To Be Alice

To find the strength to be her. To see the rabbit hole and choose it, though it is a dark, unseen path, and embrace that abyss of unknown, of possibilities, of the light that will inevitably breakthrough. I am hovering just above, like looking down into a deep well, and it is eerie, it is peaceful, it births a great angst and curiosity.

I am choosing it. I am leaping in eyes wide open. I am falling. I am…

In a few short months, I will be submitting my two week notice. Several brief sentences that neglect all I really wish to say, to scream, to chastise with such a venomous tongue. But I am but a plebeian in this charade. A great play of corporate life and ethic that is as false as the reflection of Dorian Gray.

My retreat is unknown. Applications submitted, but acceptance refrains for months or even eternally. But I cannot wait for the fates of graduate panels to accept or reject me. The two dimensional glimpse of all I am in a few short essays and 20 image portfolio. On paper am I pleasing to read? Do my words intrigue and validate a desire for journalistic study? Or am I just a paper doll figure? Words that dull the mind and pain the heart with each line? I can but hope that they find something worthy in my writings, in my images. It is like waiting for a rose or a poorly scripted kill line.

No matter the outcome, my decision is firm. My pending notice is known, and I will leave to venture into an unplanned chapter. I simultaneously sense the paradoxical coupling of terror and liberation in my first breath away from the cubicle. And though I have no concrete agenda or backup plan, I will choose it nonetheless. I have found my heart so ill these past few years, and what has sustained it through it all has been the arts, the need to find light through the lens, and to put words to paper. Have I not earned this for myself? Do I but deserve the chance to plunge into the unknown rather than follow the poorly constructed outline that the masses are expected to conform to like automatons programmed to live just to work?

I am empty but filled with hope, passion, an a yearning to feed the creativity in me that has been so long neglected. I will have no job. I will have no security. I will walk each step with instinct and the knowledge of the life thus far lived. I will not let another take my choices for this life. If one is all we get, then why wait? Why waste a day living by another man’s demands? Always is there the choice of the self. The second that is forgotten is the moment power over me has been given to another.

I will find my way…but first, I must take the leap down the rabbit hole.

Non-guilty Pleasures: Podcasts

I’ve become a podcast fiend. If I’m editing, which is almost a nightly ritual as of late, I’m listening to podcasts. After leaving a cubicle prison for the day, it is nice to come back to my quaint studio apartment and be privy to intellectually stimulating and refreshing conversations that are typically absent during my forty hour work week. Since light is quick to rest in winter, I have no choice but to become enchanted with the world through other means. Podcasts have assuaged this longing because the people speaking often are captivated with an element of life, nature, or existence and manage to articulate their perceptions and passions in a manner that seduce me into being equally enticed.

Below are several podcasts I subscribe to and highly recommend. They’re free and archives are available, which is grand for a person like me without television and internet (most of the time).

APM: Speaking of Faith

In a matter of weeks, I have listened to reflections and discussions on Einstein’s God, Mormonism, preserving the Ojibwe language, the secret life of stem cells, the soul in depression, etc. This is quickly becoming my favorite podcasts with its eclectic offerings on religion, spirituality, faith, history, psychology, sociology, basically a humanities feast for the ears.

The one I’ll highlight is the secret life of stem cells. The first secret: stems cells are all over our bodies. It is merely a matter of extracting them and using them to their potential to help us one day heal ourselves in greater ways than they already do. Scientist Doris Taylor discusses her stem cell research. Taking animal cadaver hearts, her research team managed to strip the dead cells from the hearts through mere soap. Once reverted back to a more original state, stem cells were injected. Over several days, the hearts would progress and eventually be given artificial blood, and in 8 days, what evolved was a working, beating, new heart. Think about that for a moment…8 days and a new heart. Dr. Taylor hopes that in several years these studies can be done on human hearts and eventually be used in heart transplants. Just imagine someone being diagnosed with severe heart disease and instead of being put on a long waiting list for a heart, doctors can harvest stem cells from that person’s body, take a human cadaver heart, and in 8 days produce a heart ready for transplant. On top of this, since the cells used are the person’s own, then there would be almost no chance of organ rejection. This is the type of breakthrough with the potential to save lives. It is the type of breakthrough that could have saved my mother. And if it can be done with a heart, it can likely be done with most organs.

Speaking of Faith delves into many issues. Each week is a different subject likely quite different than the previous week. Host, Krista Tippett, maintains a respectable level of journalistic intrigue mixed with sincere and critical dialogue that produces engaging interviews.

TED Talks

These podcasts and videocasts are somewhat short, but connect listeners to ideas and concepts not penetrating mainstream media. I’ve listened to a scientist speak about how mushrooms can combat illness and help lower pollutants, how ordinary people become monsters or heroes, and the real difference between liberals and conservatives.

Ordinary people begins with the potential of everyone to become a hero or monster, along with the ability to change into the other as well. The guest speaker is a sociologist who discusses a particular study which he conducted. A group of men in college were divided into two roles: guards and prisoners. Before the test, these men were interviewed to ensure they had good mental health, came from stereotypical ‘good’ backgrounds, and were declared ‘reasonable’ people. After 5 days, the study had to be discontinued because those in the role of guard had begun showing violence and severe interrogation tactics and several men in the role of prisoners started having breakdowns.

He referenced another study done several decades ago where random civilians were studied. Taken into a room with a two-way mirror, the participants would sit with the researching and watch the person in the other room. It was said to be a memory study and participants were requested to push a button on the table if the person got an answer wrong. By pushing the button, an electric shock would be sent to the person in the other room and each additional shock would grow in severity. Unbeknownst to the ordinary civilians in the study, the person in the other room was an actor and was pretending to be shocked. Before this study was conducted, scientists hypothesized that only 1% of participants would actually go through with pushing the button. The results showed that over 50% pushed the button without question. After the first shock or two, the actor then cries out about having a heart problem and for them to stop, that this isn’t good for him, and even then people STILL would push the button. If some began to question the researcher and object, the researcher would say it was necessity, that it was part of the study and to continue. This was to see how many people would merely listen to authority and also because they weren’t technically held responsible since this was in the hands of the researcher. Well, guess what, most still pushed the button anyway. Though it may not seem like nothing, to me it is quite horrifying. This shows the automaton nature the masses have become and it is no wonder atrocities like the Holocaust have occurred.

This American Life

This has been a favorite for some time, but I am only now listening to archived episodes starting all the way from 1995. The concept is simple: a theme every week and stories of Americans are told. I have a handful of favorites but one story that sticks in my mind is about a kid at summer camp. Well, technically, Bible camp, and one afternoon these dark clouds were rolling in. The narrator says something in him just dared the devil as he looked into that storm forming. I guess in a way like ‘Bring it!” The counselors began ushering everyone indoors and as the narrator and his friend began to run to the cabins, the boy’s friend was struck by lightning and killed. The narrator goes on to say that over the years he’d tell people this story and eventually he began telling it to see people’s reactions. At first they would comfort him, say it wasn’t his fault, and then he’d respond that he didn’t think it was his fault, and that’s where the intriguing reactions began. But that imagery of daring the devil, these hovering thunderous clouds, and death by lightning is so rich in my imagination and in itself, that brief space of time is a story that is multilayered and so much more complex than what is at the surface.

Dani & Mirko

Heart Walk 2009

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Photograph of the Week

 

These are images from the Drawing with Light course at Charleston Center for Photography. She’s been my teacher beneath the faux deer heads at Kudu, at Earthfare tables topped with vegan cookie dough and pizza, and now, oddly enough, a studio. 

Mik: “Why are you taking this course? You know all this.”

Me: “Yeah, but I haven’t seen you for awhile…”

Laughter

Me: “I need a push. Push me.”

Just for Laughs

So, I’ve been told by a good friend (Anna) that my blogging is often abstract, a bit serious, why not write of amusing things? For this posting, I’ll hopefully do just that.

 

Several weeks ago, late on a Saturday evening, I’m standing outside the Jasper with the security guard catching up on each others’ week. An old white gent, likely seventy or more, wearing a pressed white blazer and snazzy zoot zoot shoes walks up to ask her a favor. “I’ve been waiting for a friend to come by. If you wouldn’t mind, please let her in when she comes. She’s a social worker wanting to discuss a case. I used to be a doctor you know; so, she wants my advice. Sara is a nice, black woman and she’ll be here to see me, please let her in and tell her my apartment number when she comes.” As he walks away, I’m head down laughing, and as he rounded the corner to the doors, she joins me. I say, “I don’t think a social worker is visiting at 9 PM at night. A different kind of worker is coming for him.” She nods and says, “I just may have believed him if he hadn’t told me she was a nurse a few hours ago!”  

 

At work, we’re required to run background checks on all applicants. One came back with a cocaine possession charge and when the sales manager was informed this he had quite an intriguing response. “Why do all of you act like he’s a hardcore criminal? Seriously, who hasn’t done a little coke in their life?” All of us in the office just look at him with a sideways glance, and I nonchalantly say, “Ugh, I’ve never even tried pot…” and then another sales manager chimes in, “Yeah, well ya know ‘Greg’ who hasn’t done a little meth either?” And we all just start laughing, the manager suddenly has that ‘I’ve said too much face’ and speeds out of the office.

 

Lately, I’ve taken on a sweet not sour approach at work. Since people seem incapable of doing their jobs correctly, I write saccharine saturated e-mails asking them to please do something and that I understand all that is put on them and appreciate what they are able to do, blah blah, bullshit bullshit. One boss said she could tell I tried really hard to be nice to the people I directed the e-mail to and smiled knowing I meant none of it. “Yeah, well, I finally figured out something about all the men here. Nothing gets done right if you don’t give them a hypothetical nut tickle. They don’t feel big boy without it and I don’t have time to for their crap.”

Photograph of the Week

I keep breaking the rules. Putting up multiple photos when the title is obviously in the singular. 

These images are from the Sertoma Classic, a high school football jamboree of sorts. This was technically my first sports shoot; so, definitely many mistakes, kinks to work out, but I figured it out in enough time to get images I’m happy with. I also was third party victim to a tackle that went out of bounds, a nice cleat to the thigh and a bluish bruise that is spreading by the day.

Exhale: A Different Approach to Post Abortion Counseling

Exhale. To expel. To emerge. To breathe. 

On a recent podcast by Fully Engaged Feminism, Laura interviews one of the founders of Exhale, an organization dedicated to post abortion counseling. The group’s mission doesn’t stem from polarized politics nor is their plight a guise for other intentions. Simply, it’s to give voice, to give heart, and to give a listening ear. They consider themselves Pro-Voice.

Aspen Baker briefly chronicles her experience post abortion. She found few counseling options, and those that did exist were tied to Christian organizations, which also were Pro-Life. At the other end of the spectrum was a feminist movement more concerned with establishing reproductive rights than providing outreach to women. Neither side seemed suitable to help her with the torrid of thoughts and emotions that consumed her, and because of that, she found several other women in the same position and decided to create a space where women and men could have an outlet to discuss life after the choice.

Aspen’s feelings may be misinterpreted by a biased eye, regardless of political affiliation. Imagine being a woman entering a medical center who has mulled over this decision, the choices, the variables in her life. Analyzing every minute detail, every scenario, and no matter the final decision, there is no concrete conclusion, no definitive closure regardless of the choice made. Each option entails a path of emotional and psychological effects, of some form of struggle or sacrifice. In the particular choice of abortion, it is quite common for a woman to walk the premises with a number of abortion protestors mere feet away. Voices calling that she can still be saved, it isn’t too late for the soul. They hold signs with images of fetuses, words succinct but sharp: immoral, hell, death, murder. Is this the Christian death row? To call each woman out as murderer? What stone do they have the right to cast? 

Then it is these same people, these same beliefs, that stand at the exit with sudden open arms. They speak of trauma, of sin, of forgiveness. These words of compassion coming from the same people that spewed vicious slurs. It isn’t a welcoming feeling for many women who have had an abortion. Something seems innately off, wrong, about the two -faced act. But often times, it is only these groups that offer any form of counseling, whether or not their political and religious intentions are made clear, if it is the only option, then some women would rather have a biased shoulder to lean on than none at all.

On the other side are groups who have fought for the reproductive freedom of women, and sometimes associate the vocalizing of post abortion effects as siding with Pro-Life attributes. The focus has been on establishing the law, but the voices and stories that catalyzed the revolution have gone mute. Unheard by many ears of the feminist movement because any sign of emotion signifies the opposite of their purpose, of their vision, of what they represent and are striving to achieve. 

Sometimes gray is the worst place to be, stuck in shades of white and black, and all there is is a fog. These are many women, no side hears their voice, their stories. Either there is no respect of the choice made or no respect for the feelings and thoughts that come later. So, Exhale was created as a space to remedy that void. To exist in the gray with those women, taking no political side but as they call, Pro-Voice. Let these women be heard. It isn’t about law, or right or wrong, or saving face. It is a sacred space of experience. 

In the end, there are no parties, no sides, no politics. At heart is the voice of a woman that many ears are deaf to. Listen and you will hear…

Am I not your sister? Your mother? Your daughter? 

Do not forsake love that binds. Do you not see how my heart weeps? 

Love. Please, oh please, just love me. I need compassion and a comforting embrace. 

Do not wipe away these tears. They are the words of my soul.

No judgement calls. I am no murderer.

Look into these eyes and you will see.

Am I not your sister? Your mother? Your daughter?

Photograph(s) Of the Week