myself back in Baltimore to pursue my passion.

Something changed in me when I got back. I completely eschewed the busy ethic. I thought it destructive and a path to burnout. I didn't want that. So the pendulum swung to the other end. I became protective of my time and I held onto it stingily. I became rigid. As a result, I disengaged under the pretense that I needed time as though I could place it in a savings account and draw upon it later. That didn't work either. All that I accomplished was a flakiness and a kind of hedonism where I did what I could when I thought my energies would allow it.

I am now trying to strike a balance between busy and manageable, but I don't know where that balance is. I was careful when I first started school to not take on too many responsibilities. I was feeling so overwhelmed by starting again and I wasn't sure what kinds of time commitments were necessary to make it through. Feeling out those commitments wasn't easy the first year because of the strike. This year, I have a better sense of how to organize my time and I am now trying to be a little more giving with it. So I gave myself over. Now, and it only took three weeks, I am completely overwhelmed. The demands of organizing are fairly steep and there don't seem to be intermediary roles. You either are or you aren't doing it.

Upon a cursory reading of "activist burnout," I read a bit of what I already knew. The expectations of activist involvement are often all-consuming. There's the sense that "people are dying" and a partial participation is a sign of your privilege to opt out. In a workshop at Left Forum called "Organizing in a Culture of Isolation," one of the panelists noted the way in which activists often discuss how busy they are as a measure of commitment and how this is a reflection of the the busy ethic in the US. I do it, for sure. I don't think it's a conscious thing but it does happen. One of the common questions that people ask around this is how activist culture rewards "devotion that leads to personal sacrifice." The Protestant Work Ethic still suffuses our hearts and minds. Here I am, in it. With eight meetings pending, a paper to write, and perhaps more coursework this coming week, I immediately feel swamped knowing that I will not be able to meet all of the tasks with all of the attention they deserve. This level of commitment takes me back to the time when I had the energy to engage thoroughly. Better stated, what kind of time in my life I am reminded of when I did engage in such a consuming fashion. Can I make this sustainable?

Thursday, April 29, 2010

broken record

In trying to find a name for my blog, I googled "obscure words" and came across "epicrisis" which roughly means praising or disparaging a perspective by quoting someone else.* Yup. That's pretty much what I do.

A very dear friend, who I owe a long email to, said she hears my voice when I write. Funny, I've often felt as though I have no voice. In fact, the reason I chose the grad schools that I chose was because the Sociology they condone allow for such things. Yet, I am not sure how to do that quite yet. Or I think I don't know how to have a voice. Part of it is that I come from an applied sociology background. But the other reason is that I don't quite trust what I see yet. I am not sure I have an analysis or at least one worth putting on paper.

Some of my dear friends and colleagues assure me that this is not the case and I appreciate their encouragement. But I can't seem to get over that little voice in my head that says "fraud fraud fraud fraud." So, I rely on other peoples' analyses to demonstrate my points. But I'm not sure, in the academic sense, when this becomes cherry picking. I know it does, in fact. In a paper that I wrote, I was accused of setting up a "straw dog" defined as "something (an idea, or plan, usually) set up to be knocked down. It's the dangerous philosophy of presenting one mediocre idea, so that the listener will make the choice of the better idea which follows" (my emphasis). That feedback was pretty much right on and pretty much my fear - always.

I think it's important to be rigorous and diligent with research and writing and I need to learn how to toughen up if I am going to do what I do. But I worry that I am getting myself into a whole mess of trouble in choosing the field that I did. I am not sure I really understand what's going on around me and my learning curve is pretty steep at times. Many of the activists that I am surrounded by (for the organizing that's going on in Toronto around the summit) are writing papers just like I am. Yet they seem to breeze through it. They somehow produce papers in the middle of the organizing as though that part of their life is incidental and as time consuming as that annoying pimple they are going to get around to squeezing. Here I am - I fret fret fret about my writing, sitting in front of my computer writing and deleting mediocre sentences for hours on end. I feel like I can't seem to pull it off somehow. It's enough to make a gal crazy. If only I could eliminate the voice telling me to shut up long enough to do the work. And then I could get around to doing the other work too.

*It's also a medical term meaning secondary crisis in the course of a disease.



Saturday, April 17, 2010

The End of An Era, I think

For my non-yoga pals, this post is going to seem kind of dumb. But for those in the know, it's a big "step" (though some might characterize it as a "misstep"). I think I am done with Ashtanga - at least for the foreseeable future. I have struggled with this for almost two years now and it occurs to me that the practice just doesn't serve my body anymore.

Those who knew me as a yoga teacher can attest that I followed the "bible" of Ashtanga. For about seven years, it served me very well. But, my body is in a place where it doesn't work for me anymore. It might be a function of grad school - all the sitting and the stress that I carry in my shoulders. It might be a function of they way it cultivates particular parts of my practice - my abnormal musculature for a gal of my size (really, I'm a powerhouse). But since I've stopped practicing Ashtanga, my yoga teachers, my chiropractor, my shiatsu therapist have independently noted that my body is different in that it is more mobile and free. A softening has occurred.

While this may seem like a "so what" post, this decision has not come without its controversy and some hand wringing on my part. On broader scale, my studio is embroiled in a debate, one that is inscribed on my body - to be or not to be an ashtanga studio, or at least a "traditional" one. For those familiar with the culture, there is a brutality in the taking of sides and I feel like my body is microcosm or a site on which that debate is taking place. I am being pulled aside and asked why I am not practicing traditionally anymore. I am being lured to a gamut of studios promising traditional instruction. I am being asked to confirm my affection for the practice. Yesterday, I decided to practice primary to see how I felt. I stopped at Marichyasana C. I just don't like it anymore. It feels like its doing more harm than good.

That said, by golly I miss it. It is such a wonderful practice. It's a mindset, a meditation. It's a structured subculture. It's beautiful, frankly, a lovely brutality. In a conversation I had yesterday with a practitioner, he said he asked one of the teachers, a follower of the tradition, "when does it stop hurting?" His answer - "Never. It's supposed to hurt. That's how you know you are growing." Yikes.

That said, there are some people for whom the practice is tailor-made for their bodies. People who possess that amazing combination of strength and flexibility who progress in the practice, who move through the series with aplomb, who need no other kind of yoga to cultivate the necessary ingredients for a perfect dropback or a lovely kapotasana (see below).


For me, though, it seems like I am pushing my body in a direction it doesn't have the "softness" to go into these advanced poses. And I don't want to forward fold for the rest of my days, nor do I want to hurt anymore. I want to go into a studio and cultivate a practice that feels right for me, on that day, in that space. But, again, I mourn the loss of this thing that has kept me sane for so many years. Yet yoga, especially ashtanga, is supposed to cultivate adherence to the sutras. I am now really practicing my ahimsa, aparigraha, and santosha. Something about that actually feels pretty freeing.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

self-

Anyone who has known me for a while knows that I struggle a lot with who I am. I suffer with envy. I envy people who have the skills I don't or the resolve that I don't or the sensibilities or natural talents or inclinations that I don't. And the list of things that I wish I "were" or could be is long. This is in part why I am drawn to certain aspects of yoga philosophy.

I think I am a good writer but I don't know if I am a profound thinker. I am okay with that some days (though less so whilst in school). I know I am smart, but I also know it takes me a while to figure shit out. That said, the one thing I do know and can say with some authority - I am a good teacher. I know that and I love love love teaching. One aspect of my talents is to boil down a complex idea and make it accessible and to some extent exciting (even if not rigorous).

Upon approaching the end of course work, I am starting to read stuff that I want to read. Lately, I am really interested in anarchism and the minutia of collective process. I believe in the liberatory potential of collective process. As a teacher, I wonder, I really do wonder, how likely it is to pull people into believing that collective process is a good way forward. I have seen how hard it is and how much time it takes up. I have seen people rip each other to shreds. I have avoided collective situations in which I see that happening and then guiltily enjoy the fruits of their labor.

This is obviously piggybacking on my last post. I went to the Toronto Anarchist Assembly and Bookfair this past weekend and I love these gatherings. I loved seeing people walking around with homemade vegan food and their dogs - making stuff and hugging and listening to rad music and reading great books and making great zines. It's amazing to watch community unfold in that way. But it is a subculture and it has its own codes (but what collective process doesn't, right?). It makes me wonder how to tap into the profound humanity I see in a lot of my students and harness their compassion into movements. On what scale do activists see the work unfolding and how much of a learning curve is tolerable in activist community?

As such, I think about intermediary institutions like the Highlander School or Mountain Justice Summer or "alternative" education systems like the Sudbury schools and I begin to recommit myself to "education as the practice of freedom". I am beginning re-believe (I lost something somewhere, probably in the process of grading papers) in education as a way to introduce people to radically different forms of social organization than they are used to. While I certainly think I want to finish my PhD, I want to teach above all else and I still consider other forms of education as a possible life path.

I frankly have to learn to appreciate my skills as they are right now and stop beating myself up because I am not the most poignant thinker in the classroom or the most dedicated activist with the best analysis and skills at the meeting or the most flexible yogi or even the best teacher. I have to forgive myself for my "selfish" pursuits (yoga, house buying, movie watching with Chris) and remember, as a colleague and friend once told me, the work will always be there. And I have to do the work as I can do it and let it go when I can't. If I want to do this for the rest of my life, I have to make my life sustainable because I have burned the candle at both ends and I have burnt out and gone crazy (literally) and dropped out and I don't want to do that again.


Tuesday, April 6, 2010

you are a very clear writer

I wrote this paper proposal about mountaintop removal for Political Ecology. We had to post it on the "moodle" -which is akin to an academic facebook kind of thing. Then we have been assigned folks for whom we have to review their proposals (and folks in turn review ours) and post them to the public forum. The two people who reviewed my proposal both stated, "clearly written and I can see how you’re writing this with broader audiences in mind" and "what you were writing about, it was clear and accessible. Which i think is quite important if you are going to be writing as an activist in the future"... Is it weird to find that insulting? Granted, the second quote came from a gal for whom that was only redeeming quality she could find in my proposal, so maybe I am perceiving this as a backhanded compliment.

But there is a broader tension here. This really irritates me. Why is academia so insular? Unless you're Foucault and have your own "authentic" voice, why would one want to obscure their ideas in a bunch of mumbo jumbo? And why does it feel like an insult to be clear? It's as if being clear and being a complex thinker are mutually exclusive. And why does this feel insulting to the activist community? Activists are some of the smartest people I know. Really. And I'm in rooms full of smarty-pants all day long, many of whom wouldn't know how to tie their own shoes but could tell you all bout the intellectual trajectory of Kant, Hegel... yawn. And for my academic friends, this is not ubiquitously you. But, my goodness, sometimes I want to strangle the people who perpetuate the "ivory tower" insularity that I think plagues the left academic world. No wonder we're largely (but not totally) irrelevant.

Rant rant rant.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

necessary learning

It's no secret (or maybe it is), that an important aspect of activism is learning how to retool relationships so that they (we?) don't reproduce the oppressive structures of the dominant culture. I had a long conversation last night with a gal in my department who is very involved with one of the leading activist groups in this here city and that conversation really got me thinking...

In my experience, it is common, if not encouraged, for people to "call out" folks for doing "fucked up" shit in their organizing. For example, men who take up too much space or white folks who reproduce white privilege in organizing are (and should be) taken to task for their inability to recognize that their behavior is oppressive. I will make myself very very clear here. This is a very important and very necessary aspect of organizing.

That said, when does it go too far? The phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" sticks out in my mind. I think that it's a load of shit. Unless one is an infiltrator, people who are doing the hard hard work of organizing and activism are well-intended. The nuances of their behaviors and intentions are important to scrutinize, yes. At what point, however, does scrutiny fracture the movements themselves? Do activists spend too much time tearing one another apart that they forget who the real "enemy" is? Can we forgive one another for our steep learning curves given that most of us have internalized the subtle fucked up aspects of white supremacist capitalist heteronormative ableist speciesist patriarchy? Is trying enough?

There is another kind of balance here and this one is going to be a little bit more difficult to tease out and will no doubt invite more scrutiny. The gal that I was chatting with last night said something to the effect, "There are people in real crisis, people whose lives are being ruined by the policies and practices that we are fighting. I can't expect already overworked core members of the group that I am a part of to deal with my shit of feeling like I am not being treated nicely or expect people to put their already overtaxed energies toward helping me learn how to organize better. I need to learn how to be called out in order to work on myself and I don't expect that it should be done gingerly."* And she's right. When one sees the atrocities unfolding all around them, how can it be justified that the privileged movement actor who is coming from a comfortable place needs coddling in order not to feel bad about herself in the process of trying to become involved in the world in a meaningful way? But then, how does that mindset push people out of movements and lend to burnout?

I'm of two minds about this and this is why I am writing this blog. I think it's true that those with little to lose, those with a lot of privilege aren't the ones who are being served by these movements. But, many people engaged in these activities often give huge parts of themselves over to them, develop intense relationships with their "comrades", and because they are often so busy, begin to rely on these networks not only for their political but emotional needs.** And because we are human, we need nurturing and support from those around us. I don't think it is wrong to expect that. At what point, then, does the scrutiny become a detriment to the emotional well-being of activists and lend to people dropping out of the movement, getting burnt out, or even getting pushed out? And if we are trying to undo the oppressive practices of the larger world, wouldn't that begin with compassion?***

All this is to say, what are activists' responsibility to one another's emotional well-being? I don't know, I really don't.


*I know for a fact that "gingerly" is not a word that came out of her mouth.

**Upping the Anti published an editorial along these lines in their most recent issue. I don't fully agree with it's conclusion but friendship in activist circles is certainly something to think through.

***And this is where I get muddled because there are certainly limits to my compassion. I could easily name names.

Monday, March 29, 2010

"I'm always pacing around and walking away"

Yoga is probably the only place where I can concentrate on a task for more than 30 minutes at a time. Mind you, I am not talking about 'reading about yoga' but doing yoga. I've never been very good at reading the philosophy.

I somehow manage to get all of my reading done in school. Granted, they are not the closest reads, but I do it. I don't know how though. Really. I feel like I can scarcely stay still for more than ten minutes at a time. It's a troubling tendency. I do, however, get engrossed in reading about the "horrors" of the modern world. Right now, my current fascination (and horror) is mountaintop removal and factory farming. These texts I can read for long stretches, especially when there are stories of people entangled in them. All this is to say I don't love theory as much as I love description. To take it a step further, I wonder how 'good' a sociologist I am as a result. I have a really hard time sitting on my ass reading this shit and I have to keep reminding myself that I am taking this time to do intense study and then, later, I can reengage in the "world" in a way I find meaningful. It's all I can do, though, not to take off and do the work, learn about the work by doing it rather than reading about it.

More than that, I feel like a total fraud. Who am I to say what's what if I don't get off my ass?

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

New Season

The past two weeks have been kind of whirlwindish. I took part in organizing a conference, attended a conference in New York, hosted several folks at my home, and, oh yeah, bought a house. Well, poor Chris is the one who has borne much of that responsibility, but still.

I'm not sure if it's spring or the promise of the end of coursework or the anticipation of tearing out drop ceilings and ripping out carpets but everything feels a little bit better and entirely more manageable. I am still struggling with sitting still - or at least coaxing my brain to stay still - for more than 10 minutes but I wonder if that's just who I am.

One thing that I've been feeling is a sense of possibility that I frankly haven't felt in a long time. This is in part because I have been feeling more connected lately. For Left Forum, I went to the obligatory environmental panels because I still believe that it's the most pressing and frightening issue I can think of. But I also went to "indulgence" panels. One such panel was entitled "Organizing in a Culture of Isolation", the other "Pun Rock: Cultural Space for Transformative Politics?". Both moved me in that I started thinking about the politics of space, place, and emotional connection. And the two speakers who moved me most were the least academic in their demeanor and presentation. In the Culture of Isolation panel, three of the (male) participants spouted off (useful) statistics and relevant reading materials. The last one to speak was an activist (female) who described the space in which she works and the function of food and comfort in good organizing. She was very smiley. Part of the reason I went to the punk rock panel was that there was a woman speaking on it who I knew from my post-riot grrrl feminist activism days. She was a key organizer for the Visions in Feminism conference. I didn't think she'd remember me at all. When I walked in, she immediately recognized me and her face lit up into this broad beautiful smile. And when it was her turn to speak, she started by saying that in coming to consciousness, she was comforted to realize that she wasn't crazy but just felt things really hard. She then went on to describe the culture in which we live as being like receiving a million little paper cuts (she borrowed this from someone) and discussed the transformative but tricky spaces of music and DIY as a way to reclaim the lost dignity of an oppressive and deadening culture.

Strangely, these panels informed how I think about my "work" as much as the panels on ecological destruction and the logic of "late" capitalism. It's all tied together. Isolation, internalized oppression, consumption, loneliness, lack of community, and the absence of vision that can paralyze people. I just remember how beautiful my feminist community was then. I take for granted all I learned in those days - I didn't forget it, I just take it for granted because, my g-d, how could my life be any other way?