The past two weeks have been a doozy. My elder cat, Bear, a handsome eighteen years old, got really sick. It's hard to tell when a cat goes from being just an old cat with some bouts of dementia and a propensity to angry poop in the hallway, to actually-really-sick-call-the-vet. There's a subtle shift. He had a really bad accident on a Saturday, the kind that involved a grumpy roommate and me just mopping the whole house. Then he puked, then he just sat still. More still than usual and he sleeps about 23 1/2 hours a day. I put a call out to my friends on Facebook if there was a vet person I could talk to about whether I should go to the vet. I've known so many people who have dumped thousands of dollars into an old cat to find out what's wrong only to have to let them go anyway. I didn't want that to be Bear's experience in his senior years, I just wanted him to be comfortable and happy.
Back in March, I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time in an amazing sanctuary space amidst a temporary art installation in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It's hard to explain what the Forest of the Future was, but for some background you can read the curator/producer Quito's statement about it here. It really gives a good background of how they just wanted to make a magical space to bring together a bunch of the visionaries they've met in their world travels, see what connections and catalyzing could happen, and that space was a forest.
Shabby Apple reached out to me as a fat style blogger person to find out if I was interested in doing a review and giveaway. I had never looked at their site before, but was delighted to find a lot of dresses in the style of vintage clothing, many of which are available in plus size.
It so happened, days later I was in a hotel room with Showtime and the Real L Word was on. I watched the one requisite episode and was horrified that the episode began with interviews of the cast about girls crying during sex. One of them in particular stood out with her horror about girls crying during sex. It was so shaming and judgey, I felt so gross about it. I was unimpressed that a show about lesbians was so sex shaming. I wondered how many fresh or curious queer girls were watching the episode and felt ashamed or bad about crying when they were having sex. I felt sad for them. Crying during sex isn't just "being a chick" or "being needy," as was characterized in those interviews, it's a great physiological reaction that often means different things for different people. And, if it happens when you're having sex with someone, it probably doesn't mean what you think it means!
Today, May 6th, is International No Diet Day. I used to throw parties every year for it, but now I throw body positive parties all the time so I just have a quiet observation. I thought this was a great occasion to go through three ways that I like to reclaim my consciousness, self-esteem and eating habits from the scars of an early lifetime of dieting.
Hey readership! I have a giant stash of vintage (mostly) I collected around the country thinking I was going to do more pop-up shops than I ended up doing. I have it all neatly photographed in an album right here, but I'd love to highlight some of the gems for Spring for you below. Each photo on flickr shows the measurements, which is the best way to shop. It all ranges in price from ten bucks to forty, most around $25 or $30.
Hay House Books sent me a review copy of Reveal: A Sacred Manual for Getting Spiritually Naked. The author travels on two different pilgrimmages to Divine Feminine sacred sites in Europe and tales of those journeys are part of all of the awakenings in the book. She trumpets many times that she went all that way to find something that was inside herself the whole time. That's what was most captivating for me reading this book. I wanted to find a way to not get so rocked to my core every time something happened "to" me or someone in my life left. I've done a lot of this work, through building my self-esteem and self-worth, but I know there's something in my spirituality leading me to that solid, unshakeable core as well. That is the ultimate destination in the relentless pursuit of my joy.
Curve Magazine did a feature article about me that is published in the May issue! The issue has Beth Ditto on the cover! I'm so stoked to be included in the Body Positive issue and with company as incredible as Beth Ditto.
My new friend Jacqueline proposed two things after I told her about my recent break-up: a tarot reading (which I took her up on) and finding a pole dancing class. She wanted to go with a fat and/or crip person (two things she identifies as) who was not already a stripper because what's the fun in being a beginner with someone who can already flip around a pole like it's no big deal. I love trying new things with other fat babes, so I was all in. Doing activities in the erotic genre are a great way to reclaim your body in the wake of a break-up and feel empowering especially when you might not be getting laid as much as you'd like to, regardless of your DTF* status. It's also a great way to expand your repertoire and enhance your fat sex! The class Jacqueline found for us was at Sacred Brooklyn, a yoga studio and pole dance palace three blocks from my old apartment in Bed Stuy on the border of Clinton Hill.
Released June 18th–podcast interview with Sonya Mendoza, longtime activist, who was willing to come on my podcast and talk about what it looks like to have a world without police and prisons. Here are resources she suggests for folks who want to learn more about this work.
The Juneteenth website for finding protests: https://sixnineteen.com/
Resources:
1. Podcast – Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition https://theintercept.com/2020/06/10/ruth-wilson-gilmore-makes-the-case-for-abolition/
2. Read – hey look how convenient an entire PDF of “Are Prisons Obsolete” by Angela Davis https://www.feministes-radicales.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Angela-Davis-Are_Prisons_Obsolete.pdf
3. Watch/study – This was done for Wilderness Torah, a synagogue in the Bay Area but it’s an incredibly great overview on what white supremacy is and how it functions in every day life with a lot of grounding in history so I would recommend this to anyone who wants to learn about systemic racism! https://www.facebook.com/wildernesstorah/videos/564074664291521
4. Another podcast, a throwback from a few years ago but I really can’t recommend this highly enough and I continue to push to people, is Seeing White, a 14 part podcast on the construction of whiteness that endlessly helped me formulate better anti racist arguments and has given many white people a better framework for why everything is happening right now is happening. https://www.sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/
(This post is a series of daily letters from me to my future children reporting from the emerging paradigm.)
Dear Kids:
Something that keeps coming up for me is how much of a role eradicating shame plays in the toppling of systems of oppression.
Toni Morrison said about racism “If you can only be tall because somebody is on their knees, then you have a serious problem.”
White supremacy continues to go unexamined because white folks choose not to talk about it. And we have the privilege to not talk or think about it, which is what white supremacy does. It’s shame that makes people need to feel tall at someone else’s expense.
A call we white folks are receiving now is to have uncomfortable conversations about race. This system of oppression will only topple as we choose to continue to dismantle it with other white folks.
So many people don’t speak out because they are afraid to get it wrong. They are afraid to cause further harm, that people might not like them anymore–shame!
Life paralysis comes from being too afraid to put anything out in the world that’s imperfect. Perfectionism is a stronghold that keeps you paralyzed and does not produce results. You stay stuck in fear and shame. (This is all based on the Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown.)
One of the things that works best for me to cure shame is grace. Having grace with myself and grace with other people helps me release and recognize shame when it happens. I want to be an effective leader and encourage other folks to release their shame so they will at least try. Try having the hard conversations with Trump supporting relatives. Try connecting to a neighbor even though you feel ashamed that you’ve never introduced yourself.
Connection is where we are going to build this revolution and it’s going to require all of us to get outside our comfort zone, day by day.
Perfectionism has stolen so much peace and progress from my life. My hope for you is that you know that while you’re never going to be perfect, that you will always strive to be the greatest you that you can be. And that you recognize shame when it comes up and are able to diffuse it so you can get back to being great.
xoxo,
Mom
This blog is entirely supported by Patreon. Every dollar counts to making this work sustainable and maintaining the archives of this blog. Thanks to my awesome Patronus supporters (as my mom calls them) for co-creating with me!
Dear Kids:
I’m resurrecting my blog to start writing daily letters to my children who I haven’t met yet. I am not even partnered yet, so in many ways maybe this is my version of How I Met Your Mother (in my case we’ll go with gender non-specified How I Met Your Other Parent), written in real time. If this was a sitcom I’d have someone as iconic as Bob Saget do the voice over.
I’m resurrecting my blog to share about what’s going on in the world. I was thinking about my 90% completed memoir, the archives of this blog and all my other creative output and how happy I was to have them at least for my kids to get to know me as a younger adult before they were in my life. I heard in a movie if a father hasn’t prepared his kids for his death (which is inevitable) than he has failed. That really landed for me.
I don’t know if I’ll live to know you as an adult. I want you to be able to come to these resources I’ve left when you’re ready so you can know me.
My mission in life has been to make the world safe for people to love themselves. I used to think that meant I needed to aim my work at eradicating the systems creating hostility for self love. (Whenever you feel bad about yourself think, “Who profits off this self loathing?” That’s a system at work.)
I’ve since learned that lasting transformation comes at a grass roots level, when each person makes a choice to enter into a practice of resistance through self love.
When enough people resist a system, it ceases to have power to influence and crumbles.
Day by day the world continues to change. Just 2 months ago I was talking to Alex the Medium on my podcast about how there is no going “back to normal” and that was just about the Corona Virus quarantine. Turns out this quarantine has set the stage for major transformation and the system of white supremacy is on the chopping block.
I wanted to start this daily reflection to share this time with you, to share some of the things I’m learning, witnessing, amplifying and how we are working together to create a better world for you. You are my “Big why,” the “Why that makes me cry” that inspires me to work as hard as I do.
I had given up real hope on having kids in the past few years and now have the privilege of working with mentors in my life who are helping me build the hope and possibility back up. When I start my day focused on you, it really pushes me forward.
I don’t think the work towards the social, political and economic equality of all people will be finished in this generation, and I will be passing this work on to you. My plan is to equip you with what I’ve learned so you never have to reinvent the wheel, you just get to keep making it better.
I also know kids really absorb what actions they witness adults in their life doing. I’m dedicated to getting 1% better every day so you learn from me to have a growth mindset and live evermore in alignment with your values.
We can either stay attached to the nightmare or the possibility. Doing nothing and staying silent in this time is to stay attached to the nightmare. I choose to think in possibility.
The most important thing we can do as change agents is to dream the world we want to create. I believe each of us is planted with seeds for the world of to improve. When we play small and deny those seeds they die with us.
Diversity among the human species is our strength!! We are taught through the matrix of oppression that to be “safe” among other humans is to be homogenous. This denies the value that every person uniquely brings to the table. We lose those seeds! We can learn so much from one another by valuing all people, centering and amplifying the voices of the most marginalized.
Michael Bernard Beckwith has been saying at Agape services lately that in this changing time in herstory we are either a participant or a bystander. I choose to participate and share with others.
This daily blog series is performative self care–it helps me stay accountable and hopefully inspire other folks to persist in their own work. (I started my dancing in the forest videos as performative self care on Instagram Stories because I needed to be dancing more and I was super depressed. It worked! I’m dancing way more again.)
The more you are vulnerable the more folks connect with your heart. Sharing that I work to build a future for kids who I don’t even know yet, that I want to bring into a world with a partner I also don’t even know yet feels a little nutty, however, true dreaming should feel nutty. Three cheers for feeling awkward and doing the thing anyway.
I hope you dance!
Love,
Mom
This blog is entirely supported by Patreon. Every dollar counts to making this work sustainable and maintaining the archives of this blog. Thanks to my awesome Patronus supporters (as my mom calls them) for co-creating with me!