I Met the Queen

I've been struggling with the way by which I want to write this. It's huge and it's multidimensional and it is so much like looking through an immaculately cut diamond with a laser. I met the queen this week.

I met the queen, and she knows she's the queen.

When Tashmica told us that she was on her way, I was literally Sandra Oh as Principal Gupta at Grove High School in The Princess Diaries. 

"Gupta.

Mmhm.

Mmhm.

Mmhm.

...

The QUEEN is coming."

Literally. Endless fangirling: commence. And when I met her on Wednesday, I came up right behind her, and she almost jumped out of her skin when I tapped her shoulder (because honestly I probably slapped it with my awkward excitement) and when she turned around, I almost lost myself in the magnitude of her presence. Because 25 years ago, she held Tashmica's bravery gently, like it was a baby blue Robin egg in a delicate mass of twisted brown twigs. I believe that she looked straight into Tashmica's soul that day the way she looked straight into mine on Wednesday night, and I believe that she saw Tashmica's strength and her potential for absolute greatness.

A potential that she is now pushing and leveling up, every single day.

The queen listened, that day. She was gentle. She was intuitive. She was humble, from where she sat as a monarch. She said those magical, delicious, honey-sweet words: "I believe you." She did the right thing.

And Tashmica this past Wednesday, clutching a giant check from the USA Network, told us how much she recognizes that gift. She told us that she had been unaware that children and teenagers are continuously made to feel dirty and worthless, or slut-shamed and silenced. Because she told the right person. She told the queen. And the queen came as soon as she heard. As a result of that, Tashmica comes as soon as she hears. She told us that we deserve the advocacy that we may not have been given, and that there is nothing wrong with us, and that we are survivors, Soulfires, all ablaze like sparklers on a dark November night.

I came to the Soulfire calendar reveal after a very difficult week. A week during which my flight response was mysteriously overactive, and during which I experienced some of the most profound sadness I've ever felt. I'm in transition. I've momentarily abandoned my passions that used to provide a solid foundation, and I've found myself in a cycle of frustration and loss. I fluctuate between sinking and floating, but I'm very seldom grounded. 

So when I approached Lisa the queen that night and told her that I was fine, that I was leaving school and that packing up my home broke my heart but that I was fine, she looked into my eyes and asked me a question. She asked me if, at school or at home in Clemson, I was being abused.

It caught me off guard. Nobody had ever asked me that before. Nobody.

My heart started beating like it was alive again. I have not been abused at Clemson, but nobody had ever asked me that before. And if anybody had asked when it was relevant, I would've likely said no. I wouldn't have been able to justify to myself that somebody was mistreating me. I wouldn't have given myself that grace.

But this time, I felt justified. I felt like I had just been inducted into this community...after all these years, it felt official. Here was a person who wanted to be certain that I was safe, and if I wasn't, I believe that she would have been the first to advocate for me, and for all of us. She wants us to be proud of our bravery, and to own it, and to celebrate it.

It was one simple question, but it carries such enormous significance. It meant that somebody, the queen no less, was standing at the ready to advocate for me. It means that I do deserve advocacy. And these people, these survivors, that have danced into my life are the people who would come running to me if I need it.

They'll come as soon as they hear.

Firecracker photo from the Lansing State Journal. All calendar photos by Jena McShane, hair & makeup by Heather Jarous; both brave, beautiful survivors with us.

Fear Itself

"..but as bad as I am, I'm proud of the fact that I'm worse than I seem."
-Ani DiFranco, Grey
______________

I'm having the hardest time placing my own face over the things I know to exist behind the place a face usually goes. Or, more accurately, I'm struggling to assign my own face to this illness inside. 

Probably because, insightful as I may tend to be, I don't understand what's going on. I'm exhausted almost all the time but I'm not physically tired, so I wake up frustrated that I'll have to fight myself to get out of bed...and then most likely lose anyway.

Lately, I've been spending loads of time with the people who I love, and who, I imagine, love me. I am sad to realize, though, that it has only made me feel marginally better. At some point during the evening, I often find myself struggling to contain myself within my own body...and then I panic.

One of a few things happens; but no matter what, I dissociate.

Sometimes, I isolate myself in a place with fresh, frigid air. I find a staircase somewhere and sit, collecting my breath, scanning every nuance of my environment, hyper-vigilant and hyper-aware. I wait until I'm ready to sink back into the norm.

Sometimes, the invisible part of me has escaped. I don't know where I've gone. And I'm furious that I wasn't able to go with it; instead I've been left with the body that I'd readily abandon in a heartbeat just to be free. I call myself back. I plead. I beg. Where have you gone? Please come back. Where are you? Are you safe? Can I come with you? Come back to me.

Sometimes, I'm stuck. I shut down. I wonder why I am where I am, why I've allowed myself out of the house...when clearly I'm in this ridiculous phase during which I'm a complete basket case who, admittedly and with much chagrin, cannot feel safe even in completely normal situations. I feel as alone as I am inside. I feel outside. I do not feel real; I am not real. I curse this ball-and-chain body that is weighing me down and preventing me from simply dissolving into the dim light and the barstools and the thick air.

I don't exist. I can't exist. None of this is real.

And looking at the rest of the picture, it's glaringly obvious. I'm scared of everything right now. 

I'm terrified.

Autumnal Adaptations, or How I Learned to Be Okay

If I am permitted for a moment to be ethereal and other-worldly, I'm going to do that. Although I suppose that there are not many things that would make me want another world; I quite enjoy my pale blue dot. It is perfect in its statistical unlikelihood, its divinely timed evolution, its pristinely non-poisonous atmosphere, and its ability to move and change and uplift, among other things.

Even though I know these things, I'm still surprised by them at times.

I've been taking myself on mini self-care trips lately, up to the hills that I'm going to miss terribly, especially in the middle of this sunny late-October. Before now, I'd only lived in Carolina during the summer. Upon moving back, I had mistakenly thought that I'd miss out my Midwest autumn in exchange for Octobers and Novembers in the soggy sunshine. On the contrary, I seem to have stumbled upon an autumnal wonderland whose resilience trumps that of any Michigan maple. And I am basking in it, soaking it up as much as I possibly can.

Today, I went up to North Carolina for a spell. As you probably are aware, I am a hoarder of roads; I have an incredibly insatiable addiction to asphalt. And right now I can tell you with nigh absolute certainty that Route 178 through South Carolina and Route 64 through North Carolina are now two of my absolute favorite roads, ever. Everything in the sun, under the sun, was on fire as I twisted my way through...each scene more lovely than the last; each turn, though, requiring that my eyes stay on the ribbon road, somehow.

Eventually, I made it to Gorges and a trailhead that took me to a waterfall. One would think that I'd be a bit more timid around waterfalls considering my altercation with the one at Hippie Hole in the Black Hills not too long ago, but as I've professed many times this week, I do not live in fear. I am incapable of being anything other than a feral weirdo when I'm alone in the forest, anyway. And when I take myself on these dates, I want everything. I want to let myself hear the leaves crunch beneath my feet, acorns falling to the forest floor, birds either singing greetings or screaming warnings-I'm never sure-as I pass. I want to let myself see every color of everything that absorbs and reflects light in the wavelengths that my eyes can perceive. I want to let myself breathe the thin aroma of soggy dirt and foliage set to ripen at 65 degrees. I want to let myself feel the tree branches and trunks that I gently graze, the waxy greens that brush my face, the pine needles in my hair, the water caressing rocks below. 

And the waterfall is no different. I made my way to the top and looked over, sitting on what I thought was a dampened rock. But when I laid my hand on top of it, it was completely dry...just miraculously smooth. 

And it was then that I realized: waterfalls can change. 

Of course they can change. Nothing in our planet's geological history suggests that they've always been or always will be. Come to think of it, the Blue Ridge has had a lot of time to grow; months ago, my crossing the Rocky Mountain Continental Divide at 10,000 feet and then today, my crossing the Eastern Continental Divide at just 2,000 feet could tell me that. But my sitting on a smoothed-over, water-cut slab of rock brought this truth directly to my fingertips, literally. Running my fingers over the rock, and looking down to watch the water rush over the rock below, then looking back up to the rock on which I sat...it struck me to realize that I was sitting where this very waterfall used to flow. Over the course of some amount of time unknown to me, this waterfall had changed course and left its fingerprints set in stone that would later serve as a resting point for a wide-eyed dreamer on a solo hike.

More than the fact that the waterfall had changed, though, was the glaring reality that something as mighty as a waterfall can change and still remain a waterfall. This holds tremendous implications for me. Even the strongest things, the things that can carry away and erode and shape and carve mountains, can change. They change, and they do not cease to be what they are. They adapt. They press on. They remain.

I was not rendered speechless today. I had plenty to say. And I don't remember many instances during which I had more honestly, desperately, deeply from the bottom of my heart thanked the Lord for giving me just a glimpse of the brand new waxing crescent moon stunningly situated above the sunset layers, above the silhouetted hills. I needed today. I needed to see change without imagining ruin on the other end. I needed to bring myself back to nature where I belong, and I needed nature to show me an example of what happens when you decide to be brave. Be brave, and adapt, and be okay.

Cómo Comunicar

I'm sitting in Santiago de Surco, south of downtown Lima, at a reasonable distance from an open window.

I say this because, long story short (a story which is both agitating and funny in equal parts) my phone is without a functioning LCD screen at the moment. And if you want to know, I can rehash the story of that event, and Juanita's patio, and my unbelievable lack of reflexes. Just ask.

At the moment, I'm trying to ignore the fact that I probably won't see the southern night sky down here. I knew it was a possibility, but now I know that it's quite a substantial probability. It is soggy here on the magnetic equator, and dusty up in Jicamarca, and Lima demands to be lit. Everything here is golden brown, like a ripening carambola; or hazy and conglomerate, like the pictures being sent back from the Curiosity rover on Mars. 

It's surreal. Beautiful in its resilience, its day to day trudging on.

Every morning, I and the others from the south of Lima ride to Jicamarca in a 15 passenger van. On the ride up, Lima is bustling with people going to work and sitting in roadside cafes; hijitos on their way to school dressed in immaculate uniforms to please the immaculate Santa Maria, no matter how much dust is stirred by the busses and taxis.

However in the evening on our return that almost takes twice as long as the ascent, Lima is everything. Lights from the auto district brighten the darkening haze, fireworks explode for whatever reason, excited stray dogs and people like sardines crammed onto walkways and into vehicles at a standstill on the road (a word which here is used very loosely), pointing in every direction, having reached that inevitable impasse. 

Here is where my perspective changed, permanently. See, I thought that I was a pretty good driver. I thought that it took an expert level of skill to drive 18 hours out of the day by oneself. Now, I won't discredit myself; that's pretty good; but that's driving endurance. Here in Lima? This is driving agility.

The champion who drives our 15 passenger van operates that boat like it's a motocross bike. Weaving in and out of three-lane highways sometimes with five cars side by side, dodging motorcycles and annoying taxi drivers, and then there's me. Me in the very back, finding my face mere feet away from the front corner of a semi truck at times, not ever needing to feel unsafe. Lima bumper to bumper, with vehicles still in pristine shape; people holding onto each other so that nobody falls out of the busses, people looking out, people taking care. Things here are handled with such enormous care, and it's reassuring to me that this whole world hasn't gone straight to hell just yet.

Yet.

Before I left, I was thinking about human connection and how deeply it runs. Something that I've noticed over the past few weeks of mayhem is my ability to find serenity in feeling the essence of a person surrounding me, even if he or she isn't physically near. And now I'm laying on my bed in South America, thick golden Lima air rushing over me, and feeling pretty much at home. My first day here, I realized that there was a huge communication barrier between myself and my host family, as my Spanish is awful. However, I'm learning so many different ways by which we otherwise communicate as humans. One of the first things my host mom did was to braid my hair as we were sitting outside in the garden. She dances, she animates, she fixes the most remarkably delicious food, and she ties a scarf around my neck when it's cold outside. And we recognize each other as humans.

My Spanish is still terrible, but my Human is growing a little more every day.