31 days of feminism: day 1

31 days of feminism: day 1

I would like to embark on a gentle exploration of my relationship to feminism. Several summers ago I read bell hook's "all about love" and I fell in love. bell hooks gave me a written expression of feminism that I could sink my teeth into. It begins with recognizing the personal as political. With this agenda I am able to look at my day-to-day life in the context of a bigger (political?) perspective. Feminism is a word I admittedly (ignorantly?) use without a comprehensive knowledge of its herstory of use. Nonetheless, feminism holds an abundance of meaning for me. There is a rich complexity to it that I don't intend to minimize. My focus however is on the personal sphere of knowledge that encompases my life experiences.

Tonight I picked up Kristen Suh, creator of The Pussyhat Project,'s "DIY Rules for a WTF World: How to Speak Up, Get Creative, and Change The World." How's that for a title? She found a place in my heart within minutes and she reawakened the feeling of feminism's importance to me. I am so excited to be intentionally re-entering a community that celebrates femininity and explores how anyone can own their power to change the world.

Why and how does feminism speak to me?

In part because, in order to live better and love better, it is of great importance to me to be able to generously and compassionately love myself. And loving myself means loving and accepting my femininity.

Six years ago with insurance and access to therapy I began my journey of opening up to different ways of learning to love. Since puberty I battled suicidal ideations and thought patterns of self-loathing. I arrived at college, and despite my dedicated efforts in my teen years at self-improvement through religious practice and academic accomplishments, put simply, I still hated myself. I am so grateful to the therapists who modeled gentle curiousity, kindness, and compassionate understanding in our sessions... The art of that form of listening is a feminist practice in the way that I understand feminism...

I'm not sure if I can explain how feminism brought me back to the path of love, but I know it has... And in the next month (plus forever?) I want to reflect on how feminism brings me closer to love...

31: day 13

31 days of gratitude. Day 13.

Reflecting on the mottos and expressions I was raised with...

"...no use crying over spilled milk."

"If that's the worst thing that happens to me then I'm a lucky girl."

"Always gayly forward, never straight ahead."

The first may sound curt and unfriendly. The second may sound dismissive. The third may sound aimless. But that's not how they were used in my upbringing. These sayings were the chapter titles of my unwritten education. My family legacy that I am proud to carry forward is a way of life that sometimes from the outside seems eccentric, at times irreverent, careless, or even absurd. There have been times in my life that I have actively resisted this attitude. My response was "there is something to get angry/upset/frustrated/outraged about. This needs to be taken seriously, confronted, complained about, dealt with."...The nuance I didn't understand was that you can look for the positive and still be realistic about the negative. You can be proactive *and* patient. You can respect and be grateful for this life and still be doing what you can to make more good things.... I know it's not a solid ideology. And I'm not preaching so much as expressing my gratitude for the perspective that was handed down to me to put in my tool belt for coping with life. I stand on the shoulders of giants.

31: day 14

31 days of gratitude. Day 14 

Yesterday I bought a couple Winnie The Pooh books from a thrift store for myself. Not for a young cousin or for some future child I might have or babysit. Nope, just for me. It wasn't the philosophical "Tao of Pooh" or even the original A.A. Milne Winnie The Pooh. Nope, it was two edition's of Disney's "My First Winnie The Pooh" series. The text is larger. The sentences are shorter. There are fewer words on each page and fewer pages (equal emphasis is on the illustrations). Intended for beginning readers or even pre-verbal children possibly.

When I was in second grade my teacher, (I loved this teacher. I accidentally called her mom once), told me that I could be reading more challenging books. I was encouraged to put down my beloved chapter books and push myself to tackle more advanced texts. Her influence lead me to look through the bins with the largest books (this was still when books were in categorical bins) with more unfamiliar words and long paragraphs. By nine years old, although I derived little pleasure from it, I was trying to work my way through a 400 page novel written in the 1950s because it was the book with the smallest font I could find, and I thought doing so would win the approval of my educators. At twelve I was reading "Memoirs of A Geisha" and novels by Patricia Highsmith who wrote about psychologically disturbed acts of murder. By that point there was not only no limits to what I would pick up to read there was definitely no censorship, as long as it was "literature."

I loved reading and I was engrossed in these books, but there was definitely a part of me that was doing it because I thought it was impressive and, again, would earn the approval of the adults in my life. To be honest, even though few people if anybody would tell me that reading was "bad" for me, I think I didn't always have a healthy relationship to reading. Often I would emerge from the world of my books moody and wishing I could escape from reality back into fiction again. Later in life, I traded fiction for self-help books and religious texts. I was still driven by a need to be better, to be worthy, to be loved.

It was Sister Lilli Anna at the Community of St. Mary who showed me what the love of reading could look like at any age. A trip back from the library and she had a bag full of children's books. She kept them by her bed, she said, to read at night. Sister Lilli Anna was a kind and intelligent middle aged woman. She could be reading anything she wanted, and she chose books with colorful illustrations and simple stories for the ultimate "easy reading."

At first I embarrassed by the idea of walking into the children's section of the library unaccompanied by any smaller human being, but Sister Lilli Anna let me borrow some of her books. I was hooked. I had forgotten just how poignant a children's book could be. Just enough said with the right words and delightful illustrations to tell the rest.

I am so happy and so grateful I no longer feel the same pressure to only read what might "improve" or challenge me. I am so grateful I can lay down in bed before sleep and open a Winnie The Pooh book and be entertained by the pictures and comforted by the no-frills narrative, and even, after resonating with a simple message or moral about life, feel worthy and feel loved.

31: day 15

31 days of gratitude. Day 15.

Heads up: Womyn's bodies and "body image"...
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Today I cut out the breast padding in my dress. I didn't see the need for it, other than making my breasts look slightly padded/larger, and it was getting kinda crumply in the wash. So, snip snip.

When I was thirteen I would've sewn the padding *in* to make my cup A breasts look like a B cup. I would've been convinced that I was just filling in the gap until my adult breasts grew in. Turns out "adult" breasts can look just like puberty-cusp breasts.

In my teens, I thought I had to make up for my breast size in all kinds of ways. I told myself, that if my breasts were smaller, at least I was an XS size zero everywhere else, at least I could be reassured by a narrow fashion beauty standard. Then I became a size 2 and then a size 4, 5, sometimes a 6. So I found out that maybe I was "pear" shaped. Well, at least I could dress for that. The internet gave me all kinds of ways to make my thighs look slimmer and ways to frill-up my bust to "flatter" this pear shape and hide "problem areas." Shopping for clothes became about the pear shape rules. Dark bottoms, pattern tops, boat-neck cuts, blah, blah, blah. I stopped wearing anything tight against my stomach.... Fast forward a few years later... I stopped giving as much of a fuck.

I am grateful I don't feel the same need to hide or "enhance" my body. I am grateful for the color pink, summer dresses, hiking sandals, and silk scarves.

31: day 16-18

31 days of gratitude. Days 16-18.

Heads up: ... Hormones, Bodies, & Brains.
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Life is crazy sometimes. Or at the very least my perception and experience of it certainly is. I strongly identify as a HSP (Highly Sensitive Person, a term made popular by Dr. Elaine Aron). Alongside this aspect of myself, I've come to accept that I am especially sensitive to hormone fluctuations. However, it is one thing to have a basic understanding and expectation that I will, on a somewhat regular basis, be hijacked by fatigue, mood swings, irritability, and extreme depression. It is another to live though these bouts.

I can say this, I have survived so far. I am so grateful for the moments of clarity that come between these episodes. Moments of clarity where I can take a kind and caring perspective on my struggles, and do my best to take care of myself by maintaining the routine of going to work, exercising, eating well, sleeping consistently, spending time with friends, practicing mindfulness, and taking my medications. It's easy to do these things for myself when I have the physical/emotional/mental capacity to carry out these activities and enjoy them. It is very challenging to accomplish basic self-care when my body seems convinced it is on death's doorstep. No matter how many times I emerge from these valleys and again reach my peak, it can feel like there is no escaping that eventual plunge back into my personal hades. When I arrive in those moments, the moments when it feels like there is no guarantee that I will surface again, it is so hard to do anything but hold on. I wish in those moments that I could have some certainty, some promise, that I'll be okay... But who am I to know the future? I can truly only hope that this time like all the times before I will make it through to the other side... What I have done is try to surround myself with reminders of that obscured light. I write affirmations and inspiring quotes on post it notes. In the in-between periods I set intentions, say my prayers, and live by my values as best I can. I burn incense and put crystals on my supine body. None of these rituals are silver bullets.

I am grateful for moments of clarity. I am grateful for the friends who support me through my journey. I am grateful for the trust that emerges, the trust in the unfolding, trust in possibility. When I start to catastrophize in my mind about all the possible terrible things that could happen, I try to remember that those scenarios are just that, possibilities. And if there is a possibility of _________(every terrible thing my brain can imagine) then there is at least an equal possibility that everything will be amazing. And beyond possibility, there is a high probability that it will be a mix of both, the terrible and the amazing...