Month: September 2019

Neverland

We live in Neverland, or so we have convinced ourselves. This could never happen. That could never happen. I could never do that. We will never do that. And on and on. But is it true? Who decides what is possible and what is not? We so often point to the “system” these days and throw our hands up in the air. Everyone knows that the system is the problem. Although we don’t agree on the nature of that problem, we do agree that it simply cannot be changed. The course of history is set in stone. All I’m asking is… are we sure?

So many “I could never do that’s,” so little time. It seems to me that I am not wasting any! This past week I have been on a, let’s call it hectic, adventure running here and there. It wasn’t meant to be quite as hectic as it has turned out, but then again- that’s life! Sometimes. I was supposed to head down to Houston to celebrate my parents’ birthdays, squeeze in a few business meetings, and catch up with friends. Then I would hop a plane to Colorado for some business with the U.S. Department of Energy before returning home to Vermont. That was the plan.

Let’s start with the fact that I was very nervous about this plan. My nervousness wasn’t based on my itinerary, per se, it was based on one simple fact- I still have a goatee. If you need a recap as to why, revisit my post “Hairy.” When I wrote that post I was early into growing out my goatee and still had a long list of things I could never do with it ahead of me. I wasn’t sure if I was going to face those fears or not, and I gave myself full permission not to. Here is a partial list of things I could never do:

I could never interview for a job with a goatee.

I could never get on an airplane with a goatee.

I could never go to Houston with a goatee.

I could never face my parents with a goatee.

I could never go to an important business meeting with a goatee.

I’m sure I could list a million things, because the truth is that just about every other thing gives me some form of angst. The thing is that I just didn’t know how deeply ingrained this effort to hide myself has been, nor how successful it’s been. So you can see that this trip invoked a whole slew of my deepest fears. I honestly wasn’t sure if or how I would face them. True to course, I had a complete panic attack the day before I was supposed to leave. Understand that my goatee is now quite prevalent. It’s unavoidable. It makes me highly visible in the exact way that I don’t like to be. People notice me. Ugh.

Mostly what happens is that at first people see my hair hair (the hair growing from my head rather than my face & chin) which is blonde and quite long at this point. Due to that and my stature they immediately register “woman.” Then they catch sight of my goatee and there is this visible moment of complete disconnect. It’s simple cognitive dissonance. They naturally go to their memory banks for an image that they can utilize to make sense of what they are seeing… and there is none. Nope, no images of women with goatees in there for most folks. I get it. It’s interesting to watch it. I am learning not to be bothered by it. It’s nothing personal. Uncomfortable, yes. Personal, no. It gives me an opportunity to work on holding an empathetic space for an expanded sense of possibilities. It gives others, of course, an expanded sense of possibilities for their memory banks. All of that is interesting and doable.

But then there are the wounded parts of myself. The parts of myself that have faced judgement and rejection are not quite so empathetic. That part of myself wants to crawl under a rock, or perhaps kill you. That part of myself feels the sting if that look of confusion turns into any sort of judgy stare or even glare… which on occasion it has. One might ask why in the hell I would subject myself to this. Those were, in fact, the first and only words out of my father’s mouth, “Why are you doing this?” Sometimes, I wonder that too! Yet I know why. So here is your answer. I am doing this to allow the wounded parts of myself space to be felt, expressed, seen, and healed. I am lucky that I have such a tangible means through which to invoke all of the small ideas about the world (and therefore me) that oppressed me in the first place.

Why on earth we humans decided that women are not beautiful as they naturally occur is beyond me. I don’t understand this. Growing up in Houston, Texas and the South in general comes with certain expectations if not demands when it comes to how females are supposed to appear. I never felt comfortable filling that image. This is mostly because I find it to be unnatural, when in fact I appreciate the beauty of raw nature. I think women are beautiful – more beautiful- without all of the masks. I was trained to wear makeup at age 13. I won’t even get into hairstyling. Then there are the clothes, the mannerisms, the not being too assertive or too smart, and on and on and on. Yuck. I found it oppressive, and confusing.

Yet by the time I arrived on the East Coast to start college I would never even think of walking out of my dorm room without a full face of makeup on. That is, until I noticed that for the first time in my life, most of the other women on campus were not wearing makeup. Hallelujah!!! Let freedom ring!!! I stopped it all immediately… the makeup, the hairstyling, all of it. By my junior year I had cut my hair boyishly short. Returning to Houston in this condition was, well, nerve racking to say the least. This is to say that I have dealt with this anxiety before. While nobody had a problem identifying me as a woman on the East Coast, I was routinely asked if I was in the wrong bathroom back in Houston. Ugh. Why can’t you see me??? Do you understand that the messaging is that women are not beautiful just as they are? This is to say that we are not good enough. While I think we have made progress on this front over the last 25 years, we are not there yet. So, yes, I am growing out my goatee as a declaration. Here it is: “I am beautiful just as I am.” Well, that, and… “I don’t give a damn if you don’t agree with me!” Mind you, I have to muster a lot of gumption day in and day out to hold this messaging in my mind. The world has done quite a good job of convincing me otherwise.

Now for that list of never coulds. I have chosen one by one, step by step, to keep facing them. Two weeks ago I went to a job interview with goatee a flowing. This wasn’t just any job interview either. This was THE interview… you know, the one for the perfect job that I have been jockeying for for three years now- a teaching job in the Architecture Department at Middlebury College. Granted, the interview was just for a short, temporary gig for Winter Term. But still. If I didn’t pass this test then I would’t be considered for a permanent position later on. My every last nerve went berserk- complete panic attack. There is some part of me though that is ready and willing to fight for me, to stand up for me, to take back complete control over my own narrative. This part of me said, “You are doing it.” So I did. Although I do have to admit to crying en route to my interview. But you know what, in spite of that initial awkward moment of cognitive dissonance, the interview went great. And… I got the job!

Next stop, Houston. Passing the job interview test helped some, but it didn’t stop me from having a panic attack all over again. In these moments I just stare at myself in the mirror trying to be o.k. with it all and wondering if I can. Then I remind myself that the point is to be uncomfortable, to get the very reflections from others that I am trying to move past. This helps me to invite those reflections rather than trying to hide from them. After some serious deliberations I psyched myself up to move ahead with it. Then the storm came. Tropical Storm Imelda that is. The night before I was supposed to leave, the storm was predicted to make landfall and flood Houston. It is impossible to play dice with the weather. No matter what you do, you loose. I ended up changing my flight to a day later in hopes that the worst of it would be over by then. Of course that didn’t happen. Instead the storm stalled out and arrived a day late and the very thing that I was trying to avoid- getting stranded in Newark- happened. Nature will have her way.

At first my flight was only delayed, or so they thought. I took my extra time at the airport to pull out my computer and start something that I have been meaning to start for some time now, to the point that it had been nagging me like a pesky five year old for days. Sitting there with the Manhattan skyline in full view, I started to write my book. Yes, you heard it here first, folks. Book is in progress. Then they cancelled my flight.

Fortunately, I have friends in Jersey- Mary, my best friend from college, to be specific. She lives in Princeton so I texted her to ask what our plans were for the evening. It turns out that we were heading to Philly for a screening of her husband Jim’s trailer for the movie he is working on. Take that, Imelda! Actually, here is what I really think. I really think that nature takes very good care of us and this was a case in point. Not only did I get to see one of my best friends, but I also got to see Jim’s family who I hadn’t seen since they got married, well, let’s just say some time ago! It was so great. They were all so, so happy to see me and we had a marvelous time together. And it was all so damn comforting, which is exactly what I needed in that moment. The following day I was supposed to be attending the climate strike in Houston with one of my close friends there. I instead went to the one in Princeton. No harm, no foul. And for the record, go, Greta!

As I walked through the Princeton campus to catch the Dinky (train) back to Newark, something dawned on me. Just the day before I had sat looking out at the Manhattan skyline recalling how much I love NYC and have felt at home there since my days at Princeton, even though I have never lived there. Then I ended up at Princeton, which most definitely has been and feels like home to me. Now I was heading back to Houston, the home where I grew up and have spent the majority of my life. From there I would be heading back to Denver, Colorado, which is my family’s home and where my grandparents had always lived during my life. This trip was quite literally walking me back through my entire history, step by step. Such a strange turn of events. Yet it mirrored exactly what I have been doing, walking myself back step by step by step.

When I landed in Houston, what can I say, there it was right out of the gate…. the glare. The glare of a white middle aged male as I walked past him to get to the rental car shuttle. He turned his head a full 180 degrees keeping his eyes on me as I walked past just to make sure that he maximized his full glaring opportunity. I paid no mind. Look, Houston, I know it isn’t everybody, but the truth is that you have some work to do still. You have some work to do on multiple fronts, in fact- social, economic, and ecological to name a few. I get to say this and call attention to it because I am a native. I have earned that right having called Houston home for the last 50 years. It’s true that I have more to say to you than to most places, but that is because I know you best. We are family. I see you for who you are, as you are, in your naked truth. Yes, you are naturally beautiful and full of potential, but as I shared with my greenie friends at brunch on Sunday, it is way past time for you to face your shadows so that your true beauty can shine through. I am not convinced that you will, but I’ll keep cheering for you- from a safe distance.

Most people don’t know what to say about my goatee, so they choose to say nothing. That is how most people, and my friends in particular, show their support. They choose not to make a big deal about it. I am still trying to figure out how to open up conversation about it myself. For the time being, I also choose not to say anything and proceed as I normally would. But you know what has been the best reaction so far, besides the complete loving support that I have received from Shannon, that is? My very good friend Amanda leaned over to me during brunch amidst a whole table of friends and whispered “I love your scruffy.” I just had to say that. Thank you, Amanda! That put a huge smile in my heart.

Finally the last leg of this little adventure landed me in Colorado where I have been doing some important work with the U.S. Department of Energy. I am still in Colorado as I write. All I can say is that I was so tired by the time that I got here that I couldn’t even begin to care anymore… at least not about my goatee! I care deeply about the work that we are doing and feel so grateful that I am able to make a meaningful contribution and that I am trusted to do so. I have many friends in the DOE and you know what, not a single one of them seemed to care one iota about my goatee. They cared quite a lot, however, about what I had to say. They also care quite a lot about me personally and how things are going in my life. The feeling and respect is mutual. And it is this way because we all show up with authenticity and genuine care for each other and for the planet.

Nature is as it is. I am as I am. You are as you are. All three statements are related. I noticed something as I walked through Princeton, then Houston, then a short hike this afternoon in Colorado. I noticed the air. The air is distinct and familiar to me in each place. In each place it has a particular feel, a particular buoyancy, a particular smell. Each one was familiar to me and each one felt like home to me in its own way. That is because the air of each place is embodied in me. It is embodied in me in the way that my body has adapted to it. It is embodied in me in the fact that it has delivered breath and life to me. It is embodied in me in the way that it has delivered molecules that have literally been incorporated into my own body. There is no escaping that we are one with this place and with each other.

Now to end this little story with my original line of questioning. Are we sure that everything is set in stone? I notice that I am evolving, even though I am fundamentally the same person that I have always been and even though I am interdependent on the places and the people who have informed my life. I notice that Houston is evolving, even if not as quickly as I think it must. I notice that humanity is evolving, even if it looks like we are moving backwards these days. More than anything, I notice that we have written the rules that guide what we call “the system.” Nobody outside of ourselves decided that women should wear makeup and should not have goatees. We did that. If you still think that women should not have goatees, all I can say to you is that I have one- quite naturally- and I am a woman. Guess what? We have full power to rewrite ourselves, to rewrite the rules that we have written, to drop what no longer serves us, and to write a new ending/beginning. How do we do so? Step one: face our shadows. Do whatever it takes. Grow out that goatee (metaphorically speaking) if necessary!

Storytelling

Our stories are so important. They tell us who we are. Shannon and I are all about the stories these days. We have just initiated a Story of Place project with our community on Lake Hortonia. More about that in the future. For the moment it means that we are out there making connections in and around our community as well as with the storytelling experts, such as those at the Vermont Folklife Center. On Wednesday we went to see their exhibit, Ice Shanties, and ended up getting a tour of their archives in the process. Then yesterday we went to an event/workshop that they were co-hosting in Burlington. It included a “story booth”, where everyday common folk could go in to tell a bit of their own personal story. We decided to take it for a short test spin just to get the feel for it. Shannon (very quickly I might add) took the role of interviewer, which meant I had to be the interviewee. Sample questions were posted around the booth and I pointed to my favorite. It was simple: “What time period of your life would you like to talk about?”

I quickly realized that just because I liked the question didn’t mean I had an immediate answer for it! Or to be more precise, I knew, but I wasn’t ready to go there in that moment. There are some things that are easy to talk about and others not so much. I went with something easy. We were just practicing after all. One of the main points of yesterday’s event was to share research that shows that the better we know our family stories, the healthier we are. Yes, that is what the research shows. The organizers of this event were interested in extending the same thinking to the community at large. If we better know the stories of our community, does the community become healthier? I suspect that it does. It’s pretty simple really. The more we know our stories, the more connected we are. The more connected we are, the more whole we are. The more whole we are, the healthier we are. Simple. All we have to do is open our mouths and start sharing.

It should at least be easy to share the nuts and bolts stuff, the joyful stuff, the fun stuff. Yet now would be a good time to ponder how much you really know about your parents and their parents and so on. How much of their stories have/did your parents and grandparents actually share with you? How much did you listen?! There are a ton of questions that get at your parents’ stories such as “what jobs did your parents work when they were younger?” I know that my father pumped gas and changed oil at his father’s gas station growing up. But as it turns out, I don’t know what jobs my mother may have had growing up or up through college until she became a Registered Nurse. In addition, I know my paternal grandfather’s work history, but not my maternal grandfather’s. This could well be because I wasn’t paying enough attention, but it’s also true that my father happens to be a talker (I mean storyteller!) whereas my mom is not quite so much. Well, Mom, you now have your assignment. You have three days to get your story straight! I am looking forward to seeing you both for your birthdays on Wednesday.

So it is interesting to discover where the holes are in what we know of our family story, and it is important to fill them. It should be relatively easy to share and to discover the easy stuff. Just volunteer the info or ask the questions. That is a great start. Yet if health is what we are after, then we can’t just stop with the easy stuff. We have to keep delving. All the way down into the hard stuff. The messy stuff. The stuff we don’t talk about. The taboo stuff. The off-limits stuff. The family secrets. All those things that we lock down in the basement never to be seen or heard. I’ve explained why before. In short, because those are the things that in large part are subconsciously controlling the story that we are writing right now. That is how unhealthy patterns are replicated through families, communities, cultures.

This is delicate work. It requires every empathetic bone in our body and then some. Starting with the easy stuff really is the best way to start. That helps to build our empathetic muscles. I would say go slow and tread consciously. That and be gentle with yourself and with others. It’s scary work. This isn’t sprint work. This is training for the marathon work. Best not to plow through it. Let me give you a case in point.

I’ve mentioned something once or twice in passing throughout this blog, but unless you are personally in the know about the previous chapter of my life, you are likely to have missed it. If you are somebody who got to know me only in my most recent chapter, you are likely to not know this about me (as I discovered from a recent reflection from somebody who had no earthly idea). Actually, there are even people from the particular chapter of my life that I am referring to who don’t know this about me! Here goes, because apparently I failed to make the announcement: I am a parent. I have two daughters, Madison and Kristen. Those two beautiful people in the photo above are them. There are a million and one reasons why not everybody knows this. As Madi said to me two days ago, “Out of sight, out of mind.” I see I have some storytelling to do.

Why has this been out of sight, you ask? Let me start by explaining that Madi and Kristen are technically my step daughters. My first partner is their biological mother from her previous marriage to their biological father. The kids were 4 and 6 when we partnered, and 16 and 18 when we split. So technically, yes, we are “step” to each other. The step never really mattered to me though. As far as I have ever been concerned, we are family.

But if step isn’t hard enough as it is, we were a gay couple on top of that. In the first place, we were not allowed to be legally married either in Texas or federally at the time. This is to say that we had no legal protections. On top of that, while things were changing in this country, they had not changed yet. My partner was deeply afraid that our kids would be taken away from her/us. This in spite of the fact that their father always knew the truth of our relationship and was supportive. So out of her fear, we remained closeted for most of our kids’ childhoods. And when I say closeted, I mean closeted… even to our kids. How we managed this, I cannot even begin to wrap my head around these days nor would I try to justify it. It was never my preference. But I was the step, so it wasn’t my decision to make. At least that is what I thought at the time. If I had to do it over again, I would choose not to participate in what was essentially a lie. In other words, I would force the issue. I would bring it to the surface. In retrospect, every single one of us would agree that being honest would have been much healthier for all of us.

But that’s not what we did. There were two schools of thought at the time. The first was tell them as early as possible such that all forms of love between two consenting adults are included in their worldview. The second is wait until they figure it out on their own because that means that they are ready to know. We went with the latter. It. Was. Crap. When Madi finally did pop the question at age 16, she was pissed. And rightfully so. In one fell swoop, the entire story of her life was upended. She no longer knew what was what, if she ever even did. Her response: “Why didn’t you just tell me??!!” Indeed. Why? And further, “If you had just told me from the get-go then it all would have felt so normal.” Right. Kristen, too, had her own processes, revelations, and breakdowns. The whole thing just sucked.

And that, to be honest, is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many things that I won’t share here, not because I don’t think that all things should be brought to the surface, owned, and released to the world for all to see. I do. But remember that this is delicate work, and it is a marathon not a sprint. Our family is still very much in the process of processing our story for ourselves and with each other. It is slow work. So slow. Painfully slow. I have been sitting here waiting, watching, holding space (at a painful distance) for my kids while the second hand ticks for over twelve years now. Madi is now 30 and Kristen 28. In that time there have been glimpses of progress, of readiness, of hope, and then… silence. Nothingness. Emptiness. Most of the time. I won’t even try to describe that pain or the sense of hopelessness that goes with it.

Let’s just say that both of my kids had, in Madi’s words, “volatile childhoods.” Yup. Very. My role in that was to be the behind-the-scenes stabilizing force. Nobody knew what was really going on or how I was handling it save my best friend Micki, probably my parents, and maybe anybody else who was observant enough to surmise what was not readily visible. Our lives were a mess. Yet as Micki likes to remind me, without me there in it, it wouldn’t have just been a mess… it would have been a disaster area. My every move was aimed at stabilizing the ship, at keeping us afloat. And I did, until I couldn’t any longer. I exhausted myself in the process. Over the years I was slowly disintegrating from the inside out. By the end I was one step away from comatose having completely forgotten who I even was anymore.

Yet even then, if I could have taken one more step for my kids’ sake, I would have. God didn’t let me. God, in her infinite wisdom, pulled the plug. That’s not the story that has generally been told about how that chapter of my life came to a crashing end, but it’s my truth. My Instructions were to model a healthy decision for my kids. Not that I really had a choice in the matter, because I didn’t have the capacity to take one more step anyway. I’m stubborn and the Universe knows it, so when push comes to shove It knows to force me to my knees in order to force my hand. I had no choice left but to trust the Universe. In that, I had to trust that the Universe was going to take over the care for my kids. I had to, because not only did I have no legal rights, I could never expect them to choose me over their biological parents. Not to mention they were young adults with minds and lives of their own by that time. I knew exactly what was going to happen next, it terrified me, it broke my heart into a million pieces, and all I could do was… watch. The aftermath was in fact all that and a bag of chips. If my kids’ childhoods had been volatile, their early adulthood was hell.

I won’t even try to describe to you how painful it was to be utterly helpless to be of any help. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I didn’t want to be there for them. Boy did I. Actually, truth be told, what I wanted to do was rip them right out of that set of circumstances. But I couldn’t. I was effectively cut out. All I could do was gently make my continued presence known to them without forcing them into a choice between parents that I never wanted them to have to make. For the most part, they couldn’t (quite) hear me. Not yet. But maybe now. Part of that has to do with the fact that I have my own wounds to heal, my own protective walls to tear down. Part of it has to do with their wounds, their walls, their own healing process. I have been doing my work, and they have been doing theirs. Perhaps we are ready now.

These days I am much better equipped to be a parent than I ever was when I needed to be. But in spite of that, I don’t regret any of it. You see I had to go down that path. I needed to be completely dismantled in all of the ways that it dismantled me. By the same token, I know in my heart of hearts that this was all part of my kids’ paths too. It made them into the beautiful people who they are today. The ways in which they have each been able to show up to their lives, to face their shadows, and to step into their authentic, loving, brave selves astonishes me. It takes my breath away. It gives me hope for the world, who we are as a species, and our ability to turn things around. We can do this by sharing our stories- even and especially the painful ones.

Madi told me a couple of days ago that her memories of childhood are foggy. I was there. I was conscious. I was an adult. I remember. I know things that shaped her life that she had no container for at the time. Same for Kristen. Sometimes when we choose a pattern- wait until they are ready to ask- we get stuck with it for awhile, until it fully plays itself out. But if we are patient enough, every choice and every path will lead us home. In the (ultimate) end, every story has the same ending- Oneness, Love. In the meantime, we each get to tell our own story as a continuation of the stories that came before us. The better we know the stories we come from, the better story we get to tell.