40 Days of Writing, Day 6: Do You Believe in Heaven?

Published on by Lisa Category: Philosophies, Religion and Spirituality

*Consider this your warning that I’m going to be using a LOT of ambiguous language here.*

This post was inspired by a talk I attended tonight by an ecologist who talked about his conflict between science and faith.  In the Q&A, I asked about his thoughts on the afterlife.  I guffawed in appreciation at his remark, “I once heard that when we die and meet God, we’re going to have all of our answers.  We’re going to have all the knowledge.  I seriously hope not!  To have all the answers and to know everything there is to know?   I can’t imagine a worse place for a scientist!”

There are days when I wonder if the afterlife is going to be as interesting as the conversations here on earth that debate its existence.

I believe in heaven.

Meaning, when my heart stops beating, my lungs stop inhaling, and my brain stop functioning, something that is uniquely mine – some call it a soul – or whatever makes me ME is not going to stop.  It’ll continue somehow.

I believe there is going to be some kind of transition and the manner in which we have come to know knowledge, primarily through our senses, will be perfected.

I believe that we will communicate in ways that involve but are no longer limited to spoken language.

I believe that the feeling when we realize we’re heading to heaven will be something akin to the feeling when you make a delightful discovery here on earth.  Like when my mind is cracked open by a new perspective, or theory, or school of thought to explain a truth about the human condition.  That CRACK is not a sound in my head.  It’s a feeling, like a magnetic pull toward something where all things make sense.

I believe that in some illuminated, neon kind of way, we are going to see the world as it was, as it is, and how it should be and this will fill us with emotions, humility, and peace.

I believe there is going to be some kind of ridiculously funny absurd element to heaven.  Like, I’m going to get there and find God is my twin.  And when you see God, you’ll see your twin.  And then they’ll be some obvious reason why that is and I’ll think, “OF COURSE!  Why didn’t I think of that on earth?”

I believe that my fear of forever will melt like candy in the rain.

I don’t believe heaven is what we want it to be, like how it’s portrayed in horribly produced and poorly directed book-to-film movies like The Lovely Bones or anything resembling Mitch Albom’s projections in The Five People You Meet in Heaven.  I don’t even believe that there is going to a spiritual war for souls, as predicted by a 4 year old who claimed to sit with God in Heaven is for Real.  I believe that heaven lays beyond what we most desire, beyond our own cognizant understanding of desire.  I believe it is what we were created for and what we return to: home.

I don’t believe that purgatory is going to be a fire burning one inch from our skin while we’re roasting like rotisserie chickens with our sins dripping off us like fat.  I believe that purgatory is going to be the place where we come into a full understanding of our earthly lives and its significance and impact on others.  I believe that purgatory is going to be the moment we are more humbled than at any part of our existence.  Purgatory is where we come into full understanding of life.  Heaven is where we have a full understanding of God.

I believe that even though that last paragraph I wrote probably made little to no sense to anyone but me, I do believe that heaven is going to be insanely simple.

I don’t know how Nick, Isaiah, and my family members will relate to me once we are there, but I believe that the special ways we revealed God to each in this life will also carry meaning in the afterlife.

I don’t know what it means about hell if I write that I believe in heaven. Mostly, the idea scares the living shit out of me and I try not to think of myself heading toward an existence that is void of meaning, a catastrophic case of indifference.  I think of hell as a state of utter anxiety, envy, half-ness, restlessness, and lies.  I imagine the worst pieces of earthly depression – where absolutely nothing breaks the surface of your soul – and add a thousand layers of impenetrable skin.  Hell is the place where the only thing that can touch your soul is God and God is not there.

I don’t know what it means to be saved. I don’t know what being “saved” means when we have free will.  We can choose to save ourselves by doing xyz or we choose not to.

I don’t know what God is going to look like, but I have a tiny idea of what God is going to feel like.  Hint: Awesome.

I don’t know what other religions or faiths believe of the afterlife, but I have a feeling I’m going to be hanging out with all the souls that believed in leading lives that reflected some level of commitment to the common good, neighbor, selflessness, creativity, and prayer.

I believe that there is a 98% chance that none of this is accurate and it’s still going to blow my soul into a million parts of joy.

40 Days of Writing, Day 5: The Education of White Folks

Published on by Lisa Category: Academics, Asian-American/APIA, Culture and Race, Race, Say It Ain't So

As a person of color in the United States, the issue of white supremacy – and its infiltration in every kind of  institution and system – remains quite clear to me.  The issues can be complex, certainly, but sometimes, incidents of racism occur and reveal simple and forgotten points about the danger people of color face when in predominantly white environments.

Like this story that happened in my home state of Ohio where an elementary school teacher thought there was nothing wrong with asking one of her two black students to pose as a slave during a mock slave auction and had the white students poke and prod as if buying him, even going as so far as inspecting the inside of his mouth and testing his muscle strength.

This, in my mental filing system, is categorized under Nightmare, The Ultimate.

This treacherous and psychologically twisted act of a youth educator brings back some not so pleasant memories of my own.

While much less damaging or stunning, I can remember handfuls of incidents growing up in predominantly white classrooms and being asked my opinion because I was not white. “So, Lisa, tell us what is it like to be in interracial dating relationships,” my sociology teacher asked, assuming all kinds of notions that if I were in a relationship that it automatically would be someone who was White or someone of a race other than Filipino. And also assuming that my life is open for discussion for the intellectual advancement of others.

It irked me when well-intentioned white friends would complain that the person of color in their class was socially reserved and wouldn’t share his or her experiences from Nicaragua, China, Mexico, or Africa, “I just really want to learn from them.  Why are they so quiet?” Mhm, I don’t know.  Maybe that person is just like any other person in class — bored to tears perhaps, or an introverted soul, or maybe s/he doesn”t like to talk in class, or maybe s/he doesn’t like you.

Even in professional conferences about dismantling racism in institutions of higher education, even during plenary break out sessions after the speaker just finished a talk about how women of color are often tokenized in mainstream feminist circles and asked to speak simply because of their non-white skin color, someone at my table still asked me, “What’s wrong?  Don’t you have anything to say on this matter? You’re not white and haven’t spoken yet.  I’d love to hear what you’re thinking.”

To which I replied, “I mean, other than the fact that you’re forcing me to speak when the whole presentation was about NOT doing that, I feel fine.” That and I remember thinking, I just don’t feel like talking. It’s early.  I need coffee. Nothing fancy.

Consider the possibility that people of color, especially in predominantly white spheres are neither inspired or scared to talk.  I can’t speak to the minds of what other people are doing or thinking.  I can only speak to my experiences in dealing with people wrapped in the binds of white privilege in education centered environments and how often I was targeted to speak on behalf of my race.  Cultural awareness is not putting someone’s culture and race in the spotlight, nor is is about ignoring it in efforts of sameness and equality.  It’s somewhere in between.

If you are uncomfortable with white supremacy, or history of slavery, or want to learn or teach about it further, consider this point:

People of color/I do not exist to be subject material for enlightenment.  They/I exist because they/we are humans with unique feelings, stories, and ideas.  So, if you’re interested to know about the practices, rituals, and beliefs of a specific culture or race, read a book.  If you’re interested in a person, form a relationship.

And remember that people of color and our lives are not responsible for white people’s education.

40 Days of Writing, Day 3: Generation X and the Changing Face of Friendship

Published on by Lisa Category: Adulthood, Community

The only thing I really miss about my 20s is the proximity to my friends.  Even though my friends and I are the guinea pigs of social media like facebook and twitter, linkedIn and blogs…there truly is nothing like sharing your life with someone via face to face time.  Being able to read someone’s face, instead of reading their blog.  Going to the market to pick up bread and talking through decisions is better than Skype calls with news updates about the decisions that have already been decided.

In 2011, in addition to my sister, three of my closest friends are getting married.  Of the three, two of them have fiancees I’ve never met and the one I have met is someone I’ve exchanged about 3 sentences.  So, to summarize: I’m letting three of my best friends go to spend the rest of their lives with people I have never met.

I feel entirely uncomfortable writing that.

Back in my 20s, saying someone was my Friend had meaning.  It meant I had some sort of interesting connection and liked their existence.  Now?  A “friend” can be someone you never really knew, but has access to your Facebook wall.

On the other hand, I’ve formed significant, life-saving relationships with other writers through social media.  We’ve met in person at conferences and writing events and are bonded by the written word and the sacred space of creative exchange.  I consider these people close in my heart, but it’s different than my friend Tricia whose should I cried on when I got my first D on a test in the 7th grade.

So many of my friendships have changed because of the different paths of moving, marriage, children, and occupation. Back in 2001, I began reading more and more newspaper articles claiming that my generation is a hopping generation.  Literally.  We hop around more than any generation before us.  Traveling is more accessible and jobs are less accessible.  Many of us move with restlessness, searching for something we can’t name and sometimes, in the middle of all of that, we fall in love with people from an entirely different region of the country that needs geographical compromise.  Whatever the reason, we’re more spread out than our parents.

What defines community for those of us transitioning in and out of friendships?  What does it mean to have relationships begin in one place, but then you both move to different parts of the country for the rest of your lives?  How do you make space for new friends?  Are they the same as friends with shared history?

Community.  Friendship. What does this mean in the era of computer screen bonding and texting life news, “I’m engaged!”?

Generation Xers — what is becoming of our relationships?

40 Days of Writing, Day 2: Feminist Perspective on Lent

Published on by Lisa Category: Culture and Race, Faith, Feminism, Religion and Spirituality

I’ve been a catholic for 32 years.  Every classroom that I ever received a degree from came with crucifixes on the wall and grace before meals.  My parents are from the Philippines, the last country that still does not legally recognize or condone divorce.  In grade school, I wrote essays on wanting to be a nun or a missionary in El Salvador and follow the footsteps of Archbishop Oscar Romero.  My husband earned one of his masters degrees while attending seminary to be a catholic priest.  I love fish fry’s and believe in the power of building community over donuts.

I’m a catholic alright.

I’ve identified as a feminist for about seven years, believed in its core values for 32 years.  I performed in the Vagina Monologues, taught a course in gender, race, and difference, and worked in a university women’s center for three years.  I write and edit with a grassroots and independent feminist magazine and speak at conferences about media justice, revolutionary practices of storytelling, and US feminists of color.  My marriage is built on values like ever-negotiating degrees of communication, respect, compromise, and radical love.  I support men and women, transgender women, transgender men, transexual wom/en, and non-identifying and non-conforming persons.  My first book project is an anthology of edited works by survivors of sexual violence written and created for other survivors of sexual violence.  My mother and I argue about Fox news and politics and then laugh over coffee ice cream while exchanging stories about my 14 mo old son’s latest antics.  I counsel and educate, advocate and vote.

Catholic while Feminist.

Catholic and Feminist.

A Catholic Feminist.

A Feminist Catholic.

There’s no better time to reflect on the two identities (although I pretty much reject the notion of “multiple identities” and just see them as ME) than during Lent.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning a Lent, the holiest time of year for Catholics, as it marks the 40 days before Easter.  No matter what is said or taught about Lent, it is a time for nothing else but absolute renewal.  Renewal of relationship, renewal of energy, renewal of spirit.  This “renewal” thing, though, is usually overshadowed by things in the media like the McDonald fish sandwich deals and Steven Colbert’s humorous mocking of catholicism and Ash Wednesday during last night’s The Colbert Report.

It’s hard to focus on the deeper meaning of Lent when you’re gnawing on fried fish sandwiches and dabbing your lips with a napkin to dry up the grease.

Few feminists I know and study provide in-depth reflections on Lent.  If there are some who do write on it, they are usually ivy-clad academics in feminist theology who talk in jargon that few lay people would understand.  So I feel obligated to self-educate and self-define this holy time of year for myself.  I feel one of feminism’s great tools that I have embraced is a wonderful gushing spigot of questions.  Many feminists are obsessed with answers and legislation and public policy and conference plenaries and blog posts and articles and book deals and marches.  Those things are all fine and serve great purpose because, let’s face it, spirited dialogue needs these things.  But, in my head, none of those things really matter if you don’t have the right questions.  Questions situate.  They point the telescope at just the right angle when you seek clarity.  Questions, more than anything, direct your gaze and concentration.

One thing that catholics and feminists do have in common is that some of the most ardent and vocal people in either sector are often the least educated or in touch with the everyday lives of women.  Neither the leaders of catholicism nor the leaders of mainstream feminism reflect who I am.  Those leaders are often white, have never spent much time building relationships with people and countries outside of the United States, without dependents of any kind, and favor sweeping generalizations in their speeches and homilies as if they speak the truth for everyone.   They tend to make polarizing statements in the name of everyone else and the TRUTH.  They also talk to me like I’m just like them.

So the question is: Why stay?

Answer: it’s better to crack the walls from the inside than the outside.

It’s better to stay and fight then leave and complain.

It’s better to claim what is rightfully yours – church, identity, spirituality – than to walk away.

It’s better to write your narrative than to ignore your voice.

It’s better to admit you disagree than pretend you don’t care.

It’s better to breathe in the gray than suffocate in black and white.

And, for me, I just don’t walk away.  I get the oppression.  I get the pissed off feelings.  I get it.  I’ve had three decades of jaw dropping statements and humiliation and “I can’t believe the Vatican _______ ” kinds of moments. But, giving up catholicism is like giving up my skin color.  It’s like giving up my family.  It’s like renouncing my mother or shunning my siblings or ignoring the voice of my father.  It’s like writing, “I’m giving up being Filipino!”  And like many Latin@ theologians argue — simply walking away isn’t what our people do.  We stay in the friction.  We make movement.  We work toward resolution, not abandon the problems.

If I leave, who will ask the questions?

Lent is a time of renewal and you can’t have renewal without coming to grips with what you want to leave behind.  That kind of discernment, that kind of active, mindful reflection must be intentional.  It must be framed with question.

What do you want to leave behind?

Last night, I participated in Ash Wednesday service and was asked to help distribute ashes.  I love participating in any aspect of the liturgy and, smiled, when Nick was asked to distribute ashes beside me.  Serving others together as a married couple is one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.

The action is simple.  I dip my right thumb into a small bowl of dark ashes and place a cross on the forehead of the person standing one foot from me and proclaim, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.”

Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.

Eigh —

In terms of rhetoric, I wasn’t impressed by these words.  Hardly poetic. Not really moving and I have such complex issues with what defines “sin,” “faithful,” and certainly “gospel.” I told myself,

Get over it.  Now isn’t the time for theological argument.

There were over 500 people in the church and my line was overflowing.  I was unsteady, thrown by the massive crowd pushing toward me.  For the first ten people or so, I couldn’t look them in the eye.  The whole thing suddenly unnerved me.  Truly, it’s an intimate act to place your hand on someone’s forehead.  Try it.  Gather faces in your hands and tell me you’re not moved.  Let yourself be in a position where people come to you seeking something much greater than you; their eyes opening into yours.  Faces of all ages, colors, sizes, texture, ability.  Each one extraordinary.  Each one indispensable.

The nervousness trembled and then an unexplainable stillness rested over me.  My vision narrowed and I just saw faces.  Like a human conveyor belt, their faces came one after the other.  Hopeful, searching, distracted, downcast, excited, curious, detached, grieved.  I saw them.  I saw their faces and thought,

People are so beautiful.  And good.  And they try so damn hard to do their best.

Over the organ and choir, I kept repeating the phrase over and over – maybe 200 times with little pause in between each one – Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel.

I was saying the words, but I had no feeling behind them.  Then I heard a translation. My own voice in my head.

Stop making destructive decisions.

Go. Live!

Come out  of your sadness.

Choose to love.

You are not alone.

Find yourself.

I’m here.

I have no flipping idea where those words came from, but they popped in my head like subtitles at a french cinema.  Were these commandments for me or for them, I wondered.  I wasn’t sure and then I was sure it didn’t matter.

I felt their spirits.

The experience took me back to my own wedding ceremony when Nick and distributed eucharist and, again, I was overwhelmed by the faces appearing in and out of my eyeline.  At my wedding, the faces were all known, all beloved.  I compared that day to heaven – a gathering of those we do not want to live without.

Yesterday, though, it was a parade of unrecognizable faces but their beauty was so undeniable I felt embarrassed that I didn’t live more gently with my neighbors.  I felt silly that I was so quick to indulge in gossip and share in news of misfortune.  I didn’t feel short, but I felt ashamed I didn’t choose to stand taller.  In those minutes, I knew there was nothing more important than those faces and coming to that realization of how precious each face was, I knew my face mattered as well.

They matter, therefore, I matter.

In the quiet recess of your mind, do you truly believe in the undeniable sanctity of each person?  Of yourself?  Your body?  Each woman?  What if we honored all the baggage that people show up with as forgivable and common? Or –

how would your life change if you saw what I saw last night:  God.

And this I can report back — God sure ain’t sexy, but It sure is crazy beautiful.

40 Days of Writing: Day 1

Published on by Lisa Category: Creative Writing

My personal Lenten prayers and resolves live somewhere in my head and heart, but one thing I am sharing is my belief that Lent is a time of affirmation and growth.

Is what you are doing bringing you closer to God?  That is the question for me this year.  All that I do, all that I say, all that I think…is it bringing me closer to what I believe and who I believe God to be?

As Melissa Harris-Lacewell now Melissa Harris-Perry shares in this beautiful post about her womanist perspective of Lent, I began agreeing with some of her points.  Is really that fruitful to give up small indulgences like candy or chocolate, cursing, or bad habits?  When done in good faith, these restrictions make us feel good and they definitely feel good when we return to them once the 40 day deprivation is over come Easter.  But the larger question remains: no matter what you resolve, no matter what you give up or intend to do or promise to finish or vow to avoid, does this bring you closer to God?

Does this bring you closer to God?  Closer to the ____________ whatever you claim and label that *Divine Otherness to be?  Universe.  Mother.  Spirit. 

Does this bring you closer to that?

Giving up things can clear our spiritual and mental palettes.  It can offer clean, unadorned tables of clarity and reflection.  But, for many people, that’s not enough for 40 days.  So many times, self-sacrifice and deprivation become synonymous with spiritual growth and faith development.  They’re not synonymous.  It’s the meaning we attach to our rhetoric that gives us the space to deepen our relationship with God.

I gave up some things.  And I committed myself to actions that I believe will bring me to a higher understanding of self, God, and relationship.

One of those practices is daily writing.  So often in the real world of publishing, editing, and cultural critique, the 7 year old girl who wrote simply because she loved to write gets pushed behind the woman who believes that perfect sentences reveal more than honest confessionals.

My 40 days of lent are not about absolution or confessing to the world my mistakes and oversights and shortsightedness.  Come Easter Sunday, I want to be able to claim a sweeter soul, an undisturbed tongue, a relational spirit, a loving mind.

And so I shall write everyday.

40 days of writing…who knows what will be birthed?

Gendered Pain: A Free Write on Birth, Partnership and the Woman’s Body

Published on by Lisa Category: Activism, Body Image, Daily Resistance, Feminism, Gender, Health, Marriage, Parenthood, pregnancy, Pregnancy and Parenting, Psychology and Mental Health, Reproductive Rights, Uncategorized

There’s nothing sexy about pain.  There’s nothing even remotely redeeming, glorified, cute, or remarkable about pain.

I came into this realization quite quickly Sunday morning when I was dressing Isaiah for mass. I began lowering him to the floor, felt a horribly familiar pop! in my lower back and I immediately recognized that telling radiating heat that spread throughout my lumbar region as I fell on one knee. Isaiah screamed in my ear as he harmlessly wobbled back from me so he peer into my face to see what was wrong.  All he could see was my face going paler by the second and my breath quicken in short spurts and outbursts, trying to control the pain.

No.  No.  No.  No.  No.  No.  No.

Not again.  Not again.  Not again.  NOT AGAIN.

I just got back to the gym this week.  I just started getting back on the treadmill, back in the zumba studio, back for my first swim in the pool.  I just …

I just got over my back injury from last month.

Remembering my phone was in the inner pocket of my purse, I slowly walked to my purse on the ground and gently leaned forward.  I reached and immediately fell and screamed in pain.

I somehow got my phone, I don’t remember how.  (A friend told me that when her back went out, she blacked out from the pain.)  I remember feeling calmed by the smooth surface of my phone, thanking God it was charged and relieved that Nick was only 5 minutes into his day, ahead of me, and on his way to work.  I whispered frantically to Isaiah that everything was fine and threw him a toy as I winced in pain.  He hobbled away, whimpering at the site of his mother in such disarray and distraction.

I burst into tears and could barely get the words out to Nick, “My back…w-w-went ou-ou-out a-a-a-gain…”

It was at that moment that I retreated from the world, the pain was overwhelming, almost blinding.

A co-worker told me later she saw Nick walking on the street when he was talking to me, all dressed up for work, briefcase in hand, but in an unusual walking speed, “a near run” she told me.  So she stopped and offered him a ride to wherever he was rushing to.  “Home,” he said, “Leese threw her back out again.”

It’s hormones, my chiropractor told me yesterday.  All the hormones and chemicals that loosen the pelvis and back, readying the body to deliver a baby, are still in your body and, likely, the lumbar region isn’t as tight as it was before and isn’t as strong.  Doing household chores and lifting things can sprain, strain, and injure the lower back, says the doc.

All of this from hormones?  Still?  It’s been 14 months.

Hormones and chemicals can linger in your body, doc says.

A number of friends – all who have given birth in the past two years – have confided of their recent and surprising chronic lower back pain, some so severe that it prevents mobility.  Few have found comfort.  All have tried natural healing, gym trainers, chiropractors, physical therapists. This strange community of back pain mothers comforts me.

I toss two pills of Alleve in my mouth and tried to smile at Isaiah in the kitchen.  He put his chubby arms up for me to carry him and starts grabbing my clothes for leverage, like trying to climb a tree.  Nick immediately scooped him up and tries to cheer him up with a jolly, overly boisterous voice.  The shriek out of Isaiah’s mouth was one I could interpret instantly, “What’s the matter with you?  Why won’t you pick me up?”  He’s taken away from me and, out of nowhere, I have an image of him being taken away from me the moment he was born when all I wanted to do was hold him.  I shake my head, and gently stir the boiling orzo.

Is this what birthing mothers deal with, I asked my head as I stare at the back of Nick’s body.  His is so strong, so solid.  Simply clad in jeans and a white tshirt, Nick’s body looked beautiful to me; his wide and capable back seemed fearless.  His stride was fluid, like a complicated piece of piano music keyed effortlessly.  I look down at my body.  A staccato mess of surgeries, stretch marks, and my skin’s opinion of the pregnancy weight gain and loss.   I see my scarred belly from three surgeries with another scheduled in the summer to fix an umbilical hernia.  My inner eye sees an exhausted and red lumbar region, a weakened lower back throbbing with stubborn stiffness.  It strikes me, with almost a pin needle acuteness, that Nick’s body hadn’t changed at all since we had Isaiah.  Nick’s body remained intact, with no incisions, no stretches, no torn anything.

I pause in that realization.

His tongue had never mistaken water for metallic liquid.  His nose never became so sensitive as to be able to detect the cleaning fluid on the floor of a grocer.  His heart ventricles never widened to allow more blood flow.  His calves and feet never swelled with unbearable water retention.  His chest never billowed with heart burn.  His mind never clouded with postpartum depression.  His nipples never cracked with pain so deep that his shoulders shuddered.  His skin never broke out in rashes.  He never vomited from anesthesia or used his foreman to protect a 6 inch abdominal incision against a winter chill.  He never had a catheter put in at the same time as a suppository while compressors pumped blood away from his legs.  He never had an abrasion in the back of his eye because the surgeons forgot to completely close and protect his eyes before surgery.  He never had to take pills to stop, prompt, or control a menstrual cycle.  He never felt a flutter of life in his belly or feel the hiccup of a new being inside his womb.

Because he doesn’t have a womb.

Nick did and does everything a parent could possibly do.  He transformed his emotions, his life, his commitments, and reformed his schedule to accommodate me and every little thing I needed throughout my pregnancy and birthing experience.  He respects anything I tell him or request.  Nick continuously and gladly lays in a metaphorical railroad track for me and our son.  If that’s what needs to happen, that’s what I will do, he says.

But in the confines of my bed, nursing this near paralysis, when I hear Isaiah’s laughter and Nick’s efforts to keep him occupied, I realize, with ringing clarity something that I could not have known or respected prior to going through it myself: our bodies are entirely different and our needs are entirely different.  My body endured all of this and my body cried differently than his. I knew this beforehand, but I never really Knew It beforehand.  Maybe my body never really cried until I became a mother.

So this difference between Nick and I exists.  It exists as sharp as a paring knife, as real as our love.  That difference – that my body changed while his did not – initially sprouted a rocketing resentment against anything him, society, and anyone else that didn’t Get It.  It = women’s bodies are a terrain that only we ourselves can travel.  It is not for anyone to lay laws upon.  It is not to be conquered, violated, disposed, or mishandled.  Along with the resentment, I also noticed a widening reverence for my body.  From which new life travels, the woman’s body is the canal to existence.  It is from our very bones, the calcium of our teeth, the marrow of our own breath that the woman’s body offers and sustains a new being.  The woman’s body is the epitome of automated self-sacrifice.  It is the ground zero of renewal — if the environment agrees that her life is valuable and the time to recover is respected.  We women, we give birth.  And we are also born into a new identity and a new body.

Give.  Birth.

Give.

Birth.

Are there two more powerful and daunting words in the English language?

But we women are also prone to set back and injury because of what our spines uphold.  Our bellies swell with life and our spines pull back to hold us up and in shape. Sometimes, though, the spine gives way and loses its strength.

Pain, whether it’s the lower back or elbow, or migraine, or menstrual, is a debilitating state of existence.  Not because of the physical pain itself.  It’s debilitating because chronic or severe pain draws our minds inward, incapable of fully giving of ourselves to anything or anyone else.  In pain, I become unlike myself.  I don’t unravel.  I do the opposite, I am mummified.  Most people, but especially me, are social beings.  I feel endorphins from conversation, laughter, and intellectual exchange.  However, in the confines of a bed and four walls, my spirit goes down.  My intellect goes dim and my emotions begin to go dark.  Swathed and cast in my own stillness and short breaths, pain dictates my freedom.  I no longer care about anything.  All that matters is finding a pain-free, mobile existence.  Which is why when I check all my social media outlets – email, Facebook, Twitter, newsfeeds, and listserves – I shake my head that the world is celebrating Mardi Gras and International Women’s Day.  I wish I had the energy to care.  I find all kinds of interesting stuff to read, but before my mind digests in the information, my back spasms again and I nearly drop my laptop in shock.

Pain draws us inward.

So for me, today, the one day (unfortunately) that calls women from all over the world to stand together, I lie in bed, with my eyes closed, waiting for relief.  Luckily, for me, I am certain of two things:

patience and writing can be worked on in bed

and

I do and can stand up for women’s rights and gender justice on a daily basis.  But right now, regaining my spiritual and psychological composure after a back injury and remembering the awesome capacity of a woman’s body seems like my fight for today.

Tomorrow it may be something else.

Here’s my Feministe Question about Radical Childcare

Published on by Lisa Category: Activism, Feminism, feminist blogosphere

I’ve been a reader of Feministe for a few years now.  It’s pretty much one of the few mainstream-ish blogs/sites that I pop my cyber head in for a check-in for women and gender news and updates.

It’s not just the writers that provide news.  What I find more telling about the temperature of mainstream feminism and how far (or not) we have come, is the comment section. Comments can range from supportive and affirming to downright knee-slapping hilarious for its ridiculousness.

Right now, there is a post that I genuinely support and am eager to read how others are reacting.  As a contributing writer and editor at make/shift magazine, I always feel a thrill when a significant article, like Heather Bowlan’s Power to the Parents, is picked up by another outlet, like Utne.

And then there’s more thrill when it’s mentioned in the feminist blogosphere.

My curiosity set in, though, when NO comments were made in the post.  None.  Not even a “thanks for posting the link,” or “I disagree because collective childcare is _____ ” kind of comment.

No reaction.

Or, is it no interest?

What does that say about feminist readers?  Or is it just Feministe readers?  What does it say that when feminist sites cover news about abortion signs or Planned Parenthood, media goes crazy and the readers respond. But when an article reports of a much needed service in the activist circles, the voices of support or even of mild inquiry are nowhere to be found.  When the subject is redefining the family and broadening inclusion in the “movement,” why is there an echo in the room?  For all of the cries of “liberal” and “progressive” readers, where is the interest in the news when it reports a piece of information that actually DOES something to make a difference in the lives of women?

Is there no reaction to this amazing effort by China Martens and others who work to try and include children in the movement for justice and peace?

No reaction?  Is it that people want to react to more posts about Charlie Sheen’s assholery or popular and well-covered issues such as white privilege?

Or is this more telling about the disinterest the capital *F feministers have when it comes to women who are not white, heterosexual, partnered, and without dependents of any kind?  What does a “no comments” section mean about the vested interest in a truly pro-life (non-political term usage here), pro-women, pro-family effort?

Just observin’.

Just sayin’.

Just questioning.

Mental Health and Sunshine

Published on by Lisa Category: Health, Psychology and Mental Health

I was recently in California and was taken to wine country.  From Ohio – where temperatures were in the teens and ice had sheathed the city of Cleveland – to this, a place of light, color, warmth, and flowing petals in the wind, I don’t know if I had smelled cleaner or sweeter air.  And the color!  The blue of the sky, the green of the grass, it took me to a calmer place.  Cleveland was battling more than just an embarrassing NBA losing streak, I could not remember the last time the sky was not overcast with heavy clouds.

Mental health is a topic that so many of us do not address.  It’s one of those topics that carries even more taboo than sexuality.  When you’re the one that brings it up, people assume you struggle and no one wants to think their moods, or feelings, or mind struggles with balance.

It’s a ridiculous assumption and expectation; to believe or make-believe that we are 100% in balance all the time.  We’re all plotted on the spectrum of mental health.  Depending on the conditions of our geography, stress, job, family, and relationships, our wellness fluctuates.  And that’s normal.  It’s more abnormal, I think, to say that you are unaffected by life, seasons, and sun exposure.

It’s critical to take care of our minds and spirits.  It’s critical not only for ourselves, but for those we live with.  Just ask Nick.

When I came home from California, I picked Nick up from classes.  I hadn’t seen him since I got home the previous night because our schedules didn’t match up.  When he got into the car, he saw me and his eyes grew as round as saucers as he exclaimed, “Wow!”

I smiled, “Missed me, huh?”

He stuttered, “Yeah, of course, but, not just that – YOU’RE GLOWING!”

I flipped down the visor and examined my face in the mirror, “I am?”

Nick took my hand, “Yes, you look so alive!”

If and when you can find it, find the sunshine to get you through the winter.  Get some sunshine, walk, breathe.

Never underestimate the power of a brief but timely vacation and the benefits of natural sunshine on your skin.  And write this on an index card and post it on your mirror, “If winter is here, can spring be far behind?”

5th Annual State of the Self Address

Published on by Lisa Category: State of the Self Address

This is my 5th annual state of the self, a speech I deliver once a year on the revelations and reflections of the past year.  Every year I have invited close friends and family to listen, but this year I decided on a much more private delivery: alone in a rocking chair with my son.

It was fondue.  That’s how I began my birthday last year.  With friends, family, and my two month old son, we went out for fondue.  And suddenly, here I am, hugging my mother, holding my toddling son, with Nick smiling at me, turning 32 and another round of the carousel of life is complete.

I suppose I could talk about how 31 was my first year as a parent; how I found seven gray hairs in my mop of raven strands; how I fought post partum blues, ran my first road race, began editing my long-ago dreamed anthology, traveled to New York and New Jersey, California and El Salvador, and even flew with Isaiah to Atlanta so he could meet his great-Lola and Fernandez blood.

31 is the year that shook my beliefs in everything, including God and even myself.  Isaiah is a chisel, who with one small stab, could crack me into a hundred pieces a hundred times everyday.  More times than I would like to admit, I was a mess.  Few things in life can mess with me like that.  1) Being a new mom  2) Having no road map on how to be a new mom and still be myself

31 is marked as the year the illusionist died.  The illusionist who preferred to think of life as an endless supply of chances.  Time, for all of its illusions of abundant opportunities, is actually a dwindling bank with unknown capacity.  I don’t know exactly when, but I realized that somewhere early in my adult life, I had subconsciously, nonchalantly, and arbitrarily agreed that my life was as oceanic and boundless as the sky, with no restrictions on how much time I had to live, photograph, love, forgive, and write.

Here’s the not-so-sophisticated newsflash of the year: I don’t have forever.

Somewhere in the space between last year’s fondue and this month’s Egyptian revolution those four hammering words “I don’t have forever” splattered itself on my brain like a gob of sticky gum.  It came from my body.  I knew tiredness like I never knew it before.  I knew anger like I had never experienced it before. I got cranky.  I reached palpable limitations of my own biology.

My life got really unsexy this year.  More times than I can count, I left the house with a new stain on my lapel or a button loosened. Memory cells vanished.  I often smelled like a mix of Aveeno baby soap and maple oatmeal.  The pencil scratches of “Things I Want for Me” folded itself into the garbage pail.  The ever popular journal prompt “Who am I” disappeared from the pages and meshed into the blurred advice lines of  motherhood and survival. I suffered from a strong case of self-forgetfulness.  Repeatedly this year, a tiny voice kept asking, “What is it you really want?  You better move on it cause you don’t have forever.”

You don’t have forever.

Such ordinary rhetoric.  Such extraordinary meaning.

This call to urgency will be answered loudly.  I vow to be the kind of person, the kind of mother who greets her son with the shining eyes that know self-fulfillment and community relationship.   “Children need to see their mothers happy, accomplished, satisfied.  They need models to show them how to fulfill their dreams,” a fellow artist told me. I vow to be the person that remains undeterred from my own dreams, no matter how odd or unconventional it may seem to others.  I vow to remember that a safe, comfortable life is not the meaning of life.

I promised myself an intrepid life.

And if that vow calls me to stand with nothing but the feet of shaking courage –

so be it.

Lisa Factora-Borchers

February, 27, 2011