Walking/running/climbing on his own.

Drinking out of a cup.

Trying to put on his own shoes.

On his last doc appointment, he was in the 90th percentile for height.

Independent, tall, and proud.  My little prince.

There are these “back up” moments I often have when out in public with Isaiah. I’ll be busy loading groceries on the conveyor belt, or picking up my keys that he threw on the playground steps, and when I get my composure, I see that he is busy charming the pants off of the closest person around. The phrase “doll-baby” has been thrown around, along with “well-behaved” and “angelic.” Someone yesterday even commented to me that she thinks Isaiah has a philosophical look about him.

I forget these things. I sometimes forget to study this little man in front of me. My mind is often bursting at the seams with trying to remember this and that, I forget that he is really one of the most well-behaved little persons I know. I forget to study him sometimes.

Since I see him everyday, it’s hard for me to take notice of how he is constantly growing. Little by little, inch my inch, he moves along in his development all on his own. In the blink of an eye, he started counting (I prompt, “one” and he says, “TWWWWOOOO”) and his gazes are much more knowing and confidant. My baby is growing.

Sometimes we are so caught up in making our lives work, we forget to notice how much is growing around us. And when I do take notice and take that few extra seconds to notice how much Nick has grown, how Isaiah has developed, how I have changed, I am overcome by a tsunami of gratitude.

Notice. Be grateful.

Allied Media Conference Workshop: Editing as an Act of Love from Lisa Factora-Borchers on Vimeo.

This weekend is the almighty Allied Media Conference – a completely awesome gathering of activists, writers, media makers, shape-shifters, publishers, Troublemakers, and movement builders in Detroit!  I went a few years back and try to make it every year.  Only significant conflicts warrant an AMC absence.

This weekend, one of my dearest friends is getting married.  So, that’s the signficant conflict.

However, I am sending my spirit along to Detroit for the weekend.  I have submitted a video I made for a workshop entitled, “Editing as an Act of Love” which will be a radical collaborative effort between myself and wonderful workers of love who put their heart on the page and edit with principles that build community, affirm voice, and uplift the work of marginalized or silenced.  In my case, I based this video on my ongoing editing with Dear Sister, my anthology of letters and art, created by survivors of sexual violence for other survivors.

Editing has been a learning experience.  It’s an honor and grace to read the words of survivors who have been through unfathomable violation and witness (read) their personal resurrections. 

This is the video that will be shown at the conference this weekend.  But fear not: for those of you who view the vid, but do not engage in any editing work, the same principles apply to personal relationship

When am I NOT in the process of a make-over?

I’m obsessed with make-overs, and reinventing myself, and self-improvement, and life goals, and not just living better, but actually BEING better at life.  Life, in my righteous humble opinion is not about a sensible, chronological gathering of pertinent experiences to get us to a convenient and comfy position in our lives.  Life, as I have sensed it, is and can be a linear progression of growths and challenges where we get to incorporate an ongoing understanding of ourselves and our impact on others (and the world) as we age.

I decided to make some significant changes in my life and to document those changes here.

I began My Ecdysis to document the feathering and fraying pieces of my identity, to honor and laugh at the things that pound through my life, however lasting or temporary, and share them with the world from my tiny corner of the universe.  Over the past two years, I have mentally and emotionally struggled to truly define my life, post partum: what it means to be a working mother; what it means to be a constantly vigilant foodie concerned with health issues and high blood pressure, type II diabetes, cancer, and heart disease; what it means to co-build a uniquely loving and egalitarian marriage; what it means to be a Filipina American in the midwest; what it means to be a writer, a photographer, a digital and painting artist; what it means to forever battle healthy choices in food, drink, and general consumerism.

These things matter to me.  They truly matter in my daily course of existing, creating, and evolving.

Interwoven through all of that is my deepening and changing relationship to Catholicism, feminism, veganism and/or plant-based nutrition, yoga, prayer, and – for lack of a better description – the intuition restlessness to always do the right and loving thing.

For the past few years, I’ve written about my struggle with the world, the struggle to be a catholic feminist, the struggle to swim against the tide as an editor and activist.  And, quite frankly, I grew tiresome when it came to describing just the struggle.

It finally dawned on me (again) that life (as I know it) is only as sustainable as our spirits allow it to be and what feeds my spirit is what will, ultimately, feed my life.

Translation: I want to write about what I love most.  I want to write about the details of life that pronounce our freedom and community, rather than the pieces that hold us back from being ourselves.  Perhaps that struggle wasn’t prominent in the last two years of writing, but the brevity of my posts, the general sweeps and mysteriously shallow depth of them covered my personal struggle with what to write about. I want to let go of the hundred things I think are important to write about and focus on the two or three things that I absolutely MUST write about. In other words, I want to focus on what moves my life forward, not what holds me back.

As Nick once told me, “I’m not looking for a good life, I’m looking for a great life.”  The line between the two, I’ve found, can be just as subtle as it is significant.  Focus on the necessary, choose the great, let go of lukewarm, mediocre, so-so, and alright.  And so, here I am, trying to choose the great.  This is what I’ve come up with.

• I’ve outgrown the (capital F) feminist blogosphere.  After six years, I’m politely done with it.  As I’ve said before, “The feminist blogosphere is like earth day: recycling the same shit over and over again.”
• I’m into LIVING.  As in, “how to.”  As in, “quit your bitching and do something.”  As in, “laughing is good.”  As in, “Did anyone else notice that?”
• Showing what I’ve done.  Dusting off my camera and providing colorful illustrations is part of my liberatory practices
• Getting back to the basics.  Eating whole foods (limiting processed food and sugar), drinking water (soda like alcohol = special occassions), praying (spending time with Quiet and innermost thoughts), honesty (both in relationships AND self), simplicity (claiming what is most desirous), returning phone calls (keeping connections), being on time (the war on procrastination), and renewal (being unafraid).

Hence the new masthead above.  “Daily scopes of liberation” (with resistance scratched out) is my decision to live better and share it with those who are also trying to do similarly in their lives.  Often times, it’s the small things that elevate ourselves to a higher prescription of living, and we all need reminders of how we can do that.  I’ll still write about resistance, because it IS essential to understanding liberation, but my plan is for things to be a lot more concrete, positive, breathable, and liveable.

Daily practices in liberation living.   Sound good?

I hope you join me.

It’s hard to remember a time when I didn’t know you.  A time where I never looked at you and smiled either with my face or with my soul.

Even when we first met, the first thing I noticed about you was your gentleness.  Even in the way you listened, the way you hung your head and didn’t look at me.  Without knowing you at that time, I still knew you were listening to me deeply.  It said a lot about you to listen to someone you barely knew with such sincerity.

The years we spent at Xavier were years of their own.  Those days when we laughed so hard that life seemed to be perfect just as it was.  Perfection was a day we took a walk around Eden Park and talked about our hopes and dreams.  I don’t think either of us ever really thought that our hopes and dreams would eventually merge into one path.

Those years of inner struggle, when neither of us knew what we wanted to do with our lives are now times we can look back with admiration instead of pain.  I think we’ve reached that point in our lives where we can be proud you were in seminary, discerning your vocation, and I can be proud of the places I went, the work I did, the people I tried to learn more about.  Both of us, without really knowing, were really looking for ourselves.  And I’m proud that we both had the strength to step away from each other and live out our questions before we realized that our answers were laying in one another.

You flew to Boston every month for nearly a year and then moved there when you sensed I was growing tiresome of a long distance relationship.  You hate fashion and worked at the Gap.  You had your masters in theology and applied to work as English speaking tutor to kids from Japan and Spain.  You took other people’s shifts to help out even if it meant spending 4th of July a part.  You helped me move and always took the big boxes.  When we talked on the phone, you hid your frustration when I called from a loud bar and screamed, “HOW’S EVERYTHING GOING FOR YOU?”  When we sat at Summit Park, overlooking Boston, we talked seriously for the first time about getting married and spending our lives together, but it kept being interrupted by the bean burrito gas episodes …  we couldn’t stop laughing at the ridiculousness of constant farting through the most profound conversation of our lives.

You never wanted anything but for me to be happy.  You never want anything now but for me and Isaiah to be happy.

I watch you now, stealing glimpses when you’re not looking, perpetually amazed at how pure your heart is, how good you are to so many people, and how unassuming you of every living person.  You give everyone – from Obama to your family to rude teens to bad drivers to homeless people on the street – the same treatment: you assume the best in all of them, in all of us.

You may not be perfect, but you’re close to it in my eyes.  Our life together often resembles the best case scenario of how love should go and I am moved beyond words each day I see you working so hard to create a life of goodness, creativity, and meaning for us.  There is no better man in my life, no better person.

Six years of marriage is nothing compared to the lifetime of love we have already exchanged.  And I am so excited to see what more we build together, what Isaiah will bring, how and what we’ll all learn from one another.  You have made me a better person, a better woman.  Your insights have made me pause, your quips make me chuckle, and your honesty has moved me to a higher place of understanding.

We will always grow together, my love, and the stem that flowers us both is stronger than ever.

Lisa

Out of nowhere it’s 91 degrees.  The plastic that we kept on the windows to keep the heat in and then then pollen out had to come down.

The air was stifling.

And so we put in the AC units.  Well, UNIT.  That was installed in the little Prince’s room.

Nick and I had to order ours from Home Depot online.  And then they called today to confirm the delivery on June 2nd, only they said JUNE 9th.

And then my sweat turned into a waterfall.

Nick said, “Well that’s annoying.”

And I said, as sweat poured down my face from standing completely still, “Please tell me you’re joking.”

No.  He’s not joking.

Tears.  The tears.

1.  You become unabashedly open about what you want.

2.  You start to care less and less – by the week – what other people think.

3. You become more understanding of what other people do to get through, but that doesn’t mean you’d do it that way.

4.  Small things make you laugh and also carry more meaning.

5.  You understand why people garden.

6.  Parking garages are worth the $.

7. You make more doctor appointments than margaritas.

8. You get excited when you travel alone because you don’t have to pack for a toddler.

9.  You start to buy furniture that matches.

10.   You describe a neighbor as “awesome” because they let you use their lawnmower.

A random and incomplete list that Nick and I agree upon: Signs You’re Definitely Out of Your 20s and Well Into Your Early 30s

Don’t put up defenses — TV is full of garbage.  It’s a square (or flat rectangle if you’re hip and have a flat screen which I’m sure Nick and I will get sometime in the next 38 years) mess full of the darkest parts of human nature.  It celebrates infidelity and violence and offers a shrug to matters of human dignity.  At best, it gives us mindless entertainment and conversation pieces at summer parties when there’s an awkward moment (or hour) with, “Did you see the last episode of ‘Modern Family?’ I can’t decide if it’s Phil or Cameron who steals the show.”

I’m of the belief that the less TV – the better off one is and if you don’t have a TV or don’t use it — that’s ideal.

But I don’t live in an ideal world, I live in reality.  Not reality TV, but actual reality with love handles and dirty laundry.  In reality, at the end of a long day of chasing a toddler, answering questions about theology, and addressing the little but significant details of life upkeep, my brain is – how shall I put it – FRIED LIKE A GARLIC EGG.  There’s no space to absorb The China Study, or whatever nonfiction book I’m trying to get through.  I barely have the brain power to turn on the LISTEN button when Nick is telling me about his day or latest story about his grad program.  My brain resembles the ending to terrible 80s movies — the screen goes painstakingly slow to a fade out with synthesizer music in the background to make it sound like a profound moment has just passed.  Yeah — that’s my brain.

And so I started watching TV and began understanding why so many people do — my brain turns off and lets comedians and actors in, prancing like fools, talking jibberish and making me smirk while I lay my head on Nick’s shoulder.

It was this week that I decided to quit being such a hard ass about TV.  Watching the boob tube late at night for me isn’t a sign of degenerative brain functionality.  It means my brain’s done for the day and staring at a bright box somehow makes me feel better.

Now, if that turns into something more than a handful of hours per week, then I can pick up my judgement wand and get back on my train.

But for now – pump up the volume and let me absorb this 30 minutes of nothing.

Nothing never felt so good.