Motivation Mondays: Trust Vs. Perfectionism

“Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with fixing things. It has nothing to do with standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead. It is a loop—an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and to lose sight of the whole.” --Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

Well, it seems kind of after the fact to be writing about Black Swan, but I only just saw it the weekend before last and I love what it has to say about the creative process, how the refusal to let go can keep an artist stagnant, stuck, frigid.

I think we all have own version of that creeeeepy mother character in our heads, the vain perfectionist who doesn’t want us to take risks or make out with Mila Kunis. It’s that inner censor that I’m always going on and on about, that protective force that warps us and keeps us from knowing our own strength. It’s hard to get privacy from that judgment and fear, but we really do have to bar the door and get on with it.

Unlike Natalie Portman’s ballerina, we can do it. We can let go without self-destructing. I think it has to do with that tricky thing I’ve been wrestling with for the whole life of this blog: trust.

That’s why am so profoundly in love with 30/30—I’m so very very grateful for the amount of trust and generosity it takes to post an early draft every day and invite our friends, some of whom we’ve never met in real life, to read and comment. I really can’t think of a more loving or faithful gesture. In showing each other our flaws, our vulnerabilities, our stories we only tell when things get urgent, we’re writing ourselves a real intimacy and a real way forward. Thank you, and thank you, and thank you, and thank you.

Gender and Me: A (Kind of Sad) Love Story

Let’s start with Amy. She has approved this message and knows every detail of this conversation with myself. I know I’m not winning any wife of the year awards here. Suffice it to say, she has her own charms. I’m pretty sure this story doesn’t end in divorce. I’m so very grateful to her for giving me the space to work this whole thing through.

One of my resolutions this month is “Be less lonely,” which is so bewildering that it might as well be a Zen question, but I know I have to take apart the things that have caused me to isolate myself. Mindy Nettifee says “There are some things you can’t write yourself out of,” but I don’t know any other way. I feel like I’ve written parts of this story a million times. Readers of my good ol’ friends-locked LJ posts, feel free to sing along, you know some of the words.

The story starts, as they all do, with a cute guy. Moseph came into my life exactly when I needed him. I was drowning in self-hate (blah blah, homophobic workplace, blah blah, white-lady issues, etc.) and here was this rockabilly angel who worked at the bookstore, (I probably shouldn’t call people angels.) FTM guy one minute, butch girl the next, letting everyone choose their own pronouns for him. He put his number in my phone and we started texting all the time about how we get crushes—a recipe for trouble if there ever was one. I used to fantasize about him walking me home from work- a modest wish that didn’t come true.

Something in the way he looked at me made me feel recognized, beautiful, like being wanted by a man might not be so impossible after all. Like I could be myself.

The last time we spent time together,last July, his band was playing at my apartment. As a surprise, he’d added Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi to the band’s repertoire. He wore a wig decorated with cupcakes, a shiny leotard, and gold Spanx. Singing along to that song was a serotonin factory in and of itself and after that I was absolutely devastated with desire for him. Somehow, we never hung out after that. Probably because depression made me really, really not awesome at being a new friend.

Moseph’s cross-cross dressing was a dream within a dream, the Inception of crushes, sending all of my rigid structures about gender crumbling into the sea. As I’m writing this, I realizing that “bisexual” is not quite accurate for me, that maybe polyamorous can be an identity as well as a logistical decision. It takes me a while to figure things out sometimes.

I have him to thank for awakening my particular attraction to trans guys, which takes me a good distance toward being comfortable in my own skin. (On a good day it seems like that. On a bad day it seems like just more guy friends to scare off with over-flirting.

He also made me realize that I like gender.

Marriage can have an isolating effect when it comes to progress, even in the most progressive of households. I feel like I’ve spent my whole adult life avoiding gender. In the Nineties, it was very popular for a bi person to say, “It doesn’t matter what gender someone is, I fall in love with souls.” Looking at that statement now, it seems like a way of neutering myself, of trying to be more acceptable to the straight world. It also reminds me of the way I try to make myself safer to be around by spiritualizing attractions into “Muse” relationships.

So here it is: I like the feeling of being a woman in relation to a man. I like the game of gender, the tropes. (Well, not all of them.) I have an impossible time giving up control but I would really love to meet the guy who could get me there. But safely. Because I am terrified.

Amy asked me why identifying as femme (I mean, duh, right?) isn’t the same as saying “I feel straight right now.” And that made me realize that at no point do I ever feel straight. My whole self is always there.

Underneath it all is the fear that there is something about me that makes me undesirable, unlovable to men. If there’s no man in the world for me, I can’t change that, but I’d like to find a way to be kinder to myself about it. I don’t want it to be a joke anymore. I want to find a way to honor the part of me, to LOVE the things about myself I’ve been fighting and hating for so long, to admit that, yes, I want him to see me, and know me, and love me. That’s all.

P.S. To Motivation Mondays!

The Legendary's Slam and Flash Issue is up! It includes audio so you can make new ear-friends and visit old ones. AND! Poems from Factory favorites Hannah and Matt McDonald, Elliott D. Smith, Victor D. Infante. Go to there!

And (ahem) a very nice book review.

Thanks pals!

Motivation Mondays: Waiting

“And it seems strange

how we used to wait

for letters to arrive.

But what’s stranger still

is how something so small

can keep you alive.” --Arcade Fire

“Your whole life is a class on waiting.” Andrea Durham

“Why do you let me stay here,

all by myself?

Why don’t you come and play here?

I’m just sitting on the shelf.”—She and Him

“To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. So is to trust that something will happen to us that are far beyond our imaginings. So, too, is giving up control over our future…The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present in the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our imagination, fantasy, or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world that is preoccupied with control.”—Henri J. Nouwen

My life coach pal Andrea Durham is teaching a class at church and the theme last week was “Waiting.” I’d come into class telling her that I was feeling pretty lost, so the idea of an hour and a half of meditating on/discussing waiting was part annoyance, part relief.

At the moment, I’m waiting to hear back from my teaching program of choice. I’m not even sure what I want the answer to be. Part of me wants to be certified to teach, but part of me just wants to get a fulfilling-enough job and get on with my life a lot sooner. Even if I get and accept a yes, there are so many up-in-the-air matters, like how to pay for it, how to keep the household running with no time to play housewife, how to keep my writing self from getting swallowed up, etc.

Even without big questions like that, so much of writing life is about waiting—waiting for the nebulous ideas in your head to coalesce into a poem, giving the poem a little time to sit before editing, waiting to hear back about gigs, journals, manuscripts. At least once a week, I say to myself, “Boy, they call this submitting for a reason.”

But according to that waiting class, it doesn’t have to be such a helpless thing. Waiting can be a way to practice faith, to trust the better parts of you to know what they’re doing, and also to give yourself space to grow. I like to think of myself that way, like a poem getting a little breather before it goes into editing and out into the world. It even makes me feel kind of okay about my first and second full-length manuscripts (and third and fourth, etc, I guess…) getting rejected so that my first book would have time to be a better thing.

My tendency when anxious about waiting is to pile on more projects to wait and worry for, and that sure does get a lot done, but I like thinking about waiting as a way to make space. (As anyone who reads this blog knows, I do have space issues.) It’s kind of a relief to let my control-freak self be dreamy, distracted, and dawdly—it’s kind of a relief to just let myself be lost.

What are your favorite non-projecty ways to wait? I like doodling, fantasizing, indulging in magical thinking (Yes, I recently gave myself a Tarot reading, and apparently victory is assured.), making playlists, and engaging in the Zen futility of sweeping up cat hair.

Here's one of the best things to do while waiting: type your childhood address (es) into The Wilderness Downtown and see what happens.

It'll be something like this:

Motivation Mondays: What to Get (Inspired by...Shappy!)

(Pssst: If you feel like you'd like a writing prompt for motivation, go visit my post on Radius--Made Up Forms: The Cut-Up Pop Song, after this, of course. )

“If you see something you love, you’ve just gotta get it, and eat it.” –Shappy Seasholtz

I would first like to mention that the same Shappy Seasholtz bought me a bag of caramel creams yesterday, because he knows they remind me of racial harmony. I was so touched that I got a tiny bit choked up, but then again, I was a little sleep deprived.

Anyway, though maybe I don’t always need to follow his advice when it comes to pie, it’s good writing advice.

The trick, though, is figuring out how to discern which things you REALLY love, which aspects of your goals are the most important ways to spend your finite time. I’m an urgent girl, so it seems really important to figure these things out.

There have been parts of poetry that I’ve always felt guilty about not doing. I’ve always felt bad that I haven’t tried harder to compete in slams, but I’m delighted to say I’m ready to let that guilt go. As much as I will never support the arbitrary and false division between page and stage, I feel much more comfortable and happy competing for publication than for points. (And of course I so much admire people who are wholehearted at both!)  And of course, having said that, I’m still going to try and get on my own venue’s team.

There’s a difference, though, between neglecting to do things because they aren’t priorities and avoiding things out of fear. There are a few things that are very important to me that I’ve avoided for years, waiting until it feels safe, I guess, but that avoidance is starting to make me feel stunted and repressed. (And, since I’m always encouraging everyone else to be honest and expressive, a little bit hypocritical.)  Admitting that those goals and desires are real and important seems like a good first step towards pushing past the fears and ignoring all of the prohibitive voices that have built up over the years. (My pal Cristen calls these my “anxiety terrorists.”)

So how can we move our own boundaries and dismantle the arbitrary limits we’ve placed on ourselves? All that from a quote about pie.


Mumford and Sons - Awake My Soul from Thomas Henley on Vimeo.

Motivation Mondays: I Need a Better Word for “Muse”

Before the musing, here are some places to read/listen submit, and also some bragging.

**One of my favorite poetry-soulmates, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, was kind enough to include me in her Indiefeed series on the women of performance poetry. Being in my own iTunes queue was a pretty exciting thing to wake up to the other day. The series will be pretty incredible, so if you aren’t subscribed, go there soon! And here’s their submissions page, too! Do it!

**The Legendary is taking (audio and text) submissions for their upcoming Slam & Flash Issue until March 10. Really, you should submit to them every month. They’re the nicest editors in the world.

**Radius is a new journal headed by my Worcester favorites Victor D. Infante and Lea Deschenes. You should submit to there, especially if you write political poetry or like to make up forms like I do.

Anyway!

I’ve decided that I don’t want to call anyone a muse again. It’s such a passive, limiting idea, and it doesn’t do justice what happens when the creative spark crackles between people like a miracle.

Often I’ve called someone a muse because I'm overwhelmed by him or her, as a way of trying to control something uncontrollable. It’s often a way of sublimating desire, which leads to good poems, then bad poems, then tears. “Muses” have sort of shimmered in and out of my life, often because I’ve loved them so much I’ve just gone ahead and alienated them. (I thought about retiring the word “crush” for similar reasons, but, to paraphrase the Fugees, me without a crush is like a beat without a snare.)

So what do you call what really happens when a combination of people becomes a crucible for art? For when you adore another writer on solid ground? For a kindred spirit who makes you brave and light fires underneath you? For the people in your life who are so revolutionary as to make you listen to your own best ideas?

Soulmate is almost right, but not quite. I’ve never bought the idea that we only get one soulmate, per person, per lifetime. The soul is big and it needs a lot of different things.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve always thought this song is about. Pardon the typos in the video-- Gaga’s real video has too many poisonings for a post about love.

This is Love in 2011

(Husband and wife hug)

Wife: You smell really bad. Why don't you ever wear deodorant anymore? Is it because your girlfriend likes it that way?

Husband: (Nods, shrugs.)

Wife: (Makes a cute-annoyed face.)

(Husband and wife hug some more.)

Ten Things I Love About My Wife

Just like I’m usually sick of Christmas songs by 12/24, I am pretty sick of lovey dovey stuff today. But I couldn’t let today go by without acknowledging the best force in my life.

1.She is really really cute.

2. She loves the couch and the TV almost as much as I do.

3. If someone is mean to me, she’ll offer to glue their car doors shut. I have never taken her up on this.

4. She’s doing an art project a week right now. This household is happiest whenever she’s making something beautiful.

5. I love that she’s an atheist. One of my favorite parts of the week is coming home from church and hearing the tail-end of whatever weird sci-fi show she’s been watching.

6. She’s worked really really hard all these years, supporting me as I follow various dreams and recover from various nightmares.

7. Falling asleep to Radiolab. Then going back and listening to it later.

8. She gets choked up whenever there’s anything on about a gay family, even if our family just consists of two ladies and two cats.

9. The ways we like to make out whenever there’s anti-gay protestors around-like, that’ll teach ‘em.

10. She is the most monogamous person ever and she loves me even though I am (lazily) not. That’s unconditional, son!

Review in decomP

A million thanks to Spencer Dew and the rest of the decomP staff. This review makes me feel like I'm reaching some of my secret writing dreams/ambitions.

Four Word Lazy Polyamorist Update

Men: still a mystery.

Resolution # 2: Be More Out in Lots of Ways

For my adult life, I really didn’t give a lot of thought at all to being bi—I fell madly for whoever I fell for and didn’t concern myself with gender I believed the romantic idea that a bi person would just kind of develop a gender-preference upon falling in love.(Whereas I’m realizing just how many gender preferences are available…) After all, my relationship with Amy started after a marathon of Clerks: The Animated Series made me feel like I could do without dudes for a while.

The itch started in 2004 when the Red Sox were playing the Yankees in the World Series. Back before Johnny Damon became a Yankee, he was a shaggy haired hottie. I had a dream where I couldn’t believe I was getting to pal around with him, where I just kept keeping with him from place to place.

These days, it’s Mad Men making me go to bed kind of straight. Funny how I’m superpissed at anyone chauvinistic, but Don’s secretary-assignations drive me swoony.

Anyway, when I started feeling attracted to men again, I panicked. I kept having these dreams of almost kissing guys. I tried to make artistic metaphors for these, but sometimes kissing is just kissing. I fell for my guy friends, got crushes that panicked my soul. I thought I would have to get divorced.

Amy is very well loved. I definitely do not want to get divorced. She loves me so wholeheartedly, so loyally, and I’ve known that we’re soulmates all along. Our second date was a meteor shower, for crying out loud.

But.

It’s very frustrating and claustrophobic to have this side of me that is not expressed.

So we made a compromise—if I meet someone who I think is worth it, I can date him. It’s been like that for—5 years? I’ve met a few people I would take that risk for, but they’ve turned out to be unrequited. They turned into prolonged (sometimes years-long) crushes that were very fruitful in terms of yielding poems and paintings, and too many friends-locked LiveJournal posts to count.

The trouble is, I think, I’m pretty monogamous for a polyamorist. Even when I am with that person who is driving me to distraction, I can’t stop talking about Amy. If I go out without her, to be all free and meet new people, I miss her.

But there is a part of me that is not being expressed. It’s not the thing itself that’s missing, but it’s something. Is there a limit to how much sublimation a person can do in a lifetime? Probably not.

This spring I had kind of an interim therapist. She pretended to be all understanding, but in the end, she kind of threw me under the monogamy bus. She said , “You can’t live in two cites at once.” But I can visit. Or I can live in Philly and still miss Orange county. It’s a bad metaphor—plane tickets are pretty easy to save up for…

10 New Walks

Yesterday I was feeling booooored and uninspired, so Amy suggested a nighttime walk. We went for a walk down Kelly Drive, so pretty and romantic at night, streetlights reflecting on the river, Strawberry Mansion Bridge all lit up blues and purples. So, being listy, I decided we should do 10 new walks by the end of summer. It’s given me such a nice jolt of energy.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been stuck in a narcissistic oubliette on and off, and I think I’m ready to get out:

I called the stay-at-home poet time that followed the last job my lacuna—a nice little gap to heal and get to knew myself in. Well, call the lacuna OVER—I am so ready to go back out into the world, to start looking at people’s faces more and re-meet my teacher self. There isn’t much school-year stuff to apply for yet, but what I have so far is promising.

I’m also working on a collection of love poems called something like “Adventures of a Lazy Polyamorist,” and I’m really excited about it. I’d like to get a little more comfortable with my affections and attractions, because fighting them is, frankly, exhausting.