"What the Buddha actually suggested is that it is the avoidance of the elusiveness of the object of desire that is the origin of suffering. The problem is not desire: it is clinging to, or craving, a particular outcome, one in which there is no remainder, in which the object is completely under our power."

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Sometimes for me anxiety feels like an inarticulate messenger, trying to bring me information but without skills for clear communication. So I try to say, "All right, I have received your message, you are free now." But it seems like I don't really set it free - I keep it tied to the porch, or I let it go but I leave food out for it so it can slip on its old shoes, tread its well worn, comfortable path, and enter the house at a moment's notice.

But other times, the message is so cruel and mean. It doesn't seem inarticulate at all, but effective and precise. I think for me, the reason for this is that I want to break myself down so someone else will mother me. I don't want to be capable, I want to be comforted. I don't want to have dreams and passions that I must relentlessly work and risk for. I want to be rocked in a rocking chair.

What all this has to do with eating our own skin, I still haven't figured out. I enjoyed our conversation about it a while back, though.

Where is my power?
Is it in the air around me?
Is it in my mind?
Where is the love that surrounds me?
How can I harness all my goodness
and unleash it upon the world?
Where is my power?
I'll take it in the time allowed me.

Recently I've been waking up with a familiar anxiety, looking around at my room from under my warm sleeping bag and not wanting to emerge. Then somehow out of habit I'll remind myself that this is my life. This is the only life I have in this form. Whatever is coming, whatever sadness or loneliness, is mine to feel and interpret. So I water my plants, I play with Moondog, I make a safe area in my heart for a wild, axe-wielding 13 year old.

This was my favorite scene from Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

"How do I accept life?"
"Get a tattoo see a shrink play a racket sport wear perfume and fake eyelashes pussypop 3x a day meditate take pictures w pinhole camera scream?"

I just got home from my elective, where we had three poster presentations, one of which was mine and Bridgette's! Our presentation was about trying to change the medical standard of care so that sex assignment surgeries are not performed on intersex babies immediately after birth. I really enjoyed researching this project and in the process came upon the beautiful website for the Intersex Society of North America, whose positions I have now enthusiastically adopted. They basically say that doctors should be completely forthcoming with parents, immediate emotional support and counseling should be available to the family, medical testing should be done to attempt to determine the underlying cause of ambiguous genitalia, (this is because some causes raise associated medical concerns AND because for some of the underlying causes, the vast majority of children will identify as girls while for others they will more likely come to identify as boys) and finally, the parents should use all available information to assign a gender, either boy or girl, to the child, and no surgery should be performed until the child is old enough to make an informed decision about it. The ISNA specifically advocates that parents assign a gender to their child, and not raise the child as a third gender. One of their reasons for this is that they feel to raise children in this way isolates them while at the same time making it seem like male and female are fixed categories, and intersex is a fixed third category. On their FAQ page they include this amazing section:

Why Doesn't ISNA Want to Eradicate Gender?

We’re often asked why ISNA doesn’t forcefully advocate for a genderless society. Many times, these questions come from people with a genuine interest in gender studies and educating people about intersex. The truth is that we share lots of common ground with people in the humanities and/or activist communities who have fought long and hard to insure that the voices of marginalized people are heard.

When women of color told feminists that their lives weren’t reflected in theories that assumed white experience to be universal, scholars listened. When queer people came forward to say that theories of gender that neglected sexuality often fell short of capturing the realities of their lives, scholars listened. Without a doubt, scholars have a rich history of taking the voices of marginalized people seriously and changing their theories and practices accordingly, and now ISNA asks that scholars listen to what people with intersex conditions have to say—even if it might not be what they’d like to hear.

The whole website is so heartfelt and articulate - I love it. I think our presentation went very well - people seemed interested and asked a lot of great questions. It was the highlight of an already good day. The other presentations were very interesting, too. One was about legal and economic issues around surrogacy and another was about the history of forced sterilization in the United States. Such a good way to spend the evening!

I have also been a hat knitting machine! I am on number three in as many weeks!

No one has more of a right to love, life, or acceptance than anyone else. The circumstances of our birth or parenting don't add anything to or take anything away from those rights. We need to hear more voices, not fewer, and living in a way so that others can be heard is different from silencing ourselves. Living in a way that lets others take up all the space they need is different than constricting ourselves. There is room for all of us to expand, and if we don't do it in life, we will do it in death as our bodies decompose and spread all over the earth.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
~ Marianne Williamson

My Day

Yesterday was my day. I set myself to the ongoing task of accepting myself and my decisions, resisting an overarching narrative of success or failure, treating myself kindly and letting love, support, and happiness flow through me unhindered to the people who have what I think I want. I kiss myself, I chew my own food, I marry the bed.