2010 State of the Self Address

Four years ago I began delivering the “State of the Self;” a reflection on the past year of life which is always given the evening of my birthday. This is my 2010 State of the Self.

February 27, 1979 is the day I stopped breathing someone else’s air and began breathing on my own. It was not by choice. The woman’s body is built only to support another life for so long before the placenta begins to thin, before the protective and nourishing sac of life begins to deteriorate. It’s like our birthday is our first eviction and the landlord is out mother’s body.

A birth. A day.

I spare no indulgence on the 27th of February and, previous to this year, birthdays always meant my customary helium balloon, sheet cake with vanilla satin icing, and a long list of “must to do” things that include morning mimosas, naps, writing, dreaming, and sniffing around closets and car trunks for my hidden gifts. For the record, I never pretend to be more than a child on my birthday, save the mimosas.

But this birthday is different. This is my first birthday as a mother. This is the first birthday in which the word “birth” and “day” have extracted themselves from streamers and sweets and grew into profound meaning. “Birth,” as in, a son, my firstborn. Day has grown to be more than the frame of 24 hours. “Day” is now gift.

Last year, my State of the Self focused on my identity as a writer. My pen itself nearly throbbed with pain as I described the challenges of creative writing. Now, I worry less about identity as a writer and more about truthfulness. Being truthful with Isaiah may very well be the most challenging task of my life.

And one truth I am going to share with my son is to take moments for himself. Or as I like to put it: Breathe in the awesome. I never understood those who hated their birthday. I suppose it can be viewed as a self-important concept, but the celebration of life, of my own life has always superceded any other reason to deny the day. Those who dread their birthday often do so because of a number – age. Or it reminds them of death.

Birth, for me, evokes the boundless beginning of life.

But if birthdays aren’t your cup of tea, I hope and pray that you do find a day, a time to rejoice in your own life in the very miracle of your existence. Because if we can’t find a reason or an hour to relish in our blessings, to be authentically and radically grateful for our friends, family, lovers, gifts, talents, experiences, insights, and lessons – I don’t know if we’re truly seeing ourselves – or life – clearly enough.

Thirty-one years is more than enough reason for cake and drinks. And after birthing my son, I know that thirty-one seconds alone is more than enough reason for celebration. The paradox of birth – its fragility and its power – must, begs, needs to be recognized. And celebrated. Isaiah has taught me that.

So, my state at 31 is one of utter grace. Grace of understanding. Grace of frustration. Grace of holy parenting and emotion. It is a period of firsts and failures and finding that my life can hold so much more than I ever thought possible. That realization also came with the responsibility that I myself am capable of so much more than I ever thought possible.

It is my birthday wish that everyone – at some point in their life – births new life and it need not be a child. A revolution, a concept, relationship, invention, methodology, habit or path that inducts an enhanced thought-process, a better more gentle way of loving and being in the world.

Because if we all took a moment to birth and rejoice in our own birthing, the state of grace would no longer be a temporary lingering, but an everlasting positioning of soul.

The Artist's Way

Some weeks ago (my memory is really bad since pregnancy), my dear friend and much respected writer, BFP, wrote something along the lines of saying that she was less interested in "activism" and more interested in the lives and journeys of artists.

That struck me. For numerous reasons.

The first thing that struck me is thinking about my blogging life. When I first began blogging four years ago (yikes! has it been that long?), I remember wanting my "writing" to FIT into the feminist blogosphere. I read many blogs then, wanting to understand what was important to the "Feminist Community," and, truthfully, always struggled in that genre.

I struggled because writing is, essentially, an extension of one's self. What interests me is what I will write most intimately about, what I love is what will illuminate the page (or screen) with my words. Making my writing fit is like trimming my own self, trying to make ME fit.

What I was always interested in were topics like God. Addressing sexual and gender violence in our everyday relationships through deconstruction and critical questions of gender norming. Family. Humor. And love. Always love. These were my interests.

I didn't know it then, but my writing came and continues to flow from a very deep, supremely sensitive place where I process my memory, my life experiences. Of course, current events and news are always interesting, but the writing I connect with is the writing that comes from LIFE, my life. And I'm always interested in how others live or lived their lives.

How did Gloria Anzaldua live with diabetes? How did my mother live through immigrating to this country on her own? How did my cousins live through the passing of both their parents? How did my 8th grade science teacher feel when she decided to get teeth braces at the age of 48? What is it like for young women of color writers in the US?

These were my questions, they weren't "feminist," I suppose, but they came from a very real place that questioned the systematic punishment and guardrails around women.

Feminism exists for all of us to live richer, deeper, more fulfilling lives. Feminism exists for us to question what we want to question and to live as we want to live. The lives of artists, the lives of those who create are lives that are often imbued with resistance; they live counter-culturally. Artists, the souls who create something out of nothing, those who build from ill-fitting pieces possess a strength that reveals itself in their life choices.

I no longer worry about whether I or my writing fits. Rather, I focus on whether or not I am truthful, committed to creation and relationship, and love. Always love.

New Mommness

So I started working out two weeks ago.

To feel my body MOVE, as in constant motion, without stopping, in cyclic ways, in scissor ways, in stretching to the skies...well, it's been a trial.

I remember WAITING for the day when I could work out again. When I was pregnant and huge and my belly was larger than Jupiter and Saturn and all their moons COMBINED, I was itching to work out HARD.

And now?

Ugh, I can feel the absence of muscle. (except my right bicep which is ripping awesome from carrying my big baby) My lungs are in a state of, "What's going on? I'm actually working under stressful conditions..." and my buttocks are yawning themselves awake, "Mhm, this doesn't feel like the couch cushions..."

I don't want my pre-baby body back. I want a better state of health.

I want - God willing - my next pregnancy to be even better, with a cleaner bill of health. No worries about sugar, no anxieties about high blood pressure. Granted, all was well with this pregnancy and my fear of these conditions was all for naught. But I want to be better. I want to be stronger, more ready.

And then there's breastfeeding. Did someone fail to write this sentence in all the pregnancy and birth literature out there:

REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU DO, IF YOU DECIDE TO BREASTFEED, THIS WILL LIKELY BE THE MOST PAINFUL AND DIFFICULT PART OF THE POSTPARTUM EXPERIENCE.

I'm not dissing the sleep deprivation. I'm not smirking at the episiomoty recoveries. I'm just sayin' that the boobfeeding experience is one that I was NOT, repeat NOT prepared for...blisters, rashes, PLUGGED DUCTS, changing colors, sizes, breast pads, nursing bras, lotions, water, airing out...

Heaven help me. Why didn't anyone give me a reality check about breastfeeding?

There was one person, I believe, on FACEBOOK who wrote one comment on my wall when she found out I was pregnant: Watch out for breastfeeding. I wish someone prepped me for that one.

Of course I knew it would take some time to figure out. The sore nipples and what not -- I was anticipating all of that. But holy smokes, the PAIN, the agonizing over each feeding in the beginning...I actually had nightmares about a gigantic breast in my face; as if I was the baby and one huge boob was coming toward me. It was the size of a house. I woke up sweating.

So, yeah. Breastfeeding.

Another reason confirming that women truly can do and withstand anything.

Tim Tebow is the Best Thing to Happen to Young Women?

The so-called controversial anti-abortion message. From all the coverage, I was expecting a ferocious lion. A very lame commercial came on instead.

Interesting read.

It was written prior to the Superbowl and the unveiling of the controversial Tebow/Focus on the Family ad, but I think Jenkins makes some brilliant points. Her most resonating words are those that critique NOW and its narrow focus on feminism, women's rights, and reproductive freedom...

Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn't be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one.

Personally, I was up to my eyeballs with annoyance over the anxious and hyped up worry from particular feminist groups who, once again, gave reproductive justice and gender rights movements a bad name with their outcry of this ad being "anti abortion," while others featuring scantily clad women holding beer bottles and footballs have been deemed acceptable for Superbowl Sunday.

Never mind all the sexist-driven ads which young women watch that bombard them with anti-health messages concerning their bodies, choice, worth, and potential. At least Focus on the Family isn't hypocritical (with this particular commercial) - they want to celebrate life and families and they do just that with the Tebow clan. While NOW exercises their outrage over this particular ad, a million other commercials which blatantly demoralize and sexualize women go without complaint. Wouldn't it be something revolutionary if NOW had protested the Go Daddy ads or pointed out how women are often used as a sex appeal accessory in alcohol and beer commercials?

As much as I may disagree with its stance, as much as I could argue with its points, Focus on the Family is, well, focused. Ask feminist and pro-choice leadership groups what they focus on and you'll find a mess of disagreement and hypocrisy.

4am Lessons

Before I had a son, I wrote about feminism as a subject. It was a noun, sometimes even a verb. Feminism existed as a THING to be written out, explained, debated.

As the past seven weeks of my life have unfolded, I've either woken up to a new form or writing, or I've undergone some sort of lobotomy where I have no recollection about that kind of writing. You know, the kind of writing where I blatantly write FEMINISM IS THIS, IS NOT THAT, IS MORE LIKE THIS, IS DEFINITELY NOT THAT...

I breastfeed Isaiah and this painful learning process about the wonder of the body and the miracle of nurturing has captivated my writing in new subtleties. His eyes are dark and I stare into them. I don't see anything but openness. His open pupils stare back into the dark storms of my eyelets and I wonder what he sees in me. And I think about the world and what it will tell him about being a boy, a growing man. The window alone reveals a half-snowed road and the neighbor's holiday lights still hanging red and white, yet I see a colder world than the winter temperatures. And I worry.

I don't believe teaching "Feminism" is going to do anything for my son. I don't know if attending gender and women's studies courses are going to save him from a hypermasculine society and sexually-distorted media driven world. Maternity leave has let me soak up the world without paid work and I am listening to the sounds of the news. The conversations around me. The behaviors of strangers in stores. The fragments of life are there for me to observe and I'm not convinced Isaiah will learn how to survive that world with "Feminism."

There's no bargaining in raising a child. The world, as I see it from Cleveland, does not bargain with mothers. It doesn't exchange or make deals. Isaiah, with his soft cooing and heart-melting pouts, will be taught messages about his soul, his worth, his identity...and I'm praying I know how to raise him how to reject most of it.

Counter-cultural child-rearing is going to be a monstrous feat in my future. It already is...And the "Feminism" I knew - the kind that had me chasing conferences, journalists, and blog wars - has quieted itself, perhaps even buried itself. A new ecdysis is shedding, rapidly. In its place are questions of health care and education, public breastfeeding, family consumerism, and equal parenting.

To be of use, for Feminism to be of use to mothers, it must come complete with relevance to women's lives. Ordinary lives and extraordinary responsibility. There is no room, in my son's life, for classes or blogs, podcasts, or lectures.

All he has is me. All he knows is me his mother. His father, my partner. WE are all he will know for a window's crack of time before the rest of the community begins to warm his world with ideas. The doubt and insecurity of my own ability to teach him weighs heavily in my heart.

And so I write. I write him letters. I whisper things into his ear at 4am when it feels like no one else in the world is awake. Just us, mother and son. I whisper things, things far too complicated for his tiny brain to comprehend, but I believe the introduction of my voice as a whisper will allow me into his psyche as a voice of reason. A guiding force of love.

I continue to write him letters and whisper into the night. And pray, that for now, it is enough.