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.”

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.”

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. 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?

Melancholia. A jaundice soul. I am reminded of the shadow woman from the Yellow Wallpaper. In the daytime, she is a mere invisible rustle, but at night, she manifests. Rampant, chaotic, distressed. She flees, but from what because, after all, she is at wall and paper, no escape. No escape.

This is what it feels. Tonight, I listened to a podcast by APM: Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett entitled The Soul in Depression. It confronts the stigma of depression, its poor contextual meaning, and how the voices of those touched by depression seem to go unheard. This is a subject plaguing my mind as of late. For several weeks, I’ve been taking an anti-anxiety medication. After some psychological and emotional episodes and confrontations at work, I felt I had two choices: quit or start seeing a psychiatrist. Though the first option almost was triumphant, as in I removed all personal possessions from my desk, had a serious, emotional conversation with my boss, and then left for a ‘personal’ day, having no backup plan, job, or sufficient savings to quit…I am, for now, stuck and eventually returned to my cubicle. But I haven’t put back up any pictures or returned personal keepsakes. I prefer to leave my desk barren. I have one foot out the door and there is no intention of going back. 

I chose a doctor based on my insurance’s list, and found myself sitting before a tall, lanky man whose shoes somehow seemed too big. But later I determined that wasn’t the case, it’s just the way he positions them, at times turning them towards each other when he begins an impassioned tangent, or how one dangles like a weight is dragging the toe down. He scribbles on yellow paper, and in my mind, I joked privately that he was likely drawing cartoons or sketching out a reverie. Though, I knew he was outlining my family history, my relationships with relatives, and my history with anxiety. At the end of the first meeting he asked if I had any questions. Yes, but not about me…do you ever see a therapist? And he laughed, amused by the query. “On occasion. I wouldn’t trust me if I didn’t.” His candidness and honesty from that one question was the only reason I decided to go back. 

So, for the time being, I’ve chosen to be put on medication. The doctor left it up to me. But the struggle over this decision has raised awareness of my own prejudice against psychological medications, the people who take them, and my skewed yet fully valid reasons for wanting to evade chemical manipulation. I had an intense anxiety about taking an anti-anxiety drug. 

My greatest fear is how this would effect me creatively. If I tamper with how I am innately, then how could that not alter a part of me that seems so heavily rooted in my shifted emotional state, perception of the world, etc. No matter the benefits, I will never sacrifice that. And a part of me feels that the sedation of people through medication is in essence slaughtering thousands of potential artists. This is a heavy bias. I openly admit that, and there are people who oppose this idea as well. Indeed, it isn’t necessarily fair to think that being an artist entails suffering, depression, running the emotional and psychological gambit, but it’s hard not to see a correlation when reading up in the lives of some of the world’s most famous artists regardless of their medium of choice. 

Another issue was that in deciding to take medication, I would undoubtedly have to confront that something is wrong. And I am not comfortable with acknowledging this yet. 

I have had relatively intense anxiety most of my life. The first incidence I can recall was soon after my parents divorced. I was six or seven and suddenly found that I could no longer stay composed in class. One second I was fine, and then an onslaught of feeling overwhelming, separate, anxious, it’d be difficult to breathe, and then I’d be sitting at my desk crying. Teachers had no idea what to do. I’d have to hear my father’s or mother’s voice, or have one of them come up to school just to hold me for several minutes, soothe me. Halfway through the school year, I was moved into a split grade class with several other students. And though I should have been distracted by the challenge of learning material from my grade level and the one above me, I could only stay calm if I looked at a picture of my mother that I kept in my desk. Anytime I’d start to sense those strained emotions, I’d just have to concentrate on her image, and after several minutes, I’d be fine. 

But even at home, my anxiety problems grew worse. I could no longer sleep in my bedroom for fear that if I was away from my parents that something would happen to them. I’d have nightmares of them dying in fires, crying out for help and I could do nothing because I was outside the flames. If left alone in my bedroom, it wouldn’t be long before I was screaming, crying out. And no matter how much they tried to be firm, to keep me in my own bed even with direct orders from our family counselor, I would always find myself at their bedside. The one time my mother locked me out, I pounded on her door for hours, crying, screaming how horrible she was and all I needed was for her to be with me so I’d know she was safe. I don’t remember if I finally fell asleep at her door or the couch, but I know I didn’t return to my bed. And this was how my life was for a few years, until my mother’s death. After she died, I never had problems sleeping in my room or staying at school. But those years of intense anxiety left a deep scar, and though I would fight back anxious feelings if they arose, I always wondered if working through it was enough. 

For the past two years, levels of anxiety equivalent to the magnitude I felt as a child have reemerged. The heart of it stemming from a detrimental relationship that helped propel me into the throws of an existential crisis whose edge I had been teetering on for some time. And the addition of accepting a position at a job I didn’t desire and don’t enjoy just contributed to feelings of shame, failure, anger, struggle, fear, and a great sense of Lost. 

Everything of the person I had been before that critical point seemed to evaporate. And what I was left with was the shadow woman. In the midst of an emotional hurricane, unable to sift through emotions, feel focused in heart, soul, and thought, I was a raw nerve. And all I wanted was to be alone, to cry, to be held. 

But, there is a side of depression and the emotions entailed that goes unnoticed by those never experiencing it. In actuality, this state is often the deluge of emotion, an inability to dam gates to keep it in, and though in a state of such darkness, it is also a period of intense feeling. And for the first time in my life, I was experiencing Feeling, it was so pungent to every sense that it was the overabundance of emotions that crippled me. I had become hypersensitive to not only my emotions, but to others’ as well. 

For that reason, I found myself on the verge of panic attacks in public or at work. To be so acutely in tuned with emotions is difficult to articulate. But to stand in an aisle with several people around and feel simultaneously frustration, joy, confusion, sadness…to be assaulted by an array of feeling at the same time just paralyzed me. It’d be difficult to breathe; I’d start wheezing lightly, and that tightening around my chest like my heart was in a vice, all I could do when this happened was flee. And on a few occasions, I left my cart or items and just left the store as fast as I could. But if this happens at work, I just can’t walkout and come back when I feel balanced or calm again. Instead, I’d have to cry in my car on lunch break or claim to be searching for an old file or document that was held in a locked storage room just so I know no one would seem me in such a state. But then strained work relationships with coworkers, bosses, and the stress of not only doing my job but fixing others’ mistakes, checking behind others was and is the dominant reasons for my dissatisfaction with my job. After my first session, I realized that almost the entire office is on a medication or self medicates through other means. I finally saw that I wasn’t necessarily innately crazy, but this job seems to have that effect on many of the people in it and talking with others outside the store I work at, medication or high levels of alcohol consumption are a bit of the norm for those in my field. 

So, my final decision is to get out. I decided that medication is short term, that I will not have my life be ‘tolerable’ with the help of a pill, but that I must recognize that on a deeper level I am troubled by not doing something I love to the point that it is destructive to me in many ways. But the podcast brought to light the awareness that came through this period of great pain for me, and how now on the other end, I see how beneficial it is to Feel, to be hyperaware of the state of others emotionally. It is that shadow woman that finally came into form, like a veil lifted, to find that in her was a light, a strength. That perhaps what I had perceived as distressed, as chaotic, was not the nature of her at all. Because it seems she is much more free than I had been. Wild and untamed, she feels, she sees, she fights to understand even when it might break her because that is Life, and in that is beauty, in that is spirit and spiritual. 

And I think of the woman, tearing down the yellow wallpaper, trying to free the shadow woman though in reality, she was freeing herself.

I’ve encountered words that I think are in need of help. Unknowingly, they are in the midst of an identity crisis. Because of this, I cannot learn them, know them, retain their existence in my mind. 

I’m reviewing for the GRE, deciding that my only potential escape from the mundane cube I’ve been suffocating in for about two years is graduate school. So, I must get in, freedom is at hand. I’m preparing myself, mentally refreshing, because I’m a horrible test taker and will really only get one shot at this before applications are due. My overly priced vocab flash cards have made me realize how much I miss words, the written word, and how imaginative worlds are woven from the perfect neighboring of words. Almost like alchemy. Word combinations create sentences, meaning, mix and match them and see what product comes from these interactions. It is quite the complex equation, a formula that if something is amiss leaves it all in ruins. 

But this is only possible with the entailed meaning of a word. Meaning is subjective, in the beginning anyway. A word is created, defined, and eventually its existence is accepted, and thus, its meaning has a general consensus for the masses. However, at times I find myself meeting a word for the first time, and upon learning its meaning am confused. This isn’t you? I mean, really, this doesn’t SOUND like you. This is a problem. You’ve been given the wrong identity and you don’t even much know it.

I have no real logic behind this and it just comes from feeling. A meaning feels off, and because of that, I will likely never remember that word. Two examples…take the words Slake and Nadir…just ruminate about the potential meanings of these words or if you already know then proceed to start questioning the definitions pairings with these words.

Slake – to calm down, moderate

Nadir – lowest point

This is an identity crisis at its worst. Slake…it sounds like a nasty thing. Something of evil nature or movement. To slake around. Nadir…really should be a noun. A woman’s name with beautiful dark eyes, rounded like an almond. Nadir knelt by the stream to take a drink of water with her bare hands, blistered from the sun. 

This has always been a problem for me. Meeting words and wanting to change them, find out their true purpose in this language. However, I can’t really argue this on the GRE and must find a way to retain these words even with their poor aliases. But it makes me wonder about the meaning of words, the broader significance of it. Because much of interpretation comes from what we say, write, or read. Words create laws, debates, cement marriages, move people to action or inaction, to change the world…so meaning in itself has so much weight in life that goes unseen.