"You Sure About That?": Where I've Been Since November

A builder working on the ranna ghor (kitchen) at our village home.

I set out at the beginning of November with the intention to prioritize myself over my worries, and the universe replied: “you sure about that?” A few weeks ago, I made a chart of what has been pulling at my attention. It takes up the full 8.5x11” sheet and I’m pretty sure that it could take up even more if I let it.

The whole month, I felt very scattered. I had to concede defeat to NaNoWriMo at around 20,000 words. I went to my family’s village for a few days. I took a 10 day trip to Kolkata for my first time in India. Project As[I]Am released its fall issue, Unpalatable, and submitted a grant application (fingers crossed on that!). I’ve felt alternately drained and guilty that I haven’t been doing enough. If you took a look at my internet history, you’d see a slew of bookmarks for self-care interspersed with those for productivity tips. I’m not quite sure what I’ve been looking for, but I’m devouring advice.

Once I had made up my chart, I started putting things into categories: creating, absorbing, reacting, practicing, and completing. I started noticing some things. For instance, it’s hard to ‘practice’ personal rituals when you’re heavily focusing on ‘completing’ tasks. A lot of my energy this past month has been spent ‘reacting’ to personal circumstances – these events can be positive or negative, but they take up energy nonetheless. Hoping that Kolkata would be something like a reset button, I took some much needed time away.

While there, I started turning on my audio recorder as I walked around the streets. I picked up the sounds of fireworks and drums for puja, people chatting outside of parks, rustling papers in an archival library. And street traffic, endless street traffic.

I’m adding these recordings to the stockpile of bits and bobs that I’ve got lying around. Chronologically, I’m at the halfway point in my stay overseas and my creative output really reflects that. When writing for NaNoWriMo, the middle is the biggest slog for me. Beginnings and endings are deliciously dramatic by comparison. In the middle, I make lists of things that need to happen, but won’t for quite a while. I’ve been sleeping more during the daytime and staying awake at nights. All of it has been gathering and more gathering, as I try to condense my focus into a few larger projects rather than spreading myself thin.

So, if you haven't heard from me in the past month (or several...), then know that this is part of my re-commitment process. There may not be leaves on this tree now, but wait for summer and you'll see!

In the Service of Others: Working Myself Sick

I've been working myself sick lately.

Taking a step back from my commitments so that I can recommit to myself -- a lesson that I am always in the process of re-learning, but that has especially come up since the month of Ramadan -- has proved to be way more challenging than just canceling a few appointments and finishing a few jobs.

One of my major tasks at work is to address the needs of patients who are calling into the clinic; their issues may be urgent, or they may feel they are urgent despite the easy answers that come with a few minutes of gentle probing. They don't know our systems, and we don't know their lives. But we are building a scaffolding to address their health needs not only in response to symptoms, but at the root in prevention. Even though I have to keep in mind when there are difficult callers that they are experiencing really stressful situations, I can't get enough of the feeling that I am helping people.

I am always moonlighting to get more of that feeling. The jobs that I feel called to are all in the service of others: in the past three weeks, I have attended an equivalent number of births. I have massaged three women while they were in labor, watched their babies come into the world in the wee hours of daylight or the late hours of the evening, and absorbed that unique energy that keeps birthworkers up for hours and hours at a time (minimum, I have been with the moms for 7 hours or more per these births). You step out of your body for a moment, through giving so much of your energy to that person as they deliver. I have been wanting to write about this feeling for so many weeks, but haven't had the breathing room to sit with it.

 
This feeling is one of the reasons I love my healing work. People need me, it feels like. People need me to answer the phones, send the emails, stand by the bedside, advocate for their rights, connect them with resources... I am the interpreter of systems and the gatherer of knowledge -- how lofty and cool does that sound? But, in some ways, it's a trap.

When I am facing my deepest personal challenges, I often ask: "caretakers, who takes care of you?" It's not just a silly inversion of words. It really helps remind me that I need to rely on and truly trust others to provide me the energy in order to keep working in their service.

Lately, I've been circling the drain of thinking that the only reason someone would want my presence is for my ability to serve them. Resting your self-worth on a concept so tied to performance takes a toll on you when you decide, for your own basic wellbeing, that you must take time to eat food at regular hours, sleep in, and turn down potential job offers. Because there is no end to how many things people need from you, and ultimately you will disappoint someone. Ultimately, you will disappoint someone through taking what you need.

I can think of no better example of this than regarding my recent move. In the past few months, I have had cockroaches destroy my things and crawl over me while I slept in my Bronx apartment. The decision to move was inevitable, but I finally took steps to make it happen in the last month. In the past week, with the help of several friends, I packed up and shipped out to a new comfortable and roach-free place in Brooklyn. My previous landlord, however, decided to take this as a personal affront to him and called -- not to collect money or ask me to do any particular thing -- but to lecture at me for 30 minutes about my irresponsibility as a tenant. I interpret that he needed me to take his emotional burden from him as I tried to meet my own needs. Then it came forward: Disappointment in myself. Guilt about moving. Shame. In my mind, I was already taking responsibility. I had to realize that the other person must also hold up their part of the relationship.

I've put on hold a lot of the work that I can be doing for others, but that doesn't make it any easier to step away when I feel responsible. Or to acknowledge my own emotions/ego around success or failure. Or to admit that caring for others allows me to avoid caring for myself. If Allah gives us only the burdens we can carry, easing someone else's does not guarantee that you have managed your own.

I send love and wish ease to all those who are carrying burdens now that feel impossible to hold. I admire those who survive, who take what they need with no apology whether they are forced to or by choice. Know that I need to learn as much from you as I do from other healers about how to move closer to my own truth.

Seeking the Spiritual During Ramadan

Eid Mubarak, all!

This year has been a time of seeking intentional spirituality in my life. Ramadan has been really varied for me; there was no consistency that I could find in it, other than a renewed sense of wanting to move towards spiritual wellness. I fasted; I didn't fast. I felt grounded; I snapped. I was with family; I was alone with the roaches (my new struggle on the home front). Overall, I am proud to say I was more conscious of my personal health and needs throughout the whole month.

Just about the only thing that has been consistent is that I've been writing -- more importantly, writing dangerously. I wrote a poem every single day with an amazing group on Facebook, and I felt an intimate connection with several of them by the end. Sharing writing -- especially in a form you don't use often for show -- is one of the most vulnerable things I have done recently. That space existed as a way for me to start the process of leaning on others' support, even if we did not directly talk about our hurts.

It made up, at least in part, for all the ways in which I've felt unsupported these past months. Going back to Seattle and San Diego was a healing wake up call. I got to spend the last few days of my cat's life with her. I got to read more full books than I have in the rest of this year. My family and friends cocooned me and made me feel less alone. Coming back to NYC, conversely, felt like I was the only person on the planet. The water closed over my head again.

There are things that have kept me sane -- a new job, an amazing conference -- but ultimately I have had to return to the principals of faith this Ramadan in a very concrete way. Fasting kept my mind clear, and when I chose not to fast, I chose it with the intention of healing my spirit from other sufferings. Fasting in hardship can also be a weapon used against yourself; when I found myself being too perfectionist about the practice of my faith, I decided enough was enough.

I have been thinking about what it really means to be nourished. As a healer, I need to trust my own instincts in that -- it is so incredibly hard for me to feel like I have given myself as much care as I do other people. This Ramadan, for a number of reasons, has given me the chance to reflect on that.

I don't have the answers of where things will take me next, but I am working to pare down my commitments and just be with me more often. Me and my writing. Me and my art. Me and my healing, before trying to reach out that hand to others. Until then, I'll share with y'all a poem written during this holy month:

#23
When I sleep,
The visions,
Hum.
The divine lodges,
In my throat.
And when I dream,
I see,
I am just one part of you --
The part,
That sings your praises.

A Small Celebration for 2013

I’m no good at celebrations.

Most of the time, I’m skipping forward to goal-setting for the next project – my to-do lists are all in future tense. When I wrote a post on rituals, it was really me creating a resource for myself to go back to whenever I feel like I’ve been speeding up time. But New Year’s comes with a mandate that I should be reflective and sit still for a second. There are no more moments that will be labeled “2013,” so even if it’s not a comfortable ritual, it’s all over pop culture.

For the past five years, I have received a daily affirmation email from a listserv I joined when I was still in high school. Most of the time, they’re generic encouragements that are sent out to the entire listserv, but sometimes there’s a little interjection where whatever you put in when you first signed up (a goal and a state of being, if I remember correctly). For a long time, I did not remember what I had written in; after all, it had been multiple years and I couldn’t imagine where my mindset was in high school. But one day I saw them: my goal was to write every day and my state of being was to craft an artistic and personal style.

A friend of mine recently called me an “aggressive optimist,” and I stand by that, even while I am critiquing any number of social systems. When you work in social movements, whether through direct action or the production of art and ideas, you’re always working towards a future state. You may never see it come to fruition, but you believe that it will come. When you put an intention out into the universe, it is much the same. No matter what form it appears in, I believe it comes back to you. And when I read what my high school self had in mind for me, it reminded me that some part of our past selves comes forward in every future possibility. So while I may be writing in the future tense, I am always calling upon the loving ghosts of the past.

In 2014, I want to draw upon the past to know how I can better serve others in the future. And I want to give myself permission to live in the present. For me, that means applying some of that optimism and intentionality to my day-to-day activities. It means that no matter where I am or where I am going, I trust that this is where I need to be.

So that gets us back to celebrating.

This New Year’s, I am going to quietly celebrate all the life that is to come. I’m 22 and I’ve not yet published a novel – don’t tell my 14-year-old self! – but I’m making good on my writing career. I’m a college graduate that doesn’t yet have a plan for the future, but I’m not yet cynical. I don’t think my artistic and personal style can be anything but evolving, but it has become much more defined. And my passion for social justice work is even more fiery than before.

What parts of you are still growing this year? What parts of you do you feel deserve celebrating? Let me know via Twitter @thecowation.

Carry Forward, Carry On (or, What to Do When the News is Bad)

I found a title for my short story collection this week. It's often hard for me to find titles -- I'm more of a longform writer in the first place, so if short stories are hard, then you can imagine how a three-word title would send me into hours of contemplation.

I've also been learning a lot about domestic violence and sexual assault response in the past few weeks, and it's often majorly depressing. Anyone can be an abuser and anyone can be a victim/survivor. There are so many ways that people have and can be cruel to one another. As I flip through pages, the story gets bleaker and bleaker. To take a break, I go online and start reading -- about typhoon Haiyan. Perhaps not the best judgment call. I read about all the organizations attempting to provide relief and the hundreds of bodies that haven't yet been found... after a while, I'm closing browser tabs left and right trying to get away from it.

The radical in me is always jotting down notes like this one: "Thinking about how to build people up emotionally in the face of disaster -- give them the power and materials to build their own houses, give them the cash to carry forward with their lives." It's what they try to do with domestic violence cases, to give power to the survivor so they can carry on. Survivors of all kinds share this -- you can't change their experiences, but you can help them integrate the experiences. To weave them into the fabric of their lives, even if some nights they still wake up overtaken by grief and memory.

Sometimes it's the little things that make the most difference.

I can't always read the news as it happens. Sometimes I need to bookmark it and set it aside. I need to think about the big picture sometimes, yes, so that I am able to critique how we provide services and think about how things can be made better (like providing more resources for LGBT survivors of abuse or where I want to donate for Haiyan relief). But other times, I really need to sit back and remember that we can't get to the ideal place by making myself sick with worry. Or depression. Pain is a part of the human condition, I know. But so is resilience.

That three word title, however long they take to get on the page, hold me together through the hundreds and thousands of words detailing casualties and atrocities happening around the world. It is the little thing that keeps me wanting to carry forward. Keep reading, and keep caring.

Unfinished (or Taking Time to Heal)

It is harder to live.

You experience too much or not enough. You struggle uphill without a clear plateau in sight. Your priorities shift and what you've been working towards is suddenly invalidated. You stumble. You lose. You become covered in dirt and must wash yourself clean.

You listen to sad music when your spirits are up. You do everything incorrectly even when you know what needed to happen. You don't ask questions because it's scary to look vulnerable. You especially don't want to look vulnerable.

We are imperfect beings because otherwise we are unable to learn. We're not meant to know exactly what to do at all times. It's never made more clear than when you look back on the moments of your life and realize that they're an amalgamation of embarrassing, sad, fallible, and occassionally thrilling glimmers that can still produce a cringe or a rueful smile in your everday life. The state of happiness cannot exist without its opposite: we take the bitter with the sweet. Our strength is the product of our struggles.

I intend to make this post a hopeful one. Usually I write about my endeavors and artistic works on this day of the week, but I honestly admit to you that I have been "messing up" for the last few weeks on that front. I have been taking care of myself and making art has been put on hold. I have been re-evaluating and turning over in my mind every emotion in the book - even before this period of mourning, the semester had been studded with rough patches I had wanted to sit down and work through for some time. So I have been repeating the words that I started this piece with: it is harder to live. We are only given the burdens we can carry and, ultimately, we emerge as better people because of it. Believe me, I know what it is to be low down in the trenches.

For now, my thoughts are shrouded in a layer of "I'm not doing enough/doing it right/doing anything important." I am being a huge worrywort because I have taken this time for myself to rest and heal the raw patches of my heart. But I know that there must be a reason for this struggle, a reason to put these parts of my life on hold for the moment and just to breathe. To recognize the importance of slowing down and recapturing the energy of the universe in my own fragile body. I recommend it to others almost daily - now it's for me to practice what I preach.

An Introspective on Taking Breaks

Apropos of my Tuesday post on the college environment (and to kick off the start of this academic break), I wanted to talk about the extended break I took from creative endeavors for the past few weeks. You might be wondering: "Why talk about taking breaks? It's cool, we all take them." But for me, a break has long indicated some much more troubling factors than just simple lack of interest.

For many years, taking a break for me was a sign of failure. It was a sign that I was giving in to apathy, which is highly related to my bouts with depression over the years. I was excessively busy in high school for just this reason - to stop moving was to stop ignoring my emotions and have to actually deal with them. To stop moving at that point in my life felt like a small step towards death.

It may seem extreme now, but I think young people have the hardest time dealing with their emotions. They haven't been trained to sit with them (as is done in certain therapy techniques) and it often is not encouraged by our culture to cultivate the wide range of emotions we can feel at any given moment. As we grow older, we can internalize these patterns and fall somewhere along a spectrum - the extremes of never acknowledging deep emotions or drowning in them, or perhaps the healthier middle range with a skew towards one side. But when we are young, those patterns are still being felt out and we try to justify our actions with them as best we can. There are many theories on this, but I will keep to my own personal story.

Body Talk: How to Deal with Negative Comments

A few weeks ago, I visited a friend I had not seen for quite some time. As she greeted me, one of the first things out of her mouth was: "You've gained weight, haven't you? You didn't have that chubby face last time."

As you no doubt have guessed from some of my previous posts, I am an avid self-love advocate and completely against accepting these kinds of comments without pushback - but this one left me in doubt.

I know that comments about one's body (especially from women to other women) are many things: they are normalized, often negative, and often intended to make the receiver police themselves in a way they may not have before. They also make the receiver feel like crap.

And indeed, regardless of how much time I've spent learning about better body image and thinking up responses to these unsolicited comments, I could only find myself sputtering some sort of refrain and going quiet. The worst part came later, when I started questioning. Am I really heavier? Does that mean I've become less healthy than before? And the best one: does this mean I have to forfeit the self-love and get back on track?

These meta-questions are all about that self-policing that is so encouraged by these words. It takes you out of your body and tells you that you need to justify what you're doing or change it. It's what sends people into fad diets and fat-shaming, into repeating the cycle of denial and guilt around tasty food, and into the impossible journey of trying to be "perfect."

So how do we stop it?

Statement: Take Care of Yourself!

 

(via ICanHasCheezburger)

I am really good at not taking breaks.

These past few weeks, I have been going through meteoric stress levels, intense weather changes that prompted severe illness, and general hopelessness towards completing personal goals. I tell myself that I need to take breaks and make it about me for a while, but my priorities have always been so stringent and my mental state so stubborn that I haven't actually done that. So, that has meant a lot of sacrifice.

As you have probably noticed, it has meant moving away from this blog and the novel I've been working on to distill all the precious bits of sleep and energy I have into my day job. It has also meant sniffling through amazing bus journeys into different parts of the state, crying in public, and talking to friend after friend about the tenuous mix of tiredness, annoyance, and genuine sadness I've felt. Physical or mental, the weeks have been taking a toll.

But why do I share this with you, my readers? My blog doesn't usually deal with my personal life (though I suppose it does tangentially through my blatant editorializing of everyday life), but I wanted to share for two reasons:

1. To tell you where I'm at and where I'm going. I really want to get back on track with the blog once I'm feeling better. I will never have all the time in the world to write here, but I will make do with the precious moments I do have. Once they're not being monopolized by sleeping, that is.

2. To ask you to learn from my mistakes. I am notorious at pushing myself too hard and exploding into thousands of pieces upon impact. Don't copy me on that! I think it is partly due to our culture of efficiency and productivity, which asks us to work until we are dog tired otherwise we won't feel "worth it," whatever that means. And I've internalized that by being a go-go-go person for my entire life. But you don't have to follow in my footsteps - you can instead read some of the clear-headed articles I've written about relaxation and living in the moment. And sure enough, sickness is one great way to be reminded to live in the moment. All you can concentrate on is that ache in your side or cough in your chest. Nothing else matters.

Anyway, I will be posting more interesting articles in the weeks to come, but for now I will be taking my own advice and laying low for a bit. You can take a look at my thriving Tumblr page if you want some great media to absorb until my return!