Chadors and Crotch Shots

3.31.06

I love NPR. First a film review of Basic Instinct II starring Sharon Stone about the ice pick wielding novelist who bares all for the movie going audienc and then an interview with real author Mary Gordon and her new book Pearl. I came in at the end of both but loved the contrast between hearing how Sharon, now 48, cannot possibly outdo Sharon, 34, partly due to the film's bad direction adn partly due to the fact that, well 14 years later, what shocks us any more? Mary was speaking about fundamentalism and how at the base of it is fear, and mostly fear of women. She was struck when visiting muslim countries at how the sexes are always separated in public and in places of worship. I've always noted how newspaper photography shows protesters in these countries as angry mobs of men; we so rarely see women participating in any type of visibly vocal process in these nations that cover up and constrain their females.

So I think of Sharon spreading her legs for millions of American viewers and a Shadman somewhere covered in a full body chador, never baring her privates, perhaps ever. Amazing the breadth of human tolerance for nakedness. I'm exposed to varying levels of un-dress daily in my community and my culture and, frankly, nothing fazes me these days. What would a newly immigrated woman from one of these cultures think of us? The devil's candy? Misguided? Liberated? With television and satellites available virtually everywhere, surely it's no secret that most women who expose a lot of flesh in the world don't get raped daily. Or attacked. Or seomtimes, even noticed. Are we really less respected in a man's eyes because we are proud of our sexuality, our sensuality as I've heard some Muslim women opine? Are they more respected when kept from driving, allowed a narrowly proscribed public life, kept uneducated?

Who's happier in their day to day lives? The woman who can access education, employemnt, the newest $400 "pencil" jeans, orgasm on demand, a triple non-fat pfeffernusse latte and her Yogi via internet? Or an Orthodox mother of 7 who may never have to consider more than her role in a family and all the respect and responsibilities, restraints and restrictions that includes? Does either stereotype really exist underneath the Pilates trained 6 pack abs or the schmatta enriched belly pooch?

Why is a woman's crotch so terrifying? Boys obsess about them as soon as they learn waht they're for and now women want to surgically enhance them to look more like pre-pubescent girls. My mother used to hate spiders and said Freud likened the insect to that pubic maw. She was quite sexually active during my youth; was she afraid of her own needs? Why do we like to call a vagina a "pussy" which is also what we call a wimpy person. It is soft and furry, yes, but a cat can also clamp on to you with viscious claws. The vagina dentata. What original male was attacked by a female reproductive organ to pass down such lore through the ages? Is it because, when sexually arounsed, we really do lose our minds, our cognitive abilities (just listened to a clip of a talk on hormones and behaviour which mentions how oxytocin, that love and breast feeding chemical, makes women gaga for their new mates and newborns)? They say a man thinks with his penis; what does a woman do with her vagina? Go shopping?

So Sharon's new character goes on another killing spree and Mary Gordon works on a new book about her mother's descent into Alzheimers. Women using their given talents, whether acting or writing, to tell stories about our different archetypes. I must say, I'm grateful to live in a culture where I can choose to see a strange woman's twat, if I want to; but that if I don't feel like it, I can just as easily pick up a book instead. How many of my sisters around the world have that freedom?

Group

3.30.06

It's amazing to me what a bunch of total female strangers will reveal to each other. In a dance hall kind of room at the El Segundo Women's Club, 9 of us meet to participate in a group therapy called the Plan. Designed to help re-wire the brain which is stuck in self-destructive patterns, it's a cognitive behaviour program that lasts 18 months (oh God, can I stand it?) and consists of group meetings and "community connections" where members check in with each other 3 times a week by phone. I learned about it at a Mind Body symposium hosted by Kaiser Permanente, that insurance behemoth that likes to withold life saving medicin/therapy/surgery whenever it can, but promote good health to its HMO members so they never need their services. Studies prove that this "brain washing" actually works lowering Blood Pressure, Blood Sugar, weight, Depression and increases exercise among participants, even 6 years out. I was impressed and thought I'd like to learn this technique to use with my chronic disease clients.

So you have to buy all sorts of books, CD's, recite mantras, "check in with the pulse of your life" and I'm sniffing Anthony Robbins, pyramid schemes, but I'm open since the developer has good credentials and it does make intuitive sense. Plus, you can make good money as one of these "Solution PRoviders" which is always welcome. But there's something that just doesn't sit right with me about all this scripted stuff, and it's all rather treacly and feel good-y and I'm feeling my cynical New Yawkah rise to the fore as I read all this stuff. I'm certainly not used to all this honest talk about emotions; I'd rather think my way through life and fantasize about a better way of being when things don't go as planned. Dancing in Andalucia is always a good one.

But there we are, in a circle of 9 chairs plus the leader and we're all so sincere and open and honest adn I've completely let down my guard, requiring the fist pass of the tissue box that I surprise myself. Wow, that was easy. We all share our "issues" and what we hope to gain from the experience, mostly living a more authentic passionate life and I am especially impressed by the woman who has gotten involved in book-binding. It reminds me how we really all crave more creatively, getting our hands into life. Some of us write, some dance, we all "people-please and take care of others" and all want to change something. The leader then tells us about how the program works, which includes taking out "emotional trash" and here I really resist. She asks us to imagine our deepest darkest problems as the dirtiest, worst trash, like rotten eggs, coffee grounds, old food and my first reaction is "fertilizer!" This stuff can be good stuff. Yes we all have the dark side, but a life without it would be incredibly unbalanced. I want to say something, to challenge this lovely "safe" place we're trying to maintain, but I can tell it's not time.

We then busy around sharing phone numbers and I'm a bit leary of having to devote 3 more hours a week to this system, but suspect it'll be good to learn to connect more honestly. Problem is, we're supposed to give each other "Tender morsels" and "Loving sandwiches" and all this really, nice supportive, nurturing language and I think, um, can't we ever call each other on our bull shit? Do we not get to challenge our masks, our self deceptions, our manipulations? Do we just keep holding each other's hands even when they're walking in the wron gdirection?

But this is what women do, we take care of each other and provide safe places to mend our wounds, whether it's around the water hole, the campfire, the zocolo, the wishing well, the water cooler. We offer succor and companionship, whether virtually or by cell. It all seems to go back to "can you hear me now?" that great phone company ad. Our stories must be told. I will try to listen.

Spitting Mad

3/28/06

I'm angry. Not the fuming, lashing out kind of ire, but slow smouldering fire that flares up now and again. It makes me want to eat, to stuff it back down, to drown out that horumuncula who insists on dancing on my nice, neat little presumptions, kicking me now and then for attention. Thank goodness the dry kindling usually lies safe from sparks and I don't have to carry around water buckets. But today I need a hose.

How convenient that we live in a culture filled with fire extinguishers: food, alcohol, sex, drugs, rock and roll, internet surfing, gambling, television. Even now, I'm using my favorite tool, writing, to difuse and redirect little Ms. Lily B Doe. And I pat myself on the back that at least it's a no-calorie, harmless, perhaps even creative way to handle something bigger than I want to deal with at the moment.

When we say we're spitting mad, like the dragon whose breath torches all in its path, what is that imagery? Are we trying to put out a fire with our saliva? How ineffectual. Or is it that our anger is so frothy we can't contain it. We say "suck it up" when we want someone to just hold their own anger, or "eat me" when we're blistering angry at someone, or "suck my dick" to put another down. All oral references to swallowing rage. We use our mouths to eat, to take in, but also to speak, to put out. Are we as a nation becoming an obese, inebriated, toking blob partly because we're so fucking angry about so many unkown or un-namable things? Why don't we use that very same organ of surpression to release? We get taught so early to control our anger, to "stuff it", especially girls, because it's not pretty. But it's powerful and that power can change the world. Maybe that's why.

Why are we so angry? At whom? For what? When we want to ram the car in front of us, is it the slow-witted driver we're pissed at or ourselves for not taking the extra 5 minutes we need to get to our destination in time? If we feel deprived of some right are we angry at the power wielder or ourselves for not wresting our due to our chest? When we are wronged by someone is it truely they we rail at, our the system that denied them their opportunities so that they chose to rob us of ours instead?

What if we took the time to scream into the night, like the wolf that lives within. Would that quench this appetite that never seems sated, a fire that will always burn? Would that relieve the building pressure, the urge to lash out and hurt people around us like so many postmen and adolescent goths? They say depression is anger turned inward so then are 20% of the population pissed as hell but continue to keep taking it? Where do you put this stuff if you can't contain it? Maykbe we could convert one of those wandering garbage barges to a huge "roving rage receptacle," perhaps hand out baseball bats and assign each a car in need of demolition. Japan has yelling competitions (but also laughing ones as well); we were once counseled to access and release our primal scream until studies proved it wasn't that good an idea after all. I'm not so sure. If it gets surpressed and sublimated, it will out itself somehow, somewhere. Maybe a series of spittoons on each corner where we can, with regularity, release that wild thing within. And then walk on, lighter, to turn our faces towards the sun again.

Cats

3/27/06

I saw cats in the night running across the street like streaks of smoke

Eyes flashing

I see collars too tight with scratch marks on the leather

I see red walls with no doors

I feel bile on their fur and wood in their claws

From trying to escape

A box they got into by mistake

I saw cats running across the street at night to the other side

With fur flattened by fear, the wind?

I saw cats running across the street at night to escape death

And I did not stop

Skin in the Game

3/27/06

Cindy Sheehan, so eloquently cloaked in her maternal mantel, spoke today on Air America with Al Franken about our policy of war in Iraq. He was remarking about how he could not possibly understand what it is like to loose a child as she did, especially as he had no "skin in the game." She countered that of course he did. Not only had he taken risks to entertain troops there, but she believed we all have skin in the game, "those kids are all our kids." I thought about that term, what it means or at least conjurs up in my mind. The idea of describing someone being invested in something, by having their skin involved, their actual bodies as opposed to their minds. I think of cutting and tatoos and piercings in cultures as a means to decorate but also communicate one' s individuality or one's need to fit in. Skin as canvas on which to hang a sign. The aquiring of a tan which says "hey, I have the leisure time and money to either travel to sunny climes or hang out in a tanning booth." The make-up applied to the skin, "hey I have the rosy blush of a teenager, the sultry eyes of a gypsy, the red lips of a concubine." The covering of skin, from the extreme of chadors to the button up oxford shirt. The uncovering of flesh with pubic hair revealing hip hugging jeans and see-through shirts. Chemical peels and face lifts. Our skin as container for all the life within. Our largest organ.

So, to put our "skin in the game," is to really put our selves in, not just a toe or an idle commentary, but our whole vulnerable, sensing, sensual selves. So as to feel, not just know, the game we're playing, whatever it is. My brain may say, "well, of course, my kids are no different from any other and should be registered for the draft along side every one else," but my skin crawls at the thought. No, it runs. All the way to the Canadian or Mexican border. I may reveal a half-truth, or tell an outright lie and not bat an eye, but the skin on the back of my neck will burn. The touch of a loved one's skin can calm me in a nano-second.

If our politicians had to put the skin of their children into the war game, how quiet would the front become. If our leaders were discriminated against because of their skin color, would they play the "race card" differently? If we could touch the skin of our enemies and feel the pulse beneath it, the muscles tensing, the sweat just glowing, could we then so easily cut it down in the name of some policy mandate? Skin, tender, tough, dark, light, soft, scented, smooth, wrinkled, hirsute or bald; it is our flag of universal citizenship. Wave it proudly, not in surrender but in victorious conquest over the unfeeling.

Doors

3/27/06

"Story is meant to set the inner life back into motion again....Story solutions lessen fear, give does of adrenaline at just the right time, and most importantly for the captured naive self, cut doors into walls which were previously blank." Clarissa Estes, Phd. Women Who Run with The Wolves

Doors. They are exits and entrances, passages from one place to another. They may open inward or outward, slide or swing. No end to the materials from which they are made; they may be locked against the whirlwinds of the world or constructed of strings of beads that tinkle in welcome or adieu. I think of doors I have come across and remember first a blue one in Tunisia, then the closed one of my mother's office, a swinging mosquitoe netted one in a rented cabin in Algonquin National Park, Ontario, many hollow painted ones in hotels and motels around the world, the wonderfully sculpted entrance to the Ennis Brown, Frank LLoyd Wright designed house in Hollywood, a tiny under-the-stairs entry to a hidden closet.

Now I think of voices as kinds of doors. How we use them to invite someone in to play or admonish them to stay away. How we modulate them, letting them swing open and shut with our moods, our needs for distance or intimacy. How within the same conversation you can snare someone, lock them into your space and then kick them out again. How you can hold someone's heart and keep it forever behind your own door, checking on it every now and then with a peep through the cracked opening. How you might choose to reveal your own when you feel safe, if your own door can protect you. Eyes as doors, can do the same; reveal, repel, re-open.

And now words, how and when you choose to use them or not. How they are woven together, in nets that capture and rescue, into spears that pierce and wound, or bandages that soothe and heal, magnifying glasses that reveal otherwise hidden details. Words, the meat of stories, transport, as when listening to a teller either in person or taped. Even when read they can take you someplace else. This morning in a column about skid row, the writer describes how the adults have an unwritten code to protect the children from the worst of their new home. The first one to see a child approach calls out "Kid walking," and the rest hide crack pipes, cover naked skin, adjust their behaviour. Two simple words, with no narrative or decorative preparation hit my heart and bring tears to my eyes for all they represent, the images and feelings behind them. Newsprint as paper door into another world I would not have visited today.

We should really take care to understand where our doors are. And how our voices, eyes, language, lyrics and literature act as portals into and out of our many selves, our societies, our souls. And keep an eye on the keys.

Listening for Eros

3/26/06

In researching a story I wish to use in another format I come across a sound clip from the author Clarissa Estes called If You Wish to Love a Woman. I play it and am immediately swept into a dark room where her voice speaks slowly and clearly, "If you wish to love a woman, you have to take time, " she intones without accent or affect. She pauses wonderfully within sentances and advises simply to keep one's eyes open, to be absolutely present with the person you are with. No sexual tricks or advice on positions, she stresses being able to hear what is not only said, but what is not said and the "sound of skin when you cross your legs; the sound of hair when it moves." One must take the time to be alive and I am almost jolted in my seat at the simplicity of her words. She is not selling herself, her CD, or anything but reminding the listener of what we may have lost along the way.

As I watch children play, run, explore, shake their fannies and grab their penises in distraction with the natural instincts we are born with, I wonder when we move away from that freedom. Kids drive adults nuts with their inability to follow time, to "get ready, hurry up, get a move on, finish up now," on our schedule. In helping them grow into this world, whatever our culture, we shape them in our own images, but is this for the best? If we take away their time to wonder, to sit on our laps, even at 9 years old, to paint their faces and get shit happy in mud puddles aren't we depriving them of those seminal sensual experiences that make life livable?

When we go to the erotica section of a bookstore, or write it ourselves, or rent a porn video, buy a Playboy, visit a sex website, isn't this a side track from where we could be? Of course, not always; maybe we seek them as accessories to our love lives or we are without a partner at the moment, or with one who doesn't fit, so use these to keep our imagination fresh. But if we want to enrich our sensual lives, why is it that we forget to so simply open our eyes and step outside?

A classmate shared that she had spent last night, not studying for our exam, but hiking with the Sierra Club in a nearby canyon. She's single and enjoyed being with new "Dudes & Dudettes" She took the time to invest in being alive and I thought, yes, this is how we must do it. THen at lunch today at a Persian restaurant, she orders a traditional dish of brains, lambs feet and tongue, relishing each bite with a squeeze of lemon and a bite of raw onion in between. She's a mid-wife and literally gets her hands into life for a living and I want to be her in this moment of watching her dive in. Another classmate, pale and wan, orders but hardly touches a salad and a whif of nan and I wonder if she's anorexic or just picky. Two extreme opposites to look at, but who's to tell if one lives more fully than the other? I have heard tell that the best way to judge a woman's sexual appetite is to have a meal with her; I'd have no trouble choosing here.

I am tempted now to buy this CD and listen to more of this sage and seductive voice. But Dr. Estes sabotaged her sales department with her clip. I need merely open my eyes and ears and take time in life. For I suspect Eros sits on every shoulder, whispering in our ears, tickling our cheeks, trembling our fingertips and brushing our kneecaps. If we will only pay attention we can hear her.

Caught

3/23/06

He stands against the wall, looking as if he wished he could melt into the paint. His face attempts to show concern, interest in the complaints of the angry community members who are protesting his company's plans to develop yet more uneeded condos next to our school. He's very good looking, must be charming on the outside, this "community relations" person. But in here, he's caged amongst the enemy. I can see him squirming behind the smile, the condescending nod and I wonder if he really likes his job. He must know that every arguement we make against his boss's plans are completely legitimate and that there really is no excuse other than pure financial gain to follow through with this proposed development. He's married and I wonder if he'll go home to his wife and report on the angry rabble rousers, the whiners worried about their children being run over by increased traffic flow. His boss had had the gall at the last meeting to say that the originally proposed and approved senior housing plan would be more dangerous for all the "senior drivers." Oh, yes, we'll be much safer with triple the occupancy pulling out 4 times as many cars, drivers in a rush to get to work, to go shopping, to get to their lunch dates.

So he has to stand there, holding up the wall, doesn't do us the courtesy of taking notes, has no answers to the requests we had made a month ago and can't answer questions tonight. Buf of course, he's very good looking so that must serve some purpose. What the hell does he do for a living? Smile his boss's way into zoning variances, charm the little old ladies out of their due Environmental Impact Reports, flirt his way around traffic, easement and open space requirements?

We are all amazed, yet not surprised at his non-chalance. All he can do is hand out business cards and part of me wants to go pat him on the back adn say, "there, there, you poor man, it's not you we can't stand, it's the money men, the suits who send you out to seduce in their stead." But, that's not true. We dont' like him one bit, for all he stands for and how he stands there, un-prepared and un-interested. But we do like that he's there, that we can voice our dismay and disgust in a constructive Rogers Rules of Decorum kind of way. That we can lob our votes at a real person and see him squirm. We love see his face change colors and the sweat build on his brow and the chair person deny him a retort until his time is due. We love our 2 minutes to vent, our righteous indignation and our right to ignite a fire under his butt. We are David and he is the little toe of Goliath and we are so happy to stomp on it. Whether he takes his lumps back to headquarters and honestly reports them is moot. We doubt it. But we are stronger for having kvetched articulately and oh so revel in, having turned the headlights on the buck, watching him run off into the dark of the night.

The Gift of Giving

3/22/06

Tonight I took the mother of a friend to flamenco class. She is a tall, slender woman, in her 60's with bright blue eyes and a wonderful open smile. She's here, grandmothering her first and on meeting her a couple of weeks ago, I felt an instant connection. We had chatted, while her daughter gestated on the couch, about politics, vegan diets, men, childrearing, travel, dance, being a woman in modern society. In the light, airy apartment where my friend lives on a high floor looking out on this sometimes verdant city, I felt at home amidst the modern danish furniture and Lucien Freud-esque sketches. Vera, the mother is an art dealer from NYC and her daughter went to my high school, Friends Seminary, a few years ago it seems. I am closer in age probably to the elder and loved feeling sandwiched between these two feisty females. Vera was baking something whole-wheaty and caramel smelling when I arrived and served Roastaroma tea, which brought back such memories of the funky 70's, Whole Earth Catologue adn Diet for a Small Planet. On a plate she offered the 70% dark cacao chocolate I had brought with a small bowl of raisins, pecans and almonds. I fell in love with her on the spot. My favorite combo of treats, offered by a woman with what I could feel is an enormous heart. She sat and massaged her daughter's feet and I marveled at the intimacy and ease of their relationship, so unlike mine with my mother.

Somehow, rolfing and getting turned on to Flamenco came up and I told Vera she should look up the Ballet Hispanico in NYC; I thought she might enjoy the dance. When her daughter called today to report on the happy birth of her baby boy, I offered to take Vera to class tonight and she joined us. It was like taking an eager kid to their first kindergarten class. She was enchanted and I loved seeing how engaged she felt by the music and our own experience. We're a hodge-podge of shapes, ages and abilities, but addicted and dedicated to these rhythms that speak to different parts of us as we pound away with our feet and clack away on castanets. You either get flamenco, or you don't. And Vera got it.

I drive her back to her daughter's apartment and can tell she's got the bug. She shared she'd been feeling a need for change. A former flight attendant, mother and still wife, she has been taking care of people all her life and now wants something for herself. I urged her to find a class in NYC when she returns and she gave me the biggest hug in thanks for sharing a passion which someday could be her own. How often do we get the chance to share our loves and feel they have been truly received? And if the gift is in the giving, I got good tonight. Gracias.

The Thing aobut Bling

3/20/06

She was young, bedecked in a variety of Gucci accessories, large gold hoop earings, fashionable pointy toed boots, a newsboy cap and faux diamond encrusted aviator glasses. Rings and things adorned her hands and the clothes spoke of the hip, psuedo grunge look. Alone at the park, she was sitting at the amphitheatre where my kids were preparing an impromptu show featuring a pantomime martial arts demonstration in slo-mo, a bull fight, a tap dance and a failed attempt at the Sound of Music's "Maria." I watched her in all of her bling, wondering what she did, who she was as many stereotypes flitted through my mind and then got to thinking about how we festoon ourselves as another way to communicate who we are. Years ago, I used to wear a lot of bangles and bracelets on my right wrist. They were a collection of gifts and souvenirs from over the years and would announce my arrival with their symphonic jangling. I removed them once for an interview with FAO for a post in Burundi, thinking it anappropriate to look too decorated. This was to be serious work after all, helping design family plannign programs in an impoverished African nation. I had wanted to look the part of the dedicated aid worker and had been made aware that I didn't exactly fit the Birkenstocked, flanneled shirt profile. My best friend in public health school and I had hit it off immediately when we noticed we were the only ones in a class of 25 wearing heels. We nick-named our selves teh Cosmo Twins and laughed and flirted our way through 2 rigorous years of Statistics, Epidemiology and other dry public health courses. She went on to continue her long tradition of field work and I, well, I balked along the way. The interview went well, but my friend declined to write me a reference, giving me a big hug and telling me she knew and loved me well enough to know I wasn't really cut out for such work.

It wasnt' the allergic reaciton in Zaire's capital city Kinshasa, or the realization that although I spoke French, I didn't speak one of the most imoprtant local languages, Lingala, and therefore could not truly communicate with the women I would be working with. She had sensed that in taking off the bangles, I was more concerned with whether I "looked" the part rather than whether I "felt" the part of the job I was seeking. And I must not have, for I withdrew the application and veered eventually into another profession. I married, the bangles came off as I segued into writing, and spent more time at a desk. Those musical baubles, a certain base melody to my life, now hurt my wrist. I dressed in black T-shirts and jeans; eschewing the heels for comfort and hunkered down state-side.

Fifteen years later, amidst a sea-change, the bangles are back (one in particular a lovely symbolic gift from said peripatetic friend), as are the dangly earrings, the pendants, the heels and brightly colored shirts, swishy skirts. My girlfriend is moving to Tanzania and I'm feeling the urge to get up and go again. But this time, the bangles stay. For if I choose to go, I go with me. Our bling has meaning, whether it be cheap pot gold earrings lined up 12 to an ear, or 1/2 carat diamond studs in both lobes, the NFL championship ring, the shell and leather bracelet, the plastic beaded pendant your daughter makes in craft class. How we dress, our make-up, piercings, tatoos, accessories are just another way to broadcast who we are in a world increasingly crowded yet decreasingly connected. Our looks offer a short-hand language to help establish the playing ground. The key is to not get distracted, dazzled or dis-engaged by someone's bling. It's just a calling card. Take it and then say, "Hello. Who are you?"

Good for Trees, Bad for People?

3/19/06

As the kids tune in to Spongebob for their Sunday morning heroine (interesting that this drug has the same name as a formidable female character who accomplishes great deeds) and tune out of the world, I am wondering where all the Kamichibai have gone. Those Japanese storytellers who traveled from town to town telling stories, using pictures to illustrate their words. They would be as feverishly welcomed by the town's kids as our cartoon mascots are today by children on couches around the world. I should take the time to actually watch these things as I'm sure they fulfill pretty much the same niche as the human parser of tales once did. Narratives with beginnings, middles and ends, character arcs, plots, morals, etc. But what I wonder is how kids receive these stories (especially as they are broken up by crass commercials that now squawk behind my back) when plunked down in front of a screen as opposed to around the town square with an active figure before them. My own kids report home with much more excitement when there's a school assembly featuring a guest artist or dance troupe, than on this weeks episode of Spy Kids from Nickolodean. There must be a more visceral engagement with the live arts than we get when all cushy and cozy; I can think now of a recent Shakespeare production we watched, where I could feel the actor speaking to me personally. I have never gotten that from a screen, no matter what the size or content.

Same question for all the letter writing we used to do. That craft has gone the way of the rotary phone, replaced my email, IM-ing, cell phones. The trees are happier, spared more pillage perhaps in the need for paper, but probably not as we use up more with computers, drafting endless versions of our latest opus, whether the board report of erotic novel. The medium does change the message. WHen you have to sit and think through a communication to Aunt Jane and write it by hand, it must be different than the rapid fire missive sent off as an after-thought while drinking your coffee and balancing your checkbook. You're waiting for your yoga class and think it would be good to talk to a friend, give them a call and get an earful of complaints about the plumber not showing up on time, the BMW's Bose speakers breaking and the precious little pooper taking his first steps...towards teh Nanny! All you wanted was to say hi, connect and you become the repository for someone's bad mood. Had you waited for the brunch you had scheduled you might have had a real give and take, but now you enter your yoga class feeling taken advantage of, muscles tight and Chi on edge. Or you get into an I-M argument with your ex- just because, well, you can. Ten years ago, it would have had to wait until teh next custody hearing. I am reminded of the demographic truth that one of the best ways to lower birth rates is to introduce electricty to a culture. The first thing a town does with it is plug in a television where perhaps that same Kamichibai once sat.

So the trees are sitting back, taking a deep breath as we get battened around by our radio waves, ethernet, and telecom satelites. I did my part this morning, eschewing the 2 huge Sunday papers for a little screen time. But they sit there tempting me into their pages, with news of a world much larger than the printed words or the 256 color inked photographs I will see with my eyes. That newsprint, those paper-bound books, those hand-written letters, those live "illustrated" stories are more than just that. They are the keys to the doors of our imaginations. If we lose those, we will have lost a far greater resource than all the forests with which Mother Earth has blessed us.

Life Being Brutish, Nasty & Short

3/18/06

Psst, don't tell anyone, especially any inhabitant of a consumer driven economy but studies show that rich people are not necessarily happier than poor people. We appear to be born with a certain "happiness" set point, much like our weight and no matter how much stuff we own or acoutrements in our lives, the ability to feel satisfaction seems to be more the result of the H=S+V+C equation. S being our set points or genetic propensity for the feeling, V being our involvement in voluntary activities and C equalling our circumstances in life, poverty being one huge detriment to the H product. This according to 2 books reviewed in the New Yorker. Amazingly, a study showed that a person who wins the lottery and another rendered paraplegic will, after a year, return to their original "happiness" setpoints, whatever those were. Hmmm, win 37 million bucks or lose a leg, no matter, you're destined to feel a certain level of happiness no matter what fate brings you. Wow.

This reminds me of an anecdote about an American developer who travels to Latin America and counsels a successful fisher man that he could make a lot more money if he expanded his fleet beyond one boat. Why? teh fisherman asks. So that I can work hard for many years and eventually retire to spend time with my wife, watch the sunsets, play my guitar and relax, which I already get to do every day with my single daily catch?

Here we are, a nation fixated on the next "fix", nip and tuck, get rich or thin quick scheme and 20% of us are diagnostically "depressed." We have more access to more resources and opportunities then arguably anyone on the planet, but keep chasing some elusives something other. I love the irony of people dying in the desert to enter our country for a better life and those of us with the money, investing in those very sending countries to buy homes and a "simpler" life. And those very immigrants, whom we love to blame for our nation's ills, despite their low literacy, poor economic status and lack of access to health care, it turns out live 7 years longer than us whites, even with the diseases that come with poverty. A researcher at UCLA posits that there must be something about their life-style, including the emphasis on family and faith that prolongs and protects life. The Latino communities where I live bustle with life and street commerce, unlike so many gated communities and Hollywood homes nestled behind barriers and fences. Does this afford a support system, a commraderie, an esprit de corps that acts as a prophylactic agaisnt teh racsim and prejudice they face daily? Does their faith en Dios give them that placebo effect when facing an illness, which we critically thinking, analytical types lack? Prayer, it's been shown, is the number "alternative therapy" in use in the U.S. and studies have shown women with breast cancer do better when a group of unbeknownst strangers pray for them.

So, maybe instead of going shopping for the next whatever, we should stop, take a deep breath, meditate on what we do have, or take a neighbor out for coffee, volunteer at the local library, "cultivate our gardens", suivant Voltaire. But don't tell this administration I said that; they're too busy trying to sell you (and teh world) the American dream of democracy with all of its purchasing power and our individual inalienable right to "pursue happiness." Wouldn't want anyone to figure out that the H formula has nothing to do with credit cards, caramel machiattos or Condoleeza's criteria for Iranian containment. Shhhh.

Camouflage

3/16/06

I order my Fumi Salad from the new man behind teh counter and notice his clear white skin and dark eyes. He looks Polish or Russian or Estonian with short dark hair a wide face, high cheekbones and a slightly Asiatic nose. I smile as I request my usual pound and he scowls as if he doesn't quite understand and he walks away to get the containter. I notice that under his white chef's coat he's wearing huge camouflage pants, outsize protectors of what I imagine to be strong, muscular soccer legs. He takes his task very seriously and I wonder if he's new to this type of work. I place him as a Rumanian med student newly immigrated or a dancer just defected; can't tell from his voice if he has an accent and his body language is saying "not interested in talking, lady," so I turn away and mull over the Irish Soda Bread which looks really good today. Heavy with its oats and raisins and carraway seeds I almost get some but then remember I'm the only one who will eat it, the rest will spoil so I put back the loaf. Maybe I'll bake some on this rainy sunday.

Mystery man completes his task with the utmost serious demeanor and now I think perhaps he's a chemist, teh way he weighs the container and seals it with precision. I smile and request the Ginger Beets and he again turns back with an exasperated look and I"m convinced he's probably the dis-owned heir to a goat farm in Hungary, had ran away with an American tourist who dumped him when they arrived state side. But no, I see through his plastic glove a wedding ring, so perhaps he's blissfully married, just tired at teh end of a long day, waiting to get home to his PhD. thesis on 17th century Italian Slang. I turn now to the fresh bread and grab my Seeduction loaf, knowing I'm the only one who will eat this too, but at least I'll finish it, sopping up the juices of tonights dinner, whatever that will be. I return to the counter and am surprised to see him now looking straight into my eyes as if just noticing me. I thank him and he looks at my left hand as he smiles a beautiful white toothed welcome. "So how has your day been?" he asks as he notices my wedding ring. "Not bad and yours?" He has no accent and his face has completely changed from the cold cipher to a man now trying to make contact for whatever reason. I smile as he responds, "Good, thanks." I take my beets, "take care," I say and walk off, marveling at how well we can hide ourselves in broad daylight, under difused fluoresence or close-up in candle light. What prompts us to shed the camouflage, to come out of hiding, share a moment? What makes us cover up in the first place?

Mixed Messages

3/14/06

Why is it so hard to say what we mean and mean what we say? Why do we fear honesty and truely communicating what we're about? Is it because we often really don' t know? Do we project one message while articulating another from ambivalence, a bi-cameral brain, lack of conviction, habit, fear of being rejected? How often do we put on our masks and forget to take them off even when looking in the mirror?

How about genital rejeuvenating surgery, the latest rage in LA? Here's something that only you and your parnter(s) will ever know, yet women who have their various female parts re-structured claim to feel better about themselves once nipped and tucked to look like a porn star even though their spouses or whomever could care less. When you have a face lift, or a boob job, you present a different facade to the world and to yourself: "I am different in your eyes and my own than the way I feel." What about those couples who have been married for 50 years and still see their high school sweetheart when they look at their loved ones? What gift of altered vision do they have that the insecure body conscious socialite does not? And the recently reported case of a woman driven to sleep-eating by her new sleep remedy, Ambien, in complete denial that the candy wrappers by her bed, Doritos in her sheets and popsicle sticks in teh kitchen were hers, until she had gained 100 lbs? How could she not see her own truth? The 60-ish woman I see at the Y with her perfect silicone breasts, yet gnarled feet and sagging skin on an otherwise well tended body? What/who does she see in the mirror?

We must want to believe conflicting ideas at the same time to be able to hold such opposite feelings simultaneously. To say "I love you" while neglecting to nurture; to project self-confidence while secretely cutting yourself; to keep saying goodbye..."no this time I really mean it!" reveals shadows at war within. How can we declare a truce? Do we need to? Must one side win at the expense of the other? Does ambivalence protect us from diving into life and the risk of major injury or, wonder of wonders, a re-birth, frightening as that might be? Or does it allow us to honor divergent instincts and maintain some kind of integrity in a culture that mandates one must be a this or a that.

There is a wonderful clarity in the air when you feel the sureness of your self, no matter what odd and opposite components you discover. The trick is to recognize them, test them well, keep those that feel right and cast aside anything that comes with a pre-fix beginning with "should."
"Convictions are the greater enemy of truth than lies." Examine them, hold them up to the light of day and then the cool cast of night and somewhere, like the gold that settles to the bottom of a river bed, we'll find our gems of truth. Fish them out, whether the water flow is smooth or rough. Guard them in your heart. And then, maybe, we can speak what we really know, the clouds will pass and we can put some plastic surgeons out of business.

Standing Under

3/14/06

In preparing my Medical Spanish presentation I came a cross a quote: "To understand someone you must stand under them." This in the context of development aid/ health care in developing countries as a reminder to those of us in the white coats, or construction helmets, that to really understand a person different from yourself, it cannot be done from a remove, from the top down as we Americans to do. I loved the imagery of standing under someone, as if looking through a glass floor, up at their world, feeling the weight of their steps and the heat of the sun on their heads, the pebbles under their toes or the incline of a hill to be climbed. So often we look at people through our filters and think, ah yes, this person looks and acts like this, therefore I understand them. Attempting at "cultural competency" it's easy to think that because you've read the hand-outs at a seminar or interviewed a few dozen people or perhaps even lived in their countries, eaten their food, spoken their language, caught their intestinal bugs, that yes, "I get them." The problem lies in the idea of "them" however. The minute you qualify a group of people, you've pre-judged them. Doesnt' mean with mal intent but, by saying Latinas are... you have set up an expectation that this group of people and any single member there of is going to fulfill some pre-conceived idea. Better to think of each person we come across as just that, an individual; to open our eyes, to really listen, to take off the filters and hear, to stand under them and look up into their world as if being born into it from the soil up rather than looking down from a tree top or even at ground level with that stability of pre-conception clouding our view.

Can You Hear Me Now?

3/13/06

After dropping my cell phone in the sewer and cursing my purse which alternately loses the dang thing in the depths of its bowels or spits it out in various and sundry places, I bemoaned our dependence on modern technology while acknowledging that all these gadjets don't make our lives any simpler or easier to conduct. Then my flamenco teacher reminded us that our inter-personal communications are terrible no matter what medium we use because no one feels safe. That got my attention and I concurred. Why is it so hard to be, feel honest with people? How has the remove of telephonic devices altered how we speak to others? We know the internet's anonymity and instant satisfaction offers a new level of a variety of intimacies, whether they be intellectual, carnal, commercial, platonic. How different are these communcations from those we had around the camp fire, on the front porch, across teh dining or board room table? "Reach out and touch someone" was some phone companies ditty for while, now it's "Can you hear me now?" With all the noise in modern life, being heard seems a major challenge. People will IM each other at a crowded bar rather than yell above the din; sisters will feud in full fury ethernetically from half way around the world, re-hashing a myriad of old wrongs, igniting new ones in a way never possible through pen or ATT long distance charges. Loved ones spie on each other through global positioning hardware (soon to be available in Japan on cell phones). We Blackberry, Google, E-mail, telephone, telepath, fax and IM each other to death but do we really connect?

Yes, in a smile shared between 2 unknown moms in their mini-vans waiting at an intersection, in a couple of dollars pressed into the hand of a homeless person; in the soft caress of a child's neck at the end of a long day of bickering; in a joke shared between a food bank recipient and the health educator carting around her box of demo junk food; in the passing on of an article of interest between a husband and wife; in a smile of recognition between two strangers who will never meet again, but somehow know each other; in the hand on the back of a newly diagnosed cancer patient as she struggles to understand the news; in getting a phone call from someone just as you pen their name in the "To:" line; in the dream of an long lost boyfriend the night before receiving a letter from him. These interractions connect us in ways that a piece of electronica never will. It is with the eyes, the ears, the mouth, the skin and the mind that we relate as humans.

How sweet then, having given up my little Kyocera to a watery, detritus riddled grave, to find a kind Hispanic shop woman waiting next to my car after class to offer the use of a pair of ultra long tongs to retrieve my little mouth/ear piece. I thanked her for the favor with a smile and a joke, as she wrestled it out of the sewers clutch's then wiped off my baby and scolded it for its truancy. It chirped happily as I put it back in my purse and I went along my day, grateful for having had the chance, though a temporary loss, to connect with someone new.

Applications for Life

3.11.06

In filling out an application for yet another graduation degree (3's the charm?) I had to review old college and grad school transcripts. Seems I wasn't teh stellar undergrad I thought. Must have been distracted by all those young fraternity boys. Or seomthing. And how did I manage to have a "liberal arts" education without taking a single History, Philosophy or Religion class? Ah, well, must have been distracted by ... Anyway, looking back at resumes, having to write personal statments of purpose and computing my GPA, it's been itneresting to reflect on these past 30 years since tossing my mortar board into the air. A girlfriend has started on line dating and said it was an eye-opener to try to describe herself and her interests and ask herself, "well, do I really go hiking, read alot, cook home style Mexican and relax in front of roaring fires, as I wrote, or is that how I like to see myelf?" Good question. Maybe we should all have to re-apply to our lives now and then, think about our goals and write personal ads for potential partners. I did that recently and, what an eye-opener. Mirrors are one thing, but having to put down a position statement, (which is one reason for writing in this format here), challenging oneself in new situations with diverse people, putting yourself into foreign and uncomfortable situations, those are the true tests. Stripping away what you think you know, or allowing someone else's bullshit meter to register your own, that's when, if you're open, you might discover some thing new and necessary.

Met a Senegalese couple today waiting for an orientation that never took place. Fascinating again to see the U.S. from their point of view. Wonderful to brush off my French again and enjoy that sing-songy lilt, while discussing slavery, the isolation of life in LA and how badly we raise our children. The Dad talked about how he could not relate to blacks here, how he found them savage like, how they talk, dress and act. ALso about how people outside teh U.S. have no idea what our warts look like, as we export only the brilliant, shiny, fast, new and fascinating. I was reminded of my time in Zaire adn how wonderful it was to have no media access, but also how present I felt America's thumb while doing the work I did under her "development" auspices. Theo talked about Africa's brain drain and I mentioned how we take all their resources and his wife added that there is no hope for that continent because any one who can leave does.

Yet they miss their family, their land and want to return somehow so she's looking at graduate degrees to do International work. Nice to meet her and a 50 y/o AIDS counselor looking to move ahead in his career, addressing the needs of aging AIDS patients, now that the disease doesn't necessarily kill you. So many of us, seeking to make the most of our time on earth, re-applying at various junctions on the way. I love being around that energy, the mutability of us humans, for better or worse.

What do Women Really Want?

3/9/06

Well, it turns out we just want our mate to bring home the bacon (vegetarian or bovine, take your pick) and cuddle with us. SO much for women's lib. At least according to a recent Survey of 5,000 familes. The happiest wives are those who don't work outside the home and whose husbands are emotionally available to them. This makes complete evolutionary sense, someone's got to take care of the spawn and who better than a happily tended to Mom. Another study showed that even when women work full time they are spending more time with their kids than 50 years ago; they just spend less time on themselves.

Pas moi. I had a hedonistic day yesterday with morning at the gym, tennis and lunch with my country club girlfriend, wrote erotica, then flamenco classed at night. Now, who wouldn't rather fulfill their passions all day long and be truly present for their kids and hubs when all's said and done? Maybe we should ask our "Family Values" administration to do a bit more to support families who want a parent at home, make it easier for mothers to choose be such full time if they want. Maybe all these frustrated husbands would be happier too, if they came home to contented wives who felt valued for the good work they do as home-makers? Or maybe I'm deluding myself; wasn't that the '[50's? I think what was missing then was the emotionally present husband part. But all those frustrated house-wives who birthed the 60's probably did want more than cocktail hour and matching towels and tupperware parties. So they went to work, and self actualized and here we are 40 years later with.... more wives happier when they stay at home. And many Ivy League dames planning on only using their diplomas for 10 years until they marry and then...stay at home. Go figure.

One thing I do know that women, wives, men and husbands do want: to be asked "what do you think about...?" We all just want to matter some how and in some relevant way, whichever way it is that speaks to us.

Conceptions of Life

3/7/06
Okay, so the "right to lifers" would like to outlaw all abortions and designate conception as the starting point of human life. I wonder how far they are willing to go. Does this mean that every menstruating female is responsible for the legal and required proper disposal of a deceased human when she throws out her tampons and sanitary pads every month, because, if she's sexually active there's a good chance she's tossing out a misconception in one of those wads of cotton. Do we confer on every confirmed pregnancy all teh rights accorded to "born" humans, including social security numbers; legal, social and human rights, and HOV commuting lanes? Does the purported father of a fetus have the right to appoint his "conceptus" a guardian when the mother is malnourishing their "baby" by OD'ing on Twinkies and Gatorade during her 2nd trimester. Does a pregnant woman have the right to sue on behalf of her unborn child, her cigarette smoking partner for exposing it to a toxic substance? Will conception, rather than birth, determine a baby's country of origin? A baby conceived by memebers of the "mile high" club will be a citizen of which country? The one the plane departed from or the one the plane lands in? Would we then retract all citizenchip confered on babies conceived elsewhere but born here? If life begins at conception how does this gel with teh Constitution which conferes its rights on those "born" in the United States. Do we have a 9 month limbo period of suspended rights or will unborn fetuses all be treated as wards of the state until which time they are born. Will pregnant mother's be allowed to claim an extra deduction during the tax period of their pregnancies? Will every fetal demise be treated/investigated as a possible infanticide? What do you do with all those cryo-preserved embryos out there?

The bigger question to me is why are some people are so excrutiatingly uncomfortable with the power a woman holds to procreate or not at will? If you take away a woman's right to terminate her own pregnancy you are in essence raping her, by forcing her to either have a baby against her will or to take drastic, life threatening actions to end that reproduction. You are forcing a physical act (that of labor or illegal abortion) upon a woman's body as a result of sexual congress. Rape is an act of physical violence against a person; forcing them to endure a pregnancy is another kind of physical imposition. Forcing a human embryo to develop into a viable "baby" that will be born against their parents' will is another act of domination by one human over another. Hmm, sounds like slavery.

Can't we find some way to allow an 8 cell blastula to be just that? With honor for the potential it has to develop into a fully functioning human baby? How about the other end of the continuum, with a brain-dead patient; is he human? Is a baby missing an all vital brain stem "human?"

What common ground and interests can the right to lifer's and the pro-choice movement find? Isn't it about protecting human life? If so, then shouldn't we abolish teh death penalty, war, murder in self defence? What is at teh base of this basic disagreement about whether or not a woman has control over her own body, when that fetus is still dependent on her for survival? How can we talk to each other about these issues, including sex and a woman's ability to have sex without reproduction in mind.

How can men feel that they have a right to the outcome of one of their millions of sperm unleashed during each ejaculation, just as a woman has a right to each and every one of her considerably fewer eggs? What can be done to address the inherent imbalance of reproductive power when only one sex gets to procreate and the other has to stand by patiently and hope that the incubator of his DNA does the right thing for its physical health and then sticks around so he can father his child?

Maybe we can just acknowledge that women hav always contracepted and often performed infanticide over the millenia as a means to control their reproductive powers. Simply outlawing a method of contraception won't stop the practise. If we want to insist that the preservation of human life is paramount then how can you allow a woman to die from a botched abortion or life threatening pregnancy? If you allow abortion for cases of rape, incest or to save the mother's life then you have already cast a value judgement on which life is of more value and your arguement no longer holds. Life has its continuum and you are dying the minute you are born. Why should a third party get to decide what a woman does with the contents, the viscera of her own biological being? Especially if those contents are undesired and incapable of speaking for themselves.