It is an absolutely true fact that I have no time at all to write this essay. Or any of the daily essays to follow that I have now pledged myself into cobbling together. For instance I am right this very moment writing this sentence from the bathroom at the yoga studio where I 'm already late for the noon reverie.
I spent the morning neck deep in all sorts of poetry (the genre I'm angling to have masters in 18 months from now) and will be at work til 11 tonight. The only time for additional scribblings are the half hour gap between yoga and work (that's if I skip the shower) and a 45 minute lunch I generally like to spend in the parking lot as the token non smoker in the smoking area.
This project is impossible. But then what is the process of creating, if not slinging ourselves at the impossible and aching for others to follow us through nonlinear implication into some semblance of mutual understanding. Which isn't really the same, but close enough that resonance can be achieved
Yes. This project is impossible. Which is part of what attracts me to it.
I am an impossible person. My body and my genders are impossible. I mean things my body will likely never be able to reflect and encapsulate and my words are always too short, to calm the constant fever of confusion that heats my life and pushes my engines forward.
....
I am skipping the shower. The smell of my motor oil be dammed. Now each sentence is coming between furtive bites of cottage cheese and leftover ratatouille: my makeshift lunch. I gobble between keyboard flicks before I fly off to my grueling sentence of customer service numbness. There I'll have to get over how under the skin my temper gets when someone asks "how are you?" without ever wanting to really know that answer. As if such a personal question could be a stand in for the beige conversational rocking horse of "hello".
The answer of course is "I am impossible." A terribly unreasonable greeting by most counts. And we must not upset the customers!
I've begun to worry about my bicycle which, for expediency's was sake, was left the porch. But now I worry her wheels are beneath someone else's pumping. And fuck.
I thought that by committing to this impossible task, I might find some fucking reprieve from the anxious thoughts that plague. I thought that if I could plan away every minute and even cover up the possibility of a fallow moment that the worrisome waves would stop smashing into me. I thought I'd reached dry land with American perseverance. But I guess there's still some saltwater in my engine.
I hate how this is turning into a prose poem. This is supposed to be an essay. An impossible piece of literature that is ragged on the edges and long in the mouth, yes, but still very much so an essay.
Secret confession: I have no idea what I am doing. And without that knowing, impossible is not really a thing I can define is it? So here is my challenge to you, oh few, and bodacious readers.
Do something impossible. Trust that your logic brain is unable to compute the parameters of what is statistically possible. Give up im/possible. With the greatest love, throw your body through artists tools and ritual, at something distant, worthwhile, and impossible
I'll see you all tomorrow!
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Appropriation Is Erasure
Preface:
Alright, let's get this out of the way. I am a white person about to write about race. And I am scared to do it.
You're more than welcome to skip this preface and proceed onto what this post is really about. Trust me, my clumsy thoughts on racism and appropriation and art are much more interesting than my fears. But I must speak them.
I have been afraid of blogging about race in the past. I still am. The only other times I have written about race I've either used a disclaimer, or not addressed it directly while making note of implications I was skipping. The fear I experience is complex (like most human emotions) but mostly boils down to three basic thrusts.
Alright, let's get this out of the way. I am a white person about to write about race. And I am scared to do it.
You're more than welcome to skip this preface and proceed onto what this post is really about. Trust me, my clumsy thoughts on racism and appropriation and art are much more interesting than my fears. But I must speak them.
I have been afraid of blogging about race in the past. I still am. The only other times I have written about race I've either used a disclaimer, or not addressed it directly while making note of implications I was skipping. The fear I experience is complex (like most human emotions) but mostly boils down to three basic thrusts.
- I don't want to further enforce oppressive structures, and/or harm those whose experiences/cultures I'm speaking about.
- I am afraid of bumping up against the spots in my world view that've been made blind by my privilege. I am afraid to find in myself those deeply lodged flecks of violence and oppression I've yet to eradicate.
- I am afraid to have this process laid bare in public, because I ultimately want to be thought of as a "good guy". But giving up being the "good guy" is part of challenging power structures that put me and people who look/act like me in power (and gives us the freedom to call ourselves "good guys" and be believed). So here goes.
Before you read any of the following please at least skim DEFINITELY READ ALL OF Nicholas Powers's Why I Yelled at the Kara Walker Exhibit. In fact, if you only have time/energy to read one take on this topic make it his not mine.
I strode to the front, turned around and yelled at the crowd that when they objectify the sculpture’s sexual parts and pose in front of it like tourists they are recreating the very racism the art was supposed to critique. I yelled that this was our history and that many of us were angry and sad that it was a site of pornographic jokes.
Among the many thoughts and feelings I had after reading this, this is proof positive for me that more comprehensive interdisciplinary arts education is necessary. I want a clear connections drawn between art and social justice. There is such a fucking failure in our schools and at large to connect past atrocities and suffering to current occurrences and artistic trends.
Unfortunately Powers's experience is only a glaring example of how the centering of white folk's contexts for experiencing erases the culture and history of others. I mean look at how "exotic" art (whether it be foreign, "urban", Native American, or otherwise "tribal"/"primitive") is presented in film/tv. They're used as props or background and all too often end up as the butt of some throwaway joke. Those jokes as well as those photos people were taking of the Kara Walker exhibit are as naked a portrait of appropriation as I can imagine.
The very reason that experiencing art itself can be transformative at all this that it asks us to consider and in theory inhabit contexts other than our own. But so many white and otherwise privileged people have been insulated from this process. So much so that when they encounter anything that seems outside of their experience/history they assume that it must only exist for their entertainment. The viscous cycle of erasure and appropriation is fed by this consistent failure to connect with the cultural contexts of those either deemed "other" or simply not spoken about at all.
In one of the presentations at my residency last month someone said "people who have suffered are smarter". That phrase clicked with me then but I think only now am I understanding why. People who suffer and are made "other", are forced to, and for their own survival, become adept at understanding contexts and experiences other than their own. This was the "smart"ness referred to.*
The mechanism of appropriation laid bare at the Kara Walker exhibit, is the process of reducing the art of "the other" to the frivolous, exotic, and/or racy/trendy (and usually profiting from that redefinition). And I am ashamed. But more important I'm livid.
Livid that the insular straight-up dumb assumption, that "if [x piece of art/culture] is not about me/my experience then it must not be that important (to anyone)." is part of my culture as an american and as a white person. The comfort of that privilege is NOT making us smarter, or better people. It only makes us more comfortable (at the expense, erasure, and discomfort of others).
Livid that the insular straight-up dumb assumption, that "if [x piece of art/culture] is not about me/my experience then it must not be that important (to anyone)." is part of my culture as an american and as a white person. The comfort of that privilege is NOT making us smarter, or better people. It only makes us more comfortable (at the expense, erasure, and discomfort of others).
*After drafting this I was informed that this context switching "smartness" is known as "outsider-within" perspective in feminist stand point theory. Source
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
March Was Enormous
It's been almost two months since I've posted.
So much has happened. It's hard to know how to tell it all and what I should mention first.
Last month took a trip back to Seattle. It was a strange delightful and full of both warmth and ache.
And also It was very very wet.
I collected so many hugs from the loved ones I left behind in the Puget Sound.
I visited my grandmother who'd had a stroke the week before I arrived
A few hours after my after my flight got into SeaTac I received the first of two life-changing phone calls I would get in March.
The call was from chair of the MFA program at Antioch University. He said "I'm delighted to offer you admission to our program." The cohort begins this June. I was elated and confused and many many feelings besides that. Antioch was my top choice of the three schools I applied to, and the personal attention, professed commitment, and recognition I've received from the faculty has been amazing. But it's going to cost a lot. After a conversation with my partner in which he advised me against going graduate school (he asked "Could you wait a year?"), I spent two very painful days thinking I wouldn't go.
I know I might be in debt forever, and that this decision is more risk than investment but I couldn't say no. I sent off my Intent to Register form last week. Bring on the debt.
Last Thursday morning my father called me to tell me that my grandma Iris McCutchen had died. It's been less than a week. My mind and my body is still processing her being gone. And I have NO idea what to say or think about this.
I'm sick this week, but part of what I've gleaned from the frenzy of March was to keep moving and that I shouldn't let shame and fear stop me from doing.
Earlier this week I started a Patreon account (a crowdfunding tool for creative folks like me):
So much has happened. It's hard to know how to tell it all and what I should mention first.
Last month took a trip back to Seattle. It was a strange delightful and full of both warmth and ache.
And also It was very very wet.
I collected so many hugs from the loved ones I left behind in the Puget Sound.
I visited my grandmother who'd had a stroke the week before I arrived
A few hours after my after my flight got into SeaTac I received the first of two life-changing phone calls I would get in March.
The call was from chair of the MFA program at Antioch University. He said "I'm delighted to offer you admission to our program." The cohort begins this June. I was elated and confused and many many feelings besides that. Antioch was my top choice of the three schools I applied to, and the personal attention, professed commitment, and recognition I've received from the faculty has been amazing. But it's going to cost a lot. After a conversation with my partner in which he advised me against going graduate school (he asked "Could you wait a year?"), I spent two very painful days thinking I wouldn't go.
I know I might be in debt forever, and that this decision is more risk than investment but I couldn't say no. I sent off my Intent to Register form last week. Bring on the debt.
Last Thursday morning my father called me to tell me that my grandma Iris McCutchen had died. It's been less than a week. My mind and my body is still processing her being gone. And I have NO idea what to say or think about this.
I'm sick this week, but part of what I've gleaned from the frenzy of March was to keep moving and that I shouldn't let shame and fear stop me from doing.
Earlier this week I started a Patreon account (a crowdfunding tool for creative folks like me):
And I've once again committed myself to writing a poem every day in the month of April. And sort of against my better judgement I'm rebooting my tumblr to archive the poems I write over the next 29 days.
So here I go.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Misunderstanding and creativity
I have amazing and loving friends who know exactly what beautiful and inspiring things I need and send them to me on a nearly daily basis.
I've been sick for the past few days. Yesterday I thought I might be getting better but this morning I woke up with the mysterious and alarming symptoms of a concussion. I don't think I hit my head, but for the first forty minutes I was awake today I experienced something like aphasia. I forgot and couldn't understand certain words. I could read the words in a sentence but I couldn't understand them or how they fit together to form complex thoughts.
I felt terrified without immediate understanding.
Luckily, without even knowing I might have this problem one of my dear friends sent me this comic.
When I finally got to reading it, and in between paranoia about strokes and meningitis, I started to be okay with the the fact that I didn't know words as well as usual. One of the places I find the most stability and comfort is in language and my ability to use it. I was terrified this morning by having lost some small measure of that.
I still have a headache and probably am not thinking as clearly as when I am 100% healthy. But that doesn't mean I can't create or should stop working altogether. I might slack off a little bit today and only meet part of my writing goal. But I can still show up. Because I don't have to know everything or really even know much to write.
There's this piece writing of advice that I can't stand being thrown around.
"Write what you know."
Now believe me, I understand the importance of research and inquiry (especially for nonfiction and novel writers) and making publishable content accurate to reality. But I learn the most when I write about things I only half-know or know an astonishingly little about. This type of writing is never guaranteed to produce anything substantial, however it presents the most exciting risks and often leads me to a sort of digging deep that I don't reach by sitting down with a known plan in mind. (this is especially true for poetry)
I certainly had other things on my mind this morning (namely frustration and fear) but now that I'm on my way to some semblance of wellness I do wonder, what might have come out of me in my state of nonsense.
I used to be really uptight about what ideas I thought were a good enough to write about. These restrictions kept me from writing poems more than a few times a month. While this mistake probably stopped me from writing some bad poems it also stunted the development of my craft.
These days, barring emergencies, I show up everyday to write despite my bad feelings. Somedays a screen's light is too harsh for my eyes too look at and I let my phone record a spoken outline of my ideas or I just cobble together a collection of what I find to be touching inspiring or upsetting and make notes. But I show up for my craft for at least 10 minutes every day. And it's usually not pretty.
I guess what I'm saying is that the writing process doesn't always look cogent, or knowable or smart. It's hard work to unlearn the erasure of creators methods which are often mired in long and intuitively rich periods of misunderstanding.
I've been sick for the past few days. Yesterday I thought I might be getting better but this morning I woke up with the mysterious and alarming symptoms of a concussion. I don't think I hit my head, but for the first forty minutes I was awake today I experienced something like aphasia. I forgot and couldn't understand certain words. I could read the words in a sentence but I couldn't understand them or how they fit together to form complex thoughts.
I felt terrified without immediate understanding.
Luckily, without even knowing I might have this problem one of my dear friends sent me this comic.
When I finally got to reading it, and in between paranoia about strokes and meningitis, I started to be okay with the the fact that I didn't know words as well as usual. One of the places I find the most stability and comfort is in language and my ability to use it. I was terrified this morning by having lost some small measure of that.
I still have a headache and probably am not thinking as clearly as when I am 100% healthy. But that doesn't mean I can't create or should stop working altogether. I might slack off a little bit today and only meet part of my writing goal. But I can still show up. Because I don't have to know everything or really even know much to write.
There's this piece writing of advice that I can't stand being thrown around.
"Write what you know."
Now believe me, I understand the importance of research and inquiry (especially for nonfiction and novel writers) and making publishable content accurate to reality. But I learn the most when I write about things I only half-know or know an astonishingly little about. This type of writing is never guaranteed to produce anything substantial, however it presents the most exciting risks and often leads me to a sort of digging deep that I don't reach by sitting down with a known plan in mind. (this is especially true for poetry)
I certainly had other things on my mind this morning (namely frustration and fear) but now that I'm on my way to some semblance of wellness I do wonder, what might have come out of me in my state of nonsense.
I used to be really uptight about what ideas I thought were a good enough to write about. These restrictions kept me from writing poems more than a few times a month. While this mistake probably stopped me from writing some bad poems it also stunted the development of my craft.
These days, barring emergencies, I show up everyday to write despite my bad feelings. Somedays a screen's light is too harsh for my eyes too look at and I let my phone record a spoken outline of my ideas or I just cobble together a collection of what I find to be touching inspiring or upsetting and make notes. But I show up for my craft for at least 10 minutes every day. And it's usually not pretty.
I guess what I'm saying is that the writing process doesn't always look cogent, or knowable or smart. It's hard work to unlearn the erasure of creators methods which are often mired in long and intuitively rich periods of misunderstanding.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
No-home Sickness
My partner and I are currently between cities; in the process of leaving Seattle and finding a new city. Our roots are raw and recently cut. It's hard to be without a real home. It's even harder when I get sick.
I'm sick today and I was sick yesterday. I thought I might not be for a full 12 hours. But i was wrong. I suited up in an unapologetically dapper ensemble and took my sweetie out for fancy french food. It was excellent except for the vapid couple sitting next to us prattling on about the pounce of internet speculation. Though even through that my companion and I enjoyed exchanging mutually disdainful looks. My partner tweeted about his fears and cynicism surrounding the tech culture and ruthless gentrification in San Francisco.
Neither of us want to live here but the job might be the right thing for my partner. So for now, we tolerate it.
After dinner and the 3 tablets of acetaminophen one of the waitstaff was kind enough to give me we left to go to a party. It was a party hosted by my partner's employer and the second one of this type that I've been to.
I had great conversations and even remembered a lot of people's names this time around. I was having a good time but found myself a bit lonely.
My partner was doing some "work" (having private conversations and bolstering confidence of students and coworkers). This meant I had less access to him and ended up talking to people I didn't know very well. I don't mind this, but it takes energy.
And I like the people my partner works with and for. They are friendly and think well of me. This is apparent in every interaction I have with them. But the conversation fatigue set in much faster than I'd anticipated. But I miss the ease of a crowd that include people who're already my friends. A social slight completely unintentional and certainly indiscernible to anyone but myself started me down a spiral of thought about how I don't belong.
One of the funny on-topic things I'd tried to put forth didn't fly and was passed over in favor of input from a community member. In that moment my joviality came crashing down. I made myself some tea and crawled out to the fire escape to spend some time alone. It was restorative but even then I felt my muscles shuddering softly in fatigue.
It took us an hour after that to leave. The long good byes were very long. We got wrapped up in an engaging but ultimately draining conversation about health insurance (which only served to remind us of how very uninsured we currently are). I knew I was tired when we got out on to the street. I let my partner talk as we walked toward the BART station. I wasn't really listening and found myself grateful that one of my partner's friends accompanied us and that they conversed while I could concentrate on walking.
When we got on the BART I felt good to be away from the party (crowds can be an big energy suck) I felt almost normal, minus the slight nausea and high sensitivity to the hot stuffy atmosphere of the train. My partner and I spent the whole ride back to the East Bay barely touching staring sappily into each other eyes. I was grateful for this elongated moment of emotional intimacy.
Unfortunately the instant I stepped off of the train I felt my energy crash again. On the escalator up to the terminal my partner stepped up to embrace me and I said "No. Too close."
The escalator up to the street was out of service so I had to climb the steps. The first two seemed fine, but each of the 25 or so after that seemed to threaten me with upheaval. I had to stop at the top and rest for a moment to make sure I didn't hurk.
During the seemingly endless four blocks from the BART station to our for-now-home in oakland I had a hard time walking and talking at the same time. The poet in my tried to consolidate what I was experiencing "I feel like a ghost".
My lungs worked half time, even the slow steps I took shortened my breath considerably. I felt my heat beat like an echo. The lag in my body's transmission of sensory information made legs clumsy and inarticulate. My marrow turned heavy like mercury in my bones. Last night was the first time I've ever asked a loved one "will you help me up the stairs?" If I'd had any energy left to feel I might have felt ashamed. But all I had room for was frustration and effort.
I wish I could just talk about just one of the three things that happened to me last night. My sickness, my social anxieties, my partner's bitter fears about career/location/health insurance, but all three happened in a drawn out mixed up progression that left my heart exhausted and my body ghostly.
This afternoon there is a part of me that thinks "maybe I shouldn't have gone out last night." It was extremely spoon-expensive and nearly drained all my bodily resources. I had no idea how fully it was going to take my energy. But ultimately I'm glad I could and I'm glad I did make it out last night. I'm lucky to have had the small burst of energy I did. And to have the energy I richly enjoy most of the time.
Fancy clothes and fancy dinner, flirty party conversations were worth the risk and the cost. But it's important for me to talk about that cost. At the end of the night I was a wreck. I needed my partner to help me up the stairs and into bed. I didn't have the energy to empathize with his fears about my health or our future I could only ask for tea and help taking off my clothes.
We're both scared about the future and uncertain about what we can handle and what will sustain us. Cobbling together hard limits and expectations form the world around us is nearly impossible. But we're working on it. Together. For that I am endlessly thankful.
I'm sick today and I was sick yesterday. I thought I might not be for a full 12 hours. But i was wrong. I suited up in an unapologetically dapper ensemble and took my sweetie out for fancy french food. It was excellent except for the vapid couple sitting next to us prattling on about the pounce of internet speculation. Though even through that my companion and I enjoyed exchanging mutually disdainful looks. My partner tweeted about his fears and cynicism surrounding the tech culture and ruthless gentrification in San Francisco.
Neither of us want to live here but the job might be the right thing for my partner. So for now, we tolerate it.
After dinner and the 3 tablets of acetaminophen one of the waitstaff was kind enough to give me we left to go to a party. It was a party hosted by my partner's employer and the second one of this type that I've been to.
I had great conversations and even remembered a lot of people's names this time around. I was having a good time but found myself a bit lonely.
My partner was doing some "work" (having private conversations and bolstering confidence of students and coworkers). This meant I had less access to him and ended up talking to people I didn't know very well. I don't mind this, but it takes energy.
And I like the people my partner works with and for. They are friendly and think well of me. This is apparent in every interaction I have with them. But the conversation fatigue set in much faster than I'd anticipated. But I miss the ease of a crowd that include people who're already my friends. A social slight completely unintentional and certainly indiscernible to anyone but myself started me down a spiral of thought about how I don't belong.
One of the funny on-topic things I'd tried to put forth didn't fly and was passed over in favor of input from a community member. In that moment my joviality came crashing down. I made myself some tea and crawled out to the fire escape to spend some time alone. It was restorative but even then I felt my muscles shuddering softly in fatigue.
It took us an hour after that to leave. The long good byes were very long. We got wrapped up in an engaging but ultimately draining conversation about health insurance (which only served to remind us of how very uninsured we currently are). I knew I was tired when we got out on to the street. I let my partner talk as we walked toward the BART station. I wasn't really listening and found myself grateful that one of my partner's friends accompanied us and that they conversed while I could concentrate on walking.
When we got on the BART I felt good to be away from the party (crowds can be an big energy suck) I felt almost normal, minus the slight nausea and high sensitivity to the hot stuffy atmosphere of the train. My partner and I spent the whole ride back to the East Bay barely touching staring sappily into each other eyes. I was grateful for this elongated moment of emotional intimacy.
Unfortunately the instant I stepped off of the train I felt my energy crash again. On the escalator up to the terminal my partner stepped up to embrace me and I said "No. Too close."
The escalator up to the street was out of service so I had to climb the steps. The first two seemed fine, but each of the 25 or so after that seemed to threaten me with upheaval. I had to stop at the top and rest for a moment to make sure I didn't hurk.
During the seemingly endless four blocks from the BART station to our for-now-home in oakland I had a hard time walking and talking at the same time. The poet in my tried to consolidate what I was experiencing "I feel like a ghost".
My lungs worked half time, even the slow steps I took shortened my breath considerably. I felt my heat beat like an echo. The lag in my body's transmission of sensory information made legs clumsy and inarticulate. My marrow turned heavy like mercury in my bones. Last night was the first time I've ever asked a loved one "will you help me up the stairs?" If I'd had any energy left to feel I might have felt ashamed. But all I had room for was frustration and effort.
I wish I could just talk about just one of the three things that happened to me last night. My sickness, my social anxieties, my partner's bitter fears about career/location/health insurance, but all three happened in a drawn out mixed up progression that left my heart exhausted and my body ghostly.
This afternoon there is a part of me that thinks "maybe I shouldn't have gone out last night." It was extremely spoon-expensive and nearly drained all my bodily resources. I had no idea how fully it was going to take my energy. But ultimately I'm glad I could and I'm glad I did make it out last night. I'm lucky to have had the small burst of energy I did. And to have the energy I richly enjoy most of the time.
Fancy clothes and fancy dinner, flirty party conversations were worth the risk and the cost. But it's important for me to talk about that cost. At the end of the night I was a wreck. I needed my partner to help me up the stairs and into bed. I didn't have the energy to empathize with his fears about my health or our future I could only ask for tea and help taking off my clothes.
We're both scared about the future and uncertain about what we can handle and what will sustain us. Cobbling together hard limits and expectations form the world around us is nearly impossible. But we're working on it. Together. For that I am endlessly thankful.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Playful Waste and Bringing Down the Stakes
This post was in part inspired by and written for my fellow blogger and long distance friend at thetoughestcookies when he asked me earlier this week about how to overcome anxieties about starting a larger writing project.
It's been a long time since I've blogged. And to be completely honest with you dear readers, I've been afraid (and also busy). I'm really proud of my previous post and have been chipping away at a monster of an essay about why I prefer the term "consent positive" rather than "sex positive".
Being between these two ideologically heavy hitting pieces of writing has left me in something of a stall. Instinctively I allowed the last thing I had written set the standard for the seriousness and heft of what must come next.
This set the stage for a series of thoughts about my writing not being "good enough". Regardless of how (in)consistent my posts here seem, writing for me is a constant. I write anywhere from 15 minutes to 4 hours every day. It's not as if I haven't been generating content. I've just reflexively cast it all as writing that is "not up to par" with what I usually post here.
Today, I say fuck that shit. Starting with figuring out where this reflex comes from.
It's been a long time since I've blogged. And to be completely honest with you dear readers, I've been afraid (and also busy). I'm really proud of my previous post and have been chipping away at a monster of an essay about why I prefer the term "consent positive" rather than "sex positive".
Being between these two ideologically heavy hitting pieces of writing has left me in something of a stall. Instinctively I allowed the last thing I had written set the standard for the seriousness and heft of what must come next.
This set the stage for a series of thoughts about my writing not being "good enough". Regardless of how (in)consistent my posts here seem, writing for me is a constant. I write anywhere from 15 minutes to 4 hours every day. It's not as if I haven't been generating content. I've just reflexively cast it all as writing that is "not up to par" with what I usually post here.
Today, I say fuck that shit. Starting with figuring out where this reflex comes from.
I recognize that the reason I want to maintain an illusion of polished and tightly packaged writing on my blog comes from the way our culture loves to erase the important role of process in any sort of creative activity. The way we're taught to think of work that is genius or “inspired” is to judge it by the inverse amount of effort it appears the genius/creator put into that product. I'm not saying that the "it just came to me" moments of creative lightning don't happen. They do (and more likely to if we engage in regular process). What I am saying is that the narrative of spontaneity and ease in the creation of genius creative work is falsely held up as the primary story of powerful creative works. And I am tired of it.
There's a multitude of articles (especially in the era of social media) that really pinpoint how the phenomena of overnight success is a pretty inaccurate representation of the amount of work time and energy that a person, organization, or group has put into their creative products. I would argue that the concept of overnight success itself serves to erase the important process work that happened before and probably still happens after someone's work is packaged, polished, and (hopefully) recognized.
Creativity isn't magic. It's showing up time after time (in my case day after day). Sometimes if we're lucky it FEELS like magic and we're "on it" or really "in the game" and running with that lightning. But those moment have less to do with recognition then they do with our creative practices matching whatever our brain waves are doing that day (which we have some but certainly not complete control over).
And so in that spirit (and to remind myself that it'sokay vital) I want to talk a little bit about a thing I like to call wasteful play.
I used to tutor writing in college. I am very familiar with the terror so seemingly inevitable that creeps in when too much focus is put too soon onto what might be the final shape of creative products.
The fruits of our creative process are not completely under our conscious control. Some ideas need to lie fallow or exist outside of the shadow of high stakes and possible conventions of a final product. Any person engaged in a creative process (which CAN be anyone) should sometimes just play with ideas rather then work towards an end product. Don't ask your ideas too quickly about who they are and what they might be. The sprouting collaboration between your conscious and unconscious creative minds might not be ready to speak only in the language of known variables.
Accept the fact that playful waste will happen. In fact come to expect it. Learn that there will almost always be work you do and stuff you create that will be left behind. That doesn't mean these works don't have value or don't have potential to be used for something awesome in the future just that their work is not contributing to the final shape this particular creative product at hand.
Accepting this playful waste not only stops the paralysis of "what if it's/I'm not good enough" because of course some of it WON'T be (part of the final product). It also offers you really useful information about the kind of thoughts that are related to the idea you're currently working on but might need their own separate structure. Accepting playful waste gives you a place to store mini ideas that could spark and/or be mixed into future projects. This can give you a good sense of how the creative projects you're working on are related to each other, if ever you decide to arrange them in a series.
It also organizes your process into spaces where you can be either messy or clean with your ideas. Having the freedom to create playful waste lets you be sloppy. It gives you a place to go through sloppy executions of ideas so when the time comes to bring a sharper focus to the shape of your creative product your messier ideas don't muddy the idea you are working to make cleaner and clearer.
Accepting the occurrence of playful waste also helps contribute to more concisely focused creative products in other ways. If your well of creative runoff is always available to you and possibly brimming with hints about what you might want to do for future projects you no longer run as high a risk of trying to stuff too many of your ideas into a single piece.
The hardest part of accepting wasteful play and really letting yourself be messy is that it requires a constant process of unlearning the lessons of product focused, genius rewarding society. But I promise, everyone's process is messy in some way or other.
So go make a mess. I will if you will.
See you in the muck,
WRM
There's a multitude of articles (especially in the era of social media) that really pinpoint how the phenomena of overnight success is a pretty inaccurate representation of the amount of work time and energy that a person, organization, or group has put into their creative products. I would argue that the concept of overnight success itself serves to erase the important process work that happened before and probably still happens after someone's work is packaged, polished, and (hopefully) recognized.
Creativity isn't magic. It's showing up time after time (in my case day after day). Sometimes if we're lucky it FEELS like magic and we're "on it" or really "in the game" and running with that lightning. But those moment have less to do with recognition then they do with our creative practices matching whatever our brain waves are doing that day (which we have some but certainly not complete control over).
And so in that spirit (and to remind myself that it's
I used to tutor writing in college. I am very familiar with the terror so seemingly inevitable that creeps in when too much focus is put too soon onto what might be the final shape of creative products.
The fruits of our creative process are not completely under our conscious control. Some ideas need to lie fallow or exist outside of the shadow of high stakes and possible conventions of a final product. Any person engaged in a creative process (which CAN be anyone) should sometimes just play with ideas rather then work towards an end product. Don't ask your ideas too quickly about who they are and what they might be. The sprouting collaboration between your conscious and unconscious creative minds might not be ready to speak only in the language of known variables.
Accept the fact that playful waste will happen. In fact come to expect it. Learn that there will almost always be work you do and stuff you create that will be left behind. That doesn't mean these works don't have value or don't have potential to be used for something awesome in the future just that their work is not contributing to the final shape this particular creative product at hand.
Accepting this playful waste not only stops the paralysis of "what if it's/I'm not good enough" because of course some of it WON'T be (part of the final product). It also offers you really useful information about the kind of thoughts that are related to the idea you're currently working on but might need their own separate structure. Accepting playful waste gives you a place to store mini ideas that could spark and/or be mixed into future projects. This can give you a good sense of how the creative projects you're working on are related to each other, if ever you decide to arrange them in a series.
It also organizes your process into spaces where you can be either messy or clean with your ideas. Having the freedom to create playful waste lets you be sloppy. It gives you a place to go through sloppy executions of ideas so when the time comes to bring a sharper focus to the shape of your creative product your messier ideas don't muddy the idea you are working to make cleaner and clearer.
Accepting the occurrence of playful waste also helps contribute to more concisely focused creative products in other ways. If your well of creative runoff is always available to you and possibly brimming with hints about what you might want to do for future projects you no longer run as high a risk of trying to stuff too many of your ideas into a single piece.
The hardest part of accepting wasteful play and really letting yourself be messy is that it requires a constant process of unlearning the lessons of product focused, genius rewarding society. But I promise, everyone's process is messy in some way or other.
So go make a mess. I will if you will.
See you in the muck,
WRM
Saturday, August 25, 2012
The importance of radical non-presence in maintaining intersectional integrity
Note: This is an idea I am still very much mulling over and would LOVE to hear any feedback folks have about privilege, oppression, & intersectionality as it relates to presence/non-presence.
These meetings provided vital challenges to the way I conceptualized my world. I encountered and began to process the reality of trans and genderqueer folk for the first time. One of our regular leaders spoke with raw vulnerability about living with and contracting HIV. I was blown away. I value what I learned there more than I can say.
A year into my attendance of these meetings a decision was made that the meeting space would available to LGBTQ -identified individuals only. I considered saying I was queer or questioning, but back then straight still felt most comfortable. Conflict & anger burbled in my belly and often escaped my mouth in the shape of resentment as I spoke about the group’s decision. “It’s mean and discriminatory and I feel like I’m being unfairly excluded”.
After listening to my complaints, calmly and at length, my best friend opened his mouth haltingly but without apology. "Sometimes, it's just better to be around people who've had the same experiences you do."
Those simple words clicked instantly. I understood the reason my experience of straightness was excluded from a queer youth space. I didn’t have words for it then but it didn’t matter. I understood. I understood that spaces can be more deeply healing and illuminating when the people in that space have a shared experience & history with specific tools of oppression (in this case trans- & homophobia). At 17 I’d never had someone hate or question me for being queer. More importantly, I hadn't had it happen to me on a repeated, systematic basis. My friend was telling me that the most valuable support I could give him was my non-presence as a person full of a lived history of straightness.
The exclusion of my straight 17 year old self from my hometown's queer youth space facilitated deeper, unquestioned explorations of internalized and subconscious trans- & homophobia. The lessons I’d have learned by continuing to share that space would have no doubt been valuable. But my experiences of straightness took up space in that room. I required time and information to connect deeply to others’ experiences of homophobia and transphobia. I wanted to be included in explorations of those tools of oppression. But it wasn’t the job of those suffering from trans- & homophobia to educate me about that experience. It is never the obligation of the oppressed to educate others about the deep level of systematic oppression they experience. This is especially true if they are present to explore that oppression for themselves.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
A Familiar Fear: Why cycling is sometimes like existing as a woman* in a misogynist culture
Every time I ride my bike legally centerlane through SoDo (south Seattle) I find myself, without fail, afraid.
This fear strikes my body in a familiar way. My stomach flinches with recognition. “I know this feeling.” I think in conjunction with gripping the brakelevers a little too tightly. My wrists and elbows harvest the the all-too-familiar tension of traveling through space that was not designed for my existence. At best these roads accommodate my journey with retrofits. Often these artificial additions serve as triggers for the the rage many drivers feel toward cyclists in general and me in particular.
Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely thankful when a roadway opens up with a bike lane or announces me and my simple machine with signs or white symbols. But it is not enough.
If it isn’t apparent already, that fearful correlation I feel in my belly-- the one I am attempting to draw out here-- is a parallel between the twisted visibility & ever-apparent danger inherent in biking in spaces designed for cars, and the problems and challenges presented by navigating a misogynist culture as a female-perceived person.
Ask any cyclist you know and they will tell you story upon story of either being physically damaged, verbally harassed or having their journeys otherwise disrupted by drivers and their vehicles. Ask any female-presenting person you know (who has an awareness of what harassment/abuse looks like) and they will be just as able to tell you many stories about having their journeys disrupted by physical, verbal or other means.
You see, there is this thing about being a vehicle or gender (and gender is just a vehicle) in a system not designed for you (which at best accommodates you with retrofits): Our journeys and our bodies are constantly subject to the self-righteous scrutiny and disruptions of those for whom the systems were designed.
There is a special sort of visibility afforded to a cyclist or a female-perceived person. One which immediately appears to insight ridicule from those for whom the cultural/transportation system was designed. Cyclists and women* are expected to accept the fact that they are often gawked at and even to have their performance and appearance scrutinized and commented upon without invitation or permission. And so often the space a woman or a cyclist requests to take up is seen as merely a flashy nuisance. Most drivers/misogynists identify us as hazards within their system and not as full vehicles/people (which legally we are!).
The most prescient way in which these two types of fear connected in my belly was on the grounds of implicit but (usually) unintentional threats of harm. When a driver/misogynist does gawk, comment, honk or pass my body/vehicle too closely, there is always the implied threat of violence. Regardless of the intent.
If a car passes me and my bike too closely & the driver shouts or revs their engine, they might not mean to be saying so, but the message I always receive is very clear: “You don’t belong here and if I wanted to do something about it I could kill/physically damage you (with this machine).” This is the same sort of message I receive as a female-perceived person in spaces where violence against women and misogyny go unchallenged as the norm. I want more bike lanes and less oppressive drivers. I want better marked and maintained avenues for journeys free from gendered violence and misogyny.
*I use woman/women in shorthand here to be a placeholder for female-perceived persons. I do not believe these terms mean the same groups of people, only that these two groups are the most often subject to misogynist violence and disruption.
This fear strikes my body in a familiar way. My stomach flinches with recognition. “I know this feeling.” I think in conjunction with gripping the brakelevers a little too tightly. My wrists and elbows harvest the the all-too-familiar tension of traveling through space that was not designed for my existence. At best these roads accommodate my journey with retrofits. Often these artificial additions serve as triggers for the the rage many drivers feel toward cyclists in general and me in particular.
Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely thankful when a roadway opens up with a bike lane or announces me and my simple machine with signs or white symbols. But it is not enough.
If it isn’t apparent already, that fearful correlation I feel in my belly-- the one I am attempting to draw out here-- is a parallel between the twisted visibility & ever-apparent danger inherent in biking in spaces designed for cars, and the problems and challenges presented by navigating a misogynist culture as a female-perceived person.
Ask any cyclist you know and they will tell you story upon story of either being physically damaged, verbally harassed or having their journeys otherwise disrupted by drivers and their vehicles. Ask any female-presenting person you know (who has an awareness of what harassment/abuse looks like) and they will be just as able to tell you many stories about having their journeys disrupted by physical, verbal or other means.
You see, there is this thing about being a vehicle or gender (and gender is just a vehicle) in a system not designed for you (which at best accommodates you with retrofits): Our journeys and our bodies are constantly subject to the self-righteous scrutiny and disruptions of those for whom the systems were designed.
There is a special sort of visibility afforded to a cyclist or a female-perceived person. One which immediately appears to insight ridicule from those for whom the cultural/transportation system was designed. Cyclists and women* are expected to accept the fact that they are often gawked at and even to have their performance and appearance scrutinized and commented upon without invitation or permission. And so often the space a woman or a cyclist requests to take up is seen as merely a flashy nuisance. Most drivers/misogynists identify us as hazards within their system and not as full vehicles/people (which legally we are!).
The most prescient way in which these two types of fear connected in my belly was on the grounds of implicit but (usually) unintentional threats of harm. When a driver/misogynist does gawk, comment, honk or pass my body/vehicle too closely, there is always the implied threat of violence. Regardless of the intent.
If a car passes me and my bike too closely & the driver shouts or revs their engine, they might not mean to be saying so, but the message I always receive is very clear: “You don’t belong here and if I wanted to do something about it I could kill/physically damage you (with this machine).” This is the same sort of message I receive as a female-perceived person in spaces where violence against women and misogyny go unchallenged as the norm. I want more bike lanes and less oppressive drivers. I want better marked and maintained avenues for journeys free from gendered violence and misogyny.
*I use woman/women in shorthand here to be a placeholder for female-perceived persons. I do not believe these terms mean the same groups of people, only that these two groups are the most often subject to misogynist violence and disruption.
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