Lessons from the impossible

I have absolutely no idea what to write about today. The ever apparent ragged I've run myself into keeps raking through the possibility of any cogent string of thoughts.

Yesterday in my burst of activity, when I said "do something impossible". I did not mean do something unhealthy. But I guess that is what my body heard.  This morning I woke ill, reluctant, and subsequently decongested into something that stung like wisdom:

My art it not worth my sacrificing my health for.

Fatigue/exhaustion aches and tenses me in a way that stops me from trusting myself. My mind learning from the bodily punishment that there is danger in going deep and committing to anything (and yes there is, but mostly worthwhile).

For instance I've spent more than an hour today generating new content. Most of it extremely surface level and brimming with frustration. Regardless of the state of my body and soul I try and make space in my life for the not-so-conscious creative magic of my brain to do its thing. Every day. Often it doesn't come.

Like today, everything I wrote just felt like empty cycles of word shuffling. My ability to string thoughts into a sensible sequence of ideas for was massively depleted.  It was like going to yoga full of fear and stiffness. No wonder my thoughts couldn't hold a pose for more than 15 minutes.

Still I'm glad I did the work. Proud I showed up. And to me, that seedling pride can be so radical. Today I am recoving from my poor self-care choices. I need that recovery. And also I need to show up here for what I've committed to.

Unfortunately there is a very loud part of me that insists being present/visible while in recovery is impossible. That part of me is, I think, mostly shame. And that shame tells me that this process must be private. So that's the impossible I'm doing today, revealing my nasty, unproductive recovery.

But hang on. Where did I learn to feel this shame? Why must recovery be a private/invisible thing. Why must we only ever present ourselves to others at our very very best?

Nothing against our very very best, but seriously, WTF?

Maybe it has to do with how it's apparently some sort of American value to look like you don't need anyone or anything to just live you life the way you normally do (see here "I woke up like this").
In the past I've written about how narratives of "inspired"/"genius" works can erase the truth about how messy the process of writing/creating can be. And I get the feeling the way we view taking care of ourselves (as private/only for loved ones to know about) relies on a very similar sort of erasure. As if knowing about the craft of our lives or our work and our presentations ruins the magic.

Any skilled craftsperson will tell you. It doesn't. I just makes you feel like a wizard.

Selfies

A day later than everyone else, I just finished reading Erin Gloria Ryan's Jezebel piece on selfies.

While I understand her skepticism, as someone who wishes to one day have gain and maintain a following partly through promotions, I recognize selfies as part and parcel of having a public persona.

There is an unfortunate tendency for women doing self-focused or self-promotional activities to be labeled as shallow or bitchy. Women aren't the only ones using the internet as a promotional tool. And they are far from the only people doing it excessively. Part of me agrees that self promotion in general on the internet has gotten out of hand. But really, what do you get when you pump your youth with confidence, college education, and then stick them in an environment where there's not enough jobs for us all. 

Ryan says:

Retaking a photo 12 times until your chin looks right is in no way analogous to asking your boss for a raise.

You know what? I am my own boss, and sometimes when I feature at events a good photo means a little bit more cash at the end of the night. But really? So few of my immediate friends are in positions where they can even consider asking for a raise. We're not not asking for that raise because we lack the stones, we know the money ain't there. Nobody is fucking promoting us. So we got bored and started doing it ourselves.

If the reckless abandon of self promotion is really such a big problem why not go to the root of it? Why not ask harder questions about why young people feel so driven to turn so much of their lives into self-promotional efforts? Really, selfies are not the problem here.

I personally, rarely take selfies. I usually get bored 5 shots in when I realize it's hard to take a flattering photo of myself. But when I do, it's not just because I want people to like me (I do), but sometimes, it's the best way for people to know more about me. And it can help me promote my work. I am a writer and I am hard-pressed to admit it but sometimes a photo demonstrates what my words just can't. This is excruciatingly clear today, 22 days into this blogging project and I want to quit.

Text reads:
Today I'm struggling to get out of the house.
Today I am struggling to get to finish a sentence.
Today it seems even making a list isn't easy.
Today I am sick,
but I don't know if I am sick because I'm stuck in the house,
or if I am stuck in the house because I am sick.
I've written 2,000 words today & not a jot of them and good at all.

But I keep going. And today part of my keeping going is showing you how I feel.

tired and a twinge disillusioned

Yes this is a pretty picture, but being pretty is not the point (for me). This photo is honest and speaks about me, my mood, and my tastes. But it took me about 10 failed pictured to get to even this one overexposed, smudgy-mirrored, ghost-chin-y picture. 

To me the selfie provides a really good metaphor for the fact that most of the time when we try to represent ourselves or our ideas to other humans, we fail the first 10 times at least.  A calculatingly shot selfie is no more or less artificial than the first 'ugly' frame shot and discarded. It just feels closer to true for the person taking and sharing the selfie. (just like the 1,600 words I wrote before this).

Unfortunately truth and beauty are culturally linked in our brains. I'm all for divesting truth from the oppressive concept of beauty, I believe we can all be more than just hunger for beauty and approval. But more immediately than that, I want to respect the truth that someone is choosing to share with me when they post a selfie.

Yes the people who take selfies often do replicate narrow oppressive beauty ideals. Yes those ideals and the way they are taught and enforced are fucked up. But this issue is bigger than selfies. Calling people who attended to their appearance and are complicit in beauty culture "shallow" is needlessly divisive (and I say this as a plaid wearing, make-up rookie). 

The markers of beauty culture are not the root of issue. A thin person is not personally at fault for a fatter person's insecurity. One person's beautiful selfie isn't what's going to make someone else feel insecure. That insecurity comes from the learned habit of comparison and self-sabatoging criticism that we teach everyone (but especially girls when it comes to appearance). Through selfies, we are only seeing a symptom.

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