Promises

My year of keeping promises to myself.  That would be the theme for this year, with the exception of a few; those will happen next year.

The promises:  I started writing. I was in New York on my birthday. I went back to school full-time. I felt at home in my body. I left all my volunteer commitments, and gained one new short-term one. I did not fully realize what it meant to keep a promise to myself, and what it has meant to be breaking them all these years, not giving myself what I wanted, or needed.  I do treat myself, but this was different.  The treating has been like a passifier, I feel sad, then I indulge.  The promises have been about things that will help me grow. I thought I was dying.  My spirit was dying. Dying from sameness, dying from letting myself down, and not thinking I was worth keeping a promise to.  I have a hard time with the concept of self-love, like it is contrived or new age, or hokey, or selfish. I think it’s more about self-respect, which is something we all need to have.  If I don’t think Im worth anything then no matter how many people tell me otherwise, it will never be true.  I have had people telling me nice things about myself for a long time, and I haven’t believed them, not totally.  I haven’t wanted to need the external approval, that If I counted on that, then my feelings about who I am would be tenative.  One of my teachers told me that if there is anything she wants me to take away from this year, it is that I learn to trust myself, trust my view, my artistic vision.   I’ll be satisfied with trusting myself, which is what comes from keeping a promise.

False Peacekeepers

I am angry. I can feel it in my face. I talked to a friend today about a woman he knows who was raped by a well-known activist. He is being sued along with his friend in a defamation suit by the rapist/environmental/animal rights activist. The response to this women, primarily from other women, has been for her to be quiet, heal and get over it. She has not been quiet, she is wanting to warn women, and there have been others, but none that have been willing to step forward. She is not brave, she is actually responding appropriately, but has been met with all kinds of bullshit. She has been told by women from the community she is a part of that she needs to think of peace and how she creates her own reality. These people are new agers, “The Secret”followers, misinterpreters of buddhism and Eckhart Tolle teachings, and tolerance of bad behavior as progressive politics assholes. 

I was an apologist for the bad and criminal behaviour of the man who raised me and the woman. I have been an apologist for a charismatic leader. Someone who burns bridges, who emotionally manipulates most of the men and women who work with him. My anger about what has happened with this women, is about the almost universal response of other women, to shut her down and tell her to get over it. We claim intelligence, healing, progressive ideas, and we let men get away with violence. We act like we have no voice. We get angry at women for speaking up.  They are disturbing the false peace we are creating. They are tearing down our inspiring activist, our charismatic leader. We protect our men. Why? I know why I have done it, and I know it’s wrong. The greatest crimes in the world are committed by us, the false peacekeepers. I want to shake these people who think their lifestyle will save them. That enough Ekhart Tolle and ecstatic dance will save them from the fact that they isolated and alienated a friend, a rape victim, in favour of an arrogant, dangerous, activist, leader. All of the prayers made by Catholic Priests did not save them from facing the horror of the abuses they silently let happen. It is the cowards shield, words and worship of people that aren’t your friends, people you don’t have to answer to. Activists, like Religious figures are seen as morally upright. My experience of many activists has been that many of them don’t really like people. They have little faith in human beings, and more in their own dogma, and the words of dead white guys. 

There is behaviour that should not be given any measure of tolerance. I do believe restorative justice is a valuable way of dealing with crimes. It can only work if the people that are leading the sessions have created a safe environment, and have no relationship to the perpetrator. It can not work if the perpetrators are steeped in denial. The people around them, their apologists, women particularly; we need to find our courage to defend those who have been harmed. Even after the billions of acts of violence against women. We cannot let it desensitize us or let us continue to become complacent, or to just get over it. War counts on our desensitization and our complacency. We need to claim our bodies as valuable places, places that will get bruised through life, and knowing that it is natural. Abuse and torture isn’t. The appropriate response when that happens, is to defend and speak up for the person who has been harmed or violated. Muntader al Zaidi spoke up for millions of people when he threw his shoes the other day. In this case, the guy had it coming.

War Buddies

I realized last week that maybe we immerse ourselves in burnout situations so we can go through controlled chaos together and come out the other side, because the rewards on the other side can be so comforting. School is one of those places. We go through personal struggle together, we lose sleep, don’t eat well, laugh from delirium, eat shitty food, and then we conquer, we get through, we sleep again, and then go for drinks. I did front-line work for a number of years, and waitressing. We had our war stories as well.  There is an intimacy that comes from struggling and surviving together. We are seen in our vulnerability and our strength, and for those moments, we are closer. Only they will understand why something is so funny, or so frustrating, or so awful, only your war buddies will know. I am conscious i don’t want to trivialize war, but the war makers trivialize it most of all, they do not value human lives and most people don’t see the daily war we are all actively engaged in. The war on us.  So maybe were all in a burnout situation, struggling and surviving together in the chaos, and trying to make it through to the other side.

Home Stretch

I have one assignment left. A paper about a film that I have a crush on. It is a mirror of how my head works. Chaotic, associative, a little dirty, buzzy, and at moments, very beautiful. I think that may be why it is so hard to write about this film with some coherence. It’s all there, the information, I just need to order it in a way that it fits in to 5 double spaced pages filled with 1500 wds. I am afraid to finish things, i feel it now. I will be done this half of my learning as soon as I hand this in. I want it to be perfect, i want it to express how inspired I have felt watching this film, without it looking false and sucky. I am increasingly frustrated by my personal doubts and am feeling bored by them. They hold me back, and I don’t want to be held back anymore. They don’t do me justice or honour me or anyone that supports and believes in me. It won’t be perfect. It will be the best I can come up with given how exhausted I am, which if I were to be honest with myself, minus doubts, has been pretty good.