Back to School: a journal entry

At 7:45 on Thursday morning I had to clean out the rotted food in our broken fridge before the repair man came by and noticed how rancid it was. After a rushed job of tossing jars and produce bags into a hefty bag I hopped on my bike ready to whizz away to my volunteer gig that started at 8:25. Too bad my tire was flat, and the ride share service I usually rely on was not working at the time. I finally got there at 8:40 after calling my partner and having him send a car to me from another ride share service. I arrived late just in time for action.

This week I started volunteering as an in-class writing and reading tutor for a local Oakland high school. I chose this program because of it's integrated vision. It gives individualized attention to students during school hours and its methods are built off of a respectful student-centered "meet the writer/reader where they are at" philosophy. So I don't have to worry about 'motivating' my student to get a good grade (unless the student cares about that, which most do).

Right now I am working with three students, who for the sake of anonymity I'll call Marco, Emma, and Brent.

Immediately after I arrived I was assigned to work with Emma. She had trouble looking at me. She fidgeted frequently. I think felt shame/embarrassment about the very small amount of work she had done so far, but also about the kind of work she thought she would do. I think, based on what she was telling me, she is going to write about thoughts of self harm, among other things. Which is some heavy shit indeed.

I wondered very briefly about talking to her teacher about what she told me. But for the moment, for this week, I want to keep her trust. And as a person who regularly contemplates self harm I believed that it was only thoughts. I hope I'm right. I feel some regret about this decision and I made a promise that if she mentions it again I will let her know that those kinds of thoughts can be very serious. Let her know I care about her well being and ask if she want help finding a teacher or a counsellor to talk to about those them.

But that resolution was made long after she and I interacted. Most of the time when I am working with these student writers I ask questions, listen, and write down everything they say (as much if it as my slow hands can catch). Afterwards I hand over the sheet of what I transcribed and say "look how much work you got done!"

A little later than I was supposed to, I switched to working with Marco fro the rest of this period. He let me sit awkwardly in silence for the better half of out time together while he worked through the finishing touches of the assignment he had a very good handle on. He did ask me he read his work to him and we talked a little about it. It was nice to see him get his poem on independently. However I couldn't help but feel I should have offered more assistance or more something at least. I always feel that way when the student knows what they're doing and has now fears/anxious about their work.

During the next class I had the privilege of working with Brent for the entire period. Who, when I plunked down next to him was certain that I was Johnny Law and that I'd arrived to tell him to get to work and do it right. He was determined not to show that he might have a good time writing.

Now I did tell him to get work done, but I also told him that writing poetry is work. And I'm sure there was a danger in writing what he wrote about disliking school. I told him "You can like the writing you do at school and still hate school. A lot of school is pretty much bull shit. But the work you do here can still matter to you."

Mostly we sat in silence together while he wrote a fantastic poem that used to assigned form to draw out the delicious contrast between expressing his respect to family and performing empty gestures of "respect" required by school.

I know I'm no supposed to pick favorites, but jesus, he wrote 12 lines of searing words from just a bubble of brainstormed words. Hell, I write poetry as a calling and usually can't to that in 45 minutes. I was most impressed with him (even though Marco was further along). Before I had to leave we scholgged through how he might include alliteration and more sensory details (the reqs of the assignment). While he clearly resented being required to include these elements, I'm pretty sure he enjoyed learning about and experimenting with them. I found his reluctant enjoyment of writing very exciting.

As I was leaving I saw Emma in the hall surrounded by friends. She smiled at me and said "that's my writing coach".

That smile made me forget all about the horrible details of my moldy flat-tire morning.

Allen's Treehouse*

When I was fifteen my bother had a saw fall on his head from 20 ft in the air. I don't remember if I actually saw this happen or not but there's a clear picture in my mind of what happened and I remember thinking he was dead or that surely he was doing to die. My brother is not dead. Though they did put several staples into a considerable gash that was smack dab in the middle of his hairline.

My brother has always been interested in beautifully doomed ideas (not that he'd ever call them that). During his teenage years he'd blather incessantly about plans for a perpetual motion engine. I loved him for that.

The saw dropped from a bucket of tools he was hoisting a up to the platform he'd rigged between the two douglas firs that loomed over my dad's garage. Allen had set up a complex system of ropes and pulley's in order to bring up the tools and the doors he'd salvaged from the clutches of condemned buildings.

Nothing brought more color to his face than encountering a sturdy old thing he'd found a new use for. (I look forward to growing old with my brother). He was going to build the entire treehouse out of the heavily beveled planks that sat in old frames and had, without humans, lost their vocation. It disappoints me deeply that my shame-prone, teenage-poet self never noticed how lovely of  project he'd embarked on (though I guess nobody starts out a good poet huh?)

Sometimes we, we being he, myself, and our little sister Ariel, would climb up there to play cards together or just to get away from our parents for a while. Nothing against our parents, but we lived in a small house. We were all post pubescent or in the full throes of it by that point. And kids over a certain age just feel some relief knowing there's a place in the world where adults the age of their parents can't get to.

This was not a tree house for children though. At nearly forty feet up the climb was physically strenuous and probably too dangerous even for us. You'd arrive at the top pretty winded and surprisingly grateful to have something solidly geometric and level for your body to rely on. It was never not scary for me. Though I think Allen was never afraid. Sometimes I think  he never is.

It was a paradise up there. Seriously. It only takes thirty feet of climbing to reach an altered state. And us being the super uncool straight edge kids were were (I think I was even afraid of drinking beer at the time) it was the most badass we got to feel. When school let out for summer we took our binders up and threw them all the way down.

But one day in August a strong gust of wind blew in, brusquely tossing half our playing cards onto the neighbor's roof. That malicious chunk of wind also knocked loose a door that had yet to be strapped to anything. It hit Ariel on the shoulder and head pretty hard, and she decided never to climb up there again.

I still went though. Still dreamed with my brother about how good it was going to look with all those unhinged things brought together against the wind and in spite of gravity and expired purposes.

But when he dropped that saw on himself, and was rushed to the hospital in need of metal teeth to hold together the new mouth he'd almost opened in his skull, our parents got scared. And we stopped trying to make lofty things out of old openings and rusty hinges.

The treehouse waited half finished and lonely for about a week. Then a bunch of raccoons braved the heights and started a family up there. The last time I climbed up (without my parent's permission) the whole place smelled like shit and animals.

Three years ago the city had my family cut those trees down. And now whenever I visit my childhood home there's too much sky. I have no idea what happened to the treehouse of old doors. I like to think it's ghostly opening still hangs up there, 20 feet above the mossy roof of my father's garage. But the wind probably blew that away too.


*as with all memoir, the exact details of this piece are subject to vast amounts of creative misremembering and some pretty shady guesswork.

Please excuse me from essay duty today,

I woke up this morning with 15 minutes to spare. I stirred to the soft twang of my phone alerting me to the fact "You work in 45 minutes". The first thing I say is "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." I continue this little mantra through the quick brush I swizzle around my mouth. I used t too much toothpaste.

I didn't take any time to listen but I'm pretty sure that my joints and throbbing temples protested to all of this. The mantra of "fucks" get louder as I climb downstairs and realize the worst part:
My bike isn't here.

I facepalm. Harder than I mean to. Check the bus route which will leave me at least 20 minutes late. and chuck that plan. I finally cave and call a car share service.

In the 4 minutes it takes this driver to get to my apartment I scoop some leftover chili and rice into a lunch sized tupperware container and and pat myself on the back for remembering lunch. Breakfast is not happening today.

The other 2 minutes I spend staring with terrific longing at the spot under the stairs where my bike usually sleeps.

You see last night (and truth be told until 8AM this morning) I was totally and absolutely certain I has today off from work. And not just that, a friend and colleague was visiting from out of town and last night was her last night in town. Due to the revelry required by such an instance, I decided to abandon my bike for the night in favor of the kind of reckless drinking. Now this wasn't just drunken neglect it was also kinda strategic. The spot I'd chosen to leave her is also very near one of my favorite brunching spots.

Her name is Queen Bee

I went to bed last night with thoughts of their corned beef hash dancing in my head.
This morning's hitting me like the realization that there is no santa.

The car arrives and I could swear this guy must be the slowest and most insecure driver ever. The entire ride I pined for the controlled speed of my fixed gear beneath me. I used that time to make sure there isn't too much toothpaste caked in the corners of my mouth. When I finally attempt some sort of conversation he asks me about his customer rating.

I book it through the door and clock in no more than 4 minutes late. Just in time to feel the hangover hit me in full.

....


All this is to say, that I am sorry to not have something more meaty and interesting to read. Seriously though, I was gonna spend some quality time after that brunch nudging my ideas into something yummy. But tonight, after the hangover surprise of an 8 hour shift, the only thing I got left is complaints. That and inflammation.

PS: I drafted this excuse note on the bus home from work:

I've been expertly making up excuses and fooling teachers with them my entire academic career. Don't think Ive never written anything more easily than an excuse.

Gluten Anger and Anxiety: a hissy fit thrown in honor of all those armchair gluten experts

Last night my partner and I went out for dinner. And I ended up eating two slices of very glutinous pizza by accident. We had ordered the gluten free crust (for an additional 4 bucks) but I guess it was too loud or something to hear/remember that.

A few bites into the second slice (I'd wolfed the first down because I was viciously hungry) I noticed that it was very sticky and doughy in my mouth, in a way that most GF stuff never is. My chest was also beginning to feel a bit tight. I'd been struggling with some hunger-related anxiety before we'd ordered food and just assumed I was being paranoid and feeling the tail end of my anxiety in my chest. But when the bill came there was no extra charge for a wheat free crust, and from my side glances at the pizza on other guests' plates I knew that I'd been served the regular crust.

When my partner informed the waitperson of the mistake she said the discomfort I feel after eating wheat must be psychosomatic. She said this instead of apologizing. She recommended herbal tea and a change of perspective.

Now I do have a level of empathy for this waiter. I work a customer service job too. I know it's tough to find the the right thing to say and how easy it is to say something offensive or inappropriate when you're trying express concern or get on a customer's wave length. Mistakes are inevitable. Sometimes customers walk away from my register with weirded out looks on their faces. And most of the time I blame them for their not getting me. So I get it.

But fuck. I am angry at her.

I spent last night feeling like I'd wolfed down a handful of Grow Monsters, my chest tight and joints aching.


I haven't been able to take a shit today. And I only made it through my work day by balancing a cocktail of ibuprofen, imodium, and diet pepsi. I'm thankful I only ate two (small) slices. It could have been worse.

Sure I may be an anecdote in a sea of data that throws question on the whole concept of "gluten sensitivity/intolerance", but it's not like my definition and treatment of what is going on in my own body is the same thing as denying climate change or evolution. 

Gut science is extremely complex. Believe me. I had to dip just a toe in for a while and whoa are those depths ever huge and terrifying! Out of necessity I spent several months studying the digestive tract. I learned a fews things and the least of which was that it would take me years to even scratch the surface.

Some people think they have enough information to dismiss the reality of my health issues and shelve them as beneath their concerns. They do this because reading a pop-sci article on the internet apparently makes them an expert on my body.

And also something being "psychosomatic" or "all in your head" most assuredly doesn't makes the pain and discomfort any less real. When you say "it's just psychosomatic." What I hear is "Well you're not really hurting, so um can yo just get over that already. Stop being an idiot/wuss."

I'm willing to concede that my gluten sensitivity might be caused by something in my head (though why I'd deprive myself of tasty beers I'll never know). But you know what is also in people's heads?Their emotional and mental issues and that stuff is all too fucking real.

Now imagine that wall is on top of your stomach.
(image source)

It affects those afflicted deeply in a very real way.

But let's chuck that (perfectly good) analogy for a second and assume I am lying about how much gluten hurts me and that the sensitivity I feel is psychosomatic.

Doing nothing to soothe/address that "made up" pain and just telling me to "get over it" is as useless as telling yourself not to sweat, get teary, and reach for a glass of water because that pepper you just ate isn't really hurting you, it's just that your brain that thinks it is. (This is actually how capsaicin works people).

If someone ate a habanero pepper and asked you to get them some milk to calm their supposedly blazing palate, you wouldn't lecture them about how there's nothing wrong with their mouth. You wouldn't tell them "it's all in your head." You'd get them a fucking glass of milk.

So pretty please, all you sanctimonious fucks who read about some science on the internet please shut the fuck up, and learn yourself some stuff about FODMAPs. Because avoiding that shit is what I have to deal with every day. WHICH INCLUDES AVOIDING GLUTEN.

And no I was not born this way. I caught a parasite two years ago and it completely fucked up my ability to deal with most of the things that contain FODMAPS. Last year I went on an intensive four month elimination diet in order to find our what foods agitated my system. It was long and hard. If it's in my head, then my subconscious commitment to this beer-depriving bit is incredibly strong.

And yes. I am an anecdote but that doesn't me my experience isn't true and my pain is not real.


PS: There's some sort of parallel between the anger I have surrounding the doubts people express about my diet and the doubts people express gender. Perhaps I'll get to that on another day.

Putting the heat on and getting it out

It's far too hot for October.
I walked a couple miles today in the 90 degree heat.
Now some of you might think "that is nothing". But for a mammal raised in the cool wet tucked in Puget Sound this dry swelter, is too much.

I need rain more than I need anything else right now. I see people in their fully coved shoes and long sleeve shirt and I think they must be nuts. I'm in my thinned tank top and cut offs and holy fuck are my sweat glands working overtime. I've probably go some sort of sunburn already.

I am a creature hight sensitive to heat. No, not just sensitive. Resentful. I loathe the way it makes me lazy. The way I move slower beneath it's heft. I despise the way it makes me forgetful. Like how I forgot the spot that serves my favorite buckwheat noodles is closed today. Heat makes me wallow and notice every little shift in my discomfort.

I knew, even before I sat down in this cafe, that the temperature was going to force me to write about it. But now that I've cleared out those moist cobwebs, something slightly more serious settled in (seriously is there good writing about the weather? cuz no good conversation has ever been about the weather). Rest assured, this topic is just as superficial as the weather. And it starts with a flashback.

Last November instead of writing a novel for NaNoWriMo I wrote and posted an essay/blog post every day as well as writing myself to the 50,000 word goal. At the time I was also experiencing recurrent and worrisome health issues. I was also struggling thought some pretty serious shit in terms of my gender and identity at large. And I was on a very specific diet.

All these things made my life difficult (not as hard as some by a long shot). And now that I'm in better health, am not an a wacky diet, and have a slightly less nebulous understanding of my own gender, I fear that somehow my writing is "less interesting."

Now this may just have to do with my affinity for uncertainty, but I think, art, especially that which we call "transformative" or "radical" runs the risk of fetishizing the suffering of the writers/narrators.

If you have been to a lot of poetry slams I think you might know what I mean. They can turn into traumathons, competitions to see who can reveal the most "raw shit" that they have been through.
Now this might have to do with the inherently competitive structure of slams themselves (which I straight up set off my sweat glands like too-hot October). But it is the side of the writing community I connect to the least.

It ignites in me a deceitful voice that says "You'll never write anything good because you had a happy childhood" or "Your poems can never be that striking because you have never been (sexually) assaulted".

The fucked up part is my childhood was not always happy (is anyone's?) and that I have been  sexually assaulted. But I guess they just don't seem like "enough" suffering to make my writing "good".

I've been thinking  a lot lately about his speech Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave years ago about the danger of a single story.

I think, that is what is happening to me now:
The way I dehumanize others by simplifying their complex lives into a single story is the same way I am delegitimizing the thoughts and ideas I might want to put into writing.

By only allowing myself to be in a struggle in order to seem "interesting" I've trapped myself in the single story I desperately hope everyone reads into my writing. Apparently I don't give my thoughts permission to be interesting unless there is struggle/suffering present. If you're a writer/creator, ask yourself, are you giving yourself permission to see you thoughts as interesting? If not, what is stopping you?

Evaluating ideas while they are still in your head is deeply ineffective and really only serves the purpose of stopping you from getting anything out.

For instance, despite the fact that I have a supposedly less-difficult life than I did this time last year, my problem in terms of getting myself to write is not that I have nothing to write.

In fact I have too much to write about. More than I could ever get down.

I started this entire day of writing talking about the weather. But I considered writing about so many more things:
the social awkwardness i feel when when I see someone I recognize and decide not to approach them
The treehouse my brother tried to build out of doors salvaged from condemned buildings.
A series of micro reviews of all my favorite tv shows and youtube channels.
The murals/graffiti in downtown Oakland.
The nasty gut feeling I get when I read/hear the words "both men and women" or "she or he" in things directed at general audiences.

I think deep down the part of me that denies import of this stuff might is just afraid of complicating its worldview and giving in to the fact that interest can lurk anywhere.

My Lumpy Bravery: on chest binders and trans superhero narratives

Last week I bought my first chest binder from a reputable online vendor. With vigor, glee, and a hunger for play I clicked the purchase button. It came on a Thursday night. When I had stomach cramps and vicious heartburn that dissuaded me from enacting the fantasy of tearing open the package just when it arrives and trying on its contents that very instant.

The next morning I was alone and had forgotten about the bulging envelope in favor of my morning piss, the laundry & various other mechanics of morning.

I only remembered it while loading up the washer. I realized that all of my sports bras (and by all I mean 3) were starting to exhibit a decent amount of sweat funk. So, with a song in my heart I topped off the washer with my current slightly rank bra before adding soap and letting her rip. Afterwards I thought giddily, 'Oh yeah, I could try it out for a bit'.

I went downstairs and opened the envelope. Immediately I didn't like the synthetic, rough fabric. It reminded me of the surface of a cast. Though less rigid. I slipped it up and over forearms and head, but it got stuck. Awkward on my shoulders. I had to slowly but stiffly tug it down my back bit by bit.

The experience didn't get any better.

I thought I might find a way to press my expectations through the discomfort. But the force of my fantasy didn't push me past the sixty minute mark. Sure I liked the way it made me look in some of my tighter shirts. But the pinch behind my armpits made me wince  and pushed my usually stout shoulders into a slouch. Besides it really didn't do much more than my tightest sports bra already does.

Wearing and taking off the binder just made my breasts feel absolutely massive. Having all of the pressure on my chest, just served to remind me every moment of each inch of flesh the binder touched. I could never not be thinking about my chest and it's size while wearing it. I'm sure I could adjust out of feeling this way but honestly I don't want to. That didn't stop me from wanting to want to and feeling guilty for not wanting to.

The worst part came when I took it off and I was hit in the chest with the realization that the only other garments I'm comfortable (com)pressing my chest were wet and swishingly unavailable. I just sat there with red stress marks in my armpits, my chest achingly huge and aware of itself.

My sports bras do more for me in terms of getting my breasts out of the way when it comes to moving though the world. But more than that, they get my breasts off of my mind, which is great. They enable me to think of my chest as just my chest. This ease and flexibility is an extraordinary tool in navigating my gender.

I mostly ordered a binder out of sartorial naiveté. Because I lust after the clean lines of menswear and want some of my looks to not include a lumpy chest. I have a vague desire for smaller breasts and a more muscular chest but for the most part I love my breasts and have no animosity toward them. (I recognize I am lucky in this regard).

There's a part of me that loves thinking about clothes and presentation as all fun and games, but the truth is, it's only on my best days that I get to feel that way. Many days result is me feeling that my clothes are confining me.

All of the 50 minutes I spent in, putting on, and taking off the binder were painful and unsettling. But I kept it on for that long because I wanted to show myself I was “tough”. Or because some part of my brain shamed me away from comfort by screaming 'Real trans people are willing to suffer to ease their dysphoria (and so you should too).'

The shame and self loathing I felt gave me flashbacks to trying on prom dresses in high school. Except this wasn't about not being thin enough participate in the concept of pretty (which I never got that hung up on anyhow). This time it I felt like I wasn't tough enough to be trans and that because my gender dysphoria isn't actively painful that I am incapable of bravery or sacrifice.



Oftentimes trans* people are laughingly and empoweringly referred to as superheros, badass mutants, or as having extraordinary powers of bravery, endurance, or chutzpah. These are important stories. But they are just that, single stories about individuals. The trans* community is so diverse.

I love the power in these superhero narratives. But the way they glorify, and mythologize trans people's choices oversimplifies the complex and individualized abilities and tactics trans people create to cope with the suffering and discomfort of gender dysphoria. Worst of all it offers very few models and resources for newly out/realized trans folks (like me).

We see these “strong trans characters” and assume that transition and trans lives must include certain activities and compromises to be considered socially acceptable or brave. In Sophia McDougall's piece I hate Strong Female Characters she states that “The Strong Female Character has something to prove. She’s on the defensive before she even starts.” I would a argue that superhero trans narratives have done the same. And while the thing we're on what defensive about is very real and very dangerous we are more than just our fights against our own dysphoria.

I have a trans friend who will brush off or object whenever someone calls her “brave” for expressing who she is. Part of what I read into that refusal is her acknowledgement that being willing to suffer or to choose different forms of suffering is not bravery. She defines her dysphoria as suffering; a constant ache which can spike randomly or in reaction to certain experiences. Whereas I identify my dysphoria as a discomfort I regularly find myself bumping up against. The conditions of our lives and dysphoria differ. So too must our metrics for bravery.

As someone who has to balance the discomfort of my dysphoria with the discomfort of chronic pain and social anxiety, I don't always have the willingness or resources to suffer in order to ease my gender dysphoria. Sometimes I have to choose to ease my dyspepsia or my social anxiety first.

But too often that choice leaves me wondering, am I a coward? Am I  a disgrace to trans superhero narratives every where because I chose not to suffer the discomfort of a chest binder?

Of course not. (says my logical brain)

My body is a multi-purpose space for working on feeling okay. My unique gender and gender dysphoria are only some parts of this work and are not confined just to my physical body.

Because I've got many long term bodily concerns not related directly to my gender, I often prioritize my short term physical discomfort. This runs counter to the superhero narratives of trans folks that I love and clung to in the past and that have become a beacon for young trans people today.

For me complication of this narrative means choosing (for now) to forgo the discomfort of a chest binder. And to continue building myself and my expressions sans a traditional trans narrative.

I've decided that bravery, like dysphoria, has many forms. My bravery is apparently lumpy and unbound.

On Anxiety and Organization: Lists are my Medicine

I have social and generalized anxiety. I occasionally suffer from anxiety/panic attacks. My stress level often has immediate and massive effects on my body. It usually starts with decision paralysis. For me the first signs of an anxiety attack are words like "I don't know", "I guess", and "whatever you want should be fine". Most of my friends will tell you that, despite how much I try to be a tough guy, I have pretty particular tastes and sensitivities when it comes to my comfort levels. When I am not in touch with these preferences I stop trusting my own senses. That's when my breath begins to shorten and the knots start tying up my stomach. Sometimes my heart will ache or feel pinched.

I've used a lot of things to mitigate my anxiety in the past. None of them are actual medicine or where prescribed by a doctor. Often it's been foodstuffs. I find comfort in foods like cupcakes or cheese plates or toast (it's usually sweet but doesn't have to be).

I started a very restrictive diet six weeks ago. One of the things I noticed right away is how often would crave certain food when I felt down. In some ways this makes sense. I'm the kind of person who will have some kind of mini-meltdown if I skip a meal or two.

This new awareness of how I've used food to regulate my feelings made me start to wonder. What else am I doing to manage my mood and keep anxiety levels to a minimum?

In the absence of consumable anti-anxiety measures (like of cheese, beer, and sugars) I've been noticing what I have been doing to maintain a healthy mood. Having direct online contact with my friends has been indispensable (my internet was cut for a mere 36 hours this week it affected my mood acutely). I also take walks and ride a bike.

Though lately I've been biking less and less. It occurs to me that I always forget how much I really like cycling alone until I am actually out there cycling by myself. I feel power and resonance with the landscape. I feel confident and in control.

Consequently this is also how I feel when I'm writing or editing something I've written (which also falls under the category of writing for me). And yes, free-writing regularly (every day) has also been one of the ways I manage my anxiety. Fortunately these days free-writing now feels like a reflex. I've been writing every day for more than three years. But I've only edited spurts when working on projects. The editing itself feels marvelous and in control and not the least bit anxious.

When I'm editing I can feel as "in the zone" and electric as I've felt while jotting down the first draft of a striking poem. I feel just as resonant as I do when riding my bike a long way solo. But for some reason it is devilishly difficult to get myself to schedule and start doing either of these things.

Why is that?

Well the anxious parts of me fight viciously against the memory of how powerful, liberating, and healthy these experiences are. I used to think I was just not the type of person like to organize. But what I've come to learn over the years is that it's not ME that doesn't like to organize or prioritize (or at least not all of me). It's the anxiety that doesn't like it when I organize.

I feel resistance to organizing my shit. Whether it be my actual physical stuff (my partner can attest to this) or the less physical more conceptual stuff involved in my life. For instance I have trouble showing up for physical fitness activities like yoga or bike rides unless it is made clear that there is going to be some social component. It's a battle for me to schedule things to do alone that enjoy, especially if they require me to be independent or decisive. This doesn't mean that I'm can't or don't enjoy being independent and decisive. I can and do. But my anxiety tries to convince me otherwise.

It's tell though that even on the brink of an anxiety attack I am able to do simple non-demanding organizational tasks that combat my stress and anxiety. One of the more reliable methods of staving off an anxiety attack is to make a list. It's usually a to do list, but it can also be a random list; What groceries do I need? How many blue things can I think of? What countries have I visited, which ones would I like to visit? how many prime numbers can I list until I feel better?

The fact that I find such solace in lists makes apparent to me how much I actually DO value organization. As the most stripped down, basic definition what is a list but an organizational tool? The tool of lists is often what I need to keep my anxiety levels down and my mind clear of self doubt and blame.

A list provides me with an organization system, a way of prioritizing. It lets me know that as a human I can reliably identify what deserves priority. I can discern what matters to me and to my surroundings. A list is concrete proof that I can be trusted as a decider, me and my senses know what's what. (remember that my anxiety attacks start with the decision paralysis of not trusting myself).

And really what is writing but constantly trusting your own instincts of organizing words and meaning? I take joy in choosing the right words or choosing the right idea. All writers do. But I have this force in me this anxious mess of untrusting. A force that even if, while I try to manage it, can derail and discourage me from taking the decisive actions I so enjoy.

I'd love to end this post triumphantly proclaiming "and this is how I beat anxiety!" but the struggle is not like that. All of the above conclusions were slow to germinate. And while I know a few flimsy, but effective techniques for managing my anxiety and combating its effects, the progress is slow going and complex. This post, while empowering to write, is only an exercise in shining light on the mechanisms of my anxiety. A declaration against the conniving, invalidating, anxious parts of me, a message that says "I see what's going on here buster."

Getting Over My Toxic Exceptionalism

I'm applying for grad school this fall. Specifically I'm applying for MFA programs in order to study both poetry and creative non-fiction.

As some of you may know I have a fraught history with education. I dove straight into college after high school and after college straight into graduate school for teaching (which I failed to finish).

My motivation for crashing headlong into academia was a strange amalgam of insecurity, fear, shame, and a trust in the messages public school had taught me about exceptionalism. I was taught and believed that I was exceptional based on my high achievement in early schooling and ability to charm adults. I believed I was exceptional and this belief has derailed my life for a long while.

In high school my grades started to slip little bit, for a few weeks this terrified me, but eventually, in order to maintain my view of myself as exceptional, I decided that some parts of high school just didn't matter, that I was above them and that I should just concentrate on getting out because college was where I would really succeed anyway.

Being a fist generation college student I always felt a sense of non-belonging in academia. There were words and social structures I didn't understand (like fellowship), and even though I was sure that my intelligence made me exceptional, I felt constantly terrified that I would be spotted as an impostor in this unfamiliar world of academia.

In order to blend in I concentrated on more "rigorous" studies. I eschewed full time focus on some of my greatest passions poetry, writing, feminism, queer studies. These where things I KNEW I loved but didn't let myself do so openly. Somehow I learned that no successful person ever showed anything but ancillary interest in such topics.

By the time I reached my senior year in college I had been able to weave some of my passions into the conventional academic success route. I was working as a tutor at the writing center and taking courses in education and literature.

I knew that to survive and be acceptable as a literary & creative person in this world I would have to be a teacher. And my current politics and conception of the world told me I needed to be a public high school teacher. And I LOVED the idea of teaching. I still do. But for a long time I ignored the realities of what a public school teaching position meant. I care about pedagogies and how people learn but I don't have the capacity to throw my full self into the physically demanding often 60 hour work week of being a radical high school teacher.

Though I ultimately failed in the program, it was through Evergreen's MIT program I learned the most invaluable tool for deconstructing the lie of exceptionalism.

On the very first day all the students in the cohort read a small section of a study by Carol Dweck. It demonstrated that children who were taught that their intelligence and skills where changeable attributes vastly outperformed children who where taught that their intelligence and skills where fixed. The belief that your skills are changeable enables you to take the risks necessary for doing great work. Even though I learned it that day on a conscious level it has taken years to really sink in and integrate into my views of the world.

My intelligence and skills are not exceptional. Nor do I need them to be. Knowing this frees me from the burden of "using my gifts wisely and graciously". It frees me for the expected paths of people of high/exceptional intelligence. Part of me is ashamed that I once thought of mysef this way.

But another part of me knows that thinking this way was a reflexive short cut to getting myself into a different situation in life.

I knew I didn't want to have the same sort of life my older cousins and my neighbors where having, so I latched onto an idea that obfuscated my responsibility for those wants. I didn't want a different life because I just wanted it, I of course wanted it because I was a different sort of person than my family and community. I let myself believe I was excpetional.

This was of course a mischaracterization of both myself and those in my communities. I wanted the things I wanted because I wanted them, it was simple as that.

The terrifying freedom in Dweck's growth mindset is that I no longer have a excuse to duck the things I feel compelled to do and to do well and frequently. I can no longer hide behind my "gift" of intelligence as an excuse to do what the world has deemed to be the right thing. Now I'm forced to look into my own wants and based on what I find there, create "the right thing".

Increasingly in the last 3 years this has been writing and the study of feminism, classism, and queer issues. I never directly studied such issues in college (though I enjoyed supplemental courses and queer/class/feminist lenses whenever they were brought into classes).

It's funny that being in the "real world" rather than in school has really brought home for me in a material way how very little it matters whether one is exceptional or not. Commitment to and showing up for what I want to do matters so much more. Effort is the only real measurable form of progress I can make toward creating a significant body of work.

In some sense I have always known that writing was the life for me (mind you not the only life I live). Even before I knew how to write, I remembered the thrill of telling stories to my siblings and friends on camping trips or on the playground.

I had a strikingly beautiful realization my junior year of college that's resonated since. When assigned to do an anthropological study on the language of students who are in the age group you anticipate teaching. I chose to record a conversation between my two sisters (15 &17 at the time). In listening to the tapes afterward I realized that the family & community I had so tried to escape and exceptionalize myself away from where the very source of my love of language and my ease at slipping into playing with it. My family's dinner tables is rife with puns and amusement at near/internal rhymes and regularly engage in both intentional and unintentional spoonerisms.

When I started writing poetry in the 9th grade My father claimed to have no interest or ability to understand poetry. To this day that moment, or I suppose the many moment that led up to my reaching this conclusion, infuriated me. At the time I used my frustration as an excuse to distance myself from my "lowbrow" family. But today I know, my lowbrow family is the source of much of the rich, risky, unselfconscious choices I make in my writing. And that my father was simply reciting what his teachers had told him about his ability to understand language.

I am not an exception to my community of origin. I am what I am to a large extent because of that community. My family taught me not to be afraid to play, and they didn't teach me that because they thought I was exceptional, they taught me that because they loved me and I was a part of them. I still am. My family will always be a part of my writing.

Since leaving school I'm so grateful to have gone through the euphemism of "getting back to my roots". And so as I start drafting my artists statement and gaze over grad school applications I am terrified. I am terrified that by going back to school I will once again fall into thinking about myself as exceptional or that I will not be accepted if I refuse to. I am afraid that this deeply important connection I have developed to my families (both blood and chosen) will not be seen as valid or rigorous enough. I am afraid.

But I am applying anyway. Because I want learn how to put a book together. I want to learn what tools I need to make a living out of my passion and how to use those tools. I want the credentials to teach and to have the professional and academic communities offer a venue for my ability to recognize and mentor the voices of others.

So yes, I'm scared. But it is no longer the fear of being found out as non exceptional, or as an impostor. I know that I will always feel a little bit strange and out of place in the academy.

I'm afraid of the cost, not just in dollars (most application to grad schools cost at least 50$) but also on my psyche and on my relationships with the people in my communities and families. I know that schooling will pull me away from the people I love (especially considering that some of these schools are hundreds of miles away). Never again do I want to be encouraged to disregard my roots. But if through an MFA program I am pulled closer to my craft and I'm able to cultivate a more sustainable relationship with my passion it might just be worth it.



Postscript:
This post was of course inspired greatly by the work of Carol Dweck, my family, my own failures, the process of deciding to apply for grad school and Sherman Alexie's fantastic piece for the Atlantic about the poem that changed his life (which I found both deeply inspiring and unfortunately slightly dismissing of his culture of origin).

Some of my upcoming posts may include drafts of my artists statement.