I'm gonna mess around and start using Twitter. I have no idea what its utility is, but why should I hold that against it?
Anyway...my Twitter account like this blog had fallen into hibernation. I've been trying to figure out how to put a barrier between my personal Twitter account and the one I maintain on my J-O-B. So I blocked a bunch of followers I didn't mind having while I was freelancing. Of course, that's nothing but a placebo. It doesn't maintain any privacy. I just thought I at least make a symbolic gesture to keep those identities separate. One is a reflection of how I see things, the other is what other people want to see. So on one side, I say represents me...but the other side represents anything but me.
Since I couldn't sleep I started tweeting. After my first one, I realized 140 characters was an interesting parameter to put on what I think. I can definitely expound on my hypothesis, but tweeting gets me to the point of it all.
I'm not too stubborn that I can't admit I judged Twitter, whatever its utility may turn out to be, hastily. And once I figure out if reckless tweeting would get me into trouble, I'll figure out how to handles it...
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Thursday, January 05, 2012
I can't get back the time I waste...
I don't do regret. I just made an executive decision about that particular emotion a long time ago. I do the best I can. That isn't necessarily the best I'm capable of at any given time, but I give whatever I have to whatever I do.
But whenever I find myself at a point where I'm forced to look back over a decision I've made and try to figure out how I got from there to here...
Sometimes I sneak right up to the precipice of regret. Instead I get angry and I start to wonder if, in fact, the effort I expended toward a particular unsuccessful end might have been a waste of my time.
And that makes me furious. And my head aches like it's doing right now because what am I supposed to do with anger? And what am I supposed to do with the absolutely impoverished notion- no pun intended- that instead of being productive or moving toward my intended goal, I was wasting my time?
But whenever I find myself at a point where I'm forced to look back over a decision I've made and try to figure out how I got from there to here...
Sometimes I sneak right up to the precipice of regret. Instead I get angry and I start to wonder if, in fact, the effort I expended toward a particular unsuccessful end might have been a waste of my time.
And that makes me furious. And my head aches like it's doing right now because what am I supposed to do with anger? And what am I supposed to do with the absolutely impoverished notion- no pun intended- that instead of being productive or moving toward my intended goal, I was wasting my time?
Thursday, December 08, 2011
The Mantra
I never walk the streets, think it's all about me
Even though deep in my heart, it really could be
I just try my best to like go all out
Some might even say yo shorty black you're buggin' out-
Phife, Buggin' Out
By way of the ridiculously creative mind of one person I know, I found the blog post of another ridiculously creative person I know. And it struck a chord. Took me back to a place I was a couple of years ago as I approached New Year 2008. I dubbed it my year of Tyler Durden. Then I fell off. Way off.
"Wherever I go, ego." Damn, Nicholas Payton. That's it. You put your finger right on it.
When I started the exploration of my concept of "a knick-knack life," the way I described my lack of self-importance apparently came across in such a way it overshadowed that I also clearly stated my belief that I, and others for that matter, are unique and marvelous.
One of the best compliments I ever received...because I thought it fit me to a "T" was from an attorney friend who told me I was "neither fungible nor interchangeable."
I was tipsy from drinking Grand Marnier at the time, but once he explained what it meant. I thought, then said out loud, "Damn right." I really should start drinking Grand Marnier again. It never fails to bring me to a transcendent plane, but I digress.
As I was saying, I never heard it quite that way, but I embraced on the spot that was exactly who I was. It also greatly raised my opinion of the person who said it, because I feel like very few people get me and I was mightily impressed he did...but again, I digress.
Nicholas goes on in his blog to say:
"I never got why when people said someone was “tooting their own horn” it was a bad thing. Isn’t that what my horn is for? If I am not to toot my own horn, then who?"
and then:
"Why can’t we say what we are anymore without “people” feeling threatened?"
and:
"I’m convinced that in the long run, the passive approach bites you in the ass. You must claim what’s yours. Nothing is given, not even to those who deserve it."
and:
"Don’t lower your leg to make the other dancers comfortable, lift that leg as high as possible and make them stretch themselves up to your level.
They’ll hate you for it in the beginning, but in the end, they’ll be better off for it."
Now these are the passages that resonated for me. I was perhaps on the verge of it, with the whole Tyler Durden pop culture thing I blogged about to start 2008 [was it really that long ago?]. I understand popular culture to be a rich mine from which to take references that easily resonate for others.
So I started with Tyler Durden and "if you want to make an omelette, you've got to crack some eggs." I still stand by that. If you're going to do anything worthwhile, you have to accept you must disrupt the status quo writ small or large.
I think was on the path to step into the personal light that Nicholas puts out there in such a poetic way (no surprise there- sitting in band class with him learning music from his father Walter Payton, we were all pushed to find and then perform the version of greatness that was within us...so I probably started drifting off when I stopped feeding my kinetically creative side and why I miss it like amputees describe the loss of their limbs, but again I digress).
The reason that phrase "neither fungible nor interchangeable" exactly captured who I am is that I already know that there "ain't nobody bad like me." I know this. I just think it's true of other people as well. That's what I meant by ordinary. Ain't nobody bad like me, and ain't nobody bad like every individual I encounter. And therefore to me, that fact is unremarkable, but I did not mean to imply I thought I was insignificant-I'll have to check and make sure I didn't use that word. [By the way. next time I'm going to cut-and-paste in a exchange I had on facebook about my spiritual perspective because it completely relates to all this, but let me finish this blog's thought...]
My issue has never been that I don't recognize my own uniqueness and marvel at it. My issue has been 'tooting my own horn.' [at this point, if you haven't already gone to the link and read Nicholas' post, you should because I can't keep stopping to paste in quotes].
I was satisfied that those who really knew me, would see me. But instead in fact, I think I was not being "unapologetically myself"at all times, but only when I was alone or safe with the handful of people who I thought understood me. I think that's all wrong not the least of which because it presumes only a small number of people will understand me. It's not my job to coddle or protect people who don't get me from who I am, full on. It might chase some away, but really, they have work of their own to do. It might delight others and give me the opportunity to expand my community. And, as Nicholas noted, it might even kick some folks into their own high gear.
Nicholas suggests we should all have a mantra:
"It’s not boasting, it’s an affirmation of what is possible when we exercise right effort with consistency. This is about the right for me to say what I want to say in the way I want to say it. The mantra you repeat is what you will bring into your existence...'It ain’t bragging if you can do it.'
Unless we put forth the mantra we want the world to repeat back to us, it’ll never happen."
In my young womanhood, I had a mantra. But I only acknowledged it to myself. I'm pretty sure, though it clearly manifested itself to other people, because I was then and remain consistently authentic.
Referencing another one of those popular culture adaptations I like so much, even before it was a plot line in an episode of "Ally McBeal," I had a theme song. And I was seriously into my theme song, I heard it in my head all the time.
If you knew me then, it will not surprise you to know it was (and to some degree remains) :
But it's time for me to state my mantra in my own terms and live in it consistently.
Guess what? I'm a bad bitch and you'll love it.
Surprised? You shouldn't be. But if you are, it's because I haven't been 'tooting my horn' as I consistently as I should...
Even though deep in my heart, it really could be
I just try my best to like go all out
Some might even say yo shorty black you're buggin' out-
Phife, Buggin' Out
By way of the ridiculously creative mind of one person I know, I found the blog post of another ridiculously creative person I know. And it struck a chord. Took me back to a place I was a couple of years ago as I approached New Year 2008. I dubbed it my year of Tyler Durden. Then I fell off. Way off.
"Wherever I go, ego." Damn, Nicholas Payton. That's it. You put your finger right on it.
When I started the exploration of my concept of "a knick-knack life," the way I described my lack of self-importance apparently came across in such a way it overshadowed that I also clearly stated my belief that I, and others for that matter, are unique and marvelous.
One of the best compliments I ever received...because I thought it fit me to a "T" was from an attorney friend who told me I was "neither fungible nor interchangeable."
I was tipsy from drinking Grand Marnier at the time, but once he explained what it meant. I thought, then said out loud, "Damn right." I really should start drinking Grand Marnier again. It never fails to bring me to a transcendent plane, but I digress.
As I was saying, I never heard it quite that way, but I embraced on the spot that was exactly who I was. It also greatly raised my opinion of the person who said it, because I feel like very few people get me and I was mightily impressed he did...but again, I digress.
Nicholas goes on in his blog to say:
"I never got why when people said someone was “tooting their own horn” it was a bad thing. Isn’t that what my horn is for? If I am not to toot my own horn, then who?"
and then:
"Why can’t we say what we are anymore without “people” feeling threatened?"
and:
"I’m convinced that in the long run, the passive approach bites you in the ass. You must claim what’s yours. Nothing is given, not even to those who deserve it."
and:
"Don’t lower your leg to make the other dancers comfortable, lift that leg as high as possible and make them stretch themselves up to your level.
They’ll hate you for it in the beginning, but in the end, they’ll be better off for it."
Now these are the passages that resonated for me. I was perhaps on the verge of it, with the whole Tyler Durden pop culture thing I blogged about to start 2008 [was it really that long ago?]. I understand popular culture to be a rich mine from which to take references that easily resonate for others.
So I started with Tyler Durden and "if you want to make an omelette, you've got to crack some eggs." I still stand by that. If you're going to do anything worthwhile, you have to accept you must disrupt the status quo writ small or large.
I think was on the path to step into the personal light that Nicholas puts out there in such a poetic way (no surprise there- sitting in band class with him learning music from his father Walter Payton, we were all pushed to find and then perform the version of greatness that was within us...so I probably started drifting off when I stopped feeding my kinetically creative side and why I miss it like amputees describe the loss of their limbs, but again I digress).
The reason that phrase "neither fungible nor interchangeable" exactly captured who I am is that I already know that there "ain't nobody bad like me." I know this. I just think it's true of other people as well. That's what I meant by ordinary. Ain't nobody bad like me, and ain't nobody bad like every individual I encounter. And therefore to me, that fact is unremarkable, but I did not mean to imply I thought I was insignificant-I'll have to check and make sure I didn't use that word. [By the way. next time I'm going to cut-and-paste in a exchange I had on facebook about my spiritual perspective because it completely relates to all this, but let me finish this blog's thought...]
My issue has never been that I don't recognize my own uniqueness and marvel at it. My issue has been 'tooting my own horn.' [at this point, if you haven't already gone to the link and read Nicholas' post, you should because I can't keep stopping to paste in quotes].
I was satisfied that those who really knew me, would see me. But instead in fact, I think I was not being "unapologetically myself"at all times, but only when I was alone or safe with the handful of people who I thought understood me. I think that's all wrong not the least of which because it presumes only a small number of people will understand me. It's not my job to coddle or protect people who don't get me from who I am, full on. It might chase some away, but really, they have work of their own to do. It might delight others and give me the opportunity to expand my community. And, as Nicholas noted, it might even kick some folks into their own high gear.
Nicholas suggests we should all have a mantra:
"It’s not boasting, it’s an affirmation of what is possible when we exercise right effort with consistency. This is about the right for me to say what I want to say in the way I want to say it. The mantra you repeat is what you will bring into your existence...'It ain’t bragging if you can do it.'
Unless we put forth the mantra we want the world to repeat back to us, it’ll never happen."
In my young womanhood, I had a mantra. But I only acknowledged it to myself. I'm pretty sure, though it clearly manifested itself to other people, because I was then and remain consistently authentic.
Referencing another one of those popular culture adaptations I like so much, even before it was a plot line in an episode of "Ally McBeal," I had a theme song. And I was seriously into my theme song, I heard it in my head all the time.
If you knew me then, it will not surprise you to know it was (and to some degree remains) :
But it's time for me to state my mantra in my own terms and live in it consistently.
Guess what? I'm a bad bitch and you'll love it.
Surprised? You shouldn't be. But if you are, it's because I haven't been 'tooting my horn' as I consistently as I should...
Monday, December 05, 2011
My Ro
Exactly a year ago, I lost my little alter ego. She reluctantly came into my life at one transition and quietly left me at another. I wish I could say I was stronger when it was time to let her go. She stayed a bit longer just for me, especially on her last day. But it only made me love her more. I can't really complain about the difficulties life sends my way for very long, because it has also brought me more than my share of true loves. And Ro was definitely near the top of the list.
She couldn't talk. Wouldn't keep a job. Never backed down from stirring up a little trouble. And she made her own rules.
I am very proud that I kept the promise I made to her the first day we met. When I picked her up, I promised I would always take good care of her. I lost her for awhile, but God sent her back to me and we were never apart from then on. At least I thought I was taking care of her, turns out she was taking care of me.
Of everything I lost this year, losing her was the only thing that made me feel lonely...
She couldn't talk. Wouldn't keep a job. Never backed down from stirring up a little trouble. And she made her own rules.
I am very proud that I kept the promise I made to her the first day we met. When I picked her up, I promised I would always take good care of her. I lost her for awhile, but God sent her back to me and we were never apart from then on. At least I thought I was taking care of her, turns out she was taking care of me.
Of everything I lost this year, losing her was the only thing that made me feel lonely...
Sunday, December 04, 2011
It's really my own fault...
Not what has happened so far in my life, but how I have chosen to react to it. Most days I think the "what has happened" version of my life is like a modern-day version of The Grapes of Wrath- I can clearly see the footprint of the zeitgeist right square on my ass. But the 'so what' of it all? That's all me.
I'm not the only person life is tossing around, so the variable is me.
The cards you're dealt make a big friggin' difference, but not nearly as much as how you play the hand you get.
I'm old enough now to sit myself down and face the facts. A lot of the things I secretly hoped would happen in my life, probably won't. Some of them because it's just the luck of the draw, but an important handful- actually the ones I hoped most would happen- probably aren't going to happen at all. Because instead of taking some risks, I sat around waiting for them to happen to me. And I finally see things don't work that way. If I had been more honest, a long time ago about how much I really wanted those handful of things to happen, they might have. But now, the chances are slim to none.
But first, the things that aren't going to happen that surprisingly enough I don't give as much of a damn about as much as I thought I would when I was younger.
I am not going to end up in the corner office with a gold key to the executive washroom. Not gonna happen. I just do not have a passion for the rat race or a drive to conquer the world. I've tried to fake it for awhile at different times in my life and it just doesn't catch hold. I love to do a good job at whatever it is I'm doing. But not for the sake of getting ahead. Usually I get my ass in gear if it helps someone else or if my livelihood is in jeopardy. Those two things will kick me into overdrive. But other than that, I'm not all fired up about getting the employee-of-the-month parking space. If I could figure out a way to support myself doing something that helped other people without any possible peril to my sustenance, I would do that. So that's one thing.
Because of that last thing. I probably will not end up in a deluxe apartment in the sky. I'm not even good about playing Powerball. I'd be really happy if I end up with a nice place to live where I can enjoy my days. But I am not going to end up stinking rich. I don't have the drive for it. Wait, that's almost the same thing as the first thing. Somewhat. My lack of professional drive means I have to accept I will probably not have the accoutrement of material comfort. I'm just not probably going to earn enough to access them. So I'm satisfied. I get what I get.
So what are the other things? I'm probably going to remain single and end up with a couple of cats instead of a couple of kids. I really like cats, so that part is not so bad. But the single, no kids part? That's a little bittersweet. I really did want those things. Like really. I never longed for siblings. But I thought when I grew up I would be so happy if I had a family of my own- that's my definition of stability and safety and success. I like taking care of other people. It's one of the few things I know I'm good at and gives me any sense of fulfillment and desire to follow through.
But I spent most of my young womanhood so scared that no one would ever want to be my partner, that I chose to get involved with people who either I was never going to commit to or recently who were never going to commit to me. Almost every day of my adolescent years someone was telling me I was ugly or ignoring me or being annoyed about me being around. I am a very sensitive soul. There are many people who think they know me and actually don't, who probably think I could give a flying fcuk about anything anybody says or does to me, but that's not true.
Every time someone says or does something hurtful to me, I spend a little time absolutely sure I am going to fly apart right on the spot.
But since it's happened so often, I just pull it together-on the outside- and get on with it. Over time though, it's just convinced me that I would never be accepted and loved and it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I have made it true because at the end of they day I have believed it would be so. And now because I took that and made it my truth, I have lived it and made it so. And I have to live with the consequences of that. No one else.
It's good to be honest about that. Because the consequences for me have absolutely nothing to do with the men with whom I've been involved, God bless them all. It's been because I have not truly believed that want I wanted would be what I would get. And being dishonest with myself about that is why I've made the choices that have gotten me here.
For the first part of my young womanhood, I got involved with guys I was not going to commit to. Not purposefully so, I had this insight in my grown-womanness.
At the time, I was aware that I was very emotionally guarded. I even knew why. But I didn't understand at the time, that as a result I was choosing to get involved with men based on my ability to keep myself emotionally protected and out of risk. I could bounce at any time. I thought that was a good thing. And to some measure it is. No healthy relationship should involve a 'need' or 'lack' but for the other person. But there should be an openness, interest and willingness to share and connect with another person. I did not have this in my emotional repertoire.
Luckily, I am not a sociopath. After hurting a couple of people, I realized that what I was doing was very unfair to the other party. I was letting someone else take a trip down a path I had no intention of travelling- risk. It actually rattled me to the core. I thought I was a risk taker. But I wasn't. And I am also not a heartless person. It never occurred to me that by focusing exclusively on not getting hurt myself, I was hurting other people. And I was very disappointed with myself. I know what hurt feels like and had no intention to visit it on another. I was just trying not to get hurt.
So I swung to the opposite extreme. I would be so open, so willing to take a risk it would make up for the guardedness I had operated with before. And so I have chosen to get involved with men who for whatever reason have no capacity to commit to me thinking: hey, once I was like that and I got over it. If they see me doing it, they'll see it's OK and do it too. Not that these men knew that they weren't ever going to commit to me-they all claimed they wanted to and maybe they meant it- but they couldn't and it wasn't going to change because I was being such a good example. But it is what it is. That's what I've been doing. It didn't work on me, and it doesn't work on them. People do what they want to do when they are ready to do it.
But I have been indulging myself by investing a measure of time hoping things will change in relationships when I really don't believe they won't. Once I realize a guy isn't going to commit, I actually know that's not going to change. I'm not that goofy. But I've been wasting too much time on the 'hoping' part.
I actually know I'm hoping. But I guess going back to the fear no one will ever want to actually be with me, I've now convinced myself that my own cynicism is the problem and that if I just hope a little harder and a little longer that things will work, they actually will. But they won't. Because I have chosen to lie to myself about the truth instead of cutting my losses. I mean maybe they could, but I don't believe that kind of shit will ever happen to me. So it ends being a lot of comedy and aggravation for everyone involved.
Right now, I'm at the tail end of doing this for the second time in a row. That irks me. The first time wasn't a surprise. The hoping part was really pro forma. It was way past time for that dude to be gone. But I think a part of me felt a little guilty about not regretting the end of it all. And I was genuinely pissed about how it went down. It offended my sensibilities, really. So I spent a couple of weeks on the hope-and-change of that. Then I was cool. On to the next.
But this time it hit me right between the eyes, I can't lie. But I saw it coming a long time ago. In fact, I've been hoping and therefore lying to myself this second time a lot longer than I expected I would. I've known I was doing it. I just haven't known how to stop. I think because I have been petrified to do so. Part of the time because my life had become so intertwined with the other person that I needed to hope it would change awhile so I could get my bearings. It gave me something to do so I wouldn't have to acknowledge I was having that fly apart at the seams thing. And I truly was in love. For the first time, after some hesitation, I really had opened up to that wanting to connect and share with another person because I thought I had found that unicorn- someone who wanted to do the same and with me. I should have known that wasn't going to happen, right? I have never believed that was possible.
So at the end of the day, even more than being willing to test my ability to alter situations with the sheer force of my hope and powers of persuasion, I am a pragmatist. If a man doesn't want to commit to you, he's not going to change his mind about it. It's a lost cause. And if he packs up and moves, it's a wrap. It ain't gonna happen. Not because of him or because of you. It just isn't, so you let it go.
The little hurt girl in me wanted somebody to choose me. Because nobody ever did. But it was my job to take care of her. I shouldn't have let her take control of my emotional choices. Because children are irrational, they don't know any better. But adults aren't. They can't afford to be. I can't afford to be.
I am single now because of me. And I may remain that way, because now I think 1) there really isn't a person out there for me to find, 2) even if that person manifests, I'm not sure I'm emotionally capable of walking the line between protecting myself and opening up and I wouldn't even try and 3) the lifestyle I lead- mostly solitary- just works against me. I just have to get right with the whole cat thing. Which leads to the second heartbreak.
The other reason this has been a struggle is because it means facing the fact that I won't have the kids either. I wanted both the partner and the kids. There's nothing wrong with being a single parent. But for me, it would be a form of emotional selfishness. It would meet my needs, but I'm not sure it's fair for someone like me to be a parent without giving the child a spare...a spare port in the storm, a spare point of view on life, a spare voice of reason... So I don't think it would work for me. There's a lot more fertility behind me than in front of me. I had the chance to really think about that a few weeks ago. But I'm a pragmatist. I did the right thing for all involved with no hesitation whatsoever. My vision doesn't involve anyone being unhappy about being there.
The end of the year is coming up and soon after, my birthday. And also somewhere around there, my secret deadline to stop acting like unicorns and hope and rainbows make the world go around. It is what it is. I've had this secret deadline for awhile, a long time actually. And I am a woman of my word. I'm going to honor it with some dignity. There's no crying in baseball or break-ups. Don't get me wrong. I am crushed. Right up until that day comes, I am going to hope as hard as I can with my fingers crossed, pinky swear, the whole nine. But when the day comes, I'm going to wake up and let it go.
So where from here? I have absolutely no idea. The things I have spent my time focusing on so far, have not actually been the things I really wanted. And I knew it. I was just too scared to admit I was not being true to myself. I get it now. But I can't go back and undo it.
So what comes between now and the sunset of it all seems like a big sigh. I mean, who the hell cares? I kind of don't. Like I said blog before last, I don't have a sense of self-importance that makes me think my life makes the world go around. I like myself and all. Thank goodness because my own company is something I got plenty of...But I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to spend another half life. Geez. And if it stretches on...I'm not sure how I feel about that.
I'm not the only person life is tossing around, so the variable is me.
The cards you're dealt make a big friggin' difference, but not nearly as much as how you play the hand you get.
I'm old enough now to sit myself down and face the facts. A lot of the things I secretly hoped would happen in my life, probably won't. Some of them because it's just the luck of the draw, but an important handful- actually the ones I hoped most would happen- probably aren't going to happen at all. Because instead of taking some risks, I sat around waiting for them to happen to me. And I finally see things don't work that way. If I had been more honest, a long time ago about how much I really wanted those handful of things to happen, they might have. But now, the chances are slim to none.
But first, the things that aren't going to happen that surprisingly enough I don't give as much of a damn about as much as I thought I would when I was younger.
I am not going to end up in the corner office with a gold key to the executive washroom. Not gonna happen. I just do not have a passion for the rat race or a drive to conquer the world. I've tried to fake it for awhile at different times in my life and it just doesn't catch hold. I love to do a good job at whatever it is I'm doing. But not for the sake of getting ahead. Usually I get my ass in gear if it helps someone else or if my livelihood is in jeopardy. Those two things will kick me into overdrive. But other than that, I'm not all fired up about getting the employee-of-the-month parking space. If I could figure out a way to support myself doing something that helped other people without any possible peril to my sustenance, I would do that. So that's one thing.
Because of that last thing. I probably will not end up in a deluxe apartment in the sky. I'm not even good about playing Powerball. I'd be really happy if I end up with a nice place to live where I can enjoy my days. But I am not going to end up stinking rich. I don't have the drive for it. Wait, that's almost the same thing as the first thing. Somewhat. My lack of professional drive means I have to accept I will probably not have the accoutrement of material comfort. I'm just not probably going to earn enough to access them. So I'm satisfied. I get what I get.
So what are the other things? I'm probably going to remain single and end up with a couple of cats instead of a couple of kids. I really like cats, so that part is not so bad. But the single, no kids part? That's a little bittersweet. I really did want those things. Like really. I never longed for siblings. But I thought when I grew up I would be so happy if I had a family of my own- that's my definition of stability and safety and success. I like taking care of other people. It's one of the few things I know I'm good at and gives me any sense of fulfillment and desire to follow through.
But I spent most of my young womanhood so scared that no one would ever want to be my partner, that I chose to get involved with people who either I was never going to commit to or recently who were never going to commit to me. Almost every day of my adolescent years someone was telling me I was ugly or ignoring me or being annoyed about me being around. I am a very sensitive soul. There are many people who think they know me and actually don't, who probably think I could give a flying fcuk about anything anybody says or does to me, but that's not true.
Every time someone says or does something hurtful to me, I spend a little time absolutely sure I am going to fly apart right on the spot.
But since it's happened so often, I just pull it together-on the outside- and get on with it. Over time though, it's just convinced me that I would never be accepted and loved and it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I have made it true because at the end of they day I have believed it would be so. And now because I took that and made it my truth, I have lived it and made it so. And I have to live with the consequences of that. No one else.
It's good to be honest about that. Because the consequences for me have absolutely nothing to do with the men with whom I've been involved, God bless them all. It's been because I have not truly believed that want I wanted would be what I would get. And being dishonest with myself about that is why I've made the choices that have gotten me here.
For the first part of my young womanhood, I got involved with guys I was not going to commit to. Not purposefully so, I had this insight in my grown-womanness.
At the time, I was aware that I was very emotionally guarded. I even knew why. But I didn't understand at the time, that as a result I was choosing to get involved with men based on my ability to keep myself emotionally protected and out of risk. I could bounce at any time. I thought that was a good thing. And to some measure it is. No healthy relationship should involve a 'need' or 'lack' but for the other person. But there should be an openness, interest and willingness to share and connect with another person. I did not have this in my emotional repertoire.
Luckily, I am not a sociopath. After hurting a couple of people, I realized that what I was doing was very unfair to the other party. I was letting someone else take a trip down a path I had no intention of travelling- risk. It actually rattled me to the core. I thought I was a risk taker. But I wasn't. And I am also not a heartless person. It never occurred to me that by focusing exclusively on not getting hurt myself, I was hurting other people. And I was very disappointed with myself. I know what hurt feels like and had no intention to visit it on another. I was just trying not to get hurt.
So I swung to the opposite extreme. I would be so open, so willing to take a risk it would make up for the guardedness I had operated with before. And so I have chosen to get involved with men who for whatever reason have no capacity to commit to me thinking: hey, once I was like that and I got over it. If they see me doing it, they'll see it's OK and do it too. Not that these men knew that they weren't ever going to commit to me-they all claimed they wanted to and maybe they meant it- but they couldn't and it wasn't going to change because I was being such a good example. But it is what it is. That's what I've been doing. It didn't work on me, and it doesn't work on them. People do what they want to do when they are ready to do it.
But I have been indulging myself by investing a measure of time hoping things will change in relationships when I really don't believe they won't. Once I realize a guy isn't going to commit, I actually know that's not going to change. I'm not that goofy. But I've been wasting too much time on the 'hoping' part.
I actually know I'm hoping. But I guess going back to the fear no one will ever want to actually be with me, I've now convinced myself that my own cynicism is the problem and that if I just hope a little harder and a little longer that things will work, they actually will. But they won't. Because I have chosen to lie to myself about the truth instead of cutting my losses. I mean maybe they could, but I don't believe that kind of shit will ever happen to me. So it ends being a lot of comedy and aggravation for everyone involved.
Right now, I'm at the tail end of doing this for the second time in a row. That irks me. The first time wasn't a surprise. The hoping part was really pro forma. It was way past time for that dude to be gone. But I think a part of me felt a little guilty about not regretting the end of it all. And I was genuinely pissed about how it went down. It offended my sensibilities, really. So I spent a couple of weeks on the hope-and-change of that. Then I was cool. On to the next.
But this time it hit me right between the eyes, I can't lie. But I saw it coming a long time ago. In fact, I've been hoping and therefore lying to myself this second time a lot longer than I expected I would. I've known I was doing it. I just haven't known how to stop. I think because I have been petrified to do so. Part of the time because my life had become so intertwined with the other person that I needed to hope it would change awhile so I could get my bearings. It gave me something to do so I wouldn't have to acknowledge I was having that fly apart at the seams thing. And I truly was in love. For the first time, after some hesitation, I really had opened up to that wanting to connect and share with another person because I thought I had found that unicorn- someone who wanted to do the same and with me. I should have known that wasn't going to happen, right? I have never believed that was possible.
So at the end of the day, even more than being willing to test my ability to alter situations with the sheer force of my hope and powers of persuasion, I am a pragmatist. If a man doesn't want to commit to you, he's not going to change his mind about it. It's a lost cause. And if he packs up and moves, it's a wrap. It ain't gonna happen. Not because of him or because of you. It just isn't, so you let it go.
The little hurt girl in me wanted somebody to choose me. Because nobody ever did. But it was my job to take care of her. I shouldn't have let her take control of my emotional choices. Because children are irrational, they don't know any better. But adults aren't. They can't afford to be. I can't afford to be.
I am single now because of me. And I may remain that way, because now I think 1) there really isn't a person out there for me to find, 2) even if that person manifests, I'm not sure I'm emotionally capable of walking the line between protecting myself and opening up and I wouldn't even try and 3) the lifestyle I lead- mostly solitary- just works against me. I just have to get right with the whole cat thing. Which leads to the second heartbreak.
The other reason this has been a struggle is because it means facing the fact that I won't have the kids either. I wanted both the partner and the kids. There's nothing wrong with being a single parent. But for me, it would be a form of emotional selfishness. It would meet my needs, but I'm not sure it's fair for someone like me to be a parent without giving the child a spare...a spare port in the storm, a spare point of view on life, a spare voice of reason... So I don't think it would work for me. There's a lot more fertility behind me than in front of me. I had the chance to really think about that a few weeks ago. But I'm a pragmatist. I did the right thing for all involved with no hesitation whatsoever. My vision doesn't involve anyone being unhappy about being there.
The end of the year is coming up and soon after, my birthday. And also somewhere around there, my secret deadline to stop acting like unicorns and hope and rainbows make the world go around. It is what it is. I've had this secret deadline for awhile, a long time actually. And I am a woman of my word. I'm going to honor it with some dignity. There's no crying in baseball or break-ups. Don't get me wrong. I am crushed. Right up until that day comes, I am going to hope as hard as I can with my fingers crossed, pinky swear, the whole nine. But when the day comes, I'm going to wake up and let it go.
So where from here? I have absolutely no idea. The things I have spent my time focusing on so far, have not actually been the things I really wanted. And I knew it. I was just too scared to admit I was not being true to myself. I get it now. But I can't go back and undo it.
So what comes between now and the sunset of it all seems like a big sigh. I mean, who the hell cares? I kind of don't. Like I said blog before last, I don't have a sense of self-importance that makes me think my life makes the world go around. I like myself and all. Thank goodness because my own company is something I got plenty of...But I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to spend another half life. Geez. And if it stretches on...I'm not sure how I feel about that.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
My bra is too tight and my eyes hurt
That's the truth. I just got finished driving down a parkway with no lights in the pouring rain and I have absolutely no desire to do anything but decompress.
As soon as I reclined against my pillows to think about my impossible schedule tomorrow morning, I realized two things. My eyes hurt. That's one. I squinted the whole time I was driving trying to keep sight of the lane markers and praying I wouldn't hydroplane off the parkway. Roads up here aren't made of the proper material for rain and it get really treacherous. I get really anxious driving at night.
But most urgently, my bra hurts. I am officially at the point where the most relaxing thing I can do at the end of a hard day, or even in the middle of one, is to unsnap my bra. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. Well into my mid-thirties my bra size was wholly unremarkable. But around three years ago, the girls took off. I need substantial trussing-up. Cute, novelty lingerie is completely out of the question. And I have tried. Just a few days ago, I bought some naughty unmentionable thinking, hey what the hell. I got the thing home, put it on and promptly spilled over the top. I need a grown-woman, industrial grade bra.
Once I take off this bra, my day is over. So I may as well turn out the light and call it a night.
As soon as I reclined against my pillows to think about my impossible schedule tomorrow morning, I realized two things. My eyes hurt. That's one. I squinted the whole time I was driving trying to keep sight of the lane markers and praying I wouldn't hydroplane off the parkway. Roads up here aren't made of the proper material for rain and it get really treacherous. I get really anxious driving at night.
But most urgently, my bra hurts. I am officially at the point where the most relaxing thing I can do at the end of a hard day, or even in the middle of one, is to unsnap my bra. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. Well into my mid-thirties my bra size was wholly unremarkable. But around three years ago, the girls took off. I need substantial trussing-up. Cute, novelty lingerie is completely out of the question. And I have tried. Just a few days ago, I bought some naughty unmentionable thinking, hey what the hell. I got the thing home, put it on and promptly spilled over the top. I need a grown-woman, industrial grade bra.
Once I take off this bra, my day is over. So I may as well turn out the light and call it a night.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Singular Sensation
I got a couple of emails after my last post. And I just re-read what I wrote. So before I go on, I am not in some bad place. I feel fine. Maybe it's an only child thing. I don't dread being alone; I kind of like it. Loneliness is what brings people down. I don't think I have an undue amount of loneliness in my life. So please don't be concerned about me in that way.
Last year about this time, my life was in a great state of upheaval. And not for the first time. So over the last few days or so, I probably have been more judgmental with myself about certain things I thought I would have accomplished by now. But that is never a useful exercise. The life you think you will have was always only a figment of your imagination. Being disappointed that your reality doesn't match up to that is just as false as being satisfied if it does. None of us can predict what will come. Therefore do not worry...
But the whole idea of a knick knack existence is not a concept that I could flesh out in one sitting. It will take me a while. In the end, it may turn out to be a bunch of BS. But it's not a bad thing.
I have to say the only aggravating thing about my life thus far has been the upheaval. I am periodically reminded that I have very little control. When that happens, I take a deep breath. And I remember that I am very blessed because what I need for my journey in life is not material and therefore can never be lost. I have faith and I have to ability to endure most of what comes my way.
I feel like a character in The Grapes of Wrath some days; swept up in these huge phenomena like a tumbleweed blowing across the social prairie. So what I meant last time about about feeling disconnected from anywhere was that having been physically relocated so many times now, I have become convinced that where I am is of little consequence to whether or not I am happy. I can be satisfied anywhere. I can live anywhere. In that sense then, it doesn't matter where I am.
So now I'm tired...I'll have to get back to this later. I hate it when Daylight Saving Time ends. I get super sleepy, very early. I'll pick this up again...
Last year about this time, my life was in a great state of upheaval. And not for the first time. So over the last few days or so, I probably have been more judgmental with myself about certain things I thought I would have accomplished by now. But that is never a useful exercise. The life you think you will have was always only a figment of your imagination. Being disappointed that your reality doesn't match up to that is just as false as being satisfied if it does. None of us can predict what will come. Therefore do not worry...
But the whole idea of a knick knack existence is not a concept that I could flesh out in one sitting. It will take me a while. In the end, it may turn out to be a bunch of BS. But it's not a bad thing.
I have to say the only aggravating thing about my life thus far has been the upheaval. I am periodically reminded that I have very little control. When that happens, I take a deep breath. And I remember that I am very blessed because what I need for my journey in life is not material and therefore can never be lost. I have faith and I have to ability to endure most of what comes my way.
I feel like a character in The Grapes of Wrath some days; swept up in these huge phenomena like a tumbleweed blowing across the social prairie. So what I meant last time about about feeling disconnected from anywhere was that having been physically relocated so many times now, I have become convinced that where I am is of little consequence to whether or not I am happy. I can be satisfied anywhere. I can live anywhere. In that sense then, it doesn't matter where I am.
So now I'm tired...I'll have to get back to this later. I hate it when Daylight Saving Time ends. I get super sleepy, very early. I'll pick this up again...
Sunday, November 06, 2011
Out the Revolving Door
I can't believe it's been a couple of years since I've updated here. But what can I say? At the time, I thought I needed to direct all my writing energy elsewhere. And then I thought blogging was cheating on the writing I 'should' be doing. But it turns out, if I don't have an outlet for what I want to say, I kind of resent what I must to say to make a living.
I wish I was back with some sense of accomplishment or enlightenment about the meaning of my life, in particular. But I don't have that at all. From the last time I wrote to now, I feel as if I have been in a revolving door. Pushed in at one side and out the other having expended much more effort than it should have taken to get so relatively short a distance, if anywhere at all.
Everything I have, I think, I feel has been stripped down and away. Making it hard for me to believe I ever really had anything at all. Most days I would just as well prefer to retreat, but I go out. I do my job, then I return to where I started and prepare to do the same the next day.
I don't have a personal connection to where I live, but I might just as well stay here than move somewhere else because my life would be just the same wherever I went.
This not what I thought life would be like. It's not depressing; it's just inconsequential. If I had aspirations of grandeur, I might be ambitious. But I'm not. I've had some pretty remarkable experiences, but they are no better or worse than the remarkable experiences someone else may have had in life.
A few years ago, actually now that I think about it -quite a few years ago, I was walking in San Francisco. I stopped into a shop for no reason and saw a Lalique figurine. Immediately, I wanted that figurine. I couldn't afford it, of course. I was in graduate school. I admired it for a moment and left the shop. A few years after that, when I was settling into a new place after getting a job, I remembered that figurine. I took to the internet and eventually I found the figurine. Before I bought a sofa, or a table and chairs, I bought that figurine. When it arrived, it was much smaller than I remembered from the shop, but there it was. I had it. I put it on a shelf. Occasionally I looked at it. I dusted it. It had no purpose or importance other than my admiration of it.
Since then, I have taken that figurine with me wherever I've gone. Sometimes putting it on a shelf, sometimes keeping it in its box. But I have held onto it even when I have thrown most other things away. It probably isn't worth as much as I paid for it and it does absolutely nothing. But it's mine.
I am a knick-knack. This much I have decided. For a while, I thought I would just sit down and write something proper about that. But that seems daunting. Instead I'll just chip away at it. Perhaps in retrospect it'll make itself into something. Or it won't.
What does that mean? That I'm a knick knack. I figured it out when I was thinking about what it is and who it is I am in the scheme of things.
I don't have a specific purpose. I am not essential. I am not important.
None of those observations are meant to seem disparaging about myself. In objective terms, I just mean the relative impact I may have on others isn't that much. Everyone in my life could just as easily have never met or encountered me. No one needs me. Nothing I think or do can't be thought or done by someone else.
On the one hand that's rather humbling. There are very, very few people who can say with surety and veracity that their lives are essential and important in the larger scheme of things. It doesn't mean they aren't intrinsically valuable.
But for the most part, if anyone has a purpose or is cherished in any way by another, it is by way of indulgence. It's not that anyone couldn't get along without another, it's that they don't want to get on without someone (or even something) in particular.
I don't have that role in anyone's life. Sometimes that makes me very sad, but then I grab a hold of myself. It's only an indulgence on my part, me feeling sorry for myself. In fact, wanting to wanted and important in another's life is only an indulgence of my sense of self. I exist whether I am wanted or not.
So let me also give the other parts of that reality, lest you think it's wholly depressing.
I am unique. In every way. There's has never been, nor will there ever be someone exactly like me. And that is a marvel. A very humbling and magnificent marvel. Who I am, the thoughts I think, the feelings I experience and the life unfolding in front of me is absolutely incredible at the same time it is insignificant. Just like and even with 7 billion other people inhabiting the planet right now, no one is like another. Like a single snowflake or grain of sand.
As unique as I am, I am also ordinary. There is nothing about me that is particularly exceptional. I am so quirky, in fact, that some might be disgusted by my oddity.
I am smart. Not so smart that I could revolutionize anything at all. But smart enough that some people don't like to talk to me at cocktail parties, or play games with me. I figure out the plot twists of movies minutes after the credits. I can look at a pile of jumbled pieces and figure out how they fit together.
But I am also dense. No matter how many times it's explained to me, I cannot understand how insurance works or selling money. I can analyze people, but I don't understand them at all. I can tell what people are going to do, but have no idea what to do about it. I can connect with someone on a very deep level, but I loathe day-to-day contact with people and the kind of socializing that puts others at ease.
I'm not a great beauty, but with some effort, I can pull it together. But most days, I forget or don't think anything I have to do on that particular day merits the effort that would be necessary to do that.
The job I have is useful. But I could be quickly, probably easily, replaced. The people who seek me out are most likely trying to use me for their own ends and the people I seek out are merely a means to getting my job done. I do a serviceable job overall: somedays very good, others not so much.
These days I have anxiety attacks. I don't like talking on the phone. If I get really frazzled, I stutter. My hands rattle so much I can hardly hold a cup of coffee. Spending so much time alone, when I do get the chance to talk to someone else, I go on for too long. I tell stories in circles instead of a straight line.
Too many people freak me out; too much noise makes me jumpy.
The people who love or care about me get along seeing me infrequently or rarely, with no consequence. And when they do spend time with me, it might be more exhausting for them than it is for me.
In sum, anyone who honestly says they want to see or talk to me on any given day, is doing so because they want to, not because they must. I am the cliched pill. I know it.
I am a knick knack. And I only recently realized I have been one since I was born.
I wish I was back with some sense of accomplishment or enlightenment about the meaning of my life, in particular. But I don't have that at all. From the last time I wrote to now, I feel as if I have been in a revolving door. Pushed in at one side and out the other having expended much more effort than it should have taken to get so relatively short a distance, if anywhere at all.
Everything I have, I think, I feel has been stripped down and away. Making it hard for me to believe I ever really had anything at all. Most days I would just as well prefer to retreat, but I go out. I do my job, then I return to where I started and prepare to do the same the next day.
I don't have a personal connection to where I live, but I might just as well stay here than move somewhere else because my life would be just the same wherever I went.
This not what I thought life would be like. It's not depressing; it's just inconsequential. If I had aspirations of grandeur, I might be ambitious. But I'm not. I've had some pretty remarkable experiences, but they are no better or worse than the remarkable experiences someone else may have had in life.
A few years ago, actually now that I think about it -quite a few years ago, I was walking in San Francisco. I stopped into a shop for no reason and saw a Lalique figurine. Immediately, I wanted that figurine. I couldn't afford it, of course. I was in graduate school. I admired it for a moment and left the shop. A few years after that, when I was settling into a new place after getting a job, I remembered that figurine. I took to the internet and eventually I found the figurine. Before I bought a sofa, or a table and chairs, I bought that figurine. When it arrived, it was much smaller than I remembered from the shop, but there it was. I had it. I put it on a shelf. Occasionally I looked at it. I dusted it. It had no purpose or importance other than my admiration of it.
Since then, I have taken that figurine with me wherever I've gone. Sometimes putting it on a shelf, sometimes keeping it in its box. But I have held onto it even when I have thrown most other things away. It probably isn't worth as much as I paid for it and it does absolutely nothing. But it's mine.
I am a knick-knack. This much I have decided. For a while, I thought I would just sit down and write something proper about that. But that seems daunting. Instead I'll just chip away at it. Perhaps in retrospect it'll make itself into something. Or it won't.
What does that mean? That I'm a knick knack. I figured it out when I was thinking about what it is and who it is I am in the scheme of things.
I don't have a specific purpose. I am not essential. I am not important.
None of those observations are meant to seem disparaging about myself. In objective terms, I just mean the relative impact I may have on others isn't that much. Everyone in my life could just as easily have never met or encountered me. No one needs me. Nothing I think or do can't be thought or done by someone else.
On the one hand that's rather humbling. There are very, very few people who can say with surety and veracity that their lives are essential and important in the larger scheme of things. It doesn't mean they aren't intrinsically valuable.
But for the most part, if anyone has a purpose or is cherished in any way by another, it is by way of indulgence. It's not that anyone couldn't get along without another, it's that they don't want to get on without someone (or even something) in particular.
I don't have that role in anyone's life. Sometimes that makes me very sad, but then I grab a hold of myself. It's only an indulgence on my part, me feeling sorry for myself. In fact, wanting to wanted and important in another's life is only an indulgence of my sense of self. I exist whether I am wanted or not.
So let me also give the other parts of that reality, lest you think it's wholly depressing.
I am unique. In every way. There's has never been, nor will there ever be someone exactly like me. And that is a marvel. A very humbling and magnificent marvel. Who I am, the thoughts I think, the feelings I experience and the life unfolding in front of me is absolutely incredible at the same time it is insignificant. Just like and even with 7 billion other people inhabiting the planet right now, no one is like another. Like a single snowflake or grain of sand.
As unique as I am, I am also ordinary. There is nothing about me that is particularly exceptional. I am so quirky, in fact, that some might be disgusted by my oddity.
I am smart. Not so smart that I could revolutionize anything at all. But smart enough that some people don't like to talk to me at cocktail parties, or play games with me. I figure out the plot twists of movies minutes after the credits. I can look at a pile of jumbled pieces and figure out how they fit together.
But I am also dense. No matter how many times it's explained to me, I cannot understand how insurance works or selling money. I can analyze people, but I don't understand them at all. I can tell what people are going to do, but have no idea what to do about it. I can connect with someone on a very deep level, but I loathe day-to-day contact with people and the kind of socializing that puts others at ease.
I'm not a great beauty, but with some effort, I can pull it together. But most days, I forget or don't think anything I have to do on that particular day merits the effort that would be necessary to do that.
The job I have is useful. But I could be quickly, probably easily, replaced. The people who seek me out are most likely trying to use me for their own ends and the people I seek out are merely a means to getting my job done. I do a serviceable job overall: somedays very good, others not so much.
These days I have anxiety attacks. I don't like talking on the phone. If I get really frazzled, I stutter. My hands rattle so much I can hardly hold a cup of coffee. Spending so much time alone, when I do get the chance to talk to someone else, I go on for too long. I tell stories in circles instead of a straight line.
Too many people freak me out; too much noise makes me jumpy.
The people who love or care about me get along seeing me infrequently or rarely, with no consequence. And when they do spend time with me, it might be more exhausting for them than it is for me.
In sum, anyone who honestly says they want to see or talk to me on any given day, is doing so because they want to, not because they must. I am the cliched pill. I know it.
I am a knick knack. And I only recently realized I have been one since I was born.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Constant Reinvention
So I don't know what I thought life would be like at this point...but this isn't quite it. When I was a kid, I guess I took for granted that by now I'd be what or who ever I was supposed to be. Life would be figured out. But it's not. In fact, I feel like I'm working harder now than I have in a long time to stay true to who I am and figure out how to get wherever it is I'm supposed to be.
But maybe that's just how it is. Who's to say? The thing is...you never know what life will be until you live it.
I'm not sure what it is I should be doing at any given moment. Maybe I'm not doing anything wrong. Maybe I'm not getting anything right. The only thing that seems clear is that nothing about life is really certain after all.
And it's not just me...It seems that everything and everyone is a little chaotic. Maybe in my youthful haze I never noticed that before. It just seemed that grown-ups had things figured out. But maybe they never did. Maybe things always seemed like they were hurtling toward disaster...possibly.
When I was younger, if I felt even the slightest twinge of anxiety about anything, I changed everything. Maybe I should try that...
But maybe that's just how it is. Who's to say? The thing is...you never know what life will be until you live it.
I'm not sure what it is I should be doing at any given moment. Maybe I'm not doing anything wrong. Maybe I'm not getting anything right. The only thing that seems clear is that nothing about life is really certain after all.
And it's not just me...It seems that everything and everyone is a little chaotic. Maybe in my youthful haze I never noticed that before. It just seemed that grown-ups had things figured out. But maybe they never did. Maybe things always seemed like they were hurtling toward disaster...possibly.
When I was younger, if I felt even the slightest twinge of anxiety about anything, I changed everything. Maybe I should try that...
Thursday, April 15, 2010
I'm back...
So here's the thing. I didn't really think I wanted to blog while I was back in school. But I think I'm ready to start up again. Not really sure what I'm going to have to say after all this time, but I'm back at it.
So what did you miss? I gained a lot of weight. I'm looking for a job. I'm finishing another graduate degree. Those are the top items on my action list.
What have you been up to lately?
So what did you miss? I gained a lot of weight. I'm looking for a job. I'm finishing another graduate degree. Those are the top items on my action list.
What have you been up to lately?
Friday, March 13, 2009
Monday, December 29, 2008
Final Project
I've been neglecting my blog. School and life just didn't leave much time or many brain cells for idle musing. But I do have something to show for it. I did three video projects for one of my classes. Her is the last one...I should get the others ones up pretty soon. Of course, the day may come when I am embarrassed by these clips. But that day isn't here yet. I'm still excited about learning how to edit and finally getting to make what I want to out of my thoughts and observations.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Joy!!
I feel truly blessed to have witnessed this moment. A singular achievement that means I will never have to worry about what can't be done. Despite all obstacles, all doubt... with faith, good works, and love... all things are truly possible.
Not a cure but a salve for the wounds to the souls of many, a wellspring of hope for every young person who has wondered or worried or fallen short of their capabilities in fear.
Therefore do not worry...
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Copied from The Guardian
Since Brunsli posted recently about getting her hands on a copy of Italia Vogue, July featuring black models and editorials, I figured I'd pass along an article I saw about the issue during my morning gossip trawl...
From The Guardian...
From The Guardian...
Fashion world stunned by Vogue for black
Reaction to Vogue Italia's latest 'black issue' is electrifying the industry, forcing the fashion world to reconsider its resistance to using non-white models, writes Sarah Mower
- The Observer,
- Sunday July 27 2008
- Article history
Jourdan Dunn on the cover of Italian Vogue's black issue Photograph: Public domain
It's nearly August, the retail fashion industry is in an uneasy slump, and summer issues of women's magazines are gaunt for want of advertising. Yet in the past four weeks, the 'black issue' of Italian Vogue has caused such a phenomenal demand at news-stands in Britain and the United States that Condé Nast, the publisher, has rushed to reprint and distribute 40,000 more copies.
The explosive content of what, by any standards, is a small-circulation magazine with an average monthly sale of 109,000, is now being spoken about as a cultural watershed in fashion. With the next show season six weeks off, its influence might finally end the 'white-out' that has come to dominate catwalks and magazine pages.
On Friday, a saleswoman on the till at WH Smith in Hammersmith Mall, west London, was proudly gesturing to a Vogue Italia propped up at her cashdesk. 'We've managed to get 10 more,' she said, as a group of black and mixed-race schoolgirls broke ranks in the queue and doubled back to the shelves, hollering with delight. They have reason to celebrate, and to hope. One of the covers of Vogue Italia features Jourdan Dunn, the 18-year-old who was discovered by a Storm scout at Primark in that same mall. Perhaps those girls were her former classmates.
Conceived by editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani, and shot by Steven Meisel from a roster of 18 new, established and former stars, the July 'black issue' sold out in Britain on arrival. That renowned fashion photographer Steven Meisel, the recluse whose lens has made the career of many a model (including Brits Lily Cole and Karen Elson) should be focusing on non-white subjects might have been expected to cause some debate. A mild examination of conscience among the model scouts, agencies, casting directors and designers was privately anticipated, without much hope of anything changing - in the same way that the endless skinny-model debate has resulted in little or no change in the industry. But no one anticipated the global interest.
'It has been unprecedented, a sensation, although that wasn't the aim,' said Jonathan Newhouse, chairman of Condé Nast International, who masterminded the reprinting and rerouting of unsold magazines in Italy to America and Britain. In America, the issue is shrink-wrapped and stickered with the words 'First Reprint. The Most Wanted Issue Ever'.
That is no hype, according to the Kenya Hunt, the young black style editor of Metro International News in New York. 'I've been watching the news-stands since the beginning. There are lines of women when they hear of a new shipment. It's a wide cross-section of women, girls, people my parents' age who read Ebony,' she said. 'There have been email chains about it. The news-stand guys are hustling, locking it up in the back and charging $25, $28, when the real price is $16. Yesterday, I saw it on eBay for $50. There is a climate shift. This is the year of the presidential election. And this at a time when magazine sales are really hurting.'
British retail newsagents, who are often reluctant to allot shelf-space to any non-populist publication, have also been scrambling to satisfy waves of people wanting to get their hands on the £6.50 edition. Borders has had to move issues around the country after a first-day sell-out, saying that demand was 654 per cent up on the previous issue. WH Smith's women's magazine head buyer Louisa Stokes confirmed: 'I took so many queries from customers and from individual store managers - I've not seen anything like it. Italian Vogue is normally delivered to only 45 stores, but customers all over the country are asking for it.'
The first printing was so scarce in London that Edward Enninful, the black Notting Hill-born Vogue fashion editor, who worked with Meisel to style the Naomi Campbell cover (one of three versions of the edition) was forced to scour the country for an issue. 'I couldn't believe it. I ended up phoning friends in Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, who found one for me in a corner newsagent. I am so excited. I never thought I would be able to see something like this - my people, my race, wearing the collections, being gorgeous, chic, real women in that way. But the most important thing is: this proves we are bankable. We can sell.'
That, of course, is the point. Evidence of commerciality, especially in anxious times, is more likely to shift industry thinking than any amount of political correctness. For years, the excuse proffered by advertising agencies for not signing black models to lucrative contracts, and by magazine editors who failed to feature women of colour on their covers, was a supposedly factual, 'they don't sell'.
Certainly, part of the grand rebuttal has been organised through the internet, influencing an industry that is far too used to listening to its own circle of insider voices.
Sola Oyebade, chief executive of Mahogany Model Management, has been running a Facebook, text and email campaign in an attempt to make the issue the biggest-selling Vogue ever. 'We believe there's industry apartheid and this is something that the black community does feel very strongly about. I've had so many calls from people asking where they can get their hands on a copy. I've had shops like Harvey Nichols ring me up, telling me we're causing them a lot of problems with supply, so we've been liaising with them, too. Our fashion industry is institutionally racist. The explanation for why they don't use black models is always that we don't sell, but this shows that's not true. Black people are among the highest consumer spenders in the UK for material goods.'
Agencies are busy scrambling to catch up. London-based, Nigerian-born designer Duro Olowu has fought to cast black girls in his show for the past three seasons. 'I'd phone agencies, and there would be silence. Now, people will have a responsibility to make sure they have black models in their shows,' he said. 'Anybody who doesn't will look an idiot.'
However, the truth is that it has taken two central establishment leaders - Sozzani and Meisel - to make the subject even discussable in fashion circles.
Just a few months ago, anyone who voiced opinions like Olowu's would have been regarded as naïve, eccentric or speaking out of turn and in danger of ostracism. 'I wrote a piece about the absence of black models a year ago,' said Kenya Hunt. 'and no one wanted to talk about it.' Now, she says, everyone is rushing to quote it.
As Sarah Doukas of Storm, the agency that discovered Jourdan Dunn and manages Alek Wek, put it, the success of the 'black issue' 'has implications for all of us to now fully embrace the diversity within our industry, and to exploit our creative resources to celebrate our cultural and social differences.
It is, after all, a long overdue wake-up call for an industry whose precarious future will rely on reaching global markets that do not resemble the freakish army of half-starved six-foot white girls who have come to represent the Western ideal.
As Barack Obama has it, it's time for a change. Though it may seem forced to link politics with fashion, history proves that the dominant aesthetic of any era can only reflect the mood of the times. And just as in politics, what just might revolutionise fashion now is that enough white people, too, are bored to death and impatient with the way things look out there.
Speaking out
Jourdan Dunn, the teenage supermodel who was first spotted in a Primark store in west London, was interviewed in The Observer Magazine in April after she had criticised London fashion week - and its catwalks - for being too white. She spoke about race and role models ...
· On being spotted: 'Everybody says I was spotted shopping in Primark. I wasn't shopping, I was with my friend. She wanted to go in, I wanted to go home - and we were just mucking about in the sunglasses section.'
· On her comments about London Fashion Week and race: 'It needs to be said because I think about these things and other girls do, too.'
· On the reaction to what she said: 'The way people said I was stupid made me feel horrible, saying fashion's a business so they need to use models who sell things.'
· On Naomi Campbell's plan to establish a modelling agency to promote different races: 'Naomi's idea is good. I'd do an agency for black girls and Asian and Spanish, because there aren't enough of them on the runway either.'
· On posing: 'I like having spikes coming out of my head or being in something I'd never wear.'
· On being away from home: 'I miss out on getting on my brothers' nerves, so when I get back I have to get on their nerves on purpose to catch up.'
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Breaking News...
I have a white hair.
Actually I have quite a few white hairs some on my head and others in more interesting places...like my eyelashes. But this white hair is standing up mischievously right in front of my head. This is a dilemma for me. You see I noticed the hair because I have selected yet another brand and shade of hair color. I was looking in the mirror strategically planning the color application and wondering with some nervousness how it might turn out. And there was the hair just about waving at me.
I actually like white hair. My grandfather had a headful of snowy white hair and my father definitely has more white than black. Gram also had spectacularly white hair. But you'd never know it because whenever she 'washed' her hair it would magically turn jet black. And I won't even mention all my white pigtail wearing great-aunts who were all full of sparks and fun times. White hair that is actually white is quite gorgeous. A headful actually looks timeless to me. You can't really tell how old someone with all-white hair is. They look cool without trying. At least to me.
So while I am not very enamored of my natural hair color...an almost forgotten shade of muddy brown, I don't necessarily want to cover the white. Ideally I'd like to color the brown and leave the white to grow in as it will. Have my cake and eat it too. But the nice consultants at Clairol say no to that. So until the white hairs really take charge I guess they will have to fall in line.
Actually I have quite a few white hairs some on my head and others in more interesting places...like my eyelashes. But this white hair is standing up mischievously right in front of my head. This is a dilemma for me. You see I noticed the hair because I have selected yet another brand and shade of hair color. I was looking in the mirror strategically planning the color application and wondering with some nervousness how it might turn out. And there was the hair just about waving at me.
I actually like white hair. My grandfather had a headful of snowy white hair and my father definitely has more white than black. Gram also had spectacularly white hair. But you'd never know it because whenever she 'washed' her hair it would magically turn jet black. And I won't even mention all my white pigtail wearing great-aunts who were all full of sparks and fun times. White hair that is actually white is quite gorgeous. A headful actually looks timeless to me. You can't really tell how old someone with all-white hair is. They look cool without trying. At least to me.
So while I am not very enamored of my natural hair color...an almost forgotten shade of muddy brown, I don't necessarily want to cover the white. Ideally I'd like to color the brown and leave the white to grow in as it will. Have my cake and eat it too. But the nice consultants at Clairol say no to that. So until the white hairs really take charge I guess they will have to fall in line.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Dry spell...
So as I sit and type, I am procrastinating. I am back in school. In eighteenth grade, as my mother jokes. Last January, just for giggles, I hustled together an application to Columbia School of Journalism. I got in! Who knew? So I am back in school. It's been harder than I though to get back into the swing of being a student. I love the program. I'm taking Reporting and Writing and a New Media Skills course. I'm great in class, but I've been taking a little longer to get my stride with the stuff out of class and the rest of my life.
The worst thing happened right after my first class. Gram passed. It's one of those things you know will happen one day, you just don't want it to happen any time in the foreseeable future. But Gram decided she was ready to leave us and she did, with a dramatic flourish. So I ended the first week of classes by going home to New Orleans. It was my great honor to eulogize her. I thought I was fine. I really do believe that my Gram is at peace and I feel very fortunate to have had her in my life for so long. She was definitely one of my favorite people. She is responsible for my optimism and sense of adventure, my sense of humor and love for telling stories. So it was a little odd starting journalism school at the same time as I had to say goodbye to her. But by the end of my week in New Orleans and most definitely by the time I hit the tarmac in New York, all the reserve I mustered up for the trip home crumbled. And over the next few weeks, I slowly unravelled at the edges. I lost my focus in school. And just generally felt disoriented. I kind of arbitrarily decided that July was time for me to get it back together. So I am working at it.
At the same time, one of the best things happened. I gave up the only apartment I'll probably ever be able to afford in Manhattan to move in with the person I hope to be with...well, forever. That seems weird to even type. I was not tragically single so it has been a bit of a whirlwind of transitions and decisions. It was brought to my attention that I really don't write that much about my 'personal life' in my blog, specifically relationships. I don't intend to start. Rats, right? But we met, we clicked, and we decided to get on with it. So I'm going with the flow and hoping for the best. Well, it seemed like it would be a really good idea to move in together over the summer before I started taking classes full time in the fall. But I now believe there is never a good time to move. And moving when you are starting a new endeavor is stressful. Moving while losing a loved one was more than I could take. So I was not very graceful about the whole thing. But it's done. I know it's the right decision. I lived through my mother's Scarlett O'Hara moment when I told her about it. And now all is well. Or getting there. But it's caused a lot of introspection.
I am the only daughter of an only daughter. It wasn't until I actually thought about the implications of committing to someone else that I really realized how much of my identity is wrapped up in being independent. And I guess I never really believed the other relationships I've been in were permanent, because it had never really occurred to me before that I might miss being single. Maybe that's why I haven't written about the other relationships. They took up my time, but never really changed the trajectory of my life. I can't say I didn't think it would ever happen--meeting someone that I wanted to commit to--but I guess I was OK with the possibility it might not. It's fair to say I thought it was more likely I'd meet someone I wanted to date. So when I went to Slish's Superbowl party back in February, I had no idea what would happen next.
So once there's more to tell, I guess I will. For now, I am very happy to be sharing my very crazy, unsettled life with someone I love very much. Nairobi was not as thrilled about the move. But that's a different story altogether...
The worst thing happened right after my first class. Gram passed. It's one of those things you know will happen one day, you just don't want it to happen any time in the foreseeable future. But Gram decided she was ready to leave us and she did, with a dramatic flourish. So I ended the first week of classes by going home to New Orleans. It was my great honor to eulogize her. I thought I was fine. I really do believe that my Gram is at peace and I feel very fortunate to have had her in my life for so long. She was definitely one of my favorite people. She is responsible for my optimism and sense of adventure, my sense of humor and love for telling stories. So it was a little odd starting journalism school at the same time as I had to say goodbye to her. But by the end of my week in New Orleans and most definitely by the time I hit the tarmac in New York, all the reserve I mustered up for the trip home crumbled. And over the next few weeks, I slowly unravelled at the edges. I lost my focus in school. And just generally felt disoriented. I kind of arbitrarily decided that July was time for me to get it back together. So I am working at it.
At the same time, one of the best things happened. I gave up the only apartment I'll probably ever be able to afford in Manhattan to move in with the person I hope to be with...well, forever. That seems weird to even type. I was not tragically single so it has been a bit of a whirlwind of transitions and decisions. It was brought to my attention that I really don't write that much about my 'personal life' in my blog, specifically relationships. I don't intend to start. Rats, right? But we met, we clicked, and we decided to get on with it. So I'm going with the flow and hoping for the best. Well, it seemed like it would be a really good idea to move in together over the summer before I started taking classes full time in the fall. But I now believe there is never a good time to move. And moving when you are starting a new endeavor is stressful. Moving while losing a loved one was more than I could take. So I was not very graceful about the whole thing. But it's done. I know it's the right decision. I lived through my mother's Scarlett O'Hara moment when I told her about it. And now all is well. Or getting there. But it's caused a lot of introspection.
I am the only daughter of an only daughter. It wasn't until I actually thought about the implications of committing to someone else that I really realized how much of my identity is wrapped up in being independent. And I guess I never really believed the other relationships I've been in were permanent, because it had never really occurred to me before that I might miss being single. Maybe that's why I haven't written about the other relationships. They took up my time, but never really changed the trajectory of my life. I can't say I didn't think it would ever happen--meeting someone that I wanted to commit to--but I guess I was OK with the possibility it might not. It's fair to say I thought it was more likely I'd meet someone I wanted to date. So when I went to Slish's Superbowl party back in February, I had no idea what would happen next.
So once there's more to tell, I guess I will. For now, I am very happy to be sharing my very crazy, unsettled life with someone I love very much. Nairobi was not as thrilled about the move. But that's a different story altogether...
Monday, June 09, 2008
Where have I been?
Life has been like a roller coaster. Blogging just hasn't made it to the top of my to-do list, but I figured a quick note wouldn't hurt. I stopped working at UrbanIvy and started attending it instead. I moved. Anyone of these three would have been enough to hold my attention hostage, but together they definitely got the best of me. So I'm here. Eventually I'll get my wits about me and start writing again...but not today...
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Jigga What...Jigga Who?
A seemingly inconsequential popular culture event provides an opportunity to debate the state of media, the ongoing obfuscation of the relative importance of African American artists to mainstream popular culture, and the widely alarming recalcitrance to portray black people as anything other than pathological.
The marriage of two of the most lucrative popular culture icons in the country, race notwithstanding, is apparently not news. It's hard to imagine a figure more ubiquitous than Jay-Z to hip hop or Beyonce to pop, but I guess if Eminem married Britney that would be a big yawn too if they did so after six years (!) of anticipation and speculation.
I had to see pictures of Eva Longoria's wedding. Apparently she is more newsworthy than Beyonce and Jay-Z.
As someone who generally believes no one's wedding (even that of a celebrity) is 'news' but a private, family event, the mainstream media's claim that no one cared about this particular celebrity wedding news strains credulity to the point of exhaustion.
To be clearer... Two black people get married. According to the statistics we are usually bombarded with, that in and of itself should be worthy of an interruption of you usual programming. I distinctly recall reading and watching several features that suggested African American women were now more likely NOT to get married in their lifetime than not.
A black man gets married. According to the statistics we are usually bombarded with, if he's not dead or in jail or on the down-low or just trifling, the last thing a black man wants to do is get married. To a black woman.
A black woman becomes the wife of a black man who apparently wanted to become her husband. If we extrapolate from the kinds of media coverage we usually get of black people and popular culture, this is the equivalent of a Bigfoot sighting or a high-def shot of the Loch Ness Monster. Right?
The man who gave us Big Pimpin got married, people. And mainstream media thinks that is not news. Think about that...
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Weird...
You Are Likely an Only Child |
 At your darkest moments, you feel frustrated. At work and school, you do best when you're organizing. When you love someone, you tend to worry about them. In friendship, you are emotional and sympathetic. Your ideal careers are: radio announcer, finance, teaching, ministry, and management. You will leave your mark on the world with organizational leadership, maybe as the author of self-help books. |
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