SHIPPING MY INSECURITIES TO CALIFORNIA.

By ANNA DAVIES
October 3, 2008

“I’M moving to California,” I lied to John. It was 2 a.m., and he had called as I was leaving a bachelorette party to ask me over for the night. That was the nature of our three-year-plus “friends with benefits” relationship: every couple of months we got together at his place for sex and not much else. This time, he breathed in stunned silence at the other end of the line. I had met him at a particularly rocky juncture in my life, the summer between college and the real world when, at 22, I was spending my days looking for apartments and jobs, and generally feeling sorry for myself.

On a whim one evening, I clicked away from the apartment rental listings on Craigslist to the “Casual Encounters” section, the online destination for those seeking one-night stands or ongoing casual relationships. I hadn’t really thought through where it might lead or if I would even post anything. All I wanted was a diversion from my rising panic over my future. John responded, and after getting to know each other a bit online, we agreed to meet. He was in his early 40s, a workaholic with a messy past and a string of failed relationships. Spending time with him immediately put all my post-collegiate ennui into perspective.

Soon we had established our pattern. Every few months he would appear in my life through an initial call that would lead to spending two or three nights together. Whenever I would convince myself that maybe, despite our age difference, despite our unconventional introduction, our pseudo-relationship could turn into something more, he would disappear again. Or I would. Like the time he confessed to hiring a nude cleaner off the Internet, and when he invited a woman from a wedding to move into his apartment with her toddler, which kept us apart for the better part of a year.

RECONSIDER.

LOST IN TRANSLATION.

Je me souviens.

After a week lost in translation in Montreal/Quebec City, I’ve learned quite a few things from my travels and encounters (okay, it wasn’t that impossible to get by with my limited/non-existent French and people were generally more willing to revert to English). I visited 4-5 years ago when I was considering McGill and Concordia for college, but was ultimately turned off by the blistering cold and fear of falling icicles.This time, surrounded by tourists instead of blankets of snow, both cities are just as charming as I remember, but with a completely different vibe.

My week was filled with: charming strolls along vieux Quebec streets, Mansard roof houses, flirtatious French-speaking men, antiques and old books, cocktails along the St. Laurent River, a new found love for Stella Artois, hoards of tourists, sidewalk cafes, roaming street musicians, buttery croissants, meat pies, caribou pâté and fine French fromages, mouthwatering Marché products, decent coffee, even more confusion over Eurotrashion, a mindblowing sense of direction, and a determination to master the French language.

Ici le temps s'arrête. C’est bon la vie!

THE COLLAGE.

Solitude is so sacred because it is the one time and one encompassing space that allows us to actually enjoy being alone and nourish our soul by reading a book, watching a movie, writing in a journal, painting, listening to music, blogging, hiking, cooking, etc. It is also sacred because, when used effectively, is a time for genuine self-discovery and introspection – a truly spiritual and transformative experience. While it certainly is a time devoted to dreams, ambitions, creativity and most of all, the self, it is no place for the ego. As Audrey Flack remarks, “If you build a stage set for the ego, it becomes a fortress. In a fortress, transformation is impossible. You have isolated yourself, and the intimacy that assists transformation is not there,”(8). It is in “the happier world” that we are able to “transform” our dreams and ambitions into a “vision of the future” in which we see ourselves as part of a larger reality and a citizen of the universe. Although we may be physically isolated as part of solitude, we are not “cut-off” from the influence from society. We essentially take one step backward, in order to take five steps forward. Solitude + solidarity = authenticity.

AFFIRMATION.

I believe in living. I believe in the spectrum

of Beta days and Gamma people.

I believe in sunshine

in windmills and waterfalls,

tricycles and rocking chairs.

And I believe that seeds grow into sprouts,

And sprouts grow into trees.

I believe in the magic of the hands.

And in the wisdom of the eyes.

I believe in rain and tears.

And in the blood of infinity.

I believe in life.

And I have seen the death parade

march through the torso of the earth,

sculpting mud bodies in its path.

I have seen the destruction of the daylight,

and seen the bloodthirsty maggots

prayed to and saluted.

I have seen the kind become the blind

and the blind become the bind

in one easy lesson.

I have walked on cut glass.

I have eaten crow and blunder bread

and breathed the stench of indifference.

I have been locked by the lawless.

Handcuffed by the haters.

Gagged by the greedy.

And, if I know anything at all,

it’s that a wall is just a wall

and nothing more at all.

It can be broken down.

I believe in living.

I believe in birth.

I believe in the sweat of love

and in the fire of truth.

And I believe that a lost ship,

steered by tired, seasick sailors,

can still be guided home

to port.

-Assata Shakur

ALL-TIME LOWS.

Proof that there's something very wrong going on when ...

• colorblind, post-racial, self-perceived liberalism shuts out necessary productive, pragmatic, and progressive discussion on race relations and justice.
• celebrities & the elite believe and get treated like they're above the law.
• bougie white boys can't get jobs, meaning the rest of us are really screwed.
• the World Cup becomes the Euro Cup.
• cops have a God complex on top of their already bulging ego.
• a convicted murderer gets charged with involuntary manslaughter and only gets 5 years in jail.

... this list doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.

Now, all of this is extremely disgusting and disappointing ... but in my classic cynicism, doesn't come as a complete surprise. It's just kind of a slap in the face that all of the above have materialized in the past day/week/month/year. That's not so easy on the nerves.

"And true, sometimes it seems that anger alone keeps me alive; it burns with a bright and undiminished flame. Yet anger, like guilt, is an incomplete form of human knowledge. More useful than hatred, but still limited. Anger is useful to help clarify our differences, but in the long run, strength that is bred by anger alone is a blind force which cannot create the future. It can only demolish the past. Such strength does not focus on what lies ahead, but upon what lies behind, upon what created it – hatred. And hatred is a deathwish for the hated, not a lifewish for anything else." - Audre Lorde

ACCEPT THE NEW.

SO AMPED!