Apocalypse?

Woke up to the real Thanksgiving, and it was one of those mornings where you read the news and the world seems to have gone to hell overnight. My obscene good luck seems to have ground to a dramatic halt. Having just submitted my Indian visa and almost bought my ticket to pursue double research in Mumbai, I woke up to hear the city is in flames, that Americans are being targeted, hostaged, murdered on rooftops. My back-up plan, Bangkok, Thailand is coincidentally also on the verge of catastrophe and all the airports are closed while Americans are being flighted out… I am fully aware that these are thoroughly selfish responses, I additionally have deep sorrow for those who have been affected. And the production here has been canceled because funding pulled out at the last minute. While this in itself is educational and relevant to my research, and though I’ve already learned much and will continue to do so my last weeks here, it is still a downer. I was so jittery yesterday that I felt highly over-caffeinated, then realized I was just feeling stress and sadness. Guess it’s a sign of how well things have been going that I didn’t recognize it as such. I feel restless, as all the options I was so excited for are closing to me. I guess if I get stranded in Spain it won't be such a bad thing, ha...

My mom’s voice as it crackled like autumn leaves through the no-doubt very expensive connection yesterday, would counsel taking this moment to reflect upon what I am grateful for. Yesterday I pretty much just had the heart to hibernate. And today I don’t have any eloquence regarding my gratitude, but it is of course still present; mainly in the deep love I am radiating out from this freezing Balkan city to project around the world. My people are so scattered, but I am so deeply lucky to know and care for as many people as I do, and to know they in turn love me. I have received massive support, letters, a near constant stream of love and news… For this I am deeply grateful, as well for the physical safety of those I love.

Stuffed

I cooked an entire vegetarian Thanksgiving today! It rained all day, and I was cozy inside over steaming pots and creatively maximizing a poorly equipped kitchen. I got the date wrong, but the food right. Yet as nice as it was, with the mess delayed till tomorrow, a gifted plant, and good company, I’m feeling… I was going to say lonely, but that’s not it- I feel old. I feel overwhelmed by all that I don’t know and weighted down by what I do. I feel capable- I can imagine a 30-something-th Thanksgiving in which I feel trapped, and my capability leads to resentment. Makes me shiver. Makes me feel tired. Tonight, I have to consciously shift this image, push it aside. Maybe I’ll be more thankful come Thursday’s REAL T-day.

My most remembered and maybe most beloved holidays have been the most complex ones: Christmases pervasive with death, or delayed flights, or potlucks in Ecuador, or winter trains to the middle of the U.S., or freezing Midwest heartfull, or New Years in a cantina in the Republica Dominicana. I hope my quirk-factor outweighs the rest. And that this premature-Thanksgiving in the Balkans is a premonition of sorts. Of spontaneity trumping superiority. Of my own optimism. Let it be, amen. I hope I find someone who can remind me of my best self by their love. And also that I grow enough to be able to remind myself- more consistently anyways.

Succint May Memory

Memory:
Early May, pretending the tentative spring evening is undiluted summer, I put on paint stained cut-offs and started my last art project of college. I'd delayed, not out a lack of desire, but wishing to create something conclusive, important, to capture these fleeting moments whose worth I was suddenly fervently aware of. I spread out on the deck, and though it was too cold and my mess of tissue paper and photo scraps not conducive to the wind, this succinct moment is preserved with great care. I think I was nostalgic even as it was occurring.

My roomie and dear friend Elliot was reading in the chair, bundled in the blanket I identify with him and sipping tea, probably English Breakfast. We pulled a lamp out, and it was as though we created a cozy living room under the stars. Heady with a youthful hubris of our own creative spontaneity. The lilac was just starting to bloom. I would pick flowers and leave these offerings in their rooms much like my mom did for me- oh how obvious our learning pattern of how we show our love.

This evening was so COLLEGE, so ardent and urgent and fleeting; this home we so earnestly created and dissembled. These minutes so soon to be eclipsed by night chill, obligations, hopping on my bike to rush to the darkroom- a moment gone, but whose existence is more significant than its passing.

I don't know why that came to me so clearly right now. Perhaps because I long for a sense of belonging or creativity. I am so damn anonymous these days. We huddle our sense of self in our activities, in what others know us for, in what we do. So of course learning the more grounded facets of ourselves will be a lonely business. I know in my bones I will long for this transience as soon as I return.

CHOICES

~Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina~
(Nov. 17th 2008)

I am in one of those slightly discontent moods that I can't quite shake; not solid enough to have beauty in its melancholy or light enough to be banished by an overnight bus ticket or sickly sweet espresso and postcards to loved ones. Today I had a moment of total dislocation, discordance, and the jangle of nerves like I imagine the snap of a guitar string to be. A perplexed jolt of, 'what am I doing here?'

Usually in moments like these, making art or others happy (same thing? what is more creative than love...) brings color back to my eyes. While writing doesn't carry the visceral release of paint or toxic photo chemicals, its the best I can do in this moment as I huddle over a cafe heater. I spill words over torn out book pages to honor my emotions in a plea or prayer for a more intentional life. In this "prayer", I try to be glad that I can feel anything if not the emotions I would choose.

Re-reading what I'd written reminds me of a poem by Nikki Giovanni that I love:

CHOICES

If i can't do
what i want to do
then my job is to not
do what i don't want
to do

It's not the same thing
but it's the best i can
do


If i can't have
what i want . . . then
my job is to want
what i've got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more to want


Since i can't go
where i need
to go . . . then i must . . . go
where the signs point
through always understanding
parallel movement
isn't lateral


When i can't express
what i really feel
i practice feeling
what i can express
and none of it is equal


I know
but that's why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry

I miss refill mugs of NW coffee...

Its a sleepy Sunday. Some great dramatic sunlight slanting the grimy apartment walls across the street and splashing some color onto the grey. Listening to Graceland. Made a huge jug of Turkish coffee to try and redeem myself by some productivity post-clubbing-till-6 am and sleeping-in-till 2 pm. The night-life here has a fast metabolism and lots of self confidence. I am super impressed by the party stamina and only hope I can make Ellie proud by shaking the Polaroid picture till the wee hours of the morning. I dig this bar called, get this, sound it out, "Bitef Art Cafe" where raucous cover bands play the soundtrack of my life- ie. dirty dancing and other songs that in the States basically serve for bouncing around your room in your panties here become ultra HIP. Hilarious. And then this other bizarre techno club on the 9th floor of askyscraper where I got to be on feminist patrol, lucky me!

I don't know when I will cease to be amazed by the subtlety with which life in a new place becomes normal. It seems so elusive, that moment when you suddenly look around and realize you have people, and purpose, and routine, and spontaneity, whether its Mexico City or the gritty and glamorous Balkan Belgrade. And in that gentle shift from new to a sense of place you forget all the work, energy and self-doubt that went into making a home and just marvel at the reality of it.

Saving the World and Dying Alone

I appreciate the candidness of the women I'm working with at the ATC (www.atc.org.yu). We talk about taboo subjects such as burnout/exhaustion/NGO tourism, etc. I am allowed to ask questions, to receive blessed permission to not think about sexual violence all the time. To see INTELLIGENT idealism in action, and what action!

But having the most brilliant gorgeous woman look you frankly in the eye over instant coffee and say love and partnerships are virtually incompatible with devoted activism makes me squirm. My god, if she can't juggle it all, how will I? Its possible to live a very complete and meaningful life, but to somehow miss that part. I've seen it happen, and its gradual, and there is no fault in it. There is a window of time that you can miss- and I'm not talking biological clock bull, because I intend to be having sex in my 70's. No, I mean a period of time when you are still flexible and your heart has an imagination that can expand to include another flawed human being into your life dream. I don't want to miss that. But though I'd like to think my desire alone is enough, its not. No one ever thinks they'll be the one who won't find staying-love; we all kind of think we are the protagonists of our own stories, and every good story has some kind of romance.

I desire love and I desire a career synonymous with a cause that I can give myself over to: to be a vessel. But if you volunteer for said immersion does that mean you don't get to be a whole person? I reject that. I also fear it. I fear becoming so focused that everything, and more importantly everyone, becomes problematic- that I become so morally outraged and urgent that I become rigid and unforgiving. I think so far I value balance too much to be truly great at anything, and for that I am glad. A part of me hopes this extends to love as well; that I can exchange lofty ambition for a humble but meaningful life with a partner by my side.

I want it all. I want to care deeply with real compassion, yet I don't want Eve's voice whispering in my ear as I try to sleep about women in the Congo being forced to watch their husbands be decapitated or to eat babies. How do these realities exist in my world alongside crushes and horniness and normal things like eating brown rice every day and making sure I have clean clothes? I want to be able to draw myself a hot bath to relax from endless articles about rape used as a strategy of war, and sink into the hot water mindless as muscles unwind... Instead of picturing Cassie's ex-boyfriend crouched over another bathtub dismembering three limbs and wondering what the hell that means? Is a head a limb? How do people do that? I do this work, though I haven't been raped. I am learning to fear men and that is NOT the lesson I want to take away from this. My fantasies as I walk to the bus aren't about someone I like, but about kicking ass.

We have a responsibility to love ourselves and truly LIVE our lives, as we fight for women to have this opportunity. If I could be a witness in the Congo, stand in front of a tractor or shame the peacekeepers or something, I think I would do it. I would die for a cause but only if I thought it would do some real good. Our lives are not only our own, but belong to those we love and who love us, and perhaps also the people we fight for. So what's the answer? Eve says daily dancing should be mandated. We eat lots of chocolate in the office. I have no answers, only questions.

New Days

(Obama pride over blackberry beer)

(All Saints Day in Zagreb, Croatia- poignant sad music as everyone flocks to the cemetery)

These last two weeks have been so full; I have hesitated to put my thoughts into words. I miss art- messy chalk pastels and leaky acrylic under my fingernails. However, as I feel some of my revelations slipping away as well as my intentionality, and writing and photography seem to be my creative outlets, I'll go ahead and forego the succinct "moral of the story" posts I seem inclined to, and just spew what's in my heart right now.


Like my quirky Halloween in Croatia, surrounded by Couch Surfers and 80's techno (I'm missing filthy American dancing...) election "night" was equally surreal. My sense of the urgency of needed change in U.S. foreign policy has increased exponentially since being in the Balkans. Americans are perhaps the favorite categories of comedy here: our ignorance to geography, languages, overly fake friendliness and obsession with being PC while being international bullies... Though elements of this are of course correct, I've surprised myself by the things I DO appreciate about the States, as well as my reaction to the hypocrisy and easy laughs inspired by perpetuated stereotypes. Having heard more blatant sexism, racism, and gallons on homophobia since being here, I appreciate our self-conscious guilt (until the point that its crippling not catalytic).

Even in the face of so much Obama-ptimism, there is utter disillusionment/hopelessness among Serbians towards the U.S.; more so than any other country I've visited. Perhaps its to do with the visual reminders: buildings that still gutted and decimated by our bombs. Point is, stayed up all night curled in bed watching the BBC election results pour in whileskyping with Lin in South Korea and Megan in San Fran, and while it wasn't partying in the streets w/Oprah, there was something appropriate about watching the sun rise while tears leaked down my face and Obama delivered his eloquent acceptance speech. So, I tremulously/proudly donned my Obama-t and walked to work, and the few "I love Obama!"s that I got were enough to water my hopes that some day we may actually be cautiously proud to be Americans...

a few more fav. pics :)

Photos from last year's WU production! Warm my heart.

(These photo are courtesy of the lovely and talented Emily Tess Johnson, should be viewed as copywrited, etc. and not re-used without her permission)