Pavini Moray's Blog, page 7

How to (not) be the problem.

If you’re anything like me, I bet you were taught not to be the problem.

Do not raise a stink, do not question the teacher, follow the rules, and play nice with the other kids on the playground.

And if you are also like me, you had a stinker inside you, the part of you that wanted to carouse and gallivant, stomp in the puddles, the part that might push kids out of the way in the recess line.

Also, you had the 'wanna be good and get it right' part.

You likely still have both of these parts.

We saw the kids who gave up on being the good ones and embraced being "the problem."

Their mentality was, “If I can't find acceptance for my goodness, I'll find it for my badness.”

Not at a conscious level, of course.

Which were you?

Did you get labeled a good kid or a bad kid at school? In your family?

Did you embrace your troublemaker?

Several months ago, I was in an online poetry workshop where we were to give feedback to each other.

At the end of the first week, the teacher posted: A couple of students had contacted her, complaining about the tenor of the feedback they had received.

She said our feedback was too harsh, too exterminating, too stomping out the light for the tender.

Give feedback, but NOT LIKE THAT.

She clarified that the workshop was a supportive space, not a critique space.

(Honestly, I struggle to understand the nuance between critique given to enrich someone's work and supportive feedback. They seem the same to me. While often we examine the difference between intention and impact, the intention here actually matters: I truly want your work to be the best it can be.)

Her statement was given broadly, without naming names.

But because when I'd written my feedback, I'd questioned myself if I was being "supportive" enough or offering too much critique to someone I didn't know, so it was immediately clear she was talking about me.

Fuck.

I had stepped on someone's toes inadvertently.

I was "the problem."

To be complete in reporting the various parts who showed up, it's fair to say there was a part of me who wanted to be good and say, 'Hey, I think I misunderstood, so sorry, got it now.'

But because I had been told by the teacher I was the problem, I chose to become defensive.

It has been a minute (many) since a teacher had to talk to me about my behavior in class.

There were some defensive justifications I had:

I'm in a novel year-long intensive, and there, we are encouraged to give honest and helpful feedback.

We've been especially told to let our critique partners know where their work confuses us.

The honesty feels helpful and supportive. If you like my work, you want it to be better, not make me feel better about it. I need to hear the truth.

So what did I do, troublemaker that I am?

I wrote an angry poem I didn't post to the poetry class (because adult!)

(And because only part of me is an adult, and the other part is a retributive child, I posted the poem on Facebook and described the situation.)

(Painting myself in the best possible light, of course.)

(Some part of me wants to post the poem here to get some witness to how the pen is mightier than the sword, and I'm GOOD at that, but I will restrain myself.)

(Also, yay parentheses! Maybe I should write a "How to use Parantheses" essay next.)

A lot of intelligent people responded to my FB post.

But my favorite words came from my friend Allison.

She said,

"Being a NOT conflict-avoidant person I would ask the teacher if what they said was because of me. If they say no then keep giving honest constructive feedback. If the teacher says it was because of me then I would ask why did they give us conflicting instructions and which guidance is the real one to follow."

Well, obviously, we first need to talk about her phrase, "NOT conflict-avoidant person."

Mic drop, right?

As someone who grew up in the Midwest and now lives in the South, I’m like, “Can you be a non-conflict avoidant in this world??”

I mean, clearly there are non-conflict avoidant people and nations, because of so much conflict, fighting, and war.

However, I don't get the sense that what Allison means is that she goes looking for trouble, not from these words or from how I know her.

She is not aggressive or a troublemaker for no good reason.

The subtext I read into her comment is that she leans in when conflict naturally happens (like it always does.)

She doesn't go out of her way to avoid challenging situations.

All of this may sound strange, especially if you know I've long taught skills for better conflict, and I genuinely believe that conflict can be generative.

Learning that I consider myself conflict-avoidant might be surprising if you know me personally. (Or not, depending how well you know me and the number of fights we have not had.)

But a part of me fears the intensity and longs for ease and smooth seas.

That part will go a long way to avoid confronting and telling the hard truth before leaning in.

I'm curious where you are on the spectrum of conflict-not-avoiding and conflict-avoiding?

When Allison wrote that, I felt a piece click into place internally.

Hmm.

What if I wasn't conflict-avoidant and just asked my teacher?

(Oh yeah, there’s another part wanting to be known. This class was an online class, we never met on zoom, all via text, and I would likely never interact with these people IRL. That part was curious about just letting myself continue to be an asshole.

What if I kept giving feedback precisely as it felt right to me without considering the impact?

What if I trusted my integrity and trusted others to be adults who could tell me to STFU, delete my comments, or not even read them?

What if I didn't tiptoe around people's triggers but trusted my impulses and intuition?

Funny that that's my definition of 'asshole.'

As I read, it sounds straightforward and boundaried, with a distinction between caretaking (yuck, ptouey, spit it out) and caring (yum.)

But back to not being conflict-avoidant.

Following Allison's advice, I wrote to my teacher.

And because I know you love to be a little voyeuristic, and because I did a GOOD JOB not sharing my snarky response poem above, I will now reprint my message to my teacher in full.

"I saw your message about feedback. I'm curious: was my feedback problematic? If so, I'd like to know. Thanks! I'm happy to give only encouraging feedback since that's the ask.

Also, I wanted to let you know my needs as a student in this class. I need clear, actionable feedback in my process as a poet. Encouragement feels good, but it doesn't help me progress in my craft. Can you please help me get this need met?"

Well, that's clear.

It only took 45 or so minutes to scribble out that little gem. Revisions, revisions, revisions.

But I felt proud of this message. Did my finger hover above the send button a second too long, fearful?

I don't think I need to be that transparent with you. A queer needs some secrets.

Her response arrived within the hour.

"Vin, no one has mentioned your name in particular."

Fuck.

Well, the math of the time suck goes like this:

1 min to read my teacher’s comment

+

Less than 1 second to decide I'm the problem
+

15 minutes to fume angrily, getting more defensive

+

5 mins to scrawl the snarky poem

+

5 mins to write the FB post

+

8 hour to sleep on it without posting the poem to my class

+

15 mins to read the responses to the FB post

+

45 minutes to craft a two-paragraph email to my teacher

+

The entire rest of my life to:

be relieved I wasn't the problem

seek therapy for why I assumed I was the problem

regret not being the problem

Look, folks, I have a written commitment to myself not to retaliate and not start trouble but to stay with it until clarity arrives and speak the truth.

My self-trust is precious to me.

I've been making deposits into that bank account. I don't want to do anything to lose it.

To trust someone, I need to know how they will likely act under duress.

Will they get aggressive?

Act out?

Retaliate?

Will they communicate, even if poorly, their experience?

Will they try to get me to take responsibility for their trigger? Their feelings?

My adult-ass endeavor is to be the person who can handle feedback, lean into conflict, stay connected with myself even when triggered, and care for our relationship even when I'm angry.

Self-trust is a big deal.

Being able to go to bed without pressing send is essential.

Noting my own defensivenss and cultivating a part that can be both compassionate towards it, and gentle it away from toxic action matters.

We all feel those things, want to retaliate, have those aggressive thoughts.

At least part of us does.

And the only place we truly have agency is in what we do or do not.

You might be 'the problem.'

If so, no worries.

Turn inwards to what you need as such.

You might have never been the problem.

And if so, no worries.

As the 'problem,' turn inwards to see how you can share more of who you are, things someone else might label "problematic."

Isn’t the goal always freedom?

How to survive a sucker punch

Long after my divorce, I took a three-weekend-long full-force self-defense class and learned the term "parting shot."

A parting shot is the thing the bully says as they walk away, having just lost the fight.

It's designed to get you to reengage by insisting, contrary to all evidence, that they did not lose the battle.

(Hello, a certain ex-president.)

A sucker punch is a close cousin of the parting shot.

Also known as a cheap shot or a coward punch, a sucker punch, according to Wikipedia, is a punch thrown at a recipient while they are distracted, leaving no time to prepare or defend.

Usually, sucker punches are considered unethical.

In boxing, they are illegal.

Harry Houdini died from a sucker punch.

Someone is using tactics like the fact you are distracted to hit you in your vulnerability.

So when my then-husband says, "You're not doing your work," meaning I'm not working on healing my issues, even though I'm spending several hours in therapy each week, hours journaling and praying and writing every day trying to work through my reactivity, and even though he has precisely zero of any of the aforementioned hobbies, it qualifies as a sucker punch.

Being sucker-punched feels like a betrayal.

When someone hits you in your weak spot because they know it's your weak spot, well, fuck. It hurts bad.

Not only are you hit, but someone has targeted the exact place it will do the most damage.

When you start loving yourself, smoothing coconut lotion into your skin in the dark of the living room, grooving to Erykah Badu, and buying clothes that you feel sexy in, well, that can threaten a relationship built on co-dependency.

I don't "need" you to love me if I can love myself.

When I moved to San Francisco, I wanted to feel a certain way I saw people around me feeling: hip.

But not just hip, self-aware.

Confident.

Smooth and suave and attending to their beauty.

Before I moved to the Bay, a friend said, "You are going to move to San Francisco, start wearing all black, and turn gay."

She saw the truth way before I did.

But when you do that, a partner might not like it.

Might feel threatened, jealous, and hostile.

Might start using the sucker punch, as in, "You look like a slut," when you don the new boots it took so much courage to buy.

You're wearing them as you take yourself out on this Saturday afternoon movie date.

You are typically saddled with two little kids, so this date matters.

He doesn't call to apologize, so part of your fun is ruined, and your heart hurts even as you go to the film.

But you still forgive him when he seems self-reflective and hurt, “I thought you would wear those only for me.”

The boots you bought, with the money you earned.

As you come into yourself, he may throw a lot of sucker punches: "You? You're no artist."

As you remember yourself, you have to forget the opportunities for being hurt that live in your body.

If someone takes the shot, they do.

That's on them.

You learn to walk away in your boots.

You learn to surround yourself with people who don't retaliate.

And when you meet one who does, you exit, quickly.

Now, I expect the people I allow into my intimate circle to see my humanity: to see where I'm working, how hard I struggle to be skillful, to speak truth kindly, and to practice honesty and integrity.

I expect my beloveds to hold space for my learning, and I attempt to reciprocate that to them.

We are all always learning.

If anyone were to sucker punch me now, it would be the end of the relationship.

I love myself too much for that shit.

So, how do you cope when a beloved hurts you on purpose?

One shot.

Everybody gets a chance to mess up.

But wait.

Do I really believe that?

No.

Vette those you allow close, and if they ever hurt you on purpose, get the hell out.

You survive a sucker punch by learning to love yourself enough that those fuckers don't ever have access to your soft spots again.

Only those who earn your trust get your vulnerability.

You survive a sucker punch by growing up, developing healthy mistrust and boundaries.

You stop being a sucker.

How to Glow in the Dark

At 17, I contracted Mono and was in bed for a month.

When my queer boyfriend came to visit, along with my history and math textbooks, he pressed a cheap plastic, glow-in-the-dark Rosary into my hands, a remnant of his Catholic schoolboy years.

Years during which he learned the sinfulness of being queer.

He knew I'd love it: a wonderful addition to my thrift store collection of rosaries harvested from the cold fingers of dead old women.

Following Madonna's lead, I wore them as necklaces, enjoying the desanctification while simultaneously feeding my need for spirit, for meaning.

I hung it over a rung on my wrought iron bed, and it glowed gently through the long nights I couldn't sleep, dwelling in diseased darkness.

It was a comfort.

I learned to say the Our Mother prayer along the beads.

Something about items that glow in the dark is beloved.

Back then, if I had thought of it at all, I would have said things glow in the dark to capture a child's interest.

Many things have magical phosphorescence: plastic dinosaur bone kits, super balls from the gumball machine, skeleton pajamas, and stick-on stars for over a kid's bed.

My friend Steve wore a GITD bone around his neck throughout college, and he would never give it to me, no matter how many times I asked.

Years later, I realize why a rosary, a serious tool of prayer and practice, would be made to glow in the dark.

One reason is practical: so you can find it easily amidst your dresser junk during the long dark night of the soul.

But the second reason is more pertinent: so there is some light somewhere.

A line from a favorite Bukowski poem:

There is a light somewhere.

it may not be much light but

it beats the darkness.

At 17, I wasn't afraid of dying from the Mono.

But I was supremely terrified of dying from the big-hair band acid wash jean conservative monoculture of suburban Ohio.

That rosary glowed in the night: there was a light somewhere.

Later, an Indigenous teacher would ask me: In whose light do you walk?

I walk in the light of poetry, joyfulness, irreverence, reverence, and the Holy Mystery.

I walk in the ineffable light of not knowing.

I walk in the light of magick.

I raised my kids in San Francisco.

To grow up in the city is to grow up surrounded by homelessness on every corner.

We traveled through the Tenderloin every day on the way to school, a neighborhood imbued with trauma and poverty.

You learn to avoid stepping in human feces.

You learn to skirt bicycle theft and ring your steps around tent cities.

You become accustomed to junkies shooting up and sometimes od'ing.

I told my kids they must be careful to not demonize the symptoms of capitalism.

The people they see are among the most vulnerable and deserve compassion and protection.

But it's hard to be compassionate when a homeless person spits on your friend and calls them a racial slur.

When a methhead threatens you, or when you are twelve and your wallet gets pickpocketed on the bus.

It's hard to stay open-hearted to the dispossessed when sometimes they seem like the walking dead, trying to eat you in the dark of the night.

How do you walk in the light of compassion when horror and violence surround you?

You must learn to glow in the dark.

Intuition is what I think of when considering glowing in the dark.

To have the capacity to turn my attention to what is happening inside so that I may light my own path with my flaming.

So that my glimmerskuld lights the forest path as I creep through the dark, surrounded by shadowy things that rustle and snicker and hiss.

My truth burns away the fear and trauma that keeps me disconnected and separate.

You glow in the dark by lighting up from the inside.

How to be interviewed on a podcast

I'm hoping for audio only when I click the link.

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Sure, I've put on a nice shirt and done my hair.

But does anybody watch podcasts anyway?

Plus people do their best thinking in private. Not onscreen.

I think of a podcast as a private journal space with myself.

The host is there, asking questions, but it's a time for me to think things through.

When the camera is off, I can look right out the window, as I'm doing now, writing with a black screen. 

But other times, it serves me to look at the glow of the sun hitting the green of the leaves, box elder, and blue sky peeping through. 

I've interviewed and been interviewed hundreds of times.

I enjoy this form of communication: the structure and the clear focus on who is in what role.

If I'm the interviewer, my focus is to listen, to listen beneath what someone is saying, and let my imagination be guided by what they share: letting images and connections happen as we glide toward the next time I will ask a question. 

Finding the right question is like poetry: naming a true thing that bubbles up from the depths.

However, in the role of interviewee, my job is different.

When Angela interviewed me yesterday, I had to try hard not to ask her questions in return. It's not my job.

The role of the interviewee comes with the expectation of surrender: someone else is driving.

Someone else is guiding the ride where they want to go.

They are steering, noticing, and highlighting salient information.

My job is to share deeply the flow of truth inside me and to allow their guidance and curation to shine. 

When Angela asked me to speak about power, children, and parents, I feel the wound’s pull.

Getting triggered publicly, yay.

To be a parent is to be forever in the dual role of not knowing a fucking thing and being the resident expert on everything.

I let my jaw soften, let the words there to be expressed come out, and tried to silence my inner critic who was listening with eyebrows raised. 

I am not a parenting expert, even as I've raised two humans to adulthood.

It was claw and scrape the whole way, with a few moments of grace thrown in for good measure.

I didn't mention any of that: what to do when you hate your child and when you are so far beyond your capacity that providing guidance is the furthest thing from your mind; attunement is not even possible.

Those kids are lucky if they're eating tonight.

Sometimes, it's cereal. 

No, those are not things to mention in a podcast about your book on power dynamics at work.

But every parent has these secrets, the moments of collapse when they just couldn't.

Tenderness.

Yesterday, in response to a question Angela asked, in my mind, I saw the river near my house rise and was reminded about how the day before, I had wanted to go there all day and hadn't permitted myself; there was too much to do.

How I'd felt shitty all day, and what would that day have been if I had allowed myself time earlier to go and witness flow, to see shine and mirror, and water and sky and the poetry of geology?

Water is the nervous system of our planet, and I could have leaned into my impulse for resourcing instead of my desire to get shit done.

I tell Angela those things.

She seems L.A. interested. 

You have no idea who is listening when you're being interviewed for a podcast.

I experience a vigilance: it's not just wanting to say the wrong thing in the moment; it's the recognition that, on some level, I am anchoring myself in this moment forever, like getting a tattoo.

A podcast is a timestamp of my thinking, a marker of the access I have to truth-speaking, of my current understandings and politics. 

People do not hear us the way we intend to be heard.

The lurking presence of fear shadows my words as I speak on a show: will anything I say now haunt me later, a ghost of my past self?

Will my words be misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented to take umbrage?

The best I can do to assuage these fears is to look out the window, close my eyes, and listen.

I say a prayer before any work that my work is in service to the healing of this Earth and is a blessing to all who encounter it.

Who am I to say what form that blessing takes? 

It feels like my get-out-of-jail-free card: If I pray, I can believe there is something helpful in what I convey. What I transmit.

Often, it doesn't feel like words are mine, coming from my brain.

Sometimes they do.

I feel the support of the unseen worlds as I write and speak: I feel the holy presence of clarity and healing come through, and I receive the blessings of that. 

To speak without a script or preparation is a radical act of self-trust: to know that you are accessing both you and something beyond you.

I do this for the sake of self-trust.

To believe I can share from the heart, in the moment, from my body's wisdom, what is.

I'm a big fan of radical honesty, being human and not fronting and trying to be all professional and experty.

When I listen to a podcast, I want to hear that this human speaking has struggled with what I'm struggling with and doesn't hide behind a white wall of protection. 

It's time to for us all to center our own humanity.

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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.

Link to download

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How to schedule a dentist's appointment

I've heard them referred to as luxury bones, our teeth.

Glitter Joyride is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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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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.

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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

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 Unsplash

Butch, 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. 

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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 Unsplash

He 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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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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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?

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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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