I'm breaking up with my city and it's tough as nails

To My Dearest Seattle,

I love you, but you have broken my heart.

Not swiftly or intentionally I think, but for three years there's been a slow crack growing in my chest. This crack's been pulling slowly open from the repetitive tension of lacking that, for so long, went beneath my notice.

I've made love to the grooves of your geography. Found comfort in the crooked of you disagreeing streets. The curling friendship of your neighborhoods has cushioned the empty of my resources these three years we have shared together.

I came to you, Seattle my ass freshly kicked out of a rigorous and a sadly less-than-radical teaching program. I showed up with 800$ in my pocket and no job guaranteed. I came seeking rebirth, looking to put some roots down. With you I wanted to fuck around unfurl in ways I was afraid to do while I was digging myself into the debt of college. I let the story of starting fresh seduce me. I believed I could prosper here.

Little did I know my belief in your gift of prosperity was the same one that ruined my college experience. It's the one that so many young folks of my generation are painfully and swiftly recognizing as a false promise.

When I arrived I sunk the last of my borrowed money into you. Dear city, I've spent the time since waiting for a return on that wistful investment. In the three years we've been together I've been out of work more than I've be in it. I worked as a pizza delivery guy and a data entry clerk. I pulled shots at a doomed co-op in the south end. For six weeks I drove through winter's hardest hours of morning with a van full of fresh bread I couldn't afford to buy.

I took a job on a boat giving tours. I proudly told strangers all about your most beautiful features. And in some ways I loved it (minus the 10 hour days and rigorous nautical duties). Talking about you always brought a smile to my face and almost made those grueling duties worth it. I used to dream about mentioning you and my love for you on the back of my very first bestseller. But your lack of give back has stopped me from dreaming about such things.

But I loved you before all of this, before I even came close. Seattle I loved you before I sunk my trust into your salty soil. It would take me days to list everything I love about you. Every third poem I write is about your body. None of my other lovers can boast this number. But you've never belonged to me. Your salt, who's flavor I love, has continually rejected the all of the roots I've tried to stick into it.

I've moved 7 times in the past 3 years. Your arms may have been open but not always comfortable. Even in this last year, while I've had enough resources to render my poverty invisible, while my address finally stayed the same for a little,  I could feel you shifting, still feel you constricting.

This is tough for me to say. Because if anyone asks me where I am from I will say “puget sound born and raised”. I'm proud of how constant you've been in my life. I love your fractional politics and your highly visible friction between urban an rural communities. In so many ways we are family, you and I.

I don't even know how to contemplate living someplace without salt in the air. Your breath is all that know.

But I've begun to prepare my lungs anyway. Started slowly packing a few bags. I'm tired of being the only one of my friends who doesn't pay their own rent.

My dearest Seattle, I simply have no idea how to make it with you. I've always felt at least one step behind your gorgeously rapid cultural beat. I have been intimidated by your purportedly artsy and encouraging communities. Those I've attempted to dip into have always seemed a little too cool for me. And I've been dipping into your icy for long enough to see that its not just my impostor syndrome anymore. As cultured as you are Seattle, you are the wrong city for beginners like me.

I am not a prodigy (I gave up this version of myself long ago). I'm actually a lot slower than you think I am. Addicted to the uncertainty of learning, I don't know if you can wait for me to catch up anymore. And as much as I love the way my legs long to race when I see you looking at me, this time I need to resist the way you tug at my sensibilities.

I'm not sure of what I am going to do with this life. With you, Seattle there is so little room for confusion. I always feel you begging me for a definitive answer to questions my body is not ready to set free. Can't you see? I want to stay in the swill of my curiosity. Curiosity is my salt.

I recently saw some pop article that rated you as the hardest working city in the US. With most residents putting in a combined 56 hours per week of work, volunteering, and other scheduled activity. Who knows if it's true, but it felt true when I read it. Right now and for the near future, I don't intend to work a regular 40 week. I'm not going to over-volunteer or compromise on how much work I know my body can and cannot do. I don't intend to martyr my energy for the righteousness that's touted as one of  your defining features. I am still playing, I am still trying things out and in some cases doing what you some of your other residents would call "wasting time". But I'm still a beginner. And I'm not going to rush anymore.

People often talk about the "Seattle chill" (some of your residents will express interest in an event or relationship then not show up/follow through). And sometimes and I think that this chill is an unfortunate byproduct of how you pressure us to always be doing and to be pulled in so many directions. We're drawn to commit our energy and interests in ways that are unsustainable and eventually become disingenuous.

As my health has declined in the last several months I've become less able to keep the same commitments I've had in the past. Those commitments have become less and less sustainable I've not had any sort of replacement or acceptance of my new shift in/ability. I am afraid continuing like this will lead to a breakdown in my integrity.

I have never lived anyplace else. So maybe this is a problem everywhere, for every city. But I'm willing to strike out and see if there is a city out there that might just be a little better for beginners like me.

Seattle I want to be with you, but you ask so much from me and you don't give back enough for me to stay healthy and honest to the person I aspire to be. So I've decided to leave.

I'm leaving with less money, less hope, and less health than I came to you with. I am leaving to see if I can find or create that which you could not give me.

I'm leaving in September. I might come back in November, or February, or April. I know you hate when plans aren't concrete, I do too, but I can't say for sure when I'll be back.

Because I might not come back.

And yes, Seattle, it's true that there are parts of you I can never leave. I've embedded my identity in your most precious residents; sunk my love poems into your salty pockets; mixed my saliva with the sweat of your distant ocean neck. My bike and I have sliced through your avenues churning, yearning, and howling out 80's power ballads.

Oh the glorious moments we shared! Like the first morning of this year, when I was wildly hungover you convinced me to climb out to you. You snagged my vision on your distance, on the crisp of your wide cyan embrace. The cold comfort of a mountain range steady behind each of my shoulders pushed me and my bicycle forward. In that open moment, emptied of breath, it was easy to love the pressure of you and to forget how you constrict me, my gorgeous winding salt water lover.

I love you so much. And I'll send you so many post cards. Thank you for giving me what you did. I think we both wish that it had been enough.

<3
WRM

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.

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's okay 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 

Further down the rabbit hole: Gender & Success- Comment Edition

I received a comment on my most recent post this morning and I began witing a response. Before I noticed I'd ended up with 700wds and 2 hours had passed. Clearly this was of some importance.

Comment from previous article says: 

Personally, I find it frustrating that you assume the choice is between compromise your feminist values / live off benefits.

Financial independence is a feminist goal because if you do not have your own money, you are dependent on whether or not someone else will be 'nice' to you; which usually (and in the case of my own parents) means placating a man to support you, regardless of his behaviour. 

I am a manager in an internet company. I wear smart-casual clothing and makeup if I want, or not if I don't. I am attaining, rather than compromising, my feminist values, because if my partner left me tomorrow, I could survive easily. This makes our relationship more equal and makes me feel safer. 

I have found, that women who do not work, or are able to work part time, are *far* more likely to shame women who want / have to work full time. I think this is a class issue. 

My response:

Two of my previous articles detail my feelings about dependence & specifically gendered dependence shaming:

The work I've chosen to devote my life to (writing & activism) rarely pays the bills. It sometimes pays for coffee. I work side jobs when/if I can get them. I am all-but-entirely financially dependent on my partner. This might make you think I am a lazy freeloader (I hope not). But does this make me less feminist? or less likely to leave my partner? I don't think so. I don't placate my partner to gain his support, he pays for us because we are a family. It is TOUGH not to feel pressured or guilty about this. I try very hard to keep my sense of independence from being defined by my economic status. 

Sounds like you do tie your feelings of independence to your economic status. I don't agree with this but I don't think it's a bad thing. I am glad that you are able to find & maintain empowerment in this way (WOOT). But for women who are straight up denied access financial independence (like say teen/very young mothers, disabled women) other nontraditional/non-capitalist avenues to empowerment & independence are needed. It belittles their efforts to tell such women that they will never be truly powerful unless they attain financial independence. (which I don't think you're saying, but is often the implication if women are told to sacrifice their identities to "get ahead" as I see Lady Coders doing)

I don't assume that the choice that you identify as so frustrating is the choice all women must make, but I think it IS the reality for many women (& other oppressed folks). My experience is not everybody's, but I chose to accept the financial benefits my partner offers & do work I find most important, instead of working 40hrs in a shit pay job that fails to nourish my passions. It heartens me so much to hear that you didn't have to make that choice. I am, to be fully honest, actually a bit jealous of that because it was a choice I wish I didn't have to make, but based on my chosen profession, one that was necessary. Also semantics: The choice I meant to draw out & identify as false was the choice between professional success & feminism. Which I think you & I are on the same page about already. (apologies if I was unclear or insinuating otherwise)

I totally agree that many women (& others, namely male partners & churches) DO disparage women who choose to work long days outside of the home. They're shamed for being terrible mothers or not being invested enough in their families or femininity. This IS a class issue because the overarching goal of this shame is to keep women less economically powerful.

In that vein I am thrilled to hear that you (a woman & feminist!) have gained financial success (despite all the horrific shit described above). But you, one woman, earning the privilege of financial success personally does nothing to ensure that other women will find it any easier/doable than you did. Your personal success is not inherently feminist; personal success is not revolution. 

Now I bet, as a feminist, you want more women & women's ideas in your field. I bet you encourage other women in your profession. These are feminist actions/ideas; They are helping other women gain more power. Without goals framed towards furthering women as a whole, women who do find success are often easily tokenized & even disdain the kind of work & success other women attain or fail to attain. Without feminist action/ideas successes of individual women play right into misogyny's hands. (ugh, didn't mean for that so sound so spooky-scary)

This is a messy complex issue. Thanks for voicing your frustration. It inspired me to to slog through & solidify a bunch of things I was previously unclear about.

Is financial independence the ultimate scapegoat for compromising on feminism?

So I recently read the book Female Chauvinist Pigs. It had some gratingly problematic uses of transphobic, gender-essentialist, & objectifying rhetoric but oh, did it ever get my ears pricked for instances of women spouting gendered oppression.

I wanted to share a depressing instance of what female chauvinism looks like to me. This progressively intentioned project wants to "help" get women into the tech industry and specifically into professional coding field. The problem of course is that much of the advice given and projects proposed enforce gendered stereotypes that do nothing for women as a whole. This approach would only serve to (maybe!) garner success for the individual woman who make those compromises.

Small example : "it’s our job (for now) to be easily integrated into an all-male team, nonthreatening, and hyperskilled"

This might just be lazy or "hip" rhetoric employed by their copy writers which bores me. I really hope they don't mean it. Because this is not feminism or if it is, it's a twisted sort of feminism. And it's a great example of why I have issues with "financial independence" being a feminist goal (identified as such in bell hooks' Feminism is for Everybody). It is not surprising to me that when the goals of feminism try to mix with the goals of capitalism it invariably ends up looking like female chauvinism. But this point seems to fall through the cracks (even in Female Chauvinist Pigs) when it comes to other self-professed (successful) feminists.

Am I nuts, or is bowing to capitalism in order to gain financial independence becoming the ultimate scapegoat for compromising on feminist goals? Case and point:
many of the responses to the kerfuffle this project has caused decry that the compromises the Lady Coders project is promoting are necessary and that those dissenting are merely being ideological purists. So I guess personal success is more important than standing for your own boundaries & beliefs about sexism?

To be clear, I acknowledge that compromising on one's boundaries & beliefs in order to survive is often a valid and unfortunate necessity. I would not fault anyone for doing something like identifying with a previous and inaccurate gender/name in order to receive unemployment/social services. Their subsistence depends on that compromise. This is fucked up because folks in such situations are at the actual mercy of the social services system. And is completely different from compromising on your boundaries & beliefs to accrue a higher financial and professional status. If you have a skill/attribute that is valued and sought by an industry that you choose you have power. You are not at the mercy of that industry/system in the way that others are.

And, oh yeah, for all those folks defending the project as looking to be "effective" in their compromise and that this will (slowly) make the environment more diverse:

This whole Lady Coders mess comes to me via my partner who is a (cis-male) web dev. He is furious because this means that even though this project will get more women in the room, the level of diversity of ideas and experiences will be discouraged and disparaged by its approach. And coding (by his account) is a creative, knowledge based work. In such work you NEED a diversity of ideas in order to approach the incredibly diverse of problems with appropriate solutions.

It would actually behoove the tech (and other knowledge-based) industries to welcome diversity with open arms. It is risky, but in the long run it stands to make them more successful, competitive, and flexible. The idea that (potential) workers must compromise their identity in order to work in certain places is the oppression of capitalism at work. It alienates workers from their labor & progress which depletes recourses of experience and ideas that business will have to call upon.

This mandated compromise also creates a system of shaming in which women who have compromised and gained success/status express disdain for women who did not. Often saying that if women don't trade on things like their appearance or novelty that they are just "not trying hard enough". The Lady Coders project offers no challenge to this status quo & appears to be a great project for getting big tech companies those token female techies who'll help them look progressive while publicly excoriating those who refuse to compromise their feminist values. 

Not radical ladies, really, just not...