Nancy M. Thurston's Blog, page 10

Swiss Cheese Woman

Before I can fully embrace the world’s diversity, I need to embrace myself in all of my diversity. Accepting who I am has been quite a journey. I stumble again and again. Below is an excerpt from Big Topics at Midnight where this question came into knife-sharp focus.

“I flew into Atlanta for the next session of my eighteen-month Be Present training on the issues of Race, Gender, Power & Class. Each time I arrived in Atlanta, Kate Lillis picked me up. On the drive across town, we’d catch up on our families and lives, continue to build our relatively new friendship and get to know each other. Just as we pulled up into her driveway, Kate turned and asked me, ‘Where did you grow up?’ ‘Texas,’ I snorted with disgust. The harsh tone of my voice surprised me, but I was too excited to be in Atlanta with Kate to give it any more thought. Until later.

Alone, snuggled under the covers in Kate and Lillie’s guest room, my body was tired, but my mind was wide-awake. I’d loved growing up in Texas, but my world expanded after I moved away at twenty-three. Year by year, I’d broadened my understanding of life. Simultaneously, I grew more self-conscious about my narrow childhood perspective, packaged in Texas-sized confidence.

Almost thirty years after I’d moved away from the land of my birth, under the covers in Kate’s home, I was horrified to realize I’d spent many of those years trying to cut out the Texan parts of me. Around midnight, I also recognized a larger pattern: I’d long been trying to extricate other parts of myself as well.

When I finally noticed that we had more money than many, I was embarrassed by my family’s upper-middle class and, later, upper class status. For a time, I wanted to give my family money away, not wanting to be wealthy in a world where so many had so little. Simultaneously, I wanted to keep all of the options that money gave me.

Likewise, I had recently realized how white my world had always been. As I heard story after story of experiences and perspectives of people with darker shades of skin, I wanted to rip off my white skin and the white-colored glasses that had kept me unaware of signs of racism during childhood and into my adult years.

The glow from the streetlight gave the room an eerie light as I considered other parts of myself that had faced the knife. It wasn’t easy for me to admit being a Christian, either. Jesus didn’t embarrass me, but far too many Christians did. Too often the radical heart of the faith was usurped by traditional US cultural values.

As a strong girl turned woman, I thought I’d avoided sexism. In the dark of night I realized that I’d been largely unaware of the ways I’d absorbed patriarchal beliefs throughout my life. I’d grown to respect my use of reason and logic—the skills honored in my family—and ignored my subtler intuition, gut and heart. I’d slipped unaware into the patriarchal way of valuing only one part of me. In addition, I was disgusted that it took over thirty years for me to discover how slowly liberation had come to my home state—married Texan women didn’t even have full legal rights until the late 1960s.

I felt full of holes, like a hunk of Swiss cheese. So much of who I was brought me shame. Projecting that onto Texas and onto the United States of America at the height of her world power, I tried to increase the distance between myself and the culturally affirmed values I no longer accepted.

Were these holes I’d cut out of myself destined to remain empty forever?”

No, I didn’t remain full of holes.  Waking up not only extended the edges of my neighborhood, but it also helped me find my way back home to myself.

In January, I will return to a Be Present National Training Institute on Race, Gender, Power & Class, this time in California as one of the leadership team. This training has been key for me to find my way back home to myself and at home in the diverse world around me. I hope you’ll consider joining me.

*Big Topics at Midnight: A Texas Girl Wakes Up to Race, Class, Gender and Herself (Portland: Rosegate Press, 2012) page 238, 239.

Stop Asking Me

It was a small request—help care for a friend’s dog overnight. My response was huge.  STOP ASKING ME TO DO THINGS. Not just my friend. Everyone!

This simple request felt like one more thing in the midst of too many demands on my time. I just wanted to be left alone.

In addition, recently I’ve received numerous requests for money. From friends. From projects/organizations I care deeply about. It feels like too much. I get overwhelmed and part of me shouts, “STOP ASKING ME.”

Ultimately, all I have to do is to say “Yes” to requests that are mine to do. Say “No” to the rest.

So why do I roar, “STOP ASKING ME”?

I feel bad when there is a need for the help in the form of time or money. I want these projects/organizations to thrive. It hurts my heart to know about so many needs that I can’t help take care of. I feel worthless when I do nothing.

Part of me also doesn’t like having my well-crafted, overly full days complicated by others. Though I’d never say that to anyone, it’s hard when I find out about another project or person’s need when I feel like I don’t even have time to figure out how to respond.

My inner roar doesn’t feel like it’s going to disappear any time soon. But it is exhausting and I’m looking for an alternative response.

I want to practice standing steady in a very busy, fast-moving world. See both sides of the truth—amazing things that are happening alongside heartbreaking inequity and important work under- or non-funded. In the midst of the paradox, I want to keep my heart open.

We need to keep asking each other for what we need. Sometimes the response will be “Yes.”  Sometimes “No.” Sometimes screams. Sometimes gentle clarity.

It’s not easy to be alive. But it is fascinating …

The Eight-eyed Steam Girl is a Woman Now: My life as Myth

I was born an Eight-eyed Steam Girl. The fire of natural gas and oil shot through me from below; ancient waters poured down from above. The mixing was wild and chaotic. Fluid emotions and flaming passion combined to propel me down the tracks, rocking back and forth with my own rhythm. I could see where I was going even though I had no map in hand. A different sort of sight was required for my trip through life. And I had lots of sight—eight eyes.  Not just the two typical face eyes but eyes of my heart, hands, feet and one right in the middle of my forehead.

Other folks thought all that sight and steam was too much in one little girl. My “extra” eyeballs were lassoed and tucked out of sight. The “unsightly” steam was controlled by a careful wrapping of my entire body with a beautiful skein of yarn, stopping up all of the “unsightly” eruptions of steam.

Luckily, I was a smart girl. I learned how to navigate with two eyes and my rational, logical mind, all propelled by the limited amount of steam that escaped around my full body wrapping.

Until now.

It’s time for a change. My rhythm has long been strong and powerful, but limping. Not connected to the heart of myself. Trying hard to adapt to the demanding gallop of the culture around me. I wanted to find the real me once again.

I released my eyeballs from their hiding spot and laid the beautiful yarn unwrapped from around my body in a knitting basket. Part of me danced with delight. But my two, overused eyeballs and my brain, so long in charge, screamed and shouted in fear. “Don’t go. You are throwing away the best ways to navigate through life. You’ll never be able to keep everything straight, get anything done, be efficient again.”

Nonsense. But sometimes, too many sometimes, I still believe this fearful voice. Chaos is harder to navigate than tried and true to-do lists. What would happen in my life, I wondered, if too many things fell through the cracks?

For over fifty years I’d kept my inner lid tightly closed so I could adjust to the world. It was time now to quit pretending I was someone else.

In my wrapped up days, I’d over accommodated, tried to be the woman others needed me to be, nice and supportive-like. It was EXHAUSTING. I’d been trying to fuel my life with limited sight and truncated energy.

Now is the time. I was born an Eight-eyed Steam Girl, and now I’m older. Coming home to myself. Learning new songs and dances.

Wild, wise and a little crazy, I’ll find my own way to dance with steam, see every which way and sing with all parts of myself.

In the middle of writing Big Topics at Midnight, I played with telling my life story as a myth. Instantly, I had the image of an Eight-eyed Steam Girl in her Little Red Boat. I told her story from birth until high school. As I struggled to find a way to step into a more intuitive, Spirit-guided way of shepherding my book for this second year, I returned to the myth to see how my story would look right now, as I moved toward my 60th birthday.

For a more extensive peek into my personal myth, see Big Topics at Midnight , pages 306-308.

A Different Kind of Patriot

Illustration by Khara Scott-Bey

“On September 11, 2001, Dad began his three-week walk toward death. In life, Dad was in charge. But when his crisis hit, he began to let go. He was transformed by the process, and found a new way to live his dying.

On the morning Dad found out he was dying, hijacked planes crashed into buildings that epitomized US economic, military and governmental power. The nation responded with talk of war and patriotic pride rather than grief and introspection. With that choice, the violence continued.”*

This September, I hear the beating of the war drums yet again. In order to move forward, I first need to look back to my lifetime of wars/CIA violence/military action, beginning in 1954:

Guatemala 1953-1990s

Middle East 1956-58

Indonesia 1957-58

British Gulana/Guyana 1953-64

Vietnam 1950-73

Cambodia 1955-75

Congo/Zaire 1960-65

Brazil 1961-64

Dominican Republic 1963-66

Cuba 1959-present

Indonesia 1965

Laos 1971-73

Chile, 1964-73

Greece 1964-74

East Timor, 1975-99

Nicaragua 1978-89

Grenada 1979-84

Libya 1981-89

Grenada 1983-84

Panama 1989-90

Iraq 1990s

Kuwait 1991, 96

Afghanistan 1979-92

El Salvador 1980-92

Haiti 1987-95

Iran and Kuwait 1991

Somalia 1992-94

Yugoslavia 1999

Iraq 1991, 1998, 2003-2011

Afghanistan 2001-present

Pakistan 2005-06

This doesn’t include the violence of our government and citizens against other citizens based on race, class, gender, gender-identity, nationality, religion…

Far too often, these wars didn’t resolve the root issues, resulted in extensive civilian and military deaths and trauma, and resulted in the diversion of money and human energy from community and people centered needs.

Dad’s choice of surrender to his grief and his clear personal introspection led to Life, even in his death. I pray that one day soon my country will begin to make alternative, powerful choices other continuing to use violence to deal with violence.

This long history of marching to war again and again is one part of our national story. The other part includes profound acts of generosity and compassion done by Americans and the US.

It is a wide paradox to hold.

The patriots I want to honor on “Patriot Day” are those who are fighting for justice and equity—within themselves, in their neighborhoods, in our nation and around the world. These patriots are many and their work is varied.

To each and every one of you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

*Big Topics at Midnight: A Texas Girl Wakes Up to Race, Class, Gender and Herself (Portland: Rosegate Press, 2012) page 145.

Khara Scott-Bey’s illustration in Big Topics at Midnight is from the chapter that speaks to Dad’s dying from lung cancer as our country begin its long march to war.