Pavini Moray's Blog, page 6
June 14, 2024
A free gift for PRIDE
Oh Boy George, where would my queerness be without thou?
In honor of PRIDE and an homage to the delightful genderbender elder of my youth, I've written a short story as a gift.
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Chuch of the Poison Mind is available free on Amazon for the next 7 days.
A murderous frolic of queer and trans revenge in the South!
Download now, and feel free to SHARE widely!
https://amzn.to/45nVr98
If you don’t have the kindle app, let me know and I’ll send you access to the story a different way.
Also, I typically record posts for accessibility, but didn’t record the story because it’s longer.
If you need it recorded, please let me know and I’ll make it happen.
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June 12, 2024
How to schedule a dentist's appointment
I've heard them referred to as luxury bones, our teeth.
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When I go to lunch with Char, my friend with falsies, she surreptitiously spits them out into her napkin to chew with her gums.
"They're hot," she complains.
One day, I'm sitting at my writing desk, and I look down.
There is a tooth, child size. It crumbles a bit when I pick it up, likely from one of my children.
I couldn't bear to throw away the teeth I collected in my side hustle as the tooth fairy. It was always nerve-wracking to slip into my kid's room as they slept.
Then, to rummage carefully beneath their pillow for the special tooth box and deposit whatever treat I'd rustled up that night. For some reason I never thought to pre-game and have a stash of tooth fairy gifts.
Those were the days before I had a planner and before I thought much about the future. Now, I have goals and tasks: daily, weekly, monthly, and annually. I check things off with the consistent regularity that eluded me earlier in life.
Sitting on the toilet the other day, I called into the abyss,, "How did I live my life before I set goals?"
These luxury bones require care and tending.
Daily rituals of dental hygiene, several times.
Flossing.
Swishing.
Power washing.
I try to substitute gum for brushing sometimes, get that minty fresh flavor, and trick my luxury bones into thinking they've been to the car wash, but no.
They don't buy it.
Speaking of the car wash, I pay $45 monthly for unlimited bathes at Zips Car Wash. Inside, it's like a 90s nightclub.
I like the colored lights that strategically shine through the soap cycle getting dumped on the windshield.
I put on good rock n roll before driving through. Sometimes, I drive through twice, right in a row, just because I can.
There's a VIP lane for those who pay the monthly fee. It feels like a treat, like a fun date activity. "Let's go to the car wash!" I say excitedly.
But I never say that about the dentist.
The joy of self-care and the dentist continually eludes me.
My new dentist is trauma-informed.
That means that they give me a menu of comfort offerings.
All I have to do is point to what I want, and it appears.
Moby on Spotify? No problem. A weighted blanket? Sure. Heated lavender eye pillows? You got it.
I hate that I need a trauma-informed dentist.
(I actually like the paraffin hand wax soak.)
(And the minty chapstick.)
(They even hand out chocolate chip cookies when you are done.)
No, I hate not that I need it but that I've become so particular at this point in life.
When I talk to others my age, they understand what I'm talking about.
The rub of a tag.
The irritating sound of a TV I'm not watching.
My neighbor's cat coming on my porch.
These little irritations make me want to chomp down on something.
I've ground my teeth so hard in the night that I've lost bone mass in a molar and am waiting to have it extracted.
I use a CPAP at night, and my tongue gets so frustrated it pushes out against my front teeth.
Over the years, the force of that tiny bit of muscle has pushed all of my front teeth out at an angle. It did give me a gap between my two front teeth, which I love.
If you're wondering when I will get to the point of this essay, how to schedule a dentist's appointment, I welcome you into my world.
Even as a grown-ass adult, I will do everything I can to procrastinate scheduling time with the tooth doctor.
I will tell all kinds of stories, make excuses, and blatantly ignore or deny that the dentist is a thing.
So, while we're heading in that direction, I'm not ready to schedule or to tell you about scheduling.
One day, when I was 21, I was housesitting for my mom.
My best friend and I decided to saddle up her decrepit horses and take them for a ride even though neither of us was a rider.
If you've never put a saddle on a horse before, let me tell you, they're smart.
They don't particularly like having a tight belt cinched around their waist.
So if they think they can get away with it, they'll take the deepest breath as you try to buckle it on so that when they exhale, the belt is looser.
Tricksy.
So my friend and I didn't know that, of course.
We get the saddles on, and off we go.
We also don't know how to ride, so spurring the horses to a greater speed sounds like a fun idea for some reason.
For a minute or so, we fly down the chip and seal road, and it's glorious.
Then, I notice I'm leaning at a tilt, and the angle is increasing.
In slow motion, the saddle slips to the side, and after what seems like an hour, I land on the road, on my mouth.
When I raise my hand, I feel the gap.
I've broken out my front teeth.
It takes a year of regular dental visits to fix that bad judgment call, and then two years later, I have to do it all again.
I've done my time in dental chairs.
Now you listened about my dental trauma.
So it's fair for me to tell you how to make that appointment.
First, the timing.
It's got to be one of the first things I do in the morning.
Second, I must tell someone, usually my partner, I will do it that day.
Third, I sit at the kitchen table and look up the number.
Fuck no, I don't save that shit in my phone.
Then I press the 'Call' button when I know the office is open. I breathe through it and sometimes grit my teeth a bit.
Adulting is fucking hard, and this is one of the hardest things.
But I don't want to forsake dental care. I feel too much shame when I don't like my teeth.
Once I've made the appointment, I will tell everyone I did it.
Yay, me! I did the thing! I have a dentist's appointment!
Yes, celebration is essential for me.
Then, I really do try to keep the appointment.
It's on my calendar, and it's been so intense to get it there that I might as well follow through. The follow-through part is the easiest.
I don't know if it's the same for you, if you have dental trauma, or resistance to adulting, or any other hard thing that keeps you from your tooth care.
But if you do, please know you have all my compassion.
And now I'm going to put on my weighted blanket.
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June 6, 2024
How to Change Your Mind, or How to Be Mercurial
This is an essay about the power of changing your mind.
To do so, all you have to do is follow these steps:
1. Believe (even if only slightly) that something better is possible
2. Give yourself permission
When my daughter was five, we took a cross-country road trip together, from San Francisco all the way to Ohio and back.
We traveled for six weeks.
I spent many hours planning the trip, where we would go, and what we would see.
We all know that if you go on a road trip to the American West, you are supposed to visit Yellowstone National Park.
If you are in Wyoming and don't go to Yellowstone, you will have to explain yourself.
A lot.
Of course, Yellowstone was on our itinerary.
The day we arrived, it was hot July. The night before, we'd slept in our tent. It had rained gently the entire night.
I'd rolled up our muddy tent in our only sleeping sheet, packed it into the car, and driven into Jackson Hole to find a laundry.
That was the easy part.
Trying to find lunch had been exhausting and expensive. Today, I would pay $10 for a grilled cheese and not bat an eye.
But in 2009, it was spendy. Not even any fries!
When we finally escaped the long traffic lines in what I coined "Jackson Hell," we hit the road to Yellowstone.
Five lanes of traffic greeted us at the entry. The wait to pay your $25 entrance fee was over an hour.
Hundreds of vehicles were waiting to drive into the park.
Flashback to five and half years earlier.
I'm waiting in the exam room for the high-risk pregnancy doctor to come in.
I've been referred to him because I've asked too many questions about having a hospital vaginal birth after a cesarean, known as a VBAC.
I do not have a high-risk pregnancy.
Outside, it's snowing.
I know this because I'm standing at the window.
In protest, I refuse to sit on the table with the foot cups.
I wait and wait, angry because I'm waiting so long for an appointment I don't even want, all because I've been labeled 'difficult.'
It's been an hour and 45 minutes.
My feet hurt. I need a snack. I am late to pick up my son.
And then, I realize I'm done.
I'm not waiting anymore.
I'm not having a hospital birth.
I don't know how I will have this baby, but it's not like this. I walk out of the room.
The nurses are huddled at their station. In a shocked tone, one nurse asks, "Where are you going?"
I say, "I'm leaving."
She asks, "Do you want to reschedule?"
"No." The one-word sentence says it all, and we both know it.
"What are you going to do?" she asks.
Walking through the exit door, I call back, "I don't know."
I walk to the parking lot.
Get into my car.
A smile cracks my face despite the seriousness of the moment.
Suddenly, I'm laughing, cracking up with delight.
This is the first moment I've set myself free.
So when I get to that traffic situation in Yellowstone, it's a no-brainer.
I'm not doing this. We're not doing this. Fuck it.
I turn the car around, and we head quickly away. I'll trust the fates to lead our path, and they do.
They lead to a Roadside Madonna, where we pray for love.
To a wolf print, giant in the still-frozen July snow.
To a bookstore full of great kids' books.
To icecream.
To a hot springs where we soak and swim.
We follow backroads, stay off the highways, and avoid tourist destinations.
The rest of our road trip is following our noses to many magickal adventures.
With each choice to trust our knowing, I am returned to myself, to my innocence, and to assured confidence from living guided by symbols and signs instead of shoulds and have-tos.
The baby that emerged and my choice to have a home birth have led the way to change my mind at many life junctures.
I left a marriage.
Left a sexual orientation and gender identity.
Found a new faith.
Developed new kinds of community based on shared power and consensus.
Changing my mind has become my art form.
It is the basis of my liberatory practice and the root of all now-ness.
I will not be confined by previous decisions made with access to different information.
I trust the wisdom of this moment and that even if the decision doesn't stick, I will have no regrets.
I am not afraid of my future self finding fault with the choices of the past. As I wrote in my journal after driving away from Yellowstone: "I've never regretted a hastily made decision that goes against conventional thinking."
I kept a blog during our road trip. Ironically, while almost all of the feedback I received was wildly supportive and curious, my decision to drive away from Yellowstone incurred wrath and ire.
I had "missed the opportunity of a lifetime," said one reader.
Another reflected that I was no better than all the other tourists, so I should have joined them and not denied my daughter the opportunity.
Nay-sayers who do not have the power of the mercurial will not understand these decisions that make no sense on the surface.
But in their underbelly rests a deep power: mystery.
You can always choose what is behind the still-closed Door #3, and trust your capacity to be with whatever it is, even if it is a rubber chicken.
The gifts of mercuriality
Flow state
Follow your nose
What is alive
Not having to know before you know
Getting to iterate
Getting more information
Testing things out without being committed
Being responsive to the moment and the need
Being unstuck
Being free
The capacity to redefine and reidentify, to rebrand
Being available for surprise
May 29, 2024
How to Buy a Used Car
Last summer, my 19-year-old daughter worked her ass off to buy my old car.
She worked six days a week, picked up extra shifts, never called off. Fast forward three months, the car has catastrophic engine failure, no fault of hers. I intended to provide her a safe vehicle but I'd sold her a lemon.
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I believe in the power of a do-over. It's within my means to give a refund and proffer my credit score as a co-signer on a different car.
Her diligence impresses me. Hours spent in research, blue book values, safety ratings. A three-day dive into subreddits.
A make and model prevails, and the hunt begins. She scours the internet. Makes countless calls to faceless owners, emails, even sends Facebook messages, which, for Gen Z, is akin to deliberating catching an STI.
Finally, in Tennessee, an hour from home, the right car appears. Friday afternoon finds us driving over the mountain discussing her haggling strategy: don't reveal her ideal budget or the loan rate she has already secured. Expect many rounds of back-and-forth sprinkled with bald-faced lying. She's done the math: she knows the amount she will pay per month and the number of months she will pay.
Photo by Jim Witkowski on UnsplashButch, the silver-haired cigarette-smoking Vietnam Vet, meets us at the entrance of Johnson City Nissan. He copies her license, takes us out on the road, regales us with war stories.
Test drive complete, we head to an offsite mechanic. They pronounce it good, suggest a price.
Butch waits for our return in his cubicle; faux-wood wainscoting meeting faded bamboo motif wallpaper halfway up. When he shifts, his chair creaks like a mouse caught in a trap. We perch on tarnished metal chairs that were chrome in the 80s, their cloth an indeterminate maroon.
She knows they will present a sales sheet with inflated numbers. Butch does not disappoint. He non-ironically lays it down on top of the laminated sign that says they are a no-haggle dealer. The sign's twin hangs on the wall, reiterating the lie: they won't budge on the price. She snaps a picture of the sales sheet, since they always take them away, and we need evidence to track changes.
The first round, Butch refuses to discount. They are already selling this car below wholesale. The Doc fee is non-negotiable. Etc.
Next round: We lowball them. They barely drop the price.
We fall into a rhythm: Butch delivers the latest sheet. She snaps it. We ask for time alone in the cubicle to discuss. Really, we know our strategy, so we spend the time looking at our phones. Making them wait is important.
Round five, she disputes the $568 charge for "protective clear coat." He has already told us they apply this to every car they get in. It's invisible. He looks her right in the eye and explains again it is non-negotiable, a hint of anger in his voice.
She makes a new offer. Butch needs to speak with his manager.
Erik, the manager, puts the new sheet on the desk. The clear coat charge is gone. Did they remove the clear coat from the car? She tactically does not ask.
Once she gets a taste for the game, she plays to win. What else is negotiable?
Crossing out their number, she writes hers directly on the sheet. Her marks are bold black ink, leave deep impressions in the paper.
Butch returns. The man-tears begin anew. They are already losing money on this deal. They will get in trouble with their big boss. Clicks his pen, drums his fingers.
Erik comes. He has to make a call.
Round 9, she hits the actual end of what they will do. The fluff is gone. They've come down 20%. She is ready to sign.
Later, she tells me she heard a voice telling her this wasn't the right car, but she ignored it.
Five miles out of the lot, my cell rings. "There's something wrong with my car!" her voice is shaking. We pull over; the fog and the dark make it feel remote. I drive her car: it's unsafe. We abandon the car in a gas station and drive home defeated. Tennessee has no protection for car buyers, no cooling off period. Her bitter sobs fill the truck's cab.
I give her the advice my mother repeatedly gave me: things always look brighter in the morning.
8 AM, she is up and ready to go back to Tennessee. She says, "You were right; I feel better." She wears her confidence and fierceness through the return of the bad car and negotiates release from the loan.
But she still needs a car.
Over the next few days, she rethinks her priorities. A newer, more expensive car would be better. I agree.
We look at many cars. Finally, she finds one. Tyler, the 18-year-old salesman, seems easier to deal with than Butch. But Tyler takes more risks than a more seasoned salesperson.
Photo by charlesdeluvio on UnsplashHe underestimates who she is as a negotiator.
Far too early in the process he says, "Well, I guess we can't help you," and reaches his hand across the desk. She shakes it. We walk out.
Halfway to my truck, here comes Tyler, running through the winter rain with no coat. "Wait, just wait. Let me get something for you," he pleads. We stand in the rain, unwilling to give up ground.
He returns, his manager in tow.
"Why are you leaving?" Manager Greg asks. My daughter looks him in the eye. "You are completely unwilling to negotiate." Greg looks surprised. Tyler hangs his head, flushing bright red.
"Come on back in, and I'll see what I can do," promises Greg.
She negotiates the price she wants with Greg. She gets him to throw in new floor mats and a warranty. She drives her new car off the lot.
Later, she tells me how powerful it felt to walk away, especially when Tyler came running after.
This, this is the lesson I wanted for her: you can walk away from anything, at any time.
You always have the power of two feet.
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May 22, 2024
How to be at an event with your enemy
I'm the only one in a chair.
People arrive, chatting and hugging. Although this is a dance event, and I am a dancer, and even though I have danced at this event in the past, tonight I am in a different role.
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I've been asked to anchor this ritual by embodying rightly-held power. In this crowd, I'm the eldest by far. My book “How to Hold Power” is placed on the altar.
The chair is necessary. I have an injury and haven't danced in months.
But even without the injury, I would be sitting.
I'm not at my best today, and yet this commitment matters. I'm showing up brokenhearted, raw, and present.
My power is quiet. My eyes are closed. I'm trying to find ground. Hopefully, my prayers reach my helping spirits and ancestors so they can help me fulfill this role in a good way.
I invite into my attentional field the manatees I swam with in Florida. Their vast, ancient bodies. Their wisdom from the deep. Their slowness, their rest.
The guide leading our trip has given us the mantra, "When in doubt, float it out."
This is supposed to help us navigate: in moments with the manatees, when you don't know what to do, surrender.
My eyes are closed.
The chattering and buzzing of the dance floor drop away. I float, suspended underwater.
Peering through the crystal blue-green of the water, I see a manatee who has moved to hang beneath me.
We float together, her body mere inches beneath my own. I do not touch her, although I want to.
Something in the human world calls my attention, a tingle on the back of my neck.
I open my eyes to see her, a woman who was a close friend, but is no longer in my life. It's been over a year since she walked out of our mediation in anger. I haven't seen her since. But there she is.
I close my eyes.
I feel fear, my pulse elevated. "Manatees can hear your heartbeat from 6 feet away."
I don't want my fear to scare them away. I slow my heartbeat by ceasing all effort and taking long, slow inhales and even slower exhales. It works because the beautiful beasts surround me.
I breathe like that now, slowing my heartbeat and returning to my center.
The woman is not worth my peace.
I get to curate the nervous system I want to have. The manatees float above the floor of the spring with no effort: I want a nervous system like a manatee's: still, calm, quiet, and deep.
What does she think as the facilitators introduce me as the guest of honor? I'm slightly curious how it lands when the facilitator says, "We've invited Vin because we admire how they embody power in the community."
Likely, she disagrees.
The manatee's bodies are covered in criss-crossing maps of scars. They wear their stories on their skin, each healed wound making them more unique and identifiable. I remember their scars as the dance continues.
My slow, tiny movements throughout the dance wave respect the slowness of my true pace. They allow me to be in a dance space differently, with nothing to prove.
After failed mediation, I receive an email from her asking if I intend to go to this dance. She would like to go but prefers not to be in spaces with me.
I respond I don’t know if I am going, but trust her capacity to leave situations she does not want to be in. I feel fine about her being in any dance space I’m in. I tell her I will not be checking in about future dance plans.
I finally speak truth after years of withholding, afraid of her reaction.
I've been invited to share something with the dancers. The practice I share is this: Sit back in yourself.
Say aloud, "I call back all my power."
Say it again. And again. "I call back all my power." Say it and keep saying it on the dance floor and every day.
Each of us at the margins fully inhabiting our power is what this moment calls for. The dance floor echoes with their whispers.
The manatees head to the springs during the winter where the water temperature is stable at 72 degrees. They prefer to be in warmer waters. They take care of their needs.
They don't seem to mind the snorkelers swimming amongst them, although they move away from the guy yelling and splashing. I am his opposite. I am calm, present, attuned: how I want to hold power.
I am surrounded by manatees.
One touches me. Another breathes in my face after making eye contact. Two more flank me, pressing in close. I am welcome. My tiny movements keep me in their sphere.
At the end of the dance, everyone sits in a circle on the floor, and I sit in my chair. She speaks. She says that she worries feeling all her emotions will weaken her, but it does the opposite. Feeling her feelings is her greatest strength.
When I hear her voice calling from the surface, I don't open my eyes, but I don't move away either.
When in doubt, float it out.
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May 15, 2024
How to Hang Something Heavy on the Wall
When I see the hand-carved Victorian mantle piece for sale on Craigslist for $50, I know it will be perfect to hang above my bed like a headboard.
After sharing a bedroom with my partner for years, we've decided to set up separate sleeping spaces. We are actively practicing non-monogamy, and we need autonomous space. I am decorating a room that will be just mine.
I convince my partner to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin one night after work to pick up the mantle. When I see it in person, I fall in love.
Ornate and elaborate, four carved pillars center a wavy, aged mirror and bookend the rectangular piece. Carved by craftsmen hands long gone, two hand-wrought vases holding intricately designed wooden flowers flank each side of the watery silver. The previous owner tells me it was from a demolished brownstone in Brooklyn. She hauled it across the country.
It is big and heavy, weighing at least a hundred pounds. A monument to another time.
We tote it to the car, wrapping it in a blanket. He drives it back to our house in the City and helps me carry it to my bedroom. He states a boundary: he is done helping me decorate my room that will entertain lovers other than him.
It sits on my floor for a week. I like them big, but how do I hang this monster on the wall?
I go to the hardware store. The orange-smocked man points me to some special brackets that can bear the weight of heavy pieces. They disperse the weight across the length of the bracket. Physics.
The clerk insists the bracket must be installed into the studs. Drywall plaster will crumble, and I will destroy my wall if I don't install the mantle correctly. No pressure. He sells me a palm-sized device called a stud finder.
In that era of sluttiness, the name of the thingamajig makes me snicker like a 14-year-old. Stud finder. Yeah, I'll find the studs in my bedroom. Heh.
The other important advice is to ensure the bracket is hung level to the floor. It all sounds so easy when the hardware dude says it. 'Of course I'll install the bracket levelly,' I assure him. His eyebrows raise slightly when I say 'levelly.'
Back at home with tape measure and pencil in hand, I feel official. I draw some lines on the wall where the mantle will look good. I measure the middle of the blank wall where it will hang.
Lots of measuring. Line marking. I install one-half of the long steel bracket on the back of the mantle. So butch.
Stud finding proves slightly more complex. Partially because my Grindr app's quick staccato bamboo trill distracts me repeatedly.
I caress the wall with the palm pilot, seeking a pull of its magnet towards the steel shank of the nail plunged into the wood that is 'stud.'
When the magnet attracts its metal mate, there is a quickening. Then, a reverberating twang as the stud finder sinks its magnetism through the drywall to what waits beneath. The finder hangs on the wall like a gecko, allowing me to mark the stud's location. Got 'em!
Once the studs are located, the hanging commences.
The bracket is a long stretch of metal. It is the mate of the inverted V bar installed on the back of the mantle. The thing to do now is to slowly and accurately guide the top into the bottom. I promise here I am not being deliberately nasty.
Weight is an issue, I won't lie. Lifting the mantle high enough to easily insert itself would be better done by two, but sometimes you've just got to get the job done yourself. That's what hands are for.
I bend at the knee to get my body under the mantle's girth. Slowly, and from the knee, I hoist the wood higher and higher. Eventually, it clears the bracket. I settle it back towards the wall, nestling it into the groove. Once it's in, I'm afraid to let go. Will the studs hold up the piece?
Slowly, I back away, watching myself in the mirror the whole time.
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May 8, 2024
How to know if the drunk girl is driving the bus
It's a bad human habit: give voice to an emotion a singular part of you is having, without taking the time to identify and name that part.
It lands for the listener as a truth when, in actuality, it's the truth of just one part, not the entire story.
For example, let's say you are deep in a house buying process with your partner. One night, you say, "If it were just me, I wouldn't be buying a house right now,"
In fact most parts of you are consenting and have been engaged for months.
But you speak that sentence and the impact lands on your partner as a breach of trust.
You contain multitudes: you are an ecosystem of many parts.
Each part has its own needs and wants.
Ask: "What part are you? and then, What do you want and need?"
Ally sits across from me at the big wooden table where we meet three times a week. "C..RUN…CH" she sounds out. "Crunch." I nod, and she breathes relief, blond hair swinging forward so I can't see her eyes, likely full of tears.
"Do you want to practice your book for the showcase?" I ask. She nods. From the shelf of children's books behind me, I grab "Don't let the Pigeon Drive the Bus." It's the book she's chosen for the end-of-summer celebration where all the parents will gather to be impressed with their kids' reading progress.
Ally is ten, but reading at a first grade level. She has severe dyslexia, as do all my clients. She takes the book I hand her, still not meeting my eyes. She opens to the first page that she's read dozens of times. "Hi. I'm the bus driver. I've got to leave for a little while, so can you watch things for me until I get back? Thanks. Oh, and remember… Don't let the pigeon drive the bus!"
Like always, she laughs. She laughs at the pigeon's antics as he tries to convince the reader to let him drive the bus. All summer she works on her reading prosody so she can read with appropriate tone, rhythm, emphasis and pacing. "I have dreams you know!" she shouts, infusing the pigeon's voice with frustration and entitlement.
Even picture books follow a story arc. At the climax of this book, the pigeon stops trying to convince and cajole, and just loses his shit and completely freaks out. "LET ME DRIVE THE BUS!!!!!!" Ally screams in fury, shaking her head, eyes rolling backward, lips curling to reveal her sharp, white teeth.
Whenever she reads that page, I feel unexplained primal fear. Who is driving Ally's bus?
Eventually, my work with Ally ends. But it sticks with me: who is driving the bus?
I leave my marriage. In my head, the pigeon morphs into a drunk girl. She is rowdy, outspoken, and unashamed. She wants things, big things. "Don't let the drunk girl drive the bus!" I say to myself, but I never listen.
For a year, maybe two, she careens around in my life. She takes the corners too fast in relationships, makes huge leaps of faith, scares people who swear they'll not ride with her again. "That bitch is crazy!" they say, shaking their heads.
Not crazy, no. Uninhibited, unafraid. She gets fired. Buys her own schoolbus she can literally drive anytime. Writes an anarchist cookbook for teachers. Learns to dumpster dive. Fucks.
One day, we're driving along a quiet country road in the middle of a hot California summer. The dry dust sticks to the trees, the windshield. Suddenly, she pulls the bus to the side of the road, and turns off the motor. The engine rumbles, shakes violently for a moment, then lets out a sigh before settling. Leaving the key dangling in the ignition, she hops out of the driver's seat, and stands for a moment in the stairwell, backlit by the late afternoon sun. The smile in her eyes says it all: you drive now. I've taken you as far as I can.
Before I can ask, she's gone. What did she need? I can answer only by guessing.
She needed poetry felt on the rocky coast of the Pacific,
waves crashing into pebbly beaches, cold fog and sunsets.
She needed sexual autonomy: lovers, blood, magick, kink.
She needed no rules.
She needed to be trusted.
Above all, she needed permission to BE. Fraught, full of mistakes and edges and mishap, the drunk girl needed her chance at living.
Towards the end of that summer with Ally, I taught her a reading comprehension skill called a precis. In a precis, you read a passage and highlight the most salient word in each sentence. You string those words together to create a summary:
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published Relief comes with practice. let fear and fury drive your dreams get drunk and fuck the bus will careen f a r but trust.May 1, 2024
Welcome to Glitter Joyride, and Happy Beltane!
Today is May Day, the traditional holiday of celebrating the return of Eros, the flowing of the sap, and the rising of spring.
It feels apropos to launch Glitter Joyride today, in celebration of all the good stuff life has to offer.
It’s an honor to have my words find their way into your life.
I aim for what I write to delight, engage, and be in service to your pleasure and healing, and the healing of our Earth.
The Substack is launching with a poem because, as Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks said, “Poetry is Life, distilled.”
Next week, we’ll start with an essay series called “How to Be Human” the intention of which is to explore this weird and miraculous life through story, guidance and pragmatic tips.
If you appreciate today’s water offering, please leave a comment, or share on the socials.
April 25, 2024
How to Go on a Glitter Joyride
If I said to you, "Hey, wanna hop in and go on a Glitter Joyride, would you?
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Cuz that's what I'm doing.
My new weekly newsletter is launching on Substack, and I'm super excited to take you with me!
Here’s what I’m thinking:
Writing that will nourish and sustain your poetic life.
Musings on the mundane
Reverences to the holy
Explorations into word magick, resistance, embodiment, and belonging
Prayers for a healing world
Critical analysis of where we fall short of our full humanity
Whatever else delights you and me!
I write in service to wholeness, I seek to write the world I love into existence.
I seek for my work to be a blessing for all our lives.
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Next week, you’ll get your first edition.
I’m starting out with a series called “How to Be Human” which is part practical teaching, part memoir, and part philosophical treatise.
I am super open to your constructive feedback!
Your engagement helps me attune to the needs of our community, so please comment and share.
Grab your road snacks, strap in and let's go for a glitter joyride!
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September 30, 2022
Give me back my trousers, judgy-pants!
Healing is such a weird, non-linear, layers of the onion kind of process.
It took me so long to arrive at acceptance that I use judgment as a safety strategy.
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Determined not to be a judgy asshole like I learned in my family of origin, I have worked for years to observe the part of me that judges and to be sweet with it.
"Yes, dear, you are being judgmental; it's okay, it's how you protect yourself when you feel vulnerable" has been a recurrent refrain.
Surprisingly, I recently realized how I was suffering from my judgments.
I was causing myself tremendous pain.
Because when I am judging, the experience is of disconnect.
The thinking goes like this: I am better than. I am different. But if you flip those around, it's "I don't belong."
Supremacy isn't cute, folks, no matter how it manifests.
It is deadly, both for those receiving it and also for those dishing it out.
Thinking 'I am better than' hurts inside my heart. I feel alone, alienated, and misunderstood.
Judgment is the practice that creates supremacy culture.
Judgment, giving or receiving, causes breakdown in connection and relationship.
On perceiving that you are being judged
You probably know when you are being judged, or at least when you perceive it, true or not.
Sometimes you see someone's face turn down in a derisive sneer when they are judging.
No one loves being judged. Typically, lack of acceptance translates to 'not safe' in human brains.
Being judged has a visceral quality.
For me, I feel it land on my body like acid.
Historically, I have chosen one of two strategies when I feel judged.
Strategy #1: Judge Back
When I was in my hometown in Ohio last spring, I went into a thrift shop.
The clerk was an older white woman, her clothes and hair very put together and tended like midwestern church ladies.
When I entered the store, I saw her eyes move up and down my body, and then she turned her head away.
When I went to check out, she did not make eye contact.
Her words were clipped, and her eyes seemed tight.
Instead of handing me the bag, she set it on the counter.
She did not say thank you, which, if you've been in the midwest, you know is the equivalent of "Fuck Off!"
Those were my observations, and my brain interpreted them.
I have no way of knowing, but our interaction held a strong scent of judgment.
In this case, I chose strategy #1: Judge back.
"Really, lady? You work in the goodwill in Chardon, Ohio and you're judging me? Girl, please."
That went through my head, likely shaking side to side as I walked out.
In this strategy, I often get bigger than my body, as in don't mess with me.
Strategy #2: Absorb it
Absorb some of the judgment and get small.
When the acid hits, I curl inward and shrink.
I was in bladesmithing class last fall, and my instructor shook his head while looking at my blade.
In this case, I felt shame.
These responses to judgment disconnect me from what I need at the moment: they are reactive to emotions and sensations inside of me catalyzed by the actions of another.
Notice I said catalyzed, not caused.
Lately, I've again picked up studying Non-Violent Communication.
This morning I listened to a podcast with Marshall Rosenberg about how to communicate compassionately with yourself.
He reminds me that my thinking, not what someone else does, creates the response inside of me.
My feelings are mine.
How I am thinking (also mine) creates my emotions.
In reacting to perceived judgment from others, I lose connection with what I need: in this case, my dignity.
Others will have judgments, and those belong to them.
"What others think of me is not my business" is a quote attributed to everyone from RuPaul to Eleanor Roosevelt.
On Judging others
I believe most of us are judgy in certain ways.
Perhaps a way to think of it that is less, well, judgy is to consider it discernment—discerning what, who and where are in your best interests is part of being a self-loving grown-up who wishes the best for themself.
I'm not talking about judgments like "This fish is bad" or "My body doesn't feel safe around Larry."
Those are discernments.
Judgments are different because they often have a biting, poisonous quality in my brain.
There is a tinge of anger, an internal pursing of my lips, and a tightening along my midline.
When I judge others: I've lost connection with what I need and am inappropriately focusing on others instead of myself.
For example, I was recently in a class where another student told the instructor that the camera added ten pounds to their image on the screen.
I felt a hot flash of anger and judged the other student fat-phobic.
I felt angry at her lack of awareness that she was in the room with people with fat bodies and frustrated that her inane comment disrupted my learning experience.
When I slowed down enough to focus on what I was feeling and needing, I felt scared and lonely and longed to feel safety and belonging.
The story I told myself, that she was fatphobic, created my feelings.
I have no way of knowing if she was or was not, but I was suffering at that moment.
So here's where the healing gets real: I've come to a point in my life where I don't want to cause myself pain and suffering.
I love myself enough now that I want to feel safe inside my own experience.
Judgment, the strategy I've been using to create safety for so long, is harming me.
Because if we're honest, while anger might feel good for a moment, a residue remains.
I am the one who pays the price for a dysregulated nervous system, not midwest goodwill lady or thin classmate.
I want to love myself enough to evaluate my safety strategies and choose ones that better protect me.
Judgy judgy pants has such a high cost that the benefit is outliving its usefulness.
Just ahead, I can see the doorway. Above the frame are the words, "What do you feel and long for?"
I long to be done with ascribing my powerful feelings to the actions of others.
I want that power for me!
I long to be connected to my good life so strongly that I remember to ask, "What am I thinking that makes me feel this way?" and then tend to my needs with the most love.
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