I Have Issues...

So, I'm in Idaho. That's where my lovely new job has sent me on my first assignment. Everyone has made jokes about potatoes. I have given everyone who's mentioned them the confused puppy look. My thoughts went instantly to white supremacists, skinheads and underground nuclear warheads. That would have been a fun game of word association.

Well, with hate crimes on the brain, I sit next to an Arab gentleman on the airplane. He is reading the Koran. My first thoughts, honestly...ashamedly: "Oh f*cking-sh*t! For the love of God!" (I know those 2 sentiments don't exactly go together, but it's that kind of day.) I have never claimed to have lived 34 years in this racist society and gotten by unscathed. As embarrassed as I was, I was also scared beyond belief. Then, he kept staring at me. I was watching him in my peripheral vision. He would snap his head forward every time I would turn to see what the hell he wanted. This didn't make me any more at ease. I'd also start plotting the perfect position to curl into so that I'd feel the least amount of pain when we crashed to my death each time we hit pockets of unbelievable turbulence. My pessimism is on full blast today.

While I was waiting for the hotel shuttle at the airport, I thought about all of the horrible things I could be falsely accused of out here and how no one would believe me and then I'd have to call the Boise police, which was certain not to go well for the black girl, so I'd just keep quite and succumb to whatever injustice befell me just to avoid making waves. It doesn't help that all day I've been reading Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon which revisits life in America for blacks in the 1st half of the 20th century. Sigh.

From the plane I send the following text message: "Oh man! I'm the only person with bigot of color up on this plane. I feel like I'm going to a Klan Rally. Pray for me!" Freudian slip: bigot was supposed to be a bit. Who's the bigot, right?

It has been a very sobering day. Fear is powerful. Today I have experienced how easily it becomes a lens that distorts. I see how difficult it can be to convince someone looking through that lens that they aren't seeing what they think they are seeing. The truth is that everyone in Idaho has been as friendly as anyone anywhere else. (And much more friendly than what I encountered in Minnesota.)

I've only met one person from Idaho in my life. I was teamed up with him in a small group and I made the same assumption about him that I made about everyone else in this state, that he'd hate me. He was such a nice guy. We hung out that weekend I spent in Seattle a year and a half ago. We actually had a chance to talk about the assumptions we made about each other and how glad we were (and embarrassed) to find out that our assumptions were wrong. I realized that my assumption that he'd hate me only served to justify my prejudice towards him. I wish I'd remembered that earlier today. It would have been a much better flight.

OK, there you have it. I suck sometimes too. Prejudice is funky, from anybody. Even me.

Peace.

Moving On...

Today is my last day at my current job which means it's also my last day with a laptop until I buy my own. So, I may be gone for a week or two until I can get my own, or at least get my PC up and running.

Any suggestions on a new laptop purchase???

Have fun out there in cyberspace without me. I may have to camp out at the library.

Getting My Groove On

I've been bitten anew by the salsa bug. I haven't danced regularly in years, but I went out Friday night and now it's all I want to do with my weekends. I'm about to go spend 3.5 hours in classes and then dance the rest of the night away. I'm obsessed. I even bought proper dance shoes yesterday.

I'm finally going to bite the bullet and start taking salsa on2 classes, New York-style salsa. I mostly dance Cuban-style salsa, Rueda de Casino.

I'm so out of shape, but hey, a girl has to start somewhere. Today I'll be dancing at a dance studio as opposed to a club so, at least I won't reek of smoke afterwards. That was the gross part of Friday night. I can stand the smoke in isolation at times, but smoke on top of me being sweaty and contributing my own funk is more than I can handle.

OK. Here's a little demonstration for your viewing pleasure.

Samudaya

Buddhists believe that the key to ending suffering is letting go of all desire or craving. That's a sizable leap on my part from the 1st to the 3rd of the Four Nobel Truths, but an interesting idea to explore nonetheless.

In my lifetime I have experienced considerable fluctuation in my ability and willingness to want. I used to be terrified to want. I remember doing everything in my power to quench desire at every turn. I'd deny it. I'd distract myself. I'd accept pitiful substitutions for the true object of my passion. Either way, I avoided desire like the plague. Acknowledging my desires was tantamount to numerating my miseries. I was so unhappy in so many areas of my life that the exercise of thinking about what I wanted out of life produced more despair, as reality only made those desires seem less and less attainable. During this point in my life I would have agreed that desire was the source of my suffering.

Right now I am about to start a new job. I am about to be divorced. I about to be in a much better financial situation than I've been in my entire adult life. I am on the brink of realizing what I fantasized about during my despair, starting over. It's a very exciting place to be. I expect to meet new people, travel to new places, experience the things I ached to experience when I thought I never would. I am equipped with a much better understanding of who I am, what I like, what I despise, what I stand for and what I won't. I am happy. I am unmistakably, palpably happy. And yet, I'm still haunted by longing.

I feel like there's a difference between expectation and longing. The latter requires more vulnerability. Does that seem strange? Are those two words synonymous to anyone else? They aren't to me. I expect things to change for the better in my world. But I feel like naming my longings (or identifying them) reminds me of emptiness, reminds me of the voids. I guess the bitter reality is that the objects of all desire are transient or impermanent, no matter how we cut it. I can't hold on to pleasure. It will slip through my fingers eventually. I can't hold on to people or relationships. They change and die. I can't hold on to things or money. Stock markets crash. But there are things in this life that I want and I feel like sometimes my "enjoy it while it lasts" attitude is the same as trying to deny longing. It seems rooted somehow in despair. I'm trying to figure out how to turn that around. I'm trying to figure out how to want what I want, expect to have it at some point and acknowledge and accept that I may not always have it--all at the same time.

One of the things I've longed for most is the freedom to be my own person. I feel like I am living that freedom more and more everyday. I've found community among those who aren't threatened by or judgmental of my exercise of that freedom. Those probably seem like "givens" to most people, but remember I was a pastor's wife. I lived under palpable scrutiny. I was constantly reminded that every inhalation and fart of mine had life changing implications in the lives of others in my community. It's frightening to think about having had that much perceived power over other individuals. It's frightening to consider the ill effects it has had. It's amazing to be free of that kind of community. This kind of freedom is something I've longed for years. Is it too transient? Temporal? Impermanent? I sure hope not.

Anyway, this has been a long, convoluted way of saying that I am very, very happy with my life right now and I hope it just gets better from here. I want love, happiness, fulfillment, security, companionship and peace. And mind-blowing sex. Can't a girl have it all?

Loving this Song Right Now

Watch and Listen:



Read:

lyrics - Jennifer Lopez Lyrics

Summary in Translation:

Dude! You messed up and wrecked our home so bad, it's not even worth my time to hate you. Moving on!


By the way, yesterday was the second anniversary of me finally having enough and walking out of my marriage for good. I am so over the pain and the bitterness. I'm happier than ever and am so ready to get this divorce finalized so I can move on with my life.

¿Qué hiciste? Me perdiste para siempre.