When despair meets a few prophets on a train

Today I was in a rough spot. 

I was sitting in the social work lounge trying to read a case I was actually interested in, Plyer v. Doe, but I couldn't stop thinking about how little I am contributing to the world around me. Now to anyone who would have asked me and conducted a thorough psych eval they might find that I met the criteria for depression. Feeling of hopelessness. A pervasive sadness that lasts for over two weeks. Bouts of crying every other day.  One could say that this afternoon I needed meds or the gold standard treatment for almost any psychopathology, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. 

There is, however, another way of looking at this. Freud says that the difference between melancholia (what we know today as clinical depression) and mourning is that in mourning you can point to something specific that is causing your despair and in melancholia the reasons still dwell in your subconscious and have not quite risen to conscience. I could tell you exactly why I was so sad, why my despair was present so maybe I did need meds today or maybe I needed CBT or maybe I needed precisely what followed. 

Teary eyed I left the social work lounge.  Not having a ride and not really wanting to be at BC for any longer, I decided to take my chances and begin bearing weight on my broken ankle towards Commonwealth Ave. I had not been on a walk in some time. About 7 weeks, to be exact. I was able to let my thoughts flow freely while I stared up at the sky and the winter trees whose branches extended like the limbs of a dancer hovered over me.  It was beautiful. I missed contemplating beauty in this way and I remembered just how important walking has been to me all of my life. 

As I approached Commonwealth Ave. I didn't want to stop walking. Though my arms were certainly less than comfortable due to the crutches, I could not bear the thought of being trapped in a car. So i crossed the street towards the train instead of ordering the Uber like I had planned. 

A young man looks at me and stares. Clearly, he is on the autism spectrum. He asks me what happened compassionately. I answer, evasively. As I get on the train and it starts to move I lose my stability and a blind woman and the autistic young man (at-least according to my assumptions) rise to help me. Then begins the conversation. 

The blind woman begins telling me about how she had broken her wrist some ten years ago or so. She assures me that I'll be okay. She talks about the slight difficulty she has with reading brail because of the injury but that other than that she is fine.  We talk about people with disabilties.  i tell her that this time, being without the use of my right leg, has been enlightening and has given me a glimpse of what life might be like for someone who is permanently disabled. We talk about how the United States is so individualistic and how asking for help is so difficult here sometimes. She tells me about how people may react to her when she asks for some help reading a bus schedule, "WHAT DO YOU WANT?" they might interrupt before she can finish her sentence.  But not everyone is that way.

I ask her where she's from. I find out she went to BU for social work all of these years ago and suddenly the world opens up.  She tells me about her counseling practice, about how disempowering it was for her clients. I breathe a sigh of relief.  I tell her how discouraged I am with social work, how demeaning I think it is to people.  We talk about the nature of social services and how everyone who has ever been a client has a traumatic story about or in relation to a social service provider. She tells me about the moment she knew she needed to leave the field and how all she wanted to do was sit with people and be present in their suffering. She is articulate and patient and there is a confident quietness about her spirit.  She is wise.  

She tells me about a book she is writing about the nature of evil, about the research she is doing, about the articles she has read. She assures me that the problem is not that I have nothing to contribute but that the system I am working within will chew me up and spit me out but that she has no doubt that I will find my way of making a contribution to the world.   

A woman chewing some sort of candy bar loudly asks whether she could sit in the empty seat between this woman and I where my crutches lay.  She came off as uncouth and abrupt. She looked slightly unkept. And if you looked at her closely you could see that the teeth she did have left were blackened and yellowish at points.  My immediate reaction was to be slightly offended by the fact that 1. she had no regard for the fact that she was asking to take the place of my crutches unapologetically and 2. she was interrupting a wonderful conversation. But as the blind woman continued to tell me about how suicide hotlines are more concerned with liability issues in recent years than they are with sitting with someone in their despair the unkempt woman between us begins to speak and to sympathize. She begins to tell us her story about her suicidality as a teen. She stops and lets us react.  I tell a story about Pastor Claire and her immense compassion and her authenticity towards the homeless. The woman then talks about her friend who couldn't receive detox services in the emergency room without claiming he was also suicidal.  She opens up about loosing her children to social services, about how they called her mentally unstable and about how her real mental instability came when they took those children away.  The blind woman looks at her calmly sympathetically and says, "I am so sorry. I don't know what to say. That' s terrible."  

"There is nothing to say," the woman chimed in. The blind woman touches her arm, noticing the pain that is coming up for this poor woman.   

I ask the blind woman more about her book, about the title.  She tells me that she is writing about the presence of evil. She is interested in the ways in which evil is present in the lives of everyone.  She looks compassionately at the woman sitting between us and says, "like what you experienced with having your children taken from you. That was evil.  But you at least know to recognize it as such.  Some people deny that this is precisely what that was. And I think everyone who has been through social services has had encounters with evil." 

Yes. To sit with the reality of suffering and pain. To not deny it. To not pretend it doesn't exist.  To not even wish it away.  

When we arrive at Park Street, the blind woman asks the other woman, "Would you kindly make sure the way is clear so that Annery can walk through safely?"  The woman smiles and says, "of course." She feels responsible. She clears the way for me.  

On the red line I stand in front of the long white bearded man who is always talking about how colleges ruin everything. As I stand in front of him in the packed train, he is the only one to offer me a seat.  Unfortunately he is large enough to take up two seats and I don't quite fit next to him. But at least he offered.  Everyone else was too busy paying attention to their iPads and books or daydreaming to notice that i was trying to balance on my crutches.  

I had met this man a few months ago when the weather was slightly warmer and I was talking to a philosophy major from Duke University whose first time it was exploring the city of Boston. He spoke excitedly about his classes. We talked about the intersection of biology and philosophy.  We talked about bioethics and a priori knowledge. So when we encountered the bearded man loudly going on what seemed like a delusional rant about colleges we chuckled. 

This time, however, I heard him with different ears.  

"paying for tuition? Are you kidding me? When you have the Boston Public Library at your disposition?" he said.  He talked about the Dred Scott case, about the Blacks upon whose backs the great institutions of our nation were built and how they were kept out of those very institutions.  He talked about how the most educated people used their knowledge to oppress others. He talked to everyone and he didn't care whether they listened or not. Clinically, one might say he endorsed loose associations, circumstantial speech, flight of ideas. You might say delusions were present. You might even say that the delusions were of a persecutory nature and that the man is psychotic.  Or you could say, "Sure. He might not be completely oriented to people and space."  But is he right? Is he observing and speaking about something true? 

In Jesus' day some may even have called him a prophet, akin to John the Baptist eating locusts in the desert or Moses claiming God spoke to him from a burning bush. Does this bearded man with disheveled appearance have anything to teach us about the limitations of institutions? in fact, what he is talking about is not far off from what Jesus said in the beatitudes--whom he quoted in his monologue today on the train, might I add.  Or what Paul said in the book of Ephesians about the powers and principalities of this world.  Are all of us who claim to be sane just fooling ourselvMes by living day to day feeding a system which some would say, which he would say, which the blind woman would say, which the woman who lost her children would say and which Jesus probably would say is inherently oppressive.  

Perhaps instead of social work I should be praying, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." Perhaps I should take heed to Jesus' words, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" or St. Augustine's admonitionsion that the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of man are separate entities.   

In the end all I needed today was to see a glimpse of God's kingdom come and I saw it on the trains I took home today.

Third rebirth

WARNING:

To the faith folks: 

I'm often reluctant to write my thoughts on faith. I'm especially reluctant to invite some folks who might take offense and call me a heretic. After being away from my home church for a while and participating in other faith communities, I've been called "a lost sheep."  When visiting my home church people begin to give me impromptu lectures on not doing drugs--because of course, if I'm not attending their church I must be doing drugs! They may lay hands on me or give me that pity smile. 

I seldom take offense. I usually smile and nod. Having once been there myself, I may scrunch my eyebrows as though on the receiving end of some profound insight and utter a, "Hm" out of respect. I know it all comes from a good place. In fact, I used to be just like them, praying for the prodigal sons and daughters to come to their senses and return to the fold. 

So I know that blog posts like the one below are not for them. Their lens is pretty impenetrable for reasons that are too complicated to explain here; yet, understandable reasons. This post is more for my friends and for folks who have ventured out beyond the teachings they were given.  This is for folks who see God as a great mystery; who, like Kierkegaard, have dared to venture into the sea of 70, 000 fathoms; who have taken a leap of faith; who desire to practice a little epistemological humility. 

To the non-faith folks: 

On the other hand, I know some readers who have never stepped in a church might read this and ask, "Why faith?" "Is this conversation even relevant?" "Why even engage people who may liken you to sheep?" 

Such is the curse of having a foot into two worlds. You develop a particular language that borrows from two very different experiences. I can speak this language pretty freely with those who have borrowed from both camps as well. But when speaking to one camp or the other I sound like I've created a distortion or a mockery of their language. 

My encouragement to the camps on both extremes if you do decide to read this is to respect each person's journey and language.  To seek to understand before diagnosing. 

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Book of Hours, I 59

7/23/2013 

Atomic Cafe. 

At around 7:15am I passed the old Unitarian Church on Cabot Street in Beverly. A sign on the white chapel read,  "Sin is the wreckage of the love which we are capable." 

I repeated these words to myself over and over. The words resonated. Deep. As I listened intently to figure where they resonated and why, I made a realization:  Lately it feels as though life has carved out some sort of concave well in me.  The words sin is the wreckage of the love which we are capable echoed in that very concave space, bounced off the bare walls--almost as though the vibrations of which were announcing the coming of something new to fill the concave space. 

I've been thinking a lot about faith as of late. 

In my life I've experienced a few spiritual re-births. One occurred when I answered an altar call at 10 years old which set the tone and pace of the eight following years.  If I had to call this "tone" anything I would call it "over-eager." If I had to name it's hue I would say it was a fiery anxious red. And if I had to characterize the pace I would say it was faster than what my legs could support. Think Jesus Camp.

This re-birth also set my life on the course of a certain set of questions, a certain set of friends, a certain set of existential experiences and a certain set of tensions.  The way these questions, experiences and communities have panned out have far surpassed anything I could ever have predicted. 

The second life event that I identify as re-birth numero dos occurred in college and involved the leaving behind of an old community--at the very least a re-conceptualizing of an old community.  I no longer found the support and comfort I used to find there.  Feeling isolated and in the midst of despair, I grew out of it like one might grow out of one's favorite shirt. Painfully. Slowly. With some denial on the way. "But it's my favorite shirt! I can't throw it out!" I wore that shirt until the sleeves created little bulges around my arms and until the belly became full on exposed. Finally taking it off was the killer.  This re-birth happened with contractions, labor pains and all. But the result--Oh, the result! Was a freedom I could have never foreseen. Talk about seeing the light. 

The second re-birth was not uncommon for the Gordon College student--especially for the student of Sociology or Philosophy. However, I never did throw out the baby with the bath-water.

When all of my friends were watching their world-views crumble, throwing them into various levels of existential angst and identity crises, I was merely experiencing transition. I didn't exchange one worldview for another.This was not a trade. 

Simply, with new information, new experiences, unanswered prayers, answered prayers, new mentors, more color was gradually added to the canvas. As opposed to a darkening, mine was a more of a move towards something brighter, more nuanced, more complex. Taking elements from my hyper-fiery upbringing I created some post-Christian concoction. Like Anne Lammott says, “Mine was a patchwork God, sewn together from bits of rag and ribbon, Eastern and Western, pagan and Hebrew, everything but the kitchen sink and Jesus."

And yet there were a lot of aspects of my religious upbringing which I did discard during this time. And then again there were things I discarded while on the corrective which I later realized were overcorrections. So revisit and re-evaluate, I did. And then landed somewhere closer to the middle of two extremes. 

I'm feeling some labor pains now. I have a feeling a third rebirth is on the way. 

Out of all of the shows I have been to there are two that compete for best show on my list.  What do both of these have in common? They were both Sufjan shows. While I am inclined to say that the Xmas Sing-a-long show (or as Sufjan kept calling it, "Christmas Bipolar Disorder") that happened last night in Boston at the Royale was superior to the Age of Adz show at the Orpheum in 2010,  I can't necessarily say that with full confidence because of where I was standing/seated. This time I was right in front of the stage with plastic unicorns and santa clauses bouncing right over my head. Confetti and giant balloon-ball things rained over me and Sufjan Stevens himself  danced 6 feet away from where I stood in his balloon-made unicorn outfit. 

I was also pretty partial to the audience involvement both on stage and in song. I mean, Sufjan knows how small our attention span is. So instead of going the "just stand up there and sing, play and talk" route, he interspersed the more serious songs with crazy dancy songs during which Rosie Thomas would make random commentary. I mean, how funny was the Christmas madlibs portion she performed? 

And the Wheel of Christmas! Maybe I'm just a simple product of an entertainment crazed culture and far too easily entertained.  But I thought the idea of spinning a wheel while the audience cheered "WHEEL OF CHRISTMAS" and the band danced around and played music until the arrow landed on some Christmas song was pretty awesome. And, might I add, that the audience sounded pretty damn good. Must've been all of that practice in church.  I mean, I'm not lying when I say that the audience sounded like a legit choir when we sang "Come Thou Fount" acapella. People like knew the parts and stuff. Then again, anyone who knows me knows how much I love to sing, so I'm totally biased here. 

In any case, Mr. Stevens knows how to put on a show! While I love going to hear bands play and sing live, what makes a show different from playing your favorite songs on spotify or watching them on youtube is that you get a small chance to interact with the artist. Whether it's the anecdotes and personal tid bits they share between sets or a completely different rendition of a song you've heard a thousand times, its these personal touches that make a show special. 

Sufjan's Xmas Sing-A-Long was one gi-normous personal touch: The chicken-superman outfit, the santa clause,  the stories about his hippi parents exclusively feeding him okra and taking him on a cleansing diet while all of the kids got to eat sponge cake and candy.  On stage you get a feel for his sense of humor and who he is. You feel like you're getting to know him a little bit.   He even manages to make some serious statements about capitalism and its effect on Christmas in a light-hearted way that seems entirely appropriate and not too debby downerish.  He makes fun of himself and his bandmates and just overall has a good time. 

Sufjan's Christmas Sing A Long felt more like I was at a party with the guy and his band rather than just watching him sing. 

Unfortunately, the rinky dinky camera on my phone did not capture things all that well and some of the best parts of the show that I tried to record are too crappy to put on here, but I tried! Here's what I could salvage: 

Sunday morning

I spent most of Saturday hung over, intermittently going over to the yoga studio I work for, signing folks in for class, laying on the couch and then signing people in again.
When I finally got home for good I laid in bed with my computer and eventually went to sleep. For 12 hours.
Needless to say, I was up at 6:45 am.
My body felt creaky and my stomach, cramp-y. I was convinced I had colon cancer.
But I proceeded to make some eggs, coffee and a berry-mango smoothy. I cleaned our old-fashioned sink reluctantly, followed by our dirt-speckled window sills. They are white now.
While the thought of calmly reading crossed my mind coupled with the thought of driving to my favorite yoga class that I could actually be on time for this morning, I did something wholly unproductive instead.
I stewed and re-played painful memories of the last year at my job. I wrote mock emails to managers and directors in what I thought was a compassionate tone. And I did this with good intentions. I wanted them to know what was happening under their noses. I wanted some form of justice. And as I read and re-read these emails something didn't feel right.
Yes, I wanted justice. But I also wanted recognition. And this is pride. This is arrogance.
Sure, should the director know about the favoritism and all the under-the-bus throwing going on? Sure. But this is not the best way to go about it and the truth is he probably already knows. My complaints will, at most, make me seem exactly what I am. Prideful. And, at worst, a tattle-tale.
After an hour and some change, I've done nothing with my morning but stew in my thoughts, in my pride and in my pain with little to no results. Those emails will just sit in the draft folder of my gmail account until I rediscover them again in a year's time when none of it will matter any more.
Maybe some day I'll be in a more centered and balanced position. And I'll be able to tell these folks from a more calm and less judgmental place just how hurt and undervalued I felt. 

"So we have to be idealists in a way.....If you don't recognize a young man's will to meaning, man's search for meaning,  you make him worse, you make him dull, you make frustrated, you add and contribute to his frustration....If you presuppose in this man--in this so-called criminal or juvenile delinquent-- there must be a spark for meaning--let's recognize this, let's presuppose it and then you will elicit it from him and you will make him become what he is principally capable of becoming" 

So it's that time again. 

Every year around this time I write a sappy entry/poem about the crisp air and the earth tone palate of the fall. I usually try to describe the season by talking extensively about the insatiable desire for tea and all things pumpkin around September 21st. I get upset when the cool fall air is delayed by summer-like heat on September 6th. I get angry when the leaves delay turning orange because dammit! It's October, and the season might end before I can go on a few runs in the Gordon woods, host a poetry reading or two, knit, fill the kitchen with the smell of apple cider and cinnamon, go to an Apple Orchard in Ipswich, reminisce about my childhood, read Annie Dillard by a fire (in someone's house with a fire-place) and pretend that I like squash. 

Love, 

Ms. Sap

P.S. I'm so excited that autumn is upon us! 

Welfare Part II

"And what gets me so angry is those people in the welfare office who don't speak any English. Here I am actually needing the services and these people just live off of the system," she told me through tightened lips while punching her fist into her hand.
I searched through my rolodex and sticky notes for landlords that might have an apartment for her and her family.
And yes, I still use a rolodex.

"Well, good news! This landlord has an apartment in Lynn that is opening up in a few weeks."

-Oh, I don't want to live in Lynn.

-Okay....
I stare at her leopard-print bag.

We embark on one of my absolute favorite conversations to have.
"Yeah..," I say. "It's tough." "Some of these families are coming from the Congo, escaping wars, hunger, famine. Or some of the Haitian families escaping the devastation caused by the earthqu"--"Oh, well not them. That's understandable," she interrupts. "Most of them are--"
-"And some of the women fleeing domestic violence. I just saw a woman yesterday who's husband was beating her and she was coming to the welfare office in search of an alternative to the violence at home. She was from Dominican Republic and certainly doesn't speak English."
--Oh, yeah...not--
"And...I work with the Spanish-speaking clients and all of them want to work but can't learn English quickly enough to get a job, so it becomes this perpetual road block to getting a job," I interrupt.
"And of course, I have one client who totally admits to using the system."
--Yeah! It's ridiculous!
"But, you know, she grew up around people who were also on the system and did not know anything beyond livelihood outside of it. So yeah. I hear you. It's hard."

This woman came into our offices after having gone to the welfare office to apply for Emergency Assistance. Her house had been foreclosed on and she, her husband and her kids were living in a tent behind her mother's house. They are over-income for any of the State benefits and are very upset about the fact that they have too much income to benefit from the system. However, they are picky about location, what the apartment might look like--"All of the places we've seen for the past few months are either run down, they won't take us because of our credit, or won't take us because of our dog."

What I wanted to say was, "Well lady, for someone who is upset about living in a tent, your list of requirements for an apartment sure is long. Sounds like you might be a little bit entitled, no?" Secondly, "What part of Annery Miranda didn't you hear?  What did you expect for me to tell you? Yeah, those Spanish speakers really ride the system don't they?"

What actually came out of my mouth is, "Here are five different options for you to explore. I really recommend following through on Mahogany Properties (not the real name). They really take care of their properties and are great landlords. You want to ask for Lucinda (not her real name)"

-Thank you so much for your help. Finally someone helps us!

-Good luck on your search ma'am.

Take "I can't" out of your vocabulary?

This afternoon, after sorting through dozens of pages of repetitive paperwork, I found myself wandering through blogs in search of a motivational quote or two.  One particular blog post stood out, but not because of its motivational qualities, but because I think I disagreed. The blogger said that in order to be happy you must take the words "I can't" out of your vocabulary.

Hm...

The things is that my recent history has taught me that the words "I can't" can actually be powerful vehicles for transformation and self care. This is also coming from a person who heard inspirational phrases like these all of her life. "Never say 'I can't!" "You can be anything you want to be." "Sky is the limit."  My optimistic Cantabridgian teachers sewed seeds of ambition and pushed me to take Intensive Geometry in High School, for example, as opposed to a class I was actually prepared for.  In the name of "I can do anything I set my mind to" I studied for Intensive Geometry, went for additional tutoring in the mornings and sought help from my classmates, but I still got a D. The following year I enrolled in Algebra II & Trig., a class that was way more suitable for my math level. The class looked less impressive on a transcript, but I got an A.

This little math scenario, however, was not enough to dispel the myth that "I can do anything" is a full proof motivational tool. I went on to take even more ambitious classes, to increase my load of extracurricular activities from 6 to 8, to working two jobs while going to school full time and living off campus without a car.  "I can't" was definitely not in my vocabulary. I did all of these things in the name of the very ambition that was instilled in me as a child.

In the last few years I've come to realize very slowly that it is not enough to believe that you can do anything you set your mind to. You must also be aware of what tools you have to work with, what limitations you are up against, the nature of the challenge you are undertaking and what exactly it takes to succeed at whatever it is you plan on setting your mind to. How many of us have failed exams we stayed up all night studying for? Received D's on papers with five page-long bibliographies? If school taught me anything it was that hard work and setting my mind to something was not enough to get me the desired result.

In fact, it was only when I started saying "I can't" and understanding my limitations that I was able to accomplish the things I set out to do. For one, I stopped trying to please everyone around me by saying "yes" to every favor people asked of me. You will never satisfy them. Secondly, I started to tell people "this is what I have the tools to do and this what I need in order to get better at the task you are asking me to complete."  It's not that I was inherently bad at math. The problem was that in addition to my right-brained disposition, I didn't have a lot of rigorous math in grade school. The building blocks were simply not there. To tell me that if I put my mind to it I could understand geometry at an intensive level in one year was impossible. Now if you told me you were going to set me up on a plan to find out the exact places where I was missing vital math concepts, and you told me you were going to tutor me on the side and help me build those blocks in order to undergird my pursuit of an intensive geometry class, that would be a bit more possible. But to tell me that if I put my mind to rocket science I could accomplish it is simply foolish.

Obviously, the cliche exists for a reason. Some people don't know their potential and need to tell themselves "Yes, we can."  But what many of us need is to cultivate the ability to say to the people, activities and things that are screaming for our attention, "No, I can't. But if you really want me to do this you're going to have to provide x, y and z."

So maybe we can modify our equation a little bit, and instead of saying

 "I can do anything I set my mind to"= success

perhaps we can say,

 "I can do anything I set my mind to" + knowledge of what it takes to complete the task + knowledge of my current capacities + resources to get me to the place where I have what it takes even if I don't have it now = success. Or...something like that.

Eh? Eh? What d'ya say?

A Week of Welfare

I've been working at the welfare office for a few days now, conducting pre-eligibility screens for a new program available to homeless families in Massachusetts. The welfare office, as it is commonly known, or the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) administers food stamps, TAFDC (the official acronym that describes the benefit people are referring to when they say "you're on welfare") and is responsible for placing families in shelter when they are homeless. It is the haven for many of the benefits we know as "entitlements" and that is exactly where most of the controversy lies, in the thought that these people feel "entitled."

"They come knocking at your door with all of their problems and just lay it on you, expecting someone else to just pick it up for them," says one of the workers.
She goes on to say, "What were you thinking when you had that child? That things would be easy?"

And I hear my colleague's concern: One of the women who came into my office today looking for shelter because she can no longer pay her rent was being very specific about what kind of shelter placement she would like and what part of the state she would like to go.  She does not work and sees her way towards progress as securing a Section 8 voucher, a program that allows low income people to pay 30% of their income towards rent.  Whereas some of us see our way out in terms of employment, she sees it in terms of a benefit the State or the Federal government provides. Upon hearing this, many a "Worker" would at least think, if not say, "You are not in the position of being picky about where you are placed, honey, if you can't pay your rent." Does this woman feel entitled to benefits she does not deserve?

Last week Tea Party senate-candidate compared welfare-recipients to raccoons looking for the easy way to get food "if we let them." Although in-articulately, like many Americans, Jon Bruning takes issue with the fact that welfare programs "do not incentivize people to work."

Here are some thoughts: 1.  Since when do people--poor or rich--intentionally look for the difficult way out? And why should we make it difficult for people to access the most basic of goods? Are Bruning's comments suggesting a sort of masochism--to make getting food stamps hard for the sake of making it hard? Is it the State's job to teach these people a lesson?
In the same week, Warren Buffet accused the United States government of coddling the rich as though they were some sort of endangered species. He reminds us that many wealthy people are also taking the easy way out. Because they can!

If you ask me, I think that the poor are not the only ones who try to get their needs met the easy way. 

2. It's a myth that everyone on welfare is just coasting along easily without a care in the world. The amount people get is hardly enough to live on and there is a time frame in which they are allowed to receive it. Folks cannot be on TAFDC forever. It's simply not allowed. Specifically, you get 24 months.

3. Throughout the hundreds of cases I have seen these last two years, seldom have I come across a person who is just ducky about being a welfare recipient. In fact, people feel a lot of shame around it. So much so, that the first thing many of these families will say to me when they walk into my office has to do with why they are unlike the other people in the waiting room at the DTA.

4. While I agree that we need to incentivize people to work, we talk about it as though welfare-recipients don't want to work. Many of them don't work--not because they are happy sitting around their respective houses all day--but because they are part of a generational cycle of poverty in which opportunities for higher education were not just handed to them. And the mention of "higher education" here is not to be taken lightly. For example, in a study released by Metro Boston Housing Partnership they found that in order for families to be successful in some of these programs that provide rental subsidies education is a huge factor.  . 

Barriers to HPRP Participation

•  The median income of families participating in MBHP’s HPRP 

program is $762 a month, or $9,144 annually. This is only 18 

percent of the income needed to support the average $1,238 

monthly rental and utility payment ($49,520 annually) and  

17 percent of the income needed to support a two-bedroom  

Fair Market Rent of $1,357 ($54,280 annually). 

•  Even if every HPRP participant is able to secure employment, 

only those with at least a bachelor’s degree can expect to afford 

the $54,280 in annual income necessary to support a $1,357 

fair market rent, as median annual earnings in the Boston- 

Cambridge-Quincy MSA for someone who has completed a 

bachelor’s degree was $53,495 in 2009, compared to $30,518 

for someone who had only completed high school.14 Only  

9 percent of HPRP participants had completed a bachelor’s 

degree, while 29 percent had completed some college,  

50 percent have completed high school only or have earned  

a GED, and 12 percent had not completed high school. 

Now, don't get me wrong, I agree that we are doing people a disservice when we give them fish instead of teaching them how to fish. I have witnessed how disempowering it can be and how it weakens their abilities over time. And I do think we need programs that help low income people access educational and career opportunities (something we're not really investing all of that much money, time or energy into). But the issue I'm taking up in this particular post is that welfare-recipients don't seem to me like a different class of people. They seem to be acting logically to illogical circumstances.

Furthermore, this week has made me think about other ways in which all of us feel entitled. Is it far fetch to diagnose our bitter rants in which we covet what others have as entitlement?   Welfare-recipients might feel entitled to food and to a few hundred dollars a month provided by the state, but what do we, folks with college degrees, job security and parents who gave us resources feel entitled to? What do we complain about not having that we think we should have?  

Research

"When I was a child, all the kids in my elementary-school class had been part of an ongoing psychological study. We got used to being subjects in a room with a one-way mirror, although unknown to our observers we could sometimes see their shadows through the glass. Once that awareness took hold, there was nothing for us to do but play to the audience." 


I remember working with DYS-involved youth a few years ago, asking many questions about social services, after-care, re-entry, recidivism and research--mostly research. I followed my time at this organization by interning for a small think-tank in Roxbury that was taking on youth in Boston as its primary subject. Simultaneously, I was taking a course in Research Methods at BU and had a deep suspicion that our subjects were often tempted "to play to the audience." Whether sub-consciously or consciously, it would only make sense that if people were always studying you--sometimes for years on end--you were going to develop an identity around this. 


I remembered the kids I worked with, the questionnaires they filled out and how familiar they were with the questions. Once I asked one of the kids, "Are you going to the Part of the Solution meeting tonight?" He responded, "I'm not part of the solution, I'm part of the problem." I chuckled because I knew he had been prepped to answer that way. 


What would happen if we turned the tables around and selected those who are always the subjects of research and made them the researchers? What if we took these DYS-involved kids and gave them the tools to research suburban non-DYS involved kids? Or urban non-DYS involved kids? What if we helped them to answer questions about what suburban non-DYS involved kids fear, how they use their time? Do they get in trouble with the authorities? What does drug use and possession look like in these areas? Is the illegal activity matched by court involvement or is the illegal activity disproportionate to the amount of court involvement and imprisonment? 


What would happen if instead of being the (loyal) subjects of research, the became the ones with the power? 

TOHU WA-BOHU AND TEHOM

While Caputo is dissecting Genesis 1:1, providing an interpretation of the events, I start to feel stirred and see the reality of what he is saying present in another human phenomenon aside from Scripture.

I'm going to quote him at length here, because it's simply beautifully written and powerfully conveyed. Here is an excerpt from Dr. John Caputo's book, The Weakness of God, a Theology of the Event.



"Elohim begins where he finds himself, with co-everlasting but mute companions: a barren earth, lifeless waters, and a sweeping wind.  Elohim has to play the cards he is given, to work with the materials at hand, after which it will turn out he will even need a rest.  He must work with these elements, with wind and water and wilderness, first to differentiate and then to populate them...The beginning had already begun, before the first verse of Genesis began....
Let us try to imagine the mythopoetic scene.  In the beginning, they are there, wind and waters and land, barren and lifeless, the wind sweeping over the deep, everywhere darkness, like the dark side of some distant desolate planet.  There they are, just there, without a word, the only noise being the heaving of the seas, the blowing of the wind. It is almost as if they are sleeping, as if they are laid out like some great giant, some massive body whose only sounds and movements are the heaving and sighing of a sleeper, and Elohim seems to be just watching them sleep.  Then Elohim was moved to speak to them, and by addressing them to bring them to life, to awaken life in them, to make life stir through their massive limbs the way one calls a sleeper to awake.  He calls them into life; he does not bring them into being, for the whole point is that they were there all along, from time out of mind, in a somnolence deeper and more dreamless than any sleep we can imagine..." 

In the beginning, they are there, as little children at 3 years old. Maybe waking to the sensual touch of someone they were supposed to trust. In the beginning, their small bellies were met by hunger and a mother who was too high to see the multi-colored crayon-based drawings they made for mommy in school earlier that day. In the beginning, this little wide eyed child, maybe two feet tall, had every inch of innocence shattered before her small face in that dark room at night. Every night. Maybe. Fearing these drunk fingers that could show up at any time and do the unexpected to her, as he pleased.  In the beginning, a shell begins to form around her little heart; a dark gaze over his little body.

 In the beginning this child starts a fire in the lawn and gets their first criminal offense on record. This little girl gets pregnant at 16, opening her legs to love and touch and inviting the chance to be held. This little boy fights another, in the beginning, and sits in a juvenile correctional facility with other boys inside their shells, comparing notes and learning about how to start a revolution against the world that so betrayed them; creating a world for themselves in which they take back the power that was usurped from them as little boys in their respective bedrooms or kitchens.

 In the beginning this child becomes a shelter-client and tells the worker to "fuck off." In the beginning, she dodges the case manager's phone calls. In the beginning, "she's lazy." "Can't get it together." In the beginning, everyone knows the consequences of trauma but take it fairly lightly; still standing with their stones in hand ready to accuse these sinners before them.

"I've tried to help you," they charge, "but you need to do something for yourself!"

He's heard this prescription before. She's heard it. Nothing works. Heroine numbs it all. And now a new little boy is in the household, watching officers come in and out of the house. Investigations. Social workers. DCF. DYS. Fights around the corner. This neighbor accuses that neighbor of neglect. Files a 51-A in retaliation for taking her man. Condoms taken off in the middle of sex. Birth control intentionally discarded down the toilet. Mixed desires. For sex and love and lust and children and family. And maybe if she gets pregnant they can do the family thing right this time.

In the beginning.

It is almost as if they are sleeping, as if they are laid out like some great giant, some massive body whose only sounds and movements are the heaving and sighing of a sleeper, and Elohim seems to be just watching them sleep. 


Then Elohim was moved to speak to them, and by addressing them to bring them to life, to awaken life in them, to make life stir through their massive limbs the way one calls a sleeper to awake.  He calls them into life; he does not bring them into being, for the whole point is that they were there all along, from time out of mind, in a somnolence deeper and more dreamless than any sleep we can imagine...


This little boy doesn't need your saving, he was there all along. This little girl doesn't need to be anyone she is not, she is there all along. Halt your prescriptions, diagnoses. Bipolar at 5 years old. Schizophrenic with ADHD. Prescriptions of acronyms--SSI, TAFDC--send the message: "You can't work." "You can't contribute." "You are needy." "You are poor." "You are a victim." "You need me."


The astonishing thing is that God bring being to life.  That is the wonder, and that life that God breathes in them, is what God calls "good,"  which goes a step beyond being.

 What does it take to make life stir through your massive limbs? What does it take for God to breathe in you, to bring being to life, to be called "good," which goes a step beyond merely being? Merely subsisting, succumbing to every new iphone and ipad at the behest of large corporations and in return for slavery to utility arrears and back-rents, and always at the brink of getting evicted, shut off, reported to creditors, taken to court. What does it look like to breathe life into you?

Sochany Seng (not his real name), former gang banger. Life was stirred through his massive limbs when an attorney, an ethnographer and a Reverend asked him to join them on a trip to Cambodia. Nothing was asked of him. No one asked him to be different than he is. An invitation was extended. Someone with prophetic eyes saw a leader in him and a kid with mind-blowing insight and skill. They called it out of him and took him a step beyond being. He never looked back.

Maria DelValle (not her real name). Crossed the border into to the United States with her family's life savings and only a 3rd grade education. No English. No status. No papers. Just needing to feed her children. Someone asked her to be an usher at a church; to lead the prayer group because she prays powerfully; to arrange the flowers because she has an eye for it. No one asked her to get a degree. No one asked her to attend a class. No one asked her to change. They saw her beauty and invited her to practice it. Life was stirred into her, as evidenced by her glowing face. Former slave to a system now a contributor to society.

Elohim begins where he finds himself, with co-everlasting but mute companions: a barren earth, lifeless waters, and a sweeping wind.  Elohim has to play the cards he is given, to work with the materials at hand, after which it will turn out he will even need a rest.  He must work with these elements, with wind and water and wilderness, first to differentiate and then to populate them...The beginning had already begun, before the first verse of Genesis began....

SEX!

Ok this post isn't really about sex, but I couldn't think of a title that would compel folks to read this.
I've wrestled pretty fiercely with the topic I'm about to write about today. I've been on various sides of the issue; I've had days worth of conversations about the issue; I've mistakenly blogged about the issue while my anger or sadness or frustration was still fresh; I've backed down and fired back. I've cried without knowing why over this issue, have been extremely sure of myself at times and extremely confused at others. And even during other moments, I considered myself to be very Zen-like in my "third way" approach.  Here's another perspective.

I entered college with a chip on my shoulder, fueled by the voices of my elementary school teachers who prepared me for this moment:

You will face many obstacles and people will try to hold you back, but you need to look "them" in the face and overcome. 

The problem with this statement is that they never specified who exactly "they" were. We all conjured up images of other white men and women uttering racist things to us. And oh, we knew about systems and how we got the short end of the stick.

However, as appreciative as I was of the warning and as beautiful as it is that these teachers--sometimes white, sometimes not--were empathic and cared about our struggle and success, many of them were uttering an old doctrine of race, class and gender theory without making room for the fact that they too could fall prey to standing in our way, as more than a handful of professors and teachers of color stood in mine.

Sometimes more was expected of me because of my cultural/ethnic identification, sometimes not enough was expected of me. Sometimes what they expected was exactly right, sadly, and it was still not enough. Often my voice was given too much credence and spoiled me rotten. Other times my voice was not given enough space or acknowledged. There were times when only the racial part of me was allowed to speak, but not the gendered part, not the depressed part, not the adolescent part, not the Christian part and not the agnostic part.  Sometimes it was the reverse.

I entered college with a chip on my shoulder, exhibiting every symptom of a kid who feels isolated. I burst in Gordon's doors with a fitted cap, baggy sweats and airforces, practically wearing a fruit-basket on my head to let you know that I am Dominican. I blasted my Hip Hop and salsa music through Gordon's silence and pumped it up extra loud if we were ever driving through the campus. I hid in the cafeteria behind the hysterical laughs of every student of color who sat on the Sunny Side of Lane. And oh yes, I played the race card once or twice--accusing fellow students of making assumptions about Black people when they were merely making fun of the stereotype; accusing a Black kid with a suburban upbringing of portraying "us" poorly.

Oh we played the race police at that table in Lane and added fuel to the fire by talking and laughing and "Ooooh  Noo-"ing and "No he didn't"-ing.  Was I being genuine? Kind of. I believed what I was saying at the time. But I had little time for reflection or perspective because I was immersed in the side of the cafeteria that both gave me a home and a whole lot of bitterness.

And then I decided that this environment was making me miserable and that it didn't feel true, and that I was actually lonelier than ever. I turned to organizations on campus and tried making friends with regular Gordon. In retrospect, this was not as easy as I made it out to be during my Mandela phase. It was not until I moved to Gordon in Lynn that I found my friends.

At the end of the year, we enter Annery's White-sympathy phase. I decided that the conversation around race was unfair and one sided; that white kids could not speak their minds and engage in true discussion because they were constantly haunted by offended participants and peers who would "OH NO" any thought or experience they might express.  I also decided that we ignored the race card and condemned the race card, but did not talk about its reality. Even more so, we did not talk about the complexity of the race card, why folks (particularly first year college students from urban areas who feel isolated) feel compelled to play in the first place and why it's allowed at all. Let's talk about the origins of the race card, people!

I even mentioned this to Dr. Cornell West himself during a panel discussion on "Democracy Matters."

"Dr. West, we talk a lot about the oppression folks of color undergo but do you feel that there is room to legitimize and deal with the pain of White guilt?" In short, his answer was that White guilt was an excuse. I don't know that I agree with him. I still maintain that this is a real phenomenon and tend to side with Tutu and Mandela on this question.

Anywayz....

Towards the end of college I was a champion of what I called "the reconciliation" perspective. But there was still a small part of me that was concerned when folks of color also became sympathetic towards their White peers, but no longer thought that the particularities of their experience as people of color in the United States was relevant or important. We got so used to students who refused to go to "race chapels" to be lectured that we didn't want to be seen as the lecturers. So we stopped talking about what was important to us.

After college I moved to a house with the loveliest people in the world. I had so much fun, felt so much love and I hope that we will continue to be friends for a long-ass time. I can't say the isolation wasn't felt, though. I tried to engage it, find out its significance and meaning through conversation and I talked about it often, but I started to hush my feelings around the issue even further than I already had previously. My feelings were offensive to people. Plain and simple. And there was no foreseeable way around it. When I expressed my feelings about the minority achievement gap and how I was its product, I was met with skepticism and was asked to stop "playing the card"--indirectly, of course. Mostly, through the grapevine.
During this time I thought long and hard about "the stories we tell ourselves" and how some of these might not even be real. I thought about the stories of race I had been told all of my life. The way I was told I was a victim of a scary system of oppression that maybe, in the end, wasn't actually all that scary. Hang on, Cantabridgians...there's more to come. I heard one of my yoga instructors say something very wise, "The mind internalizes and creates stories. Yoga is about reconnecting with the heart." And if late night college conversations taught me anything, it's that when people start using "I" statements and saying "I feel" or "In my experience" I better shut the hell up and listen to this person's story (even in light of the overuse of the phrase "I just feel" in college).

[P.S.When people tell their stories they are typically speaking from the heart and being the most real with you. It's a sacred moment that no argument can trump. You can quote theologians, politicians, theorists and philosophers all day, but when someone says that they experienced x,y and z you better make room for the possibility of their truth, even if it contradicts the version you've heard and/or studied].

And here it was. I was so busy trying to see the issue from the other side (which was immeasurably important and still is), that I ignored my voice in the process. So that when people would accuse me of "playing the card" or "overusing my experience" I would find where I had been wrong. So much so that I didn't feel like I could stand up for myself when my story felt right.

But in order to do this I needed to know the difference between the stories I was told and the story i lived and felt and still feel and breathe.

Yes, I have played the card. But I've also been watching experts and teachers address me all of my life instead of my mother, the real parent and authority in the situation. Although some might disagree, this actually creates a dent in your development. Watching her feel ashamed that she cannot speak the language of her child stirs something in you. Not talking about the New York Times at the dinner table makes a difference.
And the subtle stuff causes huge ripple effects--the expectations authorities may or may not have of you, the projections they put onto you, the images you see as the only ones you can identify with in the media. And the subtle idea that your story is not the predominant one, and therefore invalid. All of the conversations in which the theorist was more right than you were, even though he or she failed to include you in the history books. There were no studies on you and the ones that exist are about incarceration and poverty and language acquisition. When we read about Latinos in college it was in the context of disenfranchisement--so that even the liberals were a part of this system.

The part of me that cries at the scene in "In the Heights" when the grandma sings, "Paciencia y Fe" as all the suited men point and yell, "Learn English!" The way the Indian dad, the Nicaraguan mom, the Dominican famiy look at their children during college graduation, with flashbacks in their eyes to wars and dictators and homes they fled and families they left behind, that cause my eyes to become pools and stirs the pit of my heart, filling it to the brim with feeling. This is that part of me that feels.

And let's not even talk about the Black experience in America.....
Ok. let's talk about it. But we might need a heck of a lot more web space and three or four more voices--since I myself am not Black.

WORKING CONCLUSION
The working draft of my 7/7/2011 conclusion on race (to be continued) is all of the above. It's all true. All the stages. But tonight, I'm correcting slightly. What I've experienced is true. I've felt bad that certain people were put off by it in the past, but today I am compelled to say, "I want to discuss it with you and I can be wrong and you can be right. But if in the end you are compelled to tell me that my version of this story is wrong, I am going to have to say I'm sorry I'm holding on to what's true to me."

And why is this relevant on a larger scale?
It seems that this conversation is all the more appropriate in 2011, three years into Obama's presidency. He has tried to make concessions to those outside of his party, but is still being accused of being inflexible. He has made immigration laws more stringent than ever at the behest of the Republican side. He has offered to make significant cuts on social costs despite the protests of members of his own party in the name of bipartisanship. And boy, am I a believer in bipartisanship.

 I believe in the wisdom that everyone possesses no matter what affiliation, social status, ethnicity, etc. But I'm starting to see that sometimes people will be attached to their personal ideas that are local and indigenous to them without openness to compromise. Both this national and personal phenomenon has me thinking that it is important to concede to those whose experiences are different from your own, but sometimes they won't be willing to give in or see things from your side. And in that case, you might have to say, "I know you think that my story is in-valid and that's ok. But I'm going to take your recommendations, apply the ones that work and walk right on." So Mr. Obama, even though I love your bipartisanship efforts, if you don't believe that deportations should be at record levels under your presidency and that we need more nuance in immigration policy, I support you."

Note: I say all of the above from the bottom of my heart in a sort of Rortian way of coming to the table with your truth in order to encounter someone else with their truth to then have genuine discussion about it.  If you've read this, please comment; especially, if you disagree.

Un Homenaje a Juan Luis Guerra: If you're wanting to learn about Latin music here's a start

Juan Luis Guerra, if you haven't heard of him, is a musical giant in Latin America.  He might even possibly be equal to what Michael Jackson meant to pop. His concerts are replete with adoring fans--from the smallest of dancing three year olds to the oldest of grandparents.  At Jet Set, a club I went to on my last trip to Dominican Republic, at the mere sound of one of his hits the dance floor overflowed with excited people, loosing themselves in collective memories while singing the lyrics.

Whenever his name comes up I'm ashamed to admit that I always include the story about the time an old friend Uziel Colon played with him at Berklee College of Music. Hey. Don't judge, it's my distant claim to fame. That someone I knew played with this man who represents so much to so many of us.

His  music brings me close to the heart of Dominican Republic, even when I'm an ocean, an entire adolescence and an upbringing away.  Even when I'm tempted to think I am not all that Dominican, he reports what is going on at the other side of my mother's journey. His music covers everything from immigration to love to the desire to come to the United States to poverty to lack of democracy to Dominican patriotism. When I hear, "Ojala que llueva cafe en el campo,"I imagine that its safe to assume that thousands of other Dominicans/Dominican-Americans are singing it with me; conjuring up images of the poor Dominican Republic's outskirts and their desire for the most basic of Dominican goods--or not--maybe just enjoying the sound and remembering the early 1990's.

  I image that he might elicit the same feeling for me as Johnny Cash might for some or Nas or Nirvana might for others. Just as the mention of truly American themes or urban-American themes elicit a sort of catharsis and nostalgia for one's country, one's experience, identity and brings us back to the core of our childhood.

I, for instance, remember the checkered drape that covered the table our TV sat on in the living room. And myself, dancing around the living room in my underwear at five or so, listening to Juan Luis Guerra on Univision*. 

 In similar ways to when Johnny Cash mentions "trains" or boxcars" or "railroads" and cigarettes or as The Arcade Fire might help others recall memories of a suburban adolescence through mention of milestones such as learning to drive ("In the suburbs I learned to drive/ And you told me we'd never survive/Grab your mother's keys we're leavin' ). In ways similar to when Nas utters the words "freedom" or talks about the streets and ponders, "If I ruled the world, I'd free all my sons." At the mention of food stamps and watching parents struggle, some of us remember our parents together with Eminem in "Loose Yourself." 

When Juan Luis Guerra prays that "cafe" and "yucca" and "te" would rain, and especially when he prays that all the children in the "campos" could sing that coffee, yucca and tea would grow from the ground, I am stirred. 

 His songs are political in nature and he has written some of the most beautiful romantic ballads I've ever heard. In Burbujas de Amor Juan Luis Guerra uses aquatic themes, as he expresses desire to decorate her waist with shells and make silhouettes of love under the moon. In Visa Para un Suen~o he describes the desperation of wanting a "visa" to make our dreams come true, telling of the perspective of the United States that exists in DR. In El Niagara en Bicicleta, Guerra tells of the kind of treatment he received in the hospital and, in doing so, criticizes the Dominican medical system:

They sent me to a hospital for people, supposedly

Don't tell me that the doctors left, don't tell me that you don't have an anesthesia, that the alcohol was consumed and that the thread for surgery was used for a mantel. Don't tell me that the stethoscopes are having a party and that the x-rays rotted away.

A few years ago, with the release of Para Ti, Juan Luis shows a more spiritual side as he sings Cancion de Sanidad,

And most recently, he tells of world travels to Paris and to Africa where he brings this "Bachata" just to dance with you. 

A man after my own heart, studied philosophy and literature at the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, has performed and composed songs with dozens of artists, has won dozens of awards from five Latin Grammy's in one night in 2007 to Grammy's to Billboard Music Awards. A guitarist, singer, composer; a man of wisdom and insight, who represents our country well. Juan Luis Guerra, te queremos. 

By the way, for those of us States-side who have been wondering all of our lives but singing along anyway, What exactly is la bilirrubina que le sube a Juan Luis Guerra when he sees her*? La Bilirrubina de Juan Luis Guerra.  It's kind of scary....

*Univision: The main Spanish TV station that every Latin person in America relied upon for news, soap opera's, music and counsel. Univision, as in, "Annery, on Univision I heard that you have to wash the lettuce thoroughly, maybe even with soap because there's bacteria in it that can make you sick."

*Juan Luis Guerra sings a song about how his bilirubin goes up everytime he sees her. I think most of us sang along to the catchy and beautiful song, but never really knew what it was. Apparently it's a heavy medical term. 

For the pluri-etnicos out there

They say that to be successful you must choose one thing.
I've heard this phrase or something like it at least three times this week. I heard it through blogs and through TED and through Zen Habits and through the podcast my housemate was listening to this afternoon.
I've been searching for that one thing for a while now, and every time I try to boil down my many interests--in philosophy, in psychology, in empowering the disenfranchised, in art, in dance, in yoga, in writing---to one thing, I conclude that for Annery Miranda this task is impossible.
But then tonight I had a thought: Maybe my spastic personality, my many thoughts and my looong list of interests is actually rooted, not in a learning disability (maybe), but in something very essential to my development. And this variable is, as the couchsurfer I met in DR called it, "es que tu eres multi-etnica."
After reading through many blogs written by Americans; after thinking about achievement and personal growth, I stumbled upon "Hispanic New York Project" and immediately remembered another interest of mine.
Herein lies the problem! I am extremely multi-faceted. I learned to navigate various communities and people groups and cultures from a young age, causing me to almost always lean towards the bird's eye-view and missing the trees for the forest. But maybe I'm wired to see the forest and it's many colors and how it lies next to rivers and mountains. Maybe I don't have to choose to focus on the mountain or to focus on the forest or to focus on the river alone. Maybe I can keep learning about what it means to see them all at the same time, and maybe that means I'll never understand the mountain's ridges or the makeup of a tree or how to extract maple or how the current in the river works, but maybe there is a gift in seeing the juxtaposition of the different wonders of the world. Maybe that's the gift of being pluri-etnica. 

An experiment in spinning

As I was blog-browsing today, I stumbled on the following words, 

"We'll spend months thinking about and arguing about a product supposedly doing nothing (even for just a speed bump of a Mac.) and then start spinning." 

How many times do I find myself paralyzed by perfectionism? How often to I give myself the space to "think and argue about ______, supposedly doing nothing?" And it seems as though I'm missing out! Because in my search for results I end up doing a heck of a lot of nothing anyway. So what would happen if I took an idea, wrote "shitty first drafts"--as Anne Lammott likes to say-- and second and third shitty drafts on it? What if I let myself spend hours listing questions I have about how this idea might turn into something? 

To come to think of it, a lot in my life that has worked for me has involved a similar process; of just knocking on doors until one opens and avoiding paralyzing discouragement when two or three or five close. I kept knocking and breathing and reaching until I got into that yoga pose; until I get the community I longed for; until I get the job. 

Maybe judging our "non results" is where we make our first mistake. Maybe if we dwell in the "non results" phases enough we too will start spinning. 

Stringing Together Pieces of You

I've gathered pieces of information here and there, stringing them together like an awkward collage of newspaper, opinion, anecdote and coffee: I interviewed my father's old friend over coffee, read El Listin Diario on my way to Puerto Plata. I asked my cousin questions about Dominican universities under the loud TGI Friday's sign--the hang-out spot for people our age in Santo Domingo. Mmmmm.....Dominican versions of American food--not what I came to Dominican Republic for. I saw extensions of his blood line in Dominican churches, in the boulevard he must have walked through in the afternoons, in the small house that punished him for being so tall, where he would repeatedly hit his head. I saw him in the museums and in the painting my uncle painted which hangs in the Museo Bellapart in Santo Domingo. I searched for him in the Zona Colonial and in the streets of his home town.  I asked all of those who knew him--What was he like?

Augusto Jesus Miranda. Born on December 24, 1925.
I think....
Augusto Jesus Miranda, member of the Catorce de Junio, an anti-Trujillo movement, for which he was arrested.
Was he tortured? 
His brother was.
And I am his daughter.
Augusto Jesus Miranda was saved by his American citizenship, so as to not call too much attention to the international community about the atrocities that were being committed in Dominican Republic in the mid-1900's. So he fled. He fled to the United States to preserve his life.
From what I understand and have heard....


Where can I get information that will help me know for sure who this man was; this man who's eyes and forehead I carry? Is it possible to know for sure whether my father was as justice oriented as I try to be or just caught up in the crew his friends hung out in?
 And is it true what the man on the airplane told me? That sometimes when the older generation passes away and their dreams and visions die with them, these dreams are resurrected in the next generation. 
He told me that I carry my father's dream for a just Dominican Republic.

I wandered the halls of the "Sala Memorial A Los Heroes" and read a loud to myself,

"No puede haber tirania en una sociedad donde la mayor parte de los ciudadanos conoce sus derechos, respeta los ajenos y esta siempre lista a defender los unos y los otros."
("There cannot be tirany in a society where the greater part of the citizens know their right, respect those of others and are always ready to defend one another")

I stood beneath the Hermanas Mirabal monument and looked up at them in admiration. I stared at their faces in the billete of 200 pesos. 

 I bought "El Golpe Del Estado" by journalist, Miguel Guerrero, to search through the pages of history for Dominican Republic's democratic and revolutionary spirit.

As an onlooker-- as an outsider looking in-- I see widespread corruption and worse, complacency, in the land of my parents. Where are the politically-active university students? Where are the spinning wheels of the thinkers in the country? 


Balaguer killed many of them, following Trujillo's example.

Could it be that the Dominican people are traumatized by the suppression of their speech and inalienable right to critically think? Or am I perceiving the situation ignorantly? 


I only have a few pieces of information.

Do I get this from you, dad? This burning in me that doesn't let me succumb to the cynical suggestions of my elders, "Don't worry, you'll become cynical too. This is just your youthful idealism." Do I get my stubborn insistence to climb the structural ladders for answers to structural problems that affect the poor, from you? 

I want to know you. Where have you left the remnants of your soul?