words, words, words
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If I begin to detail myself here, will you understand?
P. I am me
Q. I don't always know exactly who that is
R. I am Quaker
S. I like words and playing with them
T. I like genmaicha tea
U. I like the word napkin more than most others
V. I spend time walking my neighborhood
W. I cook rice often
X. I sleep well most every night
Y. I eat large amounts of fruit and vegetables
Z. I munch, sleep, write, create, cook, bike, watch, walk, listen, hope, learn, drink, live, breathe, touch, know, question, taste, copy, read, stare, carry, talk, dance, finger, try.
raisin@gmail.com
albums:
Magnetic Fields: 69 Love Songs
Erasure: I Say, I Say, I Say
Depeche Mode: Black Celebration
The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds
Marvin Gaye: What's Going On?
David Bowie: Hunky Dory
George Michael: Listen without Prejudice
George Gershwin: Porgy and Bess
Yo La Tengo: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
songs:
Wild is the Wind: Nina Simone
Come Undone: Duran Duran
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini: Rachmaninov
My Funny Valentine: Chet Baker
Feeling Yourself Disintegrate: The Flaming Lips
This Must Be the Place: The Talking Heads
Hyperballad: Bjork
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Tuesday, November 26, 2002
Salon.com published a fantastic article by Adrienne Crew detailing the life of a Black African Princess, her own and that of Condi Rice. I found the political reference interesting, but I loved how she explained the cost of being dutiful, to someone else's idea of duty. I know, I know, I've done it too. I have much more to say about it than i have time to reflect on now, although it jibes with what I wrote most recently here. Below is my favorite quote from the article. Salon.com was kind enough to print my letter to the editor about the article as well.
"It hurt to disappoint my mentor when I left my high-flying law firm. I knew that ditching the firm was not the action of a dutiful daughter. But I had begun to reexamine my BAPtitude, realizing that the price of maintaining it was too high. BAPtitude can become an insidious mask -- not unlike the one in poet Paul Laurence Dunbar's "We Wear the Mask" -- that conceals the wearer from herself as well as from others. Like some twisted take on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale (say, "The Red Shoes"), that mask of perfection and poise wears you, instead of you wearing it. "
4:24 PM
I need to write down so many things. My thinking lately, the developing of these ideas have led to so many memories and realizations of who I was, why I am now, and hopefully how I can be. I need to spend hours with my notebook, working through these ideas. All about my dad, my youth, my fears, and my walls. I said before that I have trouble with walls, didn't I? yes, I have quite a few of them, all too high now. The defense mechanisms I used to keep me safe from my dad are now blocking good relationships. A friend told me this how many years ago? but I didn't understand, didn't know how to change, didn't know how to even see myself. Mirrors just don't work very well. I'm glad to have this coming out, and hopefully this Thanksgiving weekend, I will have many hours to sit and write, to explain myself, to search myself, before all this gets lost, before I make crucial mistakes again. I can learn, can't i? If I can build walls, I can tear them down. I don't know what will come of it. The last time I began to write about my dad, I couldnt' stop from crying. This time I'm stronger I know, but I don't expect to be over any of it. Silent all these years, as Tori Amos has said to me. This is when I'm making up my mind though, this is my best chance to change.
Ok, I'll explain a bit, because I know I'm being cryptic. What problems with your dad? How do they relate to what you're doing now? See (powerful word, because how many of us do actually see?), see, most of my life I've done things for my dad. sometimes it was because he lied to me, told me that I would never get to college without a football scholarship. So I played football for him, thinking that i was doing something right by doing sacrificing for my dad, no matter how much I hated it, dreaded it every day of fall. So I went to the Air Force Academy because it was free and it proved my dad wrong, that I didnt' have to play football in college. And although I knew I had feelings against violence from when I was eleven and twelve, I learned to ignore them through the casual violence of football. And because nobody ever reminded me that the military was all about killing, not just serving, I never connected things that I should have connected. As I told my brother, I wasn't doing too much thinking on my own back then. My parents and my society wanted me to do certain things, so I did them. And isn't that good to give yourself up to others? Hmm, I thought those were valuable traits at one time, but I don't any more. And while thinking about my dad's lies, and why I never knew myself, I began to think of how I used to hide from him, how I learned to shove everything down inside me so that even I couldn't find it, so he could never mock it, never make me feel ridiculous for something that was important to me. And he was proud of me for playing football. I might have even forgiven his lies had he not tricked me into signing certain documents that got me recruited for football to the Academy. Can you see my horror when the Academy tried to put me on the football team, saying that I was recruited, that I had wanted to play football, that maybe I wasn't really good enough to get in at all, but because I played football, maybe they would let me in? And then I remembered my parents coercing me into signing that piece of paper, saying it didn't mean anything, that I wouldn't have to actually play football, that it would just help me to get in. The facade of my dad's lies fell down that day, and I never believed him again. But I stood up for myself to the football coach, told him i didn't want to play, that it was a mistake, and never spoke to my dad of it.
And and and. There's a lot more here, a lot more that I must dig through, to understand the effects, to understand my reactions and how it still paints my life a certain color. Bring me my notebook, my therapy, my tell-all, my understanding page and soul-searching pen. Bring me epiphany but most of all, bring me solutions, ways to overcome this past that I wish didn't still haunt me.
9:53 AM
Monday, November 25, 2002
I am turning in my application for conscientious objection today. This is the beginning of the formal process and the investigation. I've labored over the questions on the application for a long time, and I can't say I've ever written anything more taxing. I don't know that it's my best work, but I think I finally said what I needed to. I'm including the first answer here, to the demand: "A description of the nature of the belief." There's plenty more, and all of it is too formal for my taste, but I hope it serves its purpose. How do you translate emotion into a formal document? I hope I have shown what moves so strongly inside me. There's still too much of me that says, no, don't let it go! What if they mock it, what if they shame you? I will ignore those pleas as best as I can. I can't keep it all in forever.
"I believe I should never seek to take another person’s life, regardless of the short or long-term goals or circumstances. I hold all human life to be sacred and feel I have no right to choose death for others. I cannot agree with the argument that American lives are worth more than the lives of those we have currently deemed as the enemy. I respect and love all people, as much as I possibly can.
According to the teachings of Jesus and his establishment of a new covenant, we are to love our enemies, do good to those who hurt us, and pray for those who spitefully use us. There is a part of God in all of us, and I must respect and respond to that part with love. My own conscience tells me that no matter how strong I am, I have no right over others’ lives. I feel there are other, less deadly ways to achieve peace than relying on the armed forces as a deterrent and safeguard. I cannot support combat, which inevitably leads to the deaths of people on both sides of the conflict. In order to follow these beliefs, I feel I cannot remain a part of the Air Force."
12:48 PM
Friday, November 22, 2002
I'm posting something I wrote last week, when I couldn't get online. i think it's worth putting up, even if late.
One of the bravest things I have ever done happened a long time ago, twelve years, when i was a freshman in high school. Towards the end of the year, the freshman football team had moved near the varsity team while maintenance people worked on the old showers. None of us wanted this, knowing the threat of being too close to those old jerks. The coaches were supposed to protect us from th is kind of dealings, right? We moved our stuff, proceeded with our gym time during the football hour at the end of the day. We were getting ready to go one afternoon when what we had been holding our breaths over happened. Afew upperclassmen, and not very big ones, walked over and decided to pick on my friend, Robertson, I think was his name. i spent most of my football time with him, talking about the hope that a plane would crash onto the field so that we wouldn’t have to practice for a while. Neither of us were really the football type and shouldn’t have been there in the first place. I can’t say he and I were close because my friends were not football players, but we certainly spent some time together. And yes, he was a bit wimpy - much like I would have been had my dad not engineered my body through a weight program (my brother called my frankenstein’s monster). I can’t remember much about what they did to him, probably called him a few names, pushed him around a bit. I didn’t want to, but I intervened anyway, or at least, stuck myself in the way, telling the guy he shouldn’t pick on him. I probably looked like a dork, even though had I been more aware of myself, I would have known I was bigger and much stronger than the guys. In response, one of the guys picked me up from behind and just held me there for a second, let me go and walked away. I was embarrassed, both from being held in the air by a smaller guy and because I had just saved my friend some annoyance (most anything that caused me to stick out embarrassed me then). It was the only time I’ve ever had anyone attempt anything over me. My friend and I never talked about it; we just went our way as if it never happened. Once the year ended, he and I hardly talked again. He quit football as I should have done, but I went on to start on varsity my sophomore year, at least for the first few games, earning the car my dad had promised.
I heard Sigur Ros live last night. I had only heard one song by them, but I had heard such good press and had such a good feeling about them, that I decided to go to their concert, taking my boyfriend along with me. I felt like that was the first time I had ever heard music, their sound so affected my life. The sound was expansive, oceanic, in the way it ebbed and flowed, the way the singer screeched like a whale, the way so many different parts fit together to make one phenomenal whole. The filled the room with passion, unbelievable contemplation of sound. The first song, I started crying to. It’s beauty pulled out my sadness, welcomed it, held it in its warm embrace and said, let it go, let it all go, that universe you’ve been holding on to, as if you could carry it in your arms, let it go. And when I let it go, the music swirled through my head, through my hair and skin, through my innards like a spirit of hope. They sounded like Radiohead and Spiritualized in their ambient water-like noise, but they had more passion and beauty than I’ve ever heard. I could hardly breathe while they played, shocked and stunned, absorbing all I can, remembering now more the feeling than I do the music, just knowing that it altered my view, made me long for more. We don’t have words for that music, just emotion.
5:15 PM
Thursday, November 21, 2002
I can't answer all these questions, all the questions that might come up in my future interview to determine if I am serious about conscientious objection. I cannot prove to the Air Force that I am right, nor do I think I have to. But there are a lot of questions, there are a lot of fears that I have, about what they might ask me, about how I might have to justify myself to them, because I am at their mercy. How can anyone make up their minds in this matter, completely? How can you know all there is about it, so that you erase your confusion? I have never been able to erase my confusion, have instead had to learn how to live with it, how to use it to my advantage, to say, look, I cannot be of one mind about this, cannot present myself as if I agree with everything that I have ever done or ever will. If that's crazy or insincere, than I am, because I don't know how else to be. I am taking a risk that this is the right thing to do and hoping I can survive any attack on it. I could and will think about death and war for the rest of my life, but i don't have any hope that I will actually solve even the fight that's in myself. I'm relying on trust right now, trust in the voice inside of me that says do this, do this, and I will take care of you. I have nothing stronger in my gut than that, although it feels a stronger compulsion than any I've ever come up with in my head. So I am doing it, rather blindly, hoping to have strength and answers when I need them, hoping that somehow I will manage beyond where I am now. No, not blindly, don't think I haven't thought about this for the past year, all the time, during the drive to work, lying in bed, sitting at my computer, running, running, running. I am not blind, but certainly without good vision. I would never trust myself anyway, not to make a decision this big. If it were just my head making this decision, I would have said no, I don't believe you. I can last through whatever the Air Force gives me because I don't trust my head, not the troubled thing that can't even decide what to make for dinner tomorrow or whether to get a cable modem over the dial-up I have now. I used to think I was so cerebral, so rational. No, I can't be that anymore, not when I feel these things through my stomach, extending through my body with an energy I can never match. No, I've taken this step not because I think I can reason it out against the world's best thinkers, but because I know beyond any doubt that this is what I have to do. So this is what I'm doing.
7:17 PM
So many things on my mind now, too much time since I last wrote, and how do I catch up with myself? There's too much to just talk about, too much to go into. I will say though, that I am doing well, that people are being more respectful than I had expected, that i feel better about myself than I have in a long long time. Essentially, the conflict that began in my head when the towers fell last September is beginning to feel almost resolved. I am dealing with it in the best way I know how, and although I may have a few more months of my current job, I am well on my way out. No, I don't know what I'm doing next, no, that doesnt' bother me. There's too much good going on in my life for me to complain. I can't believe it, dont' even know how to look at myself now, but I feel stronger, more competent, more myself than maybe I have ever been.
Hopefully, I'll be able to say more soon, without the last delay. I have things to say, and this is such a good place to say them.
11:00 AM
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
A couple of days later now; it seems a week or two later. Long days of stress. I never meant this blog to turn into a journal of my life, and i'm not sure I'm going to let it become that. But i can't exactly talk about about flowers today. Still, I took a run today during lunch, through the base, on one side of the flight line. A beautiful day today, strangely warm for the middle of November, but something I needed and greatly appreciated. I ran in just my shorts, not really needing a shirt even though most others i saw had on long sleeves and pants. I ran, and I watched the clouds, the hewn corn fields, the asphalt running path, sang a song in my head, turned around after 12:33 minutes. It was all the same. No matter how much i say my world is fundamentally different, most things aren't. A run still feels good, and the world still has clouds, fall, sunshine, and life. It's just the world people have created that has changed, the military, the town who seems to be talking about the splash I made, my own world in my head. I don't have that much power after all, and thank goodness for that. I'm tired though, yet strangely confident and strong. I know I am finally doing what I am supposed to do, no longer running like Jonah. I don't know if I can save Ninevah, but maybe that wasn't my goal. Maybe I have responsibility for myself first, and then we'll see. Then i can speak all I want, and who knows what I might say?
5:20 PM
Monday, November 11, 2002
I spilled it. I opened my mouth yesterday and I talked like I have never talked before. I spoke at a Veteran's For Peace rally here in St Louis. I was so proud of myself-I told my story, the audience responded to me, I felt like I had said something important. And then the tv crews wanted to talk to me. I told the first crew no, I don't want to talk, don't need my voice to be heard so loudly. But somehow, after enough questions, I started answering them, now to two different crews plus a radio man. I don't know why, but it felt good for them to be so inquisitive, to ask me all about what I was doing. It felt good to just talk about it, because I have hardly talked about this to anyone. Maybe for the first time in my life i did what I wanted to do without hardly considering the consequences. Is that good? In some ways, yes, it was good becuase it showed that I could talk, that I had something to say. But what about my life and the consequences? oh, oh, oh. i don't know what's going to happen, but it's going to be a whirlwind at work when I go in tomorrow. i'm scared like a basic trainee, having no idea what's going to happen. yes, I have a lawyer, but she doesn't know all of it, so many things could happen now. but they're not going to beat me, are they? nothing I said was prison material. I just didn't need to be so loud. Who knew I could be so loud? I think I lost a few pounds yesterday from not eating and worrying.
I look forward to when I can laugh about this and say, wasn't I brave? wasn't I showing strength I wasn't even aware of? And oh, wasn't I nervous? I hope I'm brave, and not just a fool.
write me, tell me you love me, i could use it now more than ever.
9:58 AM
Saturday, November 09, 2002
the sun comes up every day. i'm still not used to it.
6:37 AM
I'm going to do this, i'm going to do this, i'm going to do this. Yes, I have mentioned it before, and have tried to motivate myself to do it before, but now I am actually going to do it. Tuesday, I am handing my commander a statement of conscientious objection, asking for removal from my position. I don't want to be in the military at all, but that will expression will come a bit later - I plan on writing a longer statement about the whys and wherefores, not just the wham, here's my new thing. I can't fathom yet the implications this will have on my life. I know this means I may have to start looking for a job soon, something I've never done. I know this means I need to decide where I will move to since I don't consider St Louis to be a permanent home. But I also know that this is going to severely impact the interactions i have with people i work with here, and some of my friends as well. Most of my friends have been supportive, but just like when I was coming out, I told the easiest ones first. Soon, all these guys I've worked with for the past year and a half will know. I don't know how to deal with that. I don't consider any of them friends, but who wants to make enemies? Maybe I'll be hovering closer to the Quaker meeting in the next couple of months, knowing I already have their support and friendship. Maybe I will have long, difficult conversations with many people I know, forcing me to express myself in ways I never have.
Where's my strength at? Some of my thoughts right now, I don't even trust to put out here. But then, I don't know hardly any people who do actually read this site, so why not? It's fashionable to talk about the universe instead of God, but I've never felt that made sense. I don't think it matters--God is the universe in many ways, but I just don't feel like I can talk to the universe. Although I have certainly heard stuff, and know that my strength comes from what I have heard, or felt, or suddenly began to know, a more powerful realization than an epiphany because it didn't come from myself but from outside. And whether that's the universe talking to me or God talking to me doesn't matter. Since I was young, I equated God with love, and I am very comfortable with the idea that love has said these things to me, and that I am claiming conscientious objection out of love, not selfish love that only claims those closest, but love for all. When I say God, I mean love. My strength lies there, that this love will always exist and always stay inside me, and I will always try to follow its direction.
2:24 AM
Thursday, November 07, 2002
I've been saying that word too often lately, the one that doesn't really describe what I would like it to. soul. I'd rather the word simply mean the kind of music I'm listening to, the Percy Sledge with plaintive voice. But I've used it to describe those inner parts that nobody has ever seen, only felt in ways most of them can't describe. Don't play with that word, something tells me, just like you shouldn't play with anyone's soul, shouldn't approach it with anything but all your depth. But what is a soul? It's a space that defies our understanding, the only potentially everlasting part of us, if forever exists. It's me, unlike this body that only represents me. But words don't work well, do they? And a soul isn't something you can describe, only something you can feel.
10:18 PM
I have never been a radio listener ("and they grow up, prisoners, all their lives, radio listeners!" - REM), and forget sometimes that people actually do listen to the radio, do allow others to program their ears instead of going out to find what they like, out of the myriads of songs and artists who constantly produce like rabbits. When such people ask me where I find my music, I hardly know how to answer them without saying, everywhere! Isn't it everywhere? Every magazine, newspaper, and independent carries music reviews of what's new. Almost every cd store lets you listen to at least some of their music before buying it, everyone has friends who could share music they grew up with, or heard at a concert. Maybe they just don't love music like I do, don't have it constantly spinning in their heads, filling their ears and their souls with thought, poetry, beats, passion, and sadness. "Do you like american music? . . . they didn't know that music's in my soul" -Violent Femmes. If anybody wants to hear a good song, ask, I'll tell you what I know.
10:03 PM
Wednesday, November 06, 2002
How long how long will I slide
Separate my side I don’t
I don’t believe it’s bad
Slit my throat
It’s all I ever
some Red Hot Chili Peppers lyrics for your soul
Today I need to forget about all that stuff, forget about elections and losses, reasons and changes. It's nice to sulk at times, but not when you'd really just rather cry, knowing that you're holding on to things that you have no control over. So instead I'll talk about what is still good, whatever i can find around me.
1. The moon tonight is a tiny sliver that will grow for the next two weeks. The ends curve halfway around the orb that's just visible in the twilight
2. Music sounds even sweeter when you're depressed
3. I still have plenty of food in my fridge
4. I'm looking forward to the Sigur Ros concert next week
5. Music, books, and DVD's at the library are still free
6. The world itself has lost none of its beauty, even if I can't see it right now
7. The small wound I gave my thumb last night while trying to fix the fridge will heal
8. I have no shortage of paper or ink
9. Bananas are yellow, unlike most other foods
10. Combat boots are comfortable
6:15 PM
Tuesday, November 05, 2002
My ideas, I told Peter, are my babies, and I have long kept them from the dangerous conversations around me, afraid they may be perverted, twisted, changed from how I developed them. Many times, I sit in the middle of a conversation offering little. Not because I don't think I have something meaningful to contribute, but because I am wary of those around me. I can't always focus on what others are saying; most conversations hold little relevancy to my life; or maybe the ideas that swim in my head hold little relevancy in their lives. I've had enough speeches, enough people taking my time to tell me their ideas, mostly in the form of lectures. What preaching can I do that will be any better than what others had to say? I hate people wasting my time, so I refuse to waste other people's time, never sure how to tell when my comment might actually be helpful or welcome. Not willing to risk it, I'll stay quiet. If you really want to hear from me, you can ask. And then I will tell, then I will tell you so many things that I can't believe how much I have just told, letting go of ideas and pasts as if they were meant to be shared, as if I trust you. Maybe I do trust you, when you ask, when I know you are interested. Someone let me know recently that we only act out of fear or love; there is no other choice. I haven't yet concluded over that yet. But when examining my life, I see that so much of what I do is acting out of fear, and so I am leaning towards believing that there are only two choices, and that I far too often choose fear as my guide. Even what I said before, up there, is out of fear, isn't it? Fear that you will trounce on my ideas, that I cannot keep them safe if they are outside of my head, because I have so little control over anything outside of my head.
7:58 PM
I got to vote today! Yes, I'm excited about that. It was much easier this time. Last time I voted in California (my first time), and I was awfully confused for a while. I figured it out, I think. I felt like a grown-up though, walking into the school and voting, seeing all the other people walking in and out of the school, voting. I guess I'll never feel fully adult until I'm out of the military. They babysit us too much. Or maybe it's just that I can't pick out my own clothes.
I feel like I live in my own private world of voting. The people I work with never ever talk about it, whether they don't care or just don't talk about it, I don't know. I don't want to talk about it with them because I know I hold a minority viewpoint, and I don't want to discuss why. I consider none of them friends, so it doesn't matter much to me what they think. My other friends talk about it occasionally, but not with the fervor running through me while reading the news online. Did people ever discuss news? Do they now? It seems like a lot of people just don't pay attention. But then, I normally feel alone with my thoughts, rarely get to discuss them with others, so I know I don't have a good understanding of what others talk about.
Yes, I would appreciate mandatory voting, having the threat of a parking ticket type fine placed on me for not voting. I wonder what in the world might happen if we all voted?
6:41 PM
Monday, November 04, 2002
How angry I get now when I read about politics. How impotent I feel to make any difference. What about the poor, what about disenfranchisement, what about all the money spent on campaigns that could be used for good purposes? How did we get this way and how can we change? How do people not see through the lies being spread? How do we ignore the people around us? I can't hardly think. This kind of reaction does nothing. I can't focus on anything but anger and negativity. I don't know what will happen tomorrow in the elections, but I know it won't be enough. Words are not enough.
11:22 PM
Sometimes we all need a bit of advice. And sometimes we just don't want to be cheered with it.
feel my despair
but wait, this one is more interesting: 
No, sacrifice doesn't seem appealing, but isn't that valuable? Some of us have to sacrifice, maybe all of us have to sacrifice something. How better to show our love for others than to give up something we love? But then, who seeks out opportunities to sacrifice themselves?
5:03 PM
Friday, November 01, 2002
"He'd prided himself on how undiscovered he was, how secret, how remote. What a fool he'd been." Clive Barker wrote that, although it could have been from anybody. We all know that nobody can teach us anything new, thanks to Michael Cretu's Enigma. But somehow we relearn the same things, or run into the same walls until we climb over them. I ran through a word association test last night and found that I have trouble with walls. and sadness. yes, both words make me pause, and therefore, the test said I have trouble with them. Is that true - if I pause to think about something, that means I have trouble with it? It it doesn't make me pause, it is worthwhile? I've hidden all this stuff for years, definitely felt pride in how little people knew me. Yes, fool. Proverbs says all these things about fools, but when does it talk about love and giving and sharing of yourself? I guess they saved that for the New Testament, for the new society Jesus tried to move us into. What a fool we thought he was, most of us still do. I can't take an honest look at what he said and did without thinking how foolish it seems, how provocative his intentions still are, how amazingly different and unfoolish it must be. How I've always longed for people to know me though. Bryan Duncan used to sing, "you carry your heart in a box / with all of your dreams / still hoping that somebody knocks / to share your extremes. / Someone could enter your life just with a smile; / someone could carry your heart / all of the while." yes, yes. I've always known that was true and have always been waiting for someone to knock. But why leave that responsibility to someone else, as if I am nothing but a victim, a lazy loner? Isn't it my responsibility to reveal myself, to be courageous and say, this is me, come take a look, whether you like it or not, this is me. If I am completely honest all the time, then I have nothing to hide, right? Oh, but I've always loved hiding, used to dream about hidden rooms in the attic, places I could go to escape, always wanting someone to stumble onto them and suddenly love me for all of my strangeness, for all the parts that I hide too carefully. But I've become practiced in my hiding, and I've become so good, that I know people can't read through me well. I can't even read through me. all my trouble with walls and sadness. haven't I said this before? haven't I said this before?
7:05 PM
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