Ties

I need to make a confession. I’ve been procrastinating on the total completion of my application for Mental Health Counseling licensure- i.e. the test, a course or two and owing them a picture of myself for my license- because I’m scared of the totality of it. I’m scared that, assuming I pass my test (which should be alright considering I passed the practice exam- though it was 1.5 years ago), and once its all in place I will be wed to staying in NYC at least for another 5 years. I’m scared that I might not succeed living in NYC even though I’ve done alright for myself thus far. I’m scared that I won’t be happy here, that I will miss home too much, that I will feel unable to go pursue other dreams I’ve got of living in other places and doing other things. I’m scared of being tied to any one place. Even sending in the money for the license didn’t stir my fear quite as much as it did to receive the letter 2 weeks ago stating that I was cleared to take my exam. And then- on top of it all- what if none of this matters because I fail the exam?

I’ve never been a person who has been happy tied to one location too solidly, but if this goes through I will be tied- at least for the duration- to New York State by the fact that I will be completely cleared to do what I am trained to do and get paid for it in this state. Licensure will mean that I am more marketable, that I have the capacity to live more comfortably if I should want to (or save like crazy if I want to do that), and that I have more fluidity and latitude in my choice of jobs. It will mean good things if I get it. But I’m absurdly scared of it.

When I first had the thought to move to NYC to continue school, I was 21 feeling confused and living in Amsterdam. I didn’t know what exactly it was I wanted to do and I was so completely scared of the possibility of failing generally and failing to get into my dream school that I didn’t apply until after I got into a bunch of other schools, none of which I felt I would be happy at. Hell I didn’t even apply then, until I spent a year out of school and my sister yelled at me about how capable I was of doing it. And I did get in. But I was scared then too.

I know that being scared has never stopped me from doing what I want to do before; it’s just that I can’t seem to shake the fear until the thing is over. So if I seem a bit on edge lately, please bear with me. Because I’m taking these ridiculous steps towards something and while it may just be licensure, and in the end even that doesn’t mean all that much, it feels like stepping out in the pitch black night and being unsure where the ground ends.

Ideal

I ran into an ex-boyfriend of mine at a wedding last weekend. He was a writer for an independent paper/ filmmaker, turned financial PR man. I can remember when I met his mother, she said to me-without knowing me or anything about me- “we thought it was time he let go of his ideals and start making a living.” Did I mention the financial PR firm he worked for belonged to his parents? At the time I didn’t think much of it beyond that she was your standard overbearing mother, until days before I was to meet his father and her for a formal dinner, when he and I suddenly ended our relationship- guess I was part of the ideals he needed to let go of.

Anyway this isn’t a story about ex-boyfriends, it’s about the ideals part, and so let me move on. A little while ago I began an email conversation with a friend of mine which moved towards a discussion about the older generation of activists and the ways in which they more clearly and firmly are able to articulate their vision of a better future, and I started to wonder- is our generation somehow different in our approach to real, positive, change? What I spoke about with that friend was how the older generation, having seen change, was able to visualize it better than the newer- those of us who have grown up primarily within republican administrations or within the Clinton years (which isn’t saying much). And while this seems like it may be a definite part of it, I also wonder about the ways we utilize technology today and the ways in which our approach to dissent differs. Take for example this blog. Anyone and everyone can write what they feel on the internet and you can just bet that someone will read it, and so- good or otherwise, articulate or otherwise, your voice seemingly gets heard. Or take for example the rising in the last 5-7 years of the internet based activist networks- moveon.org, one.org, and the like. Suddenly people don’t have to leave their comfortable apartments to take part in the protest against what is inhumane, un-patriotic, or un-democratic. With the tap of a finger against a key they can sign a petition to end the war, and where that petition inevitably ends up few people probably know, but by hitting the send button they at least feel like they’ve contributed. And while in the age of technology, online petitions were the inevitable next step- followed closely by those anthropologically fascinating youtube debates-, and while they can certainly have a positive influence, it makes me wonder if part of the problem with the newer generations protest and our articulation of a better future isn’t simply that we’ve gotten lazy.

We are a generation of people with carpal tunnel syndrome and poor eyesight thanks to all this new technology and yet none of it has seemed to make its mark in quite the way that protests in, for example, the civil rights era did. No, despite the amount of times people write, and click, and make witty political commentary online it just doesn’t seem to have the same effect. Now don’t get me wrong- there are still many people out there marching themselves to the capital, holding signs on street corners, and tramping up and down a picket line in the cold of winter, but somehow these efforts seem to have lost their teeth. Like the efforts of a select few that I run across every week in Manhattan during their protest of the working conditions at the Four Points Hotel. They scream and shout and get videotaped, and yet the giant blow-up rat that stands behind them (and incidentally follows other picketers on various other protests) seems to be mocking them. The security guards stand around them, bored and yawning, occasionally refocusing their cameras and the picketers never make an effort to move outside of their picket area, so kindly designated for them by cheap metal barricades put in place by the hotel administration. (And no I don’t expect anyone to be throwing themselves on water hoses or scuffling with the police, but it does just make me all the more aware of how protest has changed over the years.)

The thing of it is this: while the civil rights era protests may not have been perfect (and they truly weren’t), activism has somehow become a whole lot more passive, and I don’t know that those two things can go together for any significant amount of time before something gives. Maybe if we made ourselves more physically involved in the things we feel passionately about, and maybe if we didn’t leave behind our idealism for what other people tell us is a better use of our time, we wouldn’t be stuck with problems like a president who effectively voted himself into office his first term.

Anyway, that’s just my 2 cents from behind my keyboard, inside my warm apartment, on this miserably cold winter night.

Untitled

Ok so for me I’ve always been a person who felt like they knew very little and so I’ve often been obsessed with learning anything and everything I can and lately I’m hit again with the awareness that the older I get and the more I read, the more I want to know and learn. The following is, I suppose, just a story about that:

When I began to gain interest in poverty I was somewhere around 20 years old and my brother had just been released from either rehab, the psych ward, or jail- I can no longer remember which- and my parents, refusing to take him back at that time, told the people releasing him to take him to the nearest homeless shelter. They obliged. While this was the only instance I can remember of any of my family being in a shelter, it scared me just how close people I knew and loved could be to a state of utter dependence on the system. (For those of you more concerned with my parents’ moral code at this moment, take heart in the fact that he only spent 3 days there before they took him back as usual).

Anyway, it was because of this event and because of my interest in mental health that I went on a couple trips to various countries to look into what exactly people received for help when they were down and out as my brother had been. The studies I did focused on the variety of cultures I was looking at and their individual approaches to the mental health care system for those without a place to even call their own. While my research was primarily focused on the cultural differences within this matter, when I came back to the states, rather than focus on culture I began to focus more heavily on the general concept of the underprivileged within the context of mental health. I suppose all this is simply to say that I knew culture somehow made it different, but considering the fact that I was back in the states I ignorantly assumed that the way it was practiced here was indeed the way it was practiced here and that little variance would take place in terms of people served and the cultures they came from. Good lord how I was wrong.

To be honest, the thought began to occur to me when I started working with the urban poor and noticed that the men in my shelter all came from a particular neighborhood of Boston, that the majority of them were of a particular cultural heritage that was non-white, and that my shelter- of all the shelters and services our organization offered- was the most ignored and under-funded. Being young and green however, I can imagine that I said to myself “its because they’re from an urban neighborhood” rather than “ its because they’re predominantly non-white”- and as such I moved to the largest city I could find to go ahead and work with that.

As my education progressed and my experience progressed however, I saw just how little things had to do with being from an urban neighborhood. Urban neighborhood was one thing- urban black, urban Hispanic, or urban any-non-white population, was quite another. That’s not to say I didn’t find any white urban poor, they absolutely are there, it’s just to say that through whatever racists constructs, what I was seeing was that culture still played a big part in what a given community was afforded for services. Anyway, even though I was beginning to see all of the issues at play for what they were, and even though I was beginning to take on a more aware perspective of culture as it played out in other aspects of my life, a conversation with my roommate while I was still in grad school led me to look much further into the issue of rural poverty. Again this led me slightly away from culture, race, ethnicity and their roles in the system and more towards a general concept of poverty outside the cities.

Naturally though, this story didn’t and doesn’t end there. See, lately I’ve been speaking to a friend who grew up in a rural area and through my discussions with him I’ve been reading books about indigenous peoples and the difficulties experienced by those populations, and once again I am faced with the realization that culture, racial background, and skin color, play a part in what is afforded to whom in terms of services, rights, and privileges. Now maybe its been my ignorance and maybe its been the ease with which I get moved off track into other subjects, but the issues of race and culture, colonialism and whiteness as an oppressive tool, and the ways in which these issues seep into every other facet of life are becoming increasingly difficult to step away from- intentionally or otherwise. The more I realize just how much this occurs the more foolish I feel and yet I cannot sit here and pretend it doesn’t occur and that I haven’t taken part (even through simple complacency) in my own life.

Now don’t get me wrong, I realize that my condemning myself for my obtuseness and ignorance, and any self flagellation will not change the situations of the poor no matter where they are or who they are. But in the end my questions and my interest in these matters only get more complex and confusing to me. Because, what I want to know now is: how- on top of every other issue these communities are facing- I can help people deal with the fact that this system, in which we all live and breath and work and play, is still either intentionally maintaining the status quo to benefit the few, or is willfully ignoring the fact that inequality is still prevalent (and inequality is a generous term for it). How do I, as a clinician, help people deal with this more readily- and how to do I deal with it within the context of my own personal life more openly?

I mean, I know that in the last years since I’ve graduated I’ve been working on this with the children I work with and I’m glad that we’ve gotten to some of the matters and addressed them, but the more I read and listen and learn, the more difficult it seems to deal with these issues one at a time- there are just too many, and it is so very overwhelming to both my children and me. At the very least I think I’m beginning to see clearly just how pervasive an issue this is, and as late as I may be to the game at least I’m here now.

Anyway, I think for me it will become more and more important to deal with these issues within my work since I do want to work with the rural poor, and I know I need to be prepared for that. Alternately though I also realize that the best way for me to learn how to deal with something is to put it into practice and experience it, and so hopefully I will get to do that with the population I want to at some point in my life. And I will work toward that steadily.

Anyway I guess that’s just on my mind lately. I know I promised you guys more about death, but this felt more pressing tonight.

Sweet Dreams.

Death Becomes Her

Death has been on my mind quite a bit lately. Not in the reverting-back-to-my-teenage- angst sort of way, but in that lately I’ve been faced with the painful task of looking it square in the eye; from the entirely live mouse I found on my glue trap that I had to destroy, through the dead bird whose head I hadn’t noticed until some sadistic teenager was kind enough to point out that I was in fact standing on it, and straight through to today when I found myself in a cemetery surrounded by macabre adolescents decked out in skull sweatshirts and black nail polish, photographers with no sympathy for a gravestone if its in their way, and the late, great, and notorious likes of Boss Tweed, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and a woman who was found petrified and drowned at the bottom of a lake in the 19th century. Ok well, the last one was my doing, having gone on a cemetery tour for Halloween, but nonetheless I’m starting to get a sense of a creepy little pattern.

I have a co-worker who likes to tell me about superstitions his parents passed down to him from their Jamaican ancestry and most recently when I informed him of a relative of a friend who had died, he graciously put on his most superstitious voice when he informed me that apparently death comes in threes. Great.

Its not that I necessarily fear death in some enormous way, it’s simply that since I’ve been young I’ve had this anxiety about it that has manifested itself in fear of losing my parents, and losing my father in particular. Now understand, my parents are wonderful examples of how to grow old gracefully and allow nature to take its proper course- my mother never tried to dye her hair when it went gray and my dad- though holding on the last bastions of his youth by hair-spraying his nearly non-existent locks into permanence- has always laughed at himself for it and known that ultimately he will get old and lose his hair and it will be ok. But see the thing of it is that my parents are getting older and my mother as of late has expressed a fear of how many years she and my father have left given that 3 of their 4 parents died before hitting their late seventies. So two years ago when she asked me to be the one to determine when to pull the plug if either of them should be on life support I got a little nervous. I don’t like thinking about them going and while I know that death happens inevitably to everyone I can’t imagine what it would be like to have one parent without the other or have neither of them around at all. They are too much in need of one another and have maintained our family traditions throughout so much that I just don’t know who could ever take their place when their gone- if anyone really could or should.

Anyway, I’ve always been a believer that as you move through life, things come up that hit you over the head and serve as a lesson. So then: why death? Why now? I don’t know if I have an answer and maybe there is no answer that I should be looking for, but the thing of it is that I know I’m afraid of death, and I don’t like to think about it, but it happens and inevitably I have to deal with it. And I know that- I just don’t like to. Maybe that’s why it’s coming up.

It’s certainly not as if I’ve never had to deal with death. When I was younger I attended the funerals of great aunts and uncles, cousins, family friends, and friend’s family members- it’s just that death, no matter whose, always makes me feel so completely saddened and utterly lost. Not necessarily saddened at the loss of the person who has died, but sad for their loved ones who are still alive, if that makes sense. When I see the grief on someone else’s face I want to be able to tell them its going to be ok, but I feel like that’s just not going to do anything for them and beyond that it’s just a false comfort. And I guess the thing that scares me is that one day I will know that loss on a far more personal level than I ever have before and I’m just not sure what I would do about it.

Maybe reminders of death aren’t such a bad thing then. I’m not saying we should become numb to it, because I don’t want to believe that that could ever be possible and I don’t think it could truly happen anyway. But I think that it’s a necessity because it’s something that we all get faced with sooner or later in our lives.

There’s more I have to say on death. Since it’s been invading my life for the last two months I’ve done a bit of thinking on it, like I mentioned. But perhaps the rest, which relates to death penalties, war, and far more political things, can be saved for another time. After all, a person can only take so much death for one day.

So with that I’ll end here, and simply say, apropos of the subject matter and time of year: Happy Halloween.

All in the Family

Whenever I think about family I always imagine pushing my hands deep into warm mud and pulling the roots up to the surface for inspection.

As a rule I never write about my family, but family does come up, primarily because it impacts us. It is so influential that it’s never a topic that can be avoided for long. In the next few weeks I go home for my niece’s christening and family, as such comes to mind once again. I went home recently for a vacation and it was the first time in a while that I spent more then 3 days with my family all in one sitting. Usually I can only take a few days at a time, and its not because they are terrible people, its not because I hate them, its because our dynamic usually only works for a few days at a time and then it becomes too much. For us I think it becomes too much because there is to much that has always remained unsaid within our family. We just aren’t emotionally expressive people and when you pair that with the things we’ve gone through it just makes us more inclined to try and ignore our feelings but less inclined to be able to do so.

Anway. I think family is tough for everyone though- I mean after all, your family members are the ones that have known you the longest and while they ultimately have perceptions of you that can be left over from times of skinned knees and self- absorbed childhood, they do see those small bits of our personalities that have been there since day one and that usually go unnoticed by others unless they look very closely. Maybe in a way that’s what keeps some of us tied to our family. Although they may never understand us intimately, they know us intimately and maybe sometimes it can be comforting to know that someone out there knows about how we developed into who we are- they were present and witnessed it for us.

This, I think, is the reason I believe your family is not just made up of those related to you. Sure, inevitably- unless your circumstances dictated otherwise- your family members bore witness to your development, but I think if anyone cares enough and pays close enough attention they can begin to know us at a different level as well. And then there are those life experiences that you share with others that push you into development together and inevitably create a situation where that other person then begins to know you intimately, even if they don’t understand you. This makes family too I think.

Creation of family throughout life for me has become important. Not the creation of a family-as in having kids or getting married- but the creation of family. Making an effort to bear witness to what others need someone to witness, accepting and understanding things as part of the eternal development we all go through, and likewise inviting people into my life that can do that same for me.

So in a few weeks, when I go back home for this christening, even though I disagree with the religion and even though I may never understand my brothers drive to christen his daughter, or my niece’s future perceptions of religion-whatever they end up being-I will have bore witness to this part of her development, this part of her creation and I can say that I know her and that she is my family. And in a way, as stilted as the interactions can sometimes get amongst family, it’s a comfort – at least to me- to continue the tradition of bearing witness and building family.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Its only 9AM and already sticky-hot. Every window in my apartment is slammed open but still there is no movement, no air. Its not even August yet and my movements are already labored and slow. It’s as if the atmosphere is so thick that, like in water, it takes all your energy just to move through it. As much as I am used to North East heat nothing quite compares to the mixture of car fumes and steam as it rises sizzling off the sidewalks and concrete buildings of a city, though at least the neighborhood is silent.

Unlike many of the major neighborhoods in NYC and Brooklyn, my neighborhood shuts down on the weekends in the most peculiar way- on one side of my street things are quiet Saturdays on the other its Sundays. This, I’m sure, has to do with the division between Hasidic Jews on one side and Christians on the other. And as testament to that, along with the quiet and as the sun sets each weekend day you see alternately:

men with curls and large black hats holding the hands of their wives in skirts and head scarves as their children run ahead in yarmulkes screaming at the top of their lungs at having lost the race.

deeply wrinkled elderly African American women walking in groups of two or three in bright pink, yellow, and blue skirt suits with the most ornate lace, tulle, and faux flower topped Sunday best hats you may ever see in your life.

Occasionally on a given Sunday you will also see these two groups entrenched in some sort of parade through the neighborhood. On one particular Sunday I was privy to a group of entirely male Hassid’s dancing and singing their way down the street behind a float of a giant crown that was turning and blaring music ahead of them. On another day I woke to hearing drums and horns making their way down the main street followed by elderly African American men in those straw hats seen so much around the 1940’s in political campaigns, women in that same Sunday garb moving tightly from side to side, and a casket topped with flowers being brought by four young African American men in suits. This neighborhood indeed has its own character.

The thing that saddens me about this neighborhood though is that not too long ago a major section of it was declared historic. While that works to preserve some of the buildings and the like, ultimately what it tends to be is a looming indicator of gentrification- for that matter so am I. The thing of it is that gentrification can occur in several ways from what I understand. By proclaiming a neighborhood historic what ultimately happens is it becomes increasingly difficult for the current landlords to make changes and improvements to their buildings without going through the proper community boards and historic societies. The cost of renovating a building so that it maintains its historic status and manner gets higher and higher with all the approval needed and all the mandates for type and quality of improvement increasing. Eventually landlords currently there cannot afford to maintain their buildings to historic standards and thus sell them off to wealthier and oftentimes whiter individuals and businesses.

Another way it occurs is this: since the real estate market in a given community is, in part, based on the crime demographics, statistics, and crime projections for the population of that community, and since crime demographics, statistics and crime projections are often heavily skewed to equate poverty with crime, blackness with poverty, and blackness with crime, when African Americans are in a neighborhood the property value remains low( read that again if you’d like, but it is an unfortunately true and terribly racist fact). When African Americans move to a neighborhood the property value actually lowers, and when whites move into a neighborhood it effectively goes up. When young white cheap rent hunters start to move to these neighborhoods this in turn allows the landlords to charge more for rent, effectively pushing out the lower income population which does tend to be African American - an unfortunate truth given the racism still rife in employment and education. This changes the neighborhood makeup toward a whiter population who can oftentimes afford more simply based on the fact that their pay scale is higher than that of the average African American. It begins with whites who produce high turnover for the neighborhood- namely young, single, trend seeking whites who move into and out of neighborhoods based on where the cheapest rent is. They locate the relatively lower income-but-on-the-rise neighborhoods and move on in. Being fresh out of college and on the job market they are making less than their older counterparts, but more than the majority of their African American counterparts and as such can afford to rent out more space for less people. This even has the effect of pushing out middle income families who are renting primarily because when landlords see young whites they remember the adage about the property value increase and work to actually push out many established families who may or may not be making them less money than the single white person. When they new group begins to earn more and populate the neighborhood, more shops, restaurants, and the like pop up to cater to their needs/wants over the needs and wants of the previous community. At this point the community can go one of several ways- it can either continue to grow as a den of commerce and work itself into a demographically white focused shopping/ dining area with a primarily singular population or it can blossom from a high turn over single white neighborhood into a neighborhood for young white families as they stay, procreate, and increase their level of income, or it can do a little of both.

Either way its clear what can happen and it is of significance that as my paragraph wore on my discussion of the lower middle class to middle class African Americans in the community faded out. The fact of the matter is that the majority get priced out and then demographically and socially weeded out. Its an unfortunate and very real cycle and as I sit here in my over heating apartment somewhere directly between the two much older and much better established communities I know for a fact- and have since the day I made the choice to move here- that I am part of this process. I am a young, single, white, woman who moved into this neighborhood because the rent was cheaper than the neighborhood I left. I moved into a spacious 1 bedroom apartment once inhabited by an African American wife and husband and their small child. Where two incomes once supported this apartment one now does and my landlord knows that where there is one young white person to fill a rent slot more can and probably will come.

So I guess the thing I grapple with when I begin this train of thought is what can I do about it? Do I move to a neighborhood I cannot afford? Do I move out of the city entirely so as to avoid the generally high prices that are rampant throughout? Do I make a concerted effort to support the businesses that are currently here so as to assist, in whatever tiny way, in the continuation of this neighborhood as is? The last is what I choose to do and yet I feel that it’s still not enough. I work and live in this community, shop as much as possible here, and try like hell not to be imposing about my needs and wants, but just as being only one person I did not create the gentrification process in this neighborhood, being only one person I cannot stop it. All I can do is live here, maintain my awareness, and work with what my community gives me- one side of the street shut down on Saturdays the other on Sundays and a whole lot of other fascinating little differences in between.

If you can make it Here?

Earlier this week there was a taxi cab parked in my back yard. Every Friday a siren goes off throughout the neighborhood at 8pm sharp and lasts for about a minute to 2 minutes. I looked up to see a star the other day but all I could make out was a satellite. Sometimes I get very worn out on the concept of New York .

A lot of the time I look at it like a challenge to live in NYC. I think its a fascinating place with tons of people from all over and tons of opportunity to experience whatever it is you want to experience, but more often than not I'm tired of getting cat calls in my neighborhood, I'm tired of getting jostled on busy streets and actively avoiding certain streets because they are so riddled with tourists stopping and staring upward, making it so that you can't get through. I'm exhausted by the filth that deposits itself on my windows and my lungs, I'm tired of being in steamy smelly subway stations and smelling urine on any given street corner.

So what is it that keeps me here? Maybe its a desire to prove myself, maybe its stubbornness in not wanting to move yet again, and not being sure where I'd want to go anyway, but beyond all this, sometimes I think part of me looks at it this way: If I can find peace in NYC then maybe I can find peace wherever it is I decide to go. Maybe if I can meet this challenge everything else will be a lot easier to handle and a lot less scary for me. Or maybe its something else...

I had a client this evening tell me that he was sure I grew up with rose bushes and little puppy dogs and a nice house. He said he felt like I couldn't understand him becuase while I grew up like that, he grew up in 1970's New York with broken bottles and pit bulls. Maybe in a way thats what I'm trying to understand about this place. New York has become such a mockery of itself, such a Disney Land for grown-ups that maybe I'm trying to stay here to figure out what it means to have grown up that way, to be born in a place that has seen such opposing sides of the spectrum, and to understand that pull that New York has on so many people, residents and tourists alike- myself included. New York, if nothing else, is a fascinating social experiment for the simple fact that you have the uber rich and the utterly poor all within the same city and you have so many different and oftentimes opposing cultures living in such close proximity, yet they all somehow manage to coexist. What I want to know is how and why.

I don't think anywhere else on the planet is quite like NYC and I think that That- regardless of all the sexual harassment, garbage, extravagance, and over the top capitalism- is what keeps me here. At least until I have a somewhat satisfying answer to my how and why...or grow tired of trying to figure it all out.

Dakar, Senegal

Whew, this is a tough one for me. Senegal is both beautiful and horrible at the same time. Give me a chance to explain and hopefully by the end you’ll understand why. The second I set foot on the plane in Belgium which was going to Senegal, I had an inkling I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. The plane was literally full (save one French family and myself) of African men all above six feet tall, all dressed in standard Muslim attire, and all speaking a language that was not French, not English, and not anything I could figure out based on a similarity to another language I’d heard, it was mostly Wolof. When I got to the airport in Senegal, it was still their warm season, which means heat so heavy it lays on you like a damp wool blanket, and you sweat while your taking an ice cold shower, even the shaded areas were painfully hot. There were tons of people milling about speaking something between French and Wolof, and they all wanted to take my bags and help me through customs. They were so intent on helping me that they refused to let me through customs in just any old fashion, I had to give them larger and larger sums of money in order that they not turn me over to the officials, for what reason I was never sure. Once outside I had the same treatment, my ride was not there(they expected me later), and my phone card, which is apparently the common case, did not work there. I refused to change money with so many people around and such seemingly relaxed security, so I made friends with one of the porters and he helped me out with the calling and getting my ride there. Here I should mention, there are distinct personalities in Senegal, those who take you in care for you, treat you like your one of their family members, and those who see you as nothing but a tourist and imagine you have buckets full of money just waiting to be handed out. Unfortunately the problem is, no matter how little money you think you have, you do have more than them by a significant amount, so how can you really tell them otherwise? Yeah, complicated situation to be in. That’s how it is in Senegal though, lots of great people who would never ask anything of you, will help you with anything and everything you want or need, and will never complain to you about the actually quite severe problems they have going on in their lives, and then lots of people looking for you to help them because your white and you speak English or French, so they think you can automatically and continuously give and give and give with no end. It would be nice if you could, and oftentimes I felt myself trying while I was there, but the thing to remember is that no matter what you give it can never be enough, they will always be wanting, they will always be suffering, so you must do as much as you can and as much as you feel right doing, and be able to let it go after that. Not as easy as it might sound.

I lived in Suffolk’s housing there during my stay, in an apartment off campus with several other students from a variety of African countries. I had chosen Senegal, not only because it was a third world country that may not have the type of funding richer European countries would (which would mean their programming for the homeless mentally ill would either be scant, non-existent, or at least creatively implemented), but also because of the significance of the family in African societies and because it was one of the few African countries that I was sure had a mental hospital to begin with, and in my mind, it was a little safer than others at the time which were suffering from uprisings and much anti-American sentiment based on who they thought Americans were, and the view they believed American had of Muslims after September 11th. That being said then I didn’t expect to find much, but I did expect to find something, and there was something, not much, but something.

A lot about my findings and a lot about Senegal in general made me feel like someone was holding me upside down and all the blood was rushing to my head. I felt dizzy and nervous and like I had everything in life from my perceptions to the way I ate my breakfast all totally wrong. Its hard to really explain just how different Senegal is, but just to give a few external examples, when you eat fish, mostly it’s the whole fish- eyes, teeth, gills, scales, it smiles at you in fact, when you eat with a family you eat out of a communal bowl and you eat with your hands, they laugh if you use utensils. Frequently the family will push all the portions of meat to your side of the bowl so that you as the guest get the “best” parts, if you’re a vegetarian its awkward but for me personally when that happened I took it and ate it, whatever the meat was regardless of the fact that I'm strict vegetarian- I didn’t want to offend someone who was giving me the largest part of what little they have. Beyond this and more subtle perhaps, is the fact that when someone calls you brother or sister they mean it. I lived with 19 of my closest brothers and sisters while I was there, you share everything- when you have food to eat you make sure you have enough for everyone in the room or you don’t eat it, you don’t need to ask to use their things- just use them and tell the person you’re using them( I always asked and I recommend asking, but I got that treatment from them), you mock and tease each other, if you had a mother to run to with complaints about how this one pulled your hair you just might do it- that’s how close you are. Its like nothing you’ve ever felt and nothing you will ever feel again, especially because you do get so close and then you know you have to leave them and go back to your posh American life style and leave them to their baobab juice, sandaled feet and hotter than hell African sun. It was because of this I started to hate myself in a way. I cried at least once a week out of joy and sadness over this fact, I wept like a tiny baby with one of the best friends and brothers I ever made the day I left and he cried right along with me telling me I had to go, that I couldn’t save Africa on my own and I couldn’t choose to live the way they live when I have so many other opportunities open to me.

That’s the thing about Africa, or at least Senegal, its raw emotion, when you get right down to it there is no mistaking the love and hate that exists there (I also got stones thrown at me my last day there). You know how people feel, they may not say it but they don’t have to, you can see it, and they are strong, man are they strong. Even the people who are trying to just take your money because they think your only a tourist, even the people who insist upon calling you toubab (white person) when they know your name, there is a strength and a good will there that cannot be mistaken. They mean you no harm, they are just trying to get by and you might just be the way they can do that. They’ve seen more hurt and pain and hunger than anyone I’ve ever met and they still greet you with a smile. I had neighbors who lived down our dirt road inside literally four aluminum walls with a tin roof and a blanket as a door, I never saw them eating but when they did they always offered some to me with huge grins, they wanted me to come eat with them and share in their wealth. Its almost disturbing because you expect them to break down, to hate life, but they don’t, as many of the doctors I talked to said when I asked them how people get by “god is their insurance”… “if you see a man with a broken down barely working car and ask him why he has such a car, he will say god is great and that is why” because at least he has a car, not too many others can say that.

Speaking of cars another thing of note about Senegal is their transportation system. There are buses with fixed rates but they don’t come too often, there are car rapides which technically have a fixed rate for a certain distance but if you don’t know it your in trouble, and the taxis will try to charge you whatever they think they can get, typically 2/3rds as much as you should be paying,( same price hike incidentally with souvenir vendors and other vendors unless they are within the concrete walls of a shop, which you don’t see too much of, the markets are all open and out on the street).

The thing about the culture that most people at home don’t get is that its not what your geography books or history books would have you believe. Your not living off lizards and running with gazelles (in fact Senegal has no real wildlife except stray goats and horses and yes tons and tons of lizards, get used to seeing them in the shower). There are pizza joints and clothing stores and internet cafes, its just that people have sacrificed other things in order to have these amenities. You might find someone who hasn’t eaten for a week to buy their son or daughter the latest shoes. That’s just how it goes sometimes there. There are even night clubs, hell we had a party at my apartment almost every weekend just to let off steam and celebrate being able to celebrate. Most of us didn’t have enough money to celebrate but when we pooled all our funds we came up with enough to be happy over and that’s how it goes at least on Suffolk’s campus. If you go out into the country you find things very different though, people are just sitting around because there is nothing else to do, no jobs, no really good farm land, and children are barefoot, have reddened hair and dried out scalps from malnutrition, spots where their mothers cut away their hair because they got ring worm.

Don’t get me wrong though there are beautiful things and places in Senegal, the beaches are pure and wonderful, you can watch the fisherman drag in their catches from their longboats, there is a beautiful lake called Lac rose which is pink and 10 times as salty as the ocean( a little touristy in one section and in another section it’s a work place, they mine salt from the lake to sell). There is Gorree island which is where all the slaves from Africa were shipped first in order to be sorted, and its got magnificent trees and flowers and water and sand and houses and you wonder how anyone could live there now but they do, I saw it as a kind of a triumph over the terrifying past of the island. To see some of these things like Gorree and the slave houses on it, they will charge you more because, as they tell you quite honestly, it’s the price for white people. And sometimes it seems wrong and becomes angering, but at the same time they make so little anywhere else, can you really blame them, and after all it was our European ancestors fault that the island is associated with what it is. Maybe it’s just a small bit of justice, least that’s how I see it. Speaking of money matters, just to put it briefly I took $700 dollars with me, I paid my translator $100 dollars for my interviews(as no one really speaks English) and I left with $100 still in my pocket, all told that sounds like about $500 used while I was there, and I bought a lot of souvenirs for people and (permanently) lent people money while I was there. I never wanted.

There is just so much to say about Senegal, this doesn’t cover half of it. Ask me about the little girls who would always stare and smile, the ones who were happy just touching my hair, putting it behind my ear for me, shaking my hand, touching my skin (in the more rural areas the little ones don’t see whites too often). Ask me about celebrating the end of Ramadan(Senegal is primarily Muslim) with a friend of mine and her family, or my choice to wear a kerchief upon my head on the Muslim Sabbath (Fridays). Ask me how none of my male friends approved of my going out at night on my own and always wanted to escort me. So much happened that I hated and so much happened that I loved, I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything, ever. Its something you need to see and take in with your own two eyes. I had a lot of difficulty the first few weeks I was there because things didn’t make sense, things didn’t seem fair, things didn’t seem to jibe with the way the rest of the world operated, but in order to really see Africa you must open your heart wide, as wide as you can and just accept it all. If you try and exist there without opening your heart it will break you open and tear you apart, if you see it with your heart and not just your eyes and/or American perceptions of the way things should be, Africa will stay with you forever, it will be you brother, sister, mother and father, it will take you in, albeit occasionally begrudgingly, and it will never let you go. There are certain smells and sounds that will forever be etched in my head as Africa, certain people I met whom I couldn’t remove from my heart if I tried with all my might, and I am grateful for every millisecond, every person who handed me a kind hello or a resentful truth. It is an experience that turns your world on its head and leaves it there for a good long time.

Hello

So I moved to this site from posting on myspace, though I'm not exactly sure what inspired the move. I think it had something to do with not wanting to lose all my postings should I ever decide to get rid of my myspace account.

I guess we'll see if I like this site better to post to- no promises, though.

Tonight I was planning to write something well thought out about my recent feelings on various topics, but after deciding to create this and bringing all my old stuff over I'm a little tired and frankly a little sick of my own words.

I think maybe tonight I'll put an old write up I did on here. Once someone asked me to write on my experience of living in Africa and I did, and I think it came out alright if barely informative.

Lets see if I can't search it out on this machine and throw it on here.

I guess if I can't find it you'll know because there wont be two posts this evening. Deal?

Disgust

Can I just say that I'm completely infuriated at the decision by George Bush to commute the sentence of Mr. Libby? In his quotation in all the papers he's noted as saying he thought that the 30 month imprisonment sentence was excessive. What I would like to know is when he believed he acquired the law degree to give him the credibility to say that. Its an outrage that he would make an effort to interject in anyway in a case in which he himself has been implicated as having some questionable involvement, its an outrage that he would so blatantly place himself above the law of the land-there is a system of checks and balances for a purpose, and what I expect to be the most outrageous thing about it will be the way democrats and republicans, while they are making a stir now, will inevitably roll over for him on this issue and it will die just as every other severely agregeous act he's committed has died. Its disgusting and disgraceful and it makes me ashamed to live in this country. Most people who know me know that I don't suffer fools gladly and while I have been hesitant to denounce the entire country-government and all- because of things about it being somewhat positive, this is quite possibly the straw that has broken the camels back. How can anyone stand by and pretend that this is sane? How can anyone stand by and pretend our human rights and our rights as citizens of the united states are not being violated and being violated in plain view with flagrant digregard to any basic code of ethics? This government and this administration infuriate me to no end.How can we as citizens stand by and take this? How can we say this is acceptable? Or even, that its not acceptable but that we are going to wait until he's out of office? He should be impeached and should have been a long time ago for all the atrocities he's committed. How can we sit in our homes, continuing to live our misinformed little lives and say that that man, that disgrace to humanity, is taking care of this country in the way he ought?
I mean seriously, is this how we've always been? Have we, as a people, really been so ignorant, self serving, disgraceful and dishonest? Who in the hell are we, who have we become?
I guess its a very sad day for someone like myself who has always tried to maintain such faith in humanity and the inherent good in people to realize that this country has no backbone left if it ever had one.

Patriotism at its Ugliest

So I woke up the other day to find that a friend of mine had posted another blog. Typically she writes about her stresses and issues in a very satirical and witty way that always makes me laugh (Now that I read them more frequently-sorry!) because she's got this smart ass sense of humor which is hysterical and the thing that cemented our friendship from the beginning (well that and her efforts to initially converse with me by saying "you're a nanny? Oh! I had a nanny when I was young!"). However, when I read it this time it was far from her typical entry. Don't get me wrong it was still funny as hell in its own warped sort of way, but this time it was about politics. Now when she and I talk politics typically what happens is we do less talking and more arguing. In fact there have been a few times where I've gotten as far as completely ignoring the words that come out of her mouth and telling her I need to stop listening to her and her launching back that I just want to make her a bad person. It gets ugly. The weirdest part of these arguments though is that on occasion we reach- albeit through very oppositional paths- a point of agreement. Today her comments effectively did the same thing.
See the thing of it was that she was essentially angry about this article in the New York Times featuring this woman who, through grass roots efforts, effectively aided in blocking the immigration legislation that allowed for amnesty. She herself is applying for immigrant status inFrance right now, so the issue of this woman's actions and beliefs became upsetting to her.Now when I read the article I too reached the same, or a similar, annoyance level with this woman and her constituents-albeit for deeply different reasons. The number one thing that annoyed me just immediately before even reading the article was the plethora of images of the people who opposed this legislation standing there next to American flags or even going so far as to wear an American flag shirt for the photo op. Fuck that. Do you people need to be reminded on a daily basis that the American flag is a symbol of a nation of immigrants? Or lets go even one step further- it's a symbol of a nation of immigrants that came here and took the land, the help, the wealth, and the pride of the nations of people that were already here and effectively forced them into submission and killed them off in large quantities. Those immigrants were land hungry, ignorant, and self righteous religious fanatics and businessmen when they came to this country and they stole all those things that those people in the article are adamantly seeking to protect against other intruders. How can we, as a nation, still be so ignorant to think that somehow the plight of the early European immigrants was any more correct or moral or upright than the plight of people who are not trying to kill us off, not trying to steal our land, but merely want a chance to thrive in a wealthy country full of people who took for themselves the opportunity to thrive when they arrived. I mean-seriously, let's bring this down to the most basic kindergarten level for a second- its like stealing a ball from the small kid in class and then being angry when that small kid and others say "hey can we at least play with it along with you?"To sit there and suggest that people, who are looking for a better chance in life, or even just a better job, are a threat is just plain short sighted. Now I know that these people are not necessarily looking to block immigration entirely, least not all of them, but making an effort to block a bill which would allow for amnesty and guest worker programs leads to all sorts other methods of illegal immigration on both sides of the border and the danger in this is not, as some would believe, that illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs and we need to stop that, but that illegal immigrants get taken advantage in ways that are extremely dis-advantageous to them and oftentimes frighteningly risky and unsafe. Creating more imaginary walls will not stop shady businessmen from taking advantage of these people, it will just cause them to go even further underground with their activities and do even more atrocious things to get their workers at lower pay, for no benefits, and with no workmen's safety or job security agreements. These individuals, such as the woman in this particular article, would do well to remember that unless they are from one of the Native American Nations, their ancestors had no more right to jobs and immigrant status here than individuals south of our border have now. Now don't mistake me- the people in this article do not upset me because they are expressing their beliefs and their desires for this country. While I whole heartedly disagree with their beliefs we would be far worse off if they were not allowed freedom of expression and the ability to sway the vote. What angers me about this article is their position itself and their smugness and self righteousness in their belief that they are the torch holders of liberty, freedom, and patriotism. It's as if they believe all those things can be summed up by questionable laws on illegal immigration which amount to no more than large walls and increased numbers of guns at the border. To suggest that they "knew in their heart[s that amnesty] was wrong for this country" is ignorant, oversimplified, and quite likely nothing more than a thin veil for xenophobic attitudes. If the original landholders of this country had held any one of the early European immigrants to the same standards chances are pretty damn good many of us wouldn't be here today. Since when did it become acceptable to behave in this way; ignoring realities and facts, and acting like spoiled children?I just think its absolutely absurd that they would be able to stand behind those issues and keep a straight face, more than that I think its ridiculous that they would do so in any sort of self- righteous manner, touting a flag as their sole credentials. There are certainly significant issues surrounding this topic, but to my awareness they are not the same reason's they are opposing these bills and in fact they don't even come near the real issues around immigration so – yes- once again though we've come to it from very different angles my friend and I have reached a similar conclusion: this woman and her constituents need to just go ahead and remember how they themselves got here and how lucky they are to be here, and unclench their grip on this idea of national identity so that we may continue allowing immigrants do what they've always done: seek the place that will give them, at least partially, what they need.

Communists to the Left of Me, Capitalists to the Right

I used to write poetry until I grew tired of the sound of my own whining voice. Well that's not actually the truth. I didn't whine too much in my poetry it was just too love struck and self reflective. Then I tried this blogging business, but even that's become too self reflective in recent posts. Before I make myself ill I think I'll try out a subject other than myself once again. And not New York either - New York has grown tired and rests pitifully in my bottom drawer waiting for me to have a fresh thought about it. Let's talk politics for a second. I understand most politics and governmental systems on a basic level and on a philosophic level, but when put into practice they tend to get a little frustrating for me and drive me towards a desire to pull my hair out.You see, I've been reading Capitalism in Crisis and other than impressing upon me just how many doctors Cuba has produced, this rambling piece of Castro's conversation with himself and his yes-men has served to make me wonder further about communism in practice. Guevara writes so much more passionately and clearly than Castro and yet it was Castro the people followed, Castro the people allowed into their farms and living rooms to lead them- no matter how much some of them regretted it later. Now before you start accusing me of bending my branches toward the right I've always been relatively left of center and had an idealistic hope that communism will prove itself to the world once and for all. But, honestly- take a look at the examples we have of communism. Russia, Cuba, Venezuela. Apart from the last one the examples are kind of abysmal. I mean-yes Cuba is working in a sense, but Castro made himself president for life effectively removing choice from the people, and Russia- things are so hopelessly corrupt in Russia you can't even get through the airport without spending hundreds of dollars in bribes. Venezuela seems to be moving forward, but I'm almost certain the US will do everything in their power to crush that just as they crushed Guatemala- over and over again until it couldn't stand on its own.Now those of you who know more than me about communism can perhaps explain this to me so that I will again see the light at the end of the tunnel, because seriously I've lost the energy to defend it against my objectivist friends who insist "at least capitalism works and the impoverished under capitalism are far better off than the impoverished under communism or any other style of government". I mean, in many ways I disagree with them, but I'm really getting weary of them throwing actual examples of failed or semi-failed communism in my face. To me communism seems to work best when it is genuinely in the hands of the people, such as in the Paris commune, which- I think- was actually closer to anarchy, or in any number of the small communal businesses/towns that have popped up in various places at various times in history before they were crushed by- well- the capitalist will. So why is it that communism appears, inevitably, to end up in the hands of few and seems to fail the people in so many ways? Why is it that a system with such hope can't seem to get itself to work the way it ought? Seriously, if you have an explanation- send it my way. I'm feeling frustrated with politics these days and I need to hear from someone who still has the energy to defend their beliefs, because I'm losing my idealism and my firmness of footing, and honestly, that's what keeps me keeps me moving when all else is failing me. I guess as it turns out, even I have to be able to keep my faith in something.

Possessive

So it started earlier this week with phone numbers, emails, and email addresses of people no longer in my life.Then today I followed a friend's advice and threw out 50 things from my apartment. At first it seemed a little tough to find 50 things, I got stuck a couple times. Eventually I collected the 50 things and almost immediately realized this didn't even make a dent in the things I possess. I mean, literally the difference was imperceptible. Some of the stuff was hard to throw out and some of it was really easy and I definitely could have cared less about it. But the thing that didn't happen, which I don't know if I was genuinely expecting or not, was that I didn't feel any better. I mean, yes it felt good to get rid of useless clutter and "things" I didn't really need, and sure I felt a tiny bit lighter, and a tiny bit honest about what I was using and what I wasn't, but I didn't feel like I had also started to clean out my mental space. I didn't feel anything like I had wanted to feel like. No, instead I just realized what a pack-rat I am-which I already knew-and felt guilty for having so much crap. The thing it did help me realize, though, was that it was ok to hold onto some stuff in lieu of other stuff. I didn't Have to throw away things I wasn't ready to throw away- I could start small. I guess that's the learning moment for the day for me. It's ok to feel unready to get rid of all the emotional stuff I'm hanging onto so long as I start the process and recognize that in due time it will be appropriate to get rid of the stuff I can't seem to let go of just yet, and when that time comes I may be more than ready to do just that. So I can throw out phone numbers and email addresses and I can even throw out old emails, and memorabilia, but I don't have to cut people, memories, and the like out entirely- least not right now. That, more than my newly filled garbage can, is what's making me feel lighter and making my head space feel a little less cluttered. I like the change. I think I should make it a practice to throw things out more often.

Obscura

I've discovered a few things about my talents as a photographer. 1) Im pretty decent at black and white. 2) Im even better at it when I'm outdoors taking the photographs in natural light, and 3) I have no clue how to work with fast film or in poorly lit places. I guess this means I need to tackle lighting. I'm also pretty proud of some of my candid portrait work-most of which you will never see here strictly because, well, its others peoples faces and I believe I dont have the right to display that stuff too often. Its also easiest for me when I know my subject intimately or vise versa. I find I can manage, with my subjects patience, to click off pictures that grab the looks I love to see on their faces- the looks I know them for and feel most connected with. There's this one picture of someone I used to know that I cannot take credit for, but that I love for its ability to capture this persons face so naturally and honestly. I think its by far my favorite picture of him-though to be fair I havent seen many. On his face its just this look of vulnerability, gentleness, patience and mild humor- its great and its so completely the way I remember him. It also makes me sad in a way though when I see it.Its strange though, because as sad as this picture makes me, its also why I love photography. There is so much in this world that is to me amazing and funny and sad and scary that goes on around us each day- photographs can capture that in a way that I dont see any other art form working and even if we are too busy to notice things in the day to day as they are happening, photographs can make us stop and notice and have an emotional reaction.Emotions and our ability to express them in a variety of ways is whats makes us human- I think, and so to create a piece of art that causes another to have an emotional reaction is just so intimate and human- its the only thing I can think of that comes close to affecting me in the same way a close relationship might. It draws you into the image or the feeling the other wants to invoke, shakes you up a bit and then lets you sit with it in your own way and come to your own conclusions about it- its just amazing.Anyway, enough of my prattle, just thought I'd share. I'm going to bed.

Fear and Loathing in New York

Yesterday I arrived back from visiting friends in Paris and while the flight there was hell and the flight back was just plain long I think it was the most relaxing time I've had in recent memory. I didn't think about work for a single second, I barely concerned myself with what I was going to do each day, I slept upwards of 9 hours each night and woke up at a leisurely time each morning, and I got to spend time with two good friends, who really are among my favorites no matter how much we differ on social issues.
Anyway, with all this leisurely time on my hands and with these two friends, who recently compromised on the problem of whose city to live in-Boston or New York- by moving to Paris together, I naturally began to think of my own living arrangement and where I would see myself living in the not so distant future. One of those friends, Nick, asked if I saw myself moving back to Boston and I didn't really hesitate too long before I answered not any time soon, but here's the thing of it that stuck with me- I don't see myself staying in New York either.
While there is much about this city that I love, there is also much that I do not. For instance, when I first moved here I noticed how one common thing to do was to have bars on your windows if you lived on the first floor of your building. Just starting out here I thought that was the most absurd and paranoid thing in the world. Living in Boston I spent two years on the 1st floor of a house with an open back yard, and open driveway, both abutting my three low level windows and I never once considered myself at enormous risk. For another year in Boston I lived in a split 3 story, again with first floor windows unbarred-this time with a shared basement, and the only thing that ever crossed my mind was that our apartment was really close to the street in a fratty-college district, and I hoped no beer bottles would come flying through a window.
Now having lived in New York for 3 years and just having moved to a 1st floor without bars, though surrounded by gates and walls, I find myself a little anxious at the prospect of not having bars. This makes me angry. It makes me angry that it has almost become a necessity in my life to cage myself into my home. Not a necessity necessarily based on the safety of my neighborhood, but based on my acclimation to an environment that seems to, on some levels, teach mistrust and breed fear. Living with bars on windows perpetuates a belief that safety can be assured by drawing further and further into ourselves both physically and emotionally. If we hide ourselves away enough and place ourselves behind our own bars far enough then no one and nothing can hurt us, right?
This practice seems further encouraged by the whole sense of isolation that envelopes this city. We don't want anyone to attack us or our stuff so we place walls between us and them. However, because we cannot necessarily judge who will and who will not cause us harm, we place that wall between us and everybody/everything else. We isolate ourselves within our own neighborhoods and as a result we fail to come to any real understanding about who/what is safe and who/what is not. The cycle continues and we perpetuate this isolation and fear, living our lives as if they include no one else and as though we have no impact on others and vise versa. It's a maddening cycle and its concerning to me that I've become a part of it. I don't want to live in senseless anxiety. While a certain amount of caution with strangers and home security can be advisable in most living situations, this is too much. These bars, this isolation, the strange way we keep ourselves oblivious to even the physical presence of another human being a few feet away in a subway car, each of these things by themselves may be minimal but all of it together just seems like far too much. On a greater scale it's as though we slowly become less human, less feeling, and thus become far more mechanized and absorbed in our own worlds. Its not a way I think I can live for very long happily-so I guess I don't intend to.
Now the other issue that's been scratching at the back of my brain and causing me to wonder about how long I'll last here is the focus of media, social programming, educational legislation, you name it- on the urban poor while ignoring the rural poor. Over the last few years I've had this strain of conversation with a number of people and have been able to observe the ways in which rural populations tend to get ignored for the purpose of providing funding assistance to cities. Now this in no way means I believe cities should get funding cuts in their social welfare programming, certainly city poverty is still a great concern. But the thing of it is this: not only does funding get geared towards urban populations, but so do studies, services, research programming and the like. People simply do not think that much about what poverty looks like outside the cities and the ways to amend this in those areas. Social work programs are geared towards aiding city dwellers, psychology programs, education programs, all of it is geared towards focusing graduates on work in the cities and while this is all relevant and important work, it does not take into account the entire picture of poverty, leaving out many individuals in populations across the united states who do not have access to important assistance because they live too far outside cities to qualify or too far away from major funding sources to get noticed.
So what does this all mean for me and eventually for the populations I want to work with? New York is great for many reasons, and while I don't plan on leaving any time in the next 3 years or so, the fact of it is that it does not and possibly has never felt like home. To tell the truth I don't know if anything will ever feel like home. Perhaps I ought to simply go wherever the next plane takes me, or the next idea or question. Maybe it will be the other coast, perhaps the middle states somewhere, or maybe I will find work in the UK-who knows, but its nice to think about every now and then- it keeps me on my toes and interested in my work and my life, keeps me asking those all important questions and going out to actively find the answers, and sometimes for me I think that is the most important thing in the world.

You scratch my back, I'll let you listen in on my break-up

There was one afternoon last summer when I was on the phone with my sister and I realized 1) I was beginning to run late for a job interview, and 2) I didn't have any nylons to wear to this interview. My sister suggested that I buy a pair at the drug store and put them on while I was waiting for the subway, she said she was certain that New Yorkers had seen far stranger things on the subway platforms before and that I would go unnoticed by most. While inevitably I bought the nylons and put them on in the office bathroom before the interview I began to notice the things people do both on the subway platform and on the trains themselves.
New York City has a fascinating culture to it. Partly what adds to this is the fact that there are upwards of 8 million people existing together in one relatively small city while trying desperately to pretend they are completely alone. Truthfully it seems this is the only way to make it through the day in a city so over-crowded with residents, blow ins, day trippers, and tourists. Likewise it appears to be the only way to function on a subway platform or in a train car, when your forced to sit or stand at any given hour of the day with your knees pressed into the calves of an individual whose intimate space you've necessarily been introduced into though you may not even know what their face looks like, let alone what their name is. Its easy to see why this set up might lead to a small amount of depersonalization and lead to some of the more, well, quirky and private behaviors people partake in within these most public of spaces.
I can remember one instance when I was coming home from the far reaches of Harlem to the even further reaches of Brooklyn, and I was standing grasping the subway pole, rather exhausted from a painfully long day. This woman with a stroller entered the car somewhere around 14th St. and stood hanging on to the pole that runs beside the door as there were no seats available. Anyway, at some point in our ride we stalled over the Manhattan bridge and I can vaguely recall the woman shifting to my pole. In no time at all she was standing with her back to my poll as occasionally people are wont to do when the pole is empty and no one else is using it- this however, what not the case for my pole, but nonetheless this is what she did. Now typically when people make the move to rest their backs on a pole in use, they make an effort to keep their back away from the hand of the pre-existing pole inhabitant- not this woman. As time progressed and we remained stalled the woman began to use my knuckles, which were facing outward in her direction, as a means to either scratch or massage her back, and continued to do so, rather aggressively, until we reached my final destination at which point I pulled my hand out from behind her rather concerted efforts at relief and walked out of the train. (I will leave why I didn't move my hand up to your own interpretation- it wasn't that interesting a reason anyway).
Beyond the physical contact though, individuals will often be found doing numerous other tasks or engaging in behaviors you may not, imagine typically occurring in a subway station or car. Heres a small list: changing clothes, talking/laughing/arguing to themselves- loudly, applying their make up, curling their hair, praying aloud, reading aloud from the bible/quarran/torah/ copy of Dyanetics, singing operatic compositions for no money or audience, blowing their noses into trash cans, peeing in direct view of others, engaging in heated debates and breakups on their cell phones, writing love letters, studying for immigration exams, studying for neurology exams, studying for GED exams, making out, having sex, threatening their children, practicing dance moves, falling asleep on another person (usually a stranger), shadow boxing, and rearranging the "wet paint" signs so they say "aint wet". Some of the things on this list I'm sure you could imagine more than others, and yet the extent of what people might do in those public spaces certainly doesn't end there.
So what is it about this city that people feel either so completely at home or completely alone that they feel safe to engage in any number of things outside that they might normally keep private? Could it be that the boundaries of individuals who live crushed among 7,999,999 other people tend to get crushed as well? Or is it more that you figure among so many others you get lost in the crowd and no one notices that you're putting on a pair of pants underneath your skirt and slipping the skirt off over those pants?
Have we depersonalized so much in this city that we treat other individuals- other human beings, as walls, mirrors, polls, pillows, and back-scratchers? And above all that, is this a bad thing or is it simply a way coping or a way of being close while distant, a way of making this city seem a little more personal and inviting- a little more like home…
I don't know for sure- but I think that strange as it is, perhaps that's one of the things that makes New York so inclusive, such a sought after place, and so intriguing to so many ---well that and its enormous buildings and the ability to get breakfast/drugs/sex delivered to your house from the local bagel shop or diner, but thats a whole other facet to the culture of New York that I'll save for another time.

Give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind

Its 5:45 AM. I'm not up willingly. See my neighbors either have a sexually frustrated cat or a mouse problem. All I can hear directly over my head while I sleep is ripping cloth and scurrying feet. And the thing of it that's keeping me up is that it seems to go away whenever I turn my light on. And though I've checked for torn carpet in that area of the room and little mousy visitors, I've been unable to turn up any evidence that its actually me with the mouse probloem, yet still- light on, no noise; light off, ripping. I swear to god I even heard something land on my pillow at one point and whether it was hallucinations, really good hearing or really poor walls, its forced me to be awake in terror, shrieking. Here. With you. Sitting at my desk, flashlight nearby, lights on, feet up on the chair, ready for action. What actions I might take I have no idea, because really in truth if it is a critter in my apartment it sounds slightly larger than a mouse and although I may be a vegetarian and a scaredy-cat at that, my first instinct is to want it dead. Dead in whatever way little carpet ripping creatures die. Whether its a shoe to the head, or a nice bowl of poison I dont care- I just want the thing gone. I haven't slept well in over a week and I just want someone or something to take care of this little party crasher so I can sleep. Man sometimes I really hate living alone.

Late 20's and Cheap Champagne

So I'm turning 26 in two weeks. Usually when a New Year and new birthday come about, while I don't make resolutions, I do start to feel like maybe things will be different, but this year I don't feel that way. Whether or not its because of the fact that I'm getting older and I'm less unrealistic about change, or its because of the fact that things this year have been rough and its difficult to picture things being different or better, life in general appears no different to me than it did the day before New Years. I don't know if I was just absurdly childish and optimistic up until now or if I just wanted so badly to believe that I had the power to change things in my life, but whatever it was it spurred me to continue in the optimistic hope( more than belief) that things could and might be different.

When I look back over this last year I know that I still concern myself too much over what people think of me. I still get into arguments with the people I care deeply about, I still choose to deal with and care about individuals who don't really care that much for me, and I still like to put up a very tough exterior while feeling very fragile on the inside. I'm sure some of you are saying if I haven't changed that stuff by now I should grow up and change already cause its about damn time. And that might be fair in a lot of ways. I mean, honestly I've been working with all this personal stuff since I was young so I should have learned my lesson and moved on, but I guess the thing of it is that I haven't. It sounds over simplified but one of the things you learn as a therapist is that as a person you don't change until you're ready to and you consistently deal with the same problem over and over in varying forms until it's resolved- whenever that may be. And I guess maybe these things are why I feel that I've made no progress in my life this year, but at the same time I know that's not true.

In this past year I've been forced to figure out this whole loss concept and what it means to be left by someone before you can walk out on them. My M.O. in the past about that had always been to leave before getting left which made perfect sense to me because even if it was childish it meant that I was in control of the when the where and the reaction I would have to the loss- I could plot this stuff out and have the dialogue worked out in my head before the other person even knew what hit them. When I had to deal with someone close to me leaving me behind and moving on in life before me I realized how impermanent everything was and how important it was to keep letting those in your life know how the role they play impacts you. I also learned how shitty it was of me to just cut people out in the ways that I did and I began to understand that it was better for me to deal with loss by acknowledging it rather than sweeping it under the rug and busying myself with the next activity or person.

I've also, in this past year, been asked to deal with, to a small degree, my own mortality and what it means at core to be a woman. Finding a lump in my breast was the scariest thing in the world to me for many reasons, but beyond dealing with the possibility of a fight with cancer and beyond the vanity and fear that came with something so intrinsic to my womanhood being attacked by my own body it taught me several things. Mainly it taught me how strong other people are who have gone through much more than me, and secondly it taught me how wonderful and amazing and supportive friends can be. I pushed a lot of people away by not telling them a thing about what was going on, and while my boyfriend at the time took off after I told him and before my first test results were in, my friends, even the friends who were hurt by my hiding this, were such a powerful force that it still makes me teary to think about the ways they helped me not be afraid and look at the reality of the situation. They helped me face this scary thing that turned out to be something I could laugh at and joke about thanks to their support and that to me was one of the greatest feelings in the world, and made me realize how ok it is to ask for help sometimes and take help sometimes.

I also started learning what it means to quietly and gently let things go. Relationships and friendships have never been easy for me because of how important I consider the people in my life. I need the people I have in my life for various reasons- some because they make me laugh, some because they make me see how foolish I am, some because they need me as much as I need them and that feels good, and some because I know they depend on me. But what I began to understand was that everything has a beginning, an end and a purpose in the middle and while I still don't fully believe it and am not fully ready to accept it I know that once that purpose is served its ok for me to let go of things and people and concepts so long as I keep a place for them within me and acknowledge what they taught me with love and respect.

If I'm being honest with my readers right now I'm starting to feel a little too serious about all this, and since that's one of the things I haven't really learned to cope with yet I think I should start getting to my point, which is this:

I guess for me many things in life change and many stay the same and many I find I stay struggling with for a painfully long time until I finally figure out the really basic message of whatever it is. And while I can always sit here and wish and hope that each new year or each new birthday will bring me complete and total enlightenment, change, readjustment- whatever it is I'm calling it -ultimately sometimes its ok to slow down and just be alright with myself and my pace every now and then and accept the fact that change doesn't happen over night and may never happen and that what I wish for may not ever occur in my life time and all that is ok. Not to get all philosophical, especially about things I know barely anything about, but in Zen Buddhism they believe that everything is perfect as it is simply because that's how its happening and if it was meant to happen any other way it would have, and while that seems really obvious and basic it is extremely tricky to fully believe in and put into practice- at least for an individual like me who still cares deeply what others think of me and still believes that I am responsible for and can fix the moods/ mood swings of those around me- but those can be issues of change for another time.