With My Sincerest Admiration

It's unfortunate there aren't as many English words for love as there are kinds of love--I'm sure I'm not the only person who's frustrated by the fact she has to use the same word to describe her feelings for her parents, her girlfriend, her cat, Les Miserables, and eggplant parmesan (not to mention my friends, Divinity, and good LORD these vegan cupcakes you used to be able to get at GreenStar co-op in Ithaca).

So, for the purposes of this post, I'm jettisoning romantic love and instead focusing on people I admire.
Well, first and foremost I would have to put my mother--she is the one exception to the rule I'm setting for myself that these can't be people I know personally, because then it would be impossible to keep the list to a manageable size and if I left someone off (unintentionally, it must be said) I would feel terrible. I've also decided not to go with the 'obvious' answers: in fact, I should probably just get those out of the way now. Martin Luther King Jr, Jesus, the Dalai Lama, Sojourner Truth, Leonardo DaVinci, Toni  Morrison, Betty Friedan. And, hell, it's still hard to keep it to a manageable size, so let's just say...five.
So. In no particular order:
1. My mother. Wise, witty, kind, compassionate, blunt. I am my mother's daughter. I love her more than words can say. Especially around Mother's Day it's common to hear people spouting off about how their mothers are the best in the world. This is empirically false, as my mom is the best in the world, and thus every other mother, while of course superlative in her own way, is inferior to her. Just getting that out of the way (and just kidding...kind of. Please don't send hate mail).
2. Albert Schweitzer. I read a book about him (auf Deutsch) when I was in high school and was blown away. Philosopher? Check. Kick-ass theologian? Yup. Physician? That too. Anti-racism and anti-colonialism advocate at the fin-de-freaking-siecle? Sure enough. Premier organist and music theorist? You know it. Established a medical mission in Gabon, wrote books on subjects as diverse as philosophy, theology, medicine, music theory, and civil rights, and was a vegetarian. Everyone thinks William Carlos Williams was such a Renaissance man because he wrote poetry as well as practicing medicine; Schweitzer would have pwned him in a second. He wrote a book called "The Psychiatric Study of Jesus." It gets no more rad than that.
3. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Abolitionist, feminist, and scholar, who in the 1890s wrote 'The Woman's Bible,' the first widely known piece of feminist criticism of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. She waded into territory that other early feminists and suffragists thought was too controversial. Also, interestingly, she is recognized as a saint by the Episcopal Church. While I was a student at Cornell I got to visit her old house in Seneca Falls, NY--it was a wonderful day.
4. Marie Sklodowska-Curie: First person (not woman, PERSON) to be honored with two Nobel prizes: one in Physics, which she shared with her husband, and one in Chemistry, which was hers alone. She was the first to use the now-ubiquitous term 'radioactivity.' One hundred years later she's still the only person to have received prizes in two scientific disciplines: bam. At the beginning of the twentieth century she used both her maiden and married names, and combined an active scientific career with motherhood. Unfortunately, she died of aplastic anemia brought on by her extensive exposure to high levels of radiation. Sad.
5. Nikola Tesla: Probably one of the greatest engineers, physicists, and inventors of awesome stuff, ever. He pioneered wireless communication (by radio, not Bluetooth), developed a system--bought out and destroyed by his contemporaries--by which electricity could be distributed wirelessly over miles (stop and consider the implications of that for a moment), calculated the Earth's resonant frequency and developed the Alternating Current power system we use today (beating out Thomas Edison, who was by most accounts a total jerkface). He also accomplished all this despite--or perhaps, in part, because of--a severe case of what sounds like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, including an obsession with the number three, among other psychiatric anomalies. He was also an animal  lover, who ascribed his early fascination with electricity to receiving a static shock from his beloved cat as a child. As an adult, he would rescue injured pigeons (at this point he was living in lower Manhattan, so there were pigeons aplenty) and nurse them back to health. He was also close pals with Missouri legend Mark Twain. Pretty fantastic.

Crying, community, and celebration

There was a big funeral last Saturday—both in terms of import and in number of mourners. A long-time member of our parish, who was also a major player in the St. Louis art scene, died at 90 years old. She was vivacious and active to the end, and died what might be termed a good death, if such a thing exists, and I think it does: without much suffering, surrounded by friends and family and much love. The church was beyond packed—truly standing room only. Every pew was full to bursting, the extra chairs set up in back were all occupied, and the aisles on either side of the church were filled as well. A few choir members were absent, leaving open seats—and so a few strangers were sprinkled in with the basses and altos. The service was beautiful, replete with the words and rituals that have comforted Christians for centuries. My personal favorite is taken from a hymn that is sung at Orthodox funerals: Give rest, O Christ, to your servants with your saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing but life everlasting. All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia.

With any funeral—even one so joyous as this one, even one that is ultimately a celebration of life rather than a grim cursing at Death—there is grief. Despite our best efforts and fervent wishes to the contrary sorrow, death and loss are as much a part of living as joy and birth.  Sorrow moves us and so we respond: with words, with gestures, and above all with tears. To quote Voltaire, “Tears are the silent language of grief.” Like many people I know, I was raised to see crying as a sign of weakness--something shameful to be done in the absolute privacy of one’s room, or perhaps in the shower. I’ve made quite a study of crying over the years, primarily because I’ve done so little of it myself. From seventh grade to my freshman year of college, I didn’t cry at all (I mention this not in the spirit of macho boasting; on the contrary, I realize there is something spiritually, if not psychiatrically, amiss in this).

It is my experience—borne out by many observations-- that when we notice another person weeping, there are three possible responses (okay, probably more, but I’m this is my blog and I get to make the rules). The first is probably the most common, the one that gets employed with those who are not intimates: we look the other way, and pretend it’s not happening. The other person may not want our sympathy, or we may feel awkward about offering it. Sometimes we do this to allow the other to save face; when you see a woman crying next to the frozen pizzas at 7-11, this strategy is easiest for all concerned (having been on both sides of this scenario, I know it’s true; by the way, is there something inherently depressing about frozen pizzas? Besides the obvious, I mean). It’s only when this is our sole method of dealing with sorrow that this becomes problematic. We can use this method with our own griefs too, of course—immersing ourselves in other activities,  or relying on addictions or compulsions (from the benign to the life-threatening) in order to ignore the pain. This is the path of denial and suppression. 

The second strategy gets used with friends and strangers alike: we respond by trying to shame or cajole the other person into stopping their tears. We may not view it that way, but that's often how it feels to the sensitive recipient of such attentions. I heard a number of people at the funeral ‘comforting’ each other with “Now, now, don’t cry,” “She wouldn’t have wanted us to cry,” or “C’mon, smile.” And we do this with ourselves, too, or at least I do. Superficially, this seems like the right thing to do: No one wants to see someone they love cry. If you are a human being with a healthy allotment of empathy, it hurts to watch someone else hurt. At a deeper level, though, this response denies the validity of pain, attempting to sugarcoat it or chase it away. When we employ this tactic with ourselves, it may take a number of forms: “I don’t have anything to cry about,” “Be strong,” “Don’t let them see you cry.” This is a form of denying one’s own truth. It is also a denial of a more universal truth, captured by the psalmist: There is a time to rejoice, but there is also a time to mourn; both deserve respect. 

The last response is probably the healthiest, and is the provenance of those we want (or at least I want) to be with when sad or dismayed. It involves making space for the tears and grief, accepting and holding them. I think of it as a ‘mothering’ response: “There, there, let it all out,” “Go ahead and cry,” “A good cry will make you feel better.” It transforms what Exupery, in his beloved ‘The Little Prince,’ called “such a secret place, the land of tears.” A secret kept to oneself may be shameful, painful, or back-breakingly heavy. A secret shared—a sorrow shared—is a connection and a weight lifted. Humans are social animals; we aren’t meant to experience grief (or, really, many life experiences) alone. And even when we are alone, it’s possible to feel less so by heeding the urgings of the Divine and allowing our feelings—and our tears—to flow freely. 

Here’s to the New Year (though a little late), and to a lifetime of tears, whether of joy or of sorrow, shared in the sacred space of community. Alleluia.

More things not to say to a lesbian

4.Are you hitting on me/are you attracted to me? Unless this is a prelude to flowers and a kiss, save it. If I haven't expressed a romantic interest in you, I probably don't feel one (or I'm horribly afraid of the inevitable rejection and months of sobbing into a pint of Chunky Monkey that would follow). Please don't assume that I like ALL ladies, just like I don't assume that my straight sisters like ALL guys, or that my pansexual friends like ALL EVERYONE (though I do know one pan friend who would probably cop to that. She's even into trees).
5. So, what do lesbians think about (insert topic here)? I'm not the spokesperson for All Lesbiandom. My turn is the last week in March (of course we rotate turns; we're lesbians!)--ask again then. But seriously, there is no monolithic Lesbian Opinion, just like there isn't any monolithic Female Opinion, or Indigenous Peoples Opinion, or whatever. Feel free to ask about what I feel as an individual, though...I have lots of awesome opinions to share.
6. Were you sexually abused/did you have a domineering mother/blah blah blah? That's actually and emphatically none of your business, unless we're very close friends and I've indicated I'm interested in discussing this, or you're my therapist. Let's assume for the sake of this that you're neither. What I think you're getting at is: did I have some experience that 'turned' me? I think it's safe to say that nature plays a big role in sexual orientation (as opposed to nurture, which also plays a role, but probably a smaller one). Not to be crass, but if sexual abuse caused homosexuality, I would have a much easier time finding dates; as for the 'domineering mother' hypothesis, please--come with me into the twenty-first century. We have iPhones and fat-free frozen yogurt and a thousand other small miracles. Leave the seventies behind.
7. You just haven't met the right guy yet. Right. I've just been going through this little phase for the past fifteen years. I'm sure someday my prince will come to me on a white horse, in a cloud of Axe body spray, biceps bulging as he pulls open his shirt to reveal a chest forested with hair as thick as--hold on a minute, I just threw up in my mouth a little.
8. Can I watch? A ha ha ha...NO.
9. My girlfriend and I (ALWAYS asked by a guy) are looking for someone for a threesome..? Oh, fun. May I suggest you invite a close mutual friend to join you, or failing that, hire an escort/prostitute to assist you in your endeavor? Because, you see, I'm not into guys, I don't know either of you from Eve, and even if I either of those first two statements were incorrect, I'm still not a fantasy-fulfillment machine. I'm a person. Don't make me feel objectified and gross.
10. [Assorted anti-LGBT blustering...defend traditional marriage...homosexual agenda...blah blah...bluster bluster] Not even worth a response.

10 Things NOT to Say To A Lesbian

I realize many, if not most, people are trying to be sensitive. The majority of these questions come from what I call 'the innocently clueless.' But that said, there are several things I'm tired of explaining, and a number of questions I'm tired of hearing. Genuine attempts to connect and honest efforts to understand are welcome; outmoded (ie, 1950s) expectations and outright asshattery are not. Clip this out and put it in your wallet or stick it on your fridge as a reference. So, in no particular order:
1. But you don't LOOK like a lesbian! Yeah, I had the giant 'Lez' tattoo zapped off my forehead recently...it didn't go with my glasses. All right, just kidding. I know what you mean: I don't look like a pre-op Chastity Bono. I have long hair, wear skirts on occasion, and have been known to keep lipstick and mascara in my bag (though it's a backpack and not a purse). Lesbians, just like straight and bi women, run the gamut from Portia-deRossi-femme to kd lang butch. Take-home message? Don't make assumptions. If you could tell just by looking, I wouldn't have such a hard time finding dates.
2. (In regards to a relationship): So which one of you is the man? -See also the next question. Um. Neither of us is 'the man.' That's what makes us lesbians, actually: the fact that both of us are ladies. Some women identify as butch (more masculine) and femme (more feminine) but if that's what you mean, then those are the terms you should use. There are also plenty of folks who don't subscribe to the whole butch/femme thing. Do you mean who's the dominant personality? Who opens doors and pulls out chairs? Who usually initiates sex? Quite possibly both or neither. Just like, y'know, lots of heterosexual relationships.
3. So how can two women have sex? With finesse and skill. As most people living in this century are aware, there are lots of things people can do in bed (or on the kitchen table, or in a secluded park) besides 'sticking it in.' There are, in fact--please sit down as I break this to you--many, many sex acts that do not depend on the presence of a penis. Though if we want a penis, we can generally drop by a novelty shop and pick one up in exactly the dimensions, textures and colors we want.
MORE TO COME.

So I've realized it's finally time to stop screwing around and get back to work on the novel (coincidentally, I saw this falcon perched on a streetlamp while out for a run today--and as they are symbolically associated with FOCUS, I think Mr/Ms Falcon agrees with me).

What's odd is the way in which that realization came about. I was talking to one of the doctors I'm working with on the teen suicide screening project, and she asked me how my year was going. It's a weird question to answer; I'm in a sort of suspended-animation version of the usual fourth year of med school. I'm not applying to residencies this year, and so I'm not involved in the mad morass of interviewing/ranking/hoping/praying in which most of my cohort is currently entrenched. So I answered that I was enjoying working on the project (true), and getting in a lot of nice runs, maybe thinking about a half-marathon this spring (also true)...and then, what? What else am I doing? Some heavy lifting in therapy--true, but not something you tell a supervisor, necessarily. Assorted crafty things, like knitting caftans and making jewelery and doing a series of Georgia O'Keefe-esque watercolors of the innards of flowers that kinda look like ladyparts? Also true, but not totally compelling. Looking at lolcats and reading online comics? Not gonna cop to that. And so I said, "And with my extra time, I'm working on my novel." And then thought--what?
Now, this isn't a lie. I'm always working on my novel, to some degree. Usually it's fiddling with phrases in my head while I wait in line at the grocery store, or dashing down a quick description of a facial expression in my notebook while I'm at the coffee shop. But that's fiddling, dallying. It isn't WORK, which involves sitting my ass down and getting words committed to the page.
So, starting today, the goal is a page a day. I can do more if I feel up to it, but I don't have to. Less is not an option.

We'll see.

Warrior (For All the Women Who...)
"I admire your witness. You are truly a warrior."--A friend, critiquing a personal essay

I write my pain and this is what you call me,
Even knowing
Less than half the story,
without the grim exhaustive catalog
Of battles braved, which I quickly dismiss,
and battles shared:
The twelve year old with blood
smeared on her thighs like warpaint,
or the sixteen year old
who left her home black eyed and spent a month
sleeping on floors, because she couldn't lie
Any longer about who she was.
And there are scars: the slash above the hip
Where his belt dug in, or the arm--
That scar beneath the skin
Bones broken which have healed themselves in time,
Knit together by agile hope and will.
My hands are open, weaponless,
and waiting for some next fear
to furl them into fists;
Mouth open, on the verge of screaming,
still tasting pain, the sweet salt tang
of blood on the tongue, lips cracked
and hemorrhaging meaning.
Beaten like metal
into some useful shape,
a blade, perhaps, with all that would entail--
Marked but striving and surviving
Anvil, water, fire:
A witness, and a warrior
Born again.
-AG, Oct 2011, written in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month

So, I'd never heard of the concept of a 'bucket list' before that mediocre movie with Jack Nicholson came out a few years ago. Over the past, say, five years I've found that many of the items I would have put on a bucket list as a younger person have now been accomplished; however, some still remain. What's on your list? What have you already accomplished that you are proud of? Is there anything that would have been there five years ago that you've now dismissed as unimportant?

Accomplished:
Publish something in a book (not a periodical)
Be part of an art show
Deliver a baby
Spend a summer on a commune (They were Quakers. It still counts.)
Publish a zine (The one-year run of Zenger's Daughter, named for Johann Zenger--google him--was a great success. Thanks, Center High School administration, for letting me distribute a zine with references to safer sex AND poorly-camouflaged digs at the Homecoming court!)
Publish a blog
Learn to bellydance (For PE credit at Cornell. No joke)
Learn to knit
Gain fluency in a language other than English (German. Also Middle High German and Old English, but damned if no one speaks them anymore. Thanks, Bachelor of Arts!)
Mentor youth
March in a gay pride parade (with people from my church here in StL. Episcopalians represent!)
Learn to bake bread from scratch (anything from a sourdough boule to a ciabatta loaf to an egg-glazed challah, I'm your woman)

Still to come:
Publish a book
Learn to sing Schubert's 'Ave Maria'
Earn an MD
Run a marathon (I've registered for two, and every time I get a stress fracture during training)
Find love (and get married...I'm old-fashioned that way)
Sell a painting
See the aurora borealis (thinking of going to Canada for this when I get time off...)
Visit Jerusalem
Visit Ireland (I want to see the Book of Kells)
Read the complete works of C.G. Jung
Go parasailing
Mentor more youth

Jung, Inanna and the Harrowing of Hell

Every story worth telling is a story of transformation. As my high school English teacher said when explaining the ideas of plot and narrative arc: "At some point the protagonist experiences some kind of change--usually at the climax of the story." It can be a small thing, and is found (sometimes against the writer's will) everywhere; even in absurdist narratives that seem not to be narratives, like the characters who see leaves growing on a once-barren tree in Waiting for Godot. Other times it is earth-shattering, impossible to miss: Elijah, under the broom tree, is restored from suicidal anguish to a sense of purpose. Jesus rises from the dead after the harrowing of Hell, in which he rescues Adam, Eve, and the other 'righteous heathens' who came before his birth. Cinderella finds her prince, Sleeping Beauty awakes, Little Red Riding Hood is cut from the stomach of the wolf. What is common in these tales of transformation is that one must descend in order to ascend. It is the inverse of the idiom 'what goes up must come down': what would come up must first go down. As Nietzsche wrote at the beginning of Also Sprach Zarathustra, "And so Zarathustra went down."

One of the first written narratives in the world--before Dante, before Jesus, before even the Torah--concerns the descent of the Goddess Inanna (the Sumerian Great Goddess, known as the Queen of Heaven and Earth) into cold dark of the Underworld. The reason for her descent is unclear, but it is clear the trip is necessary. As she passes through the seven gates of the underworld, moving ever closer to the dark Queen Ereshkigal, she is made to relinquish one article of her clothing and jewelry at each stop: her dress, her golden rings, her lapis lazuli necklace. When she finally stands before her sister, the Goddess Ereshkigal, she is stripped of all the material goods that signified her wealth and power. The Queen of Heaven and Earth has been reduced to Her core being, all outside accoutrement and titles given up--all cunning facades removed.

Inanna stands in the presence of Darkness naked and vulnerable; Ereshkigal slays her with a word and hangs her lifeless body from a hook. Meanwhile, in the world above, Inanna's absence means that the vital spark is gone from everything. Crops no longer grow, animals no longer mate, human lovers are no longer drawn into one another's arms. The lush fertility and creativity Inanna represented is gone, replaced by a cold sterility and a sense of hushed waiting. Meanwhile, in the womb of the earth, Inanna--dead--waits too. Yet, as human beings have known from time immemorial, what appears to be an end is in fact a new beginning. She is rescued by two beings sent by the god Enki, restored to life in the world above. Fertility is restored to the land; Inanna returns to her life 'above ground,' but one surmises She must have been transformed by such an experience, with a greater understanding of the dark places in the Universe, the shadows and vast caverns of emptiness which even gods experience. One can imagine that, having tasted utter desolation, Inanna's creative capacities matured still further, through the 'life experience' everyone must accrue. There is more to the story, involving Inanna's mate Dumuzi, but for my purposes it ends there.

Lately such tales have been much on my mind. I've been sick, and I've been reading Jung. Through wrestling with illness--my own and others'--I have been brought into unavoidable contact with the sorts of questions I (and most human beings, I think) try to avoid. What am I if I no longer identify myself by what I do? What would I answer if some prescient individual at a cocktail party were to ask me, "Who are you?" I would give my name, of course, then likely begin rattling off all my activities, roles and qualifications. I'm a medical student, an aspiring psychiatrist, a writer, a mental health and LGBT activist, an artist, a runner. I'm a daughter, an aunt, a friend, a lover.

What, then, if they were to reply (perhaps with a laugh), "No, no, I didn't ask what you do. I asked who you are." I'm a...woman? A human being? A sentient being?
Who are we with our robes, our rings, our doctorates removed?
What is the shadow we have to confront--even if it slays some part of us? The periods in our lives that feel sterile and bereft of life--are they truly? Or is there some part of us waiting, like Inanna on the hook, or a crocus beneath a blanket of snow, for the siren call of an unimagined spring?