Do you know that Wim Delvoye has a farm in China where tattoo artists cover pigs in elaborate tattoos? They put the pigs on high tables where there is no chance of escape, and spend hours puncturing them with needles.  Afterwards, they show the pigs in art galleries and exhibitions.  People show up – they pay to see this.  The pigs then get slaughtered, and their skins are sold to the highest bidder.  Delvoye, whose other art includes birdhouses dressed in leather, and x-rays of people taken in the act of coitus, has been wildly successful.

There are no accidents, everything happens for a reason, life is a folly, a fool’s game, there is no rhyme or reason.  Accidents happen,  buck up, be strong, find your bootstraps. You’re on this earth for a reason, better days are coming, look ahead, don’t look back, learn from your mistakes, learn from history. You’ve got to stand up, stand tall, back down, back off, be gentler, take some pride, you’re too proud, don’t be so arrogant. Look out for #1, remember there’s only one you, don’t be so self-serving, remember you’re not that special.

The other week, a 13 year-old Somali girl was raped.  When her family filed a complaint, they sentenced the girl to death by stoning.  They buried her in dirt up to her neck, and let a group of men and boys throw rocks at her until she was dead.  I know, it’s the culture, right?

You’re too strong, it’s not all about you, no woman is an island, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, stay strong, be stronger, tomorrow’s a new day, things will look different in the morning, get real, face problems head-on, think of something else, think positive, luck will come, think it and be it, the world is your oyster, the world doesn’t revolve around what you want, give yourself a break, put your nose to the grindstone.

Right here, in America, a woman didn’t want to be with her husband anymore, so he threw acid in her face.  She lost her eyes, her nose, her ears, her mouth. That’s not our problem, right?  I know. The thing is, see, it really is. . .the same human impulse to injure someone, to leave a punishing mark, exists on a smaller scale all around us, and we cover it up in self-blame and platitudes, and create this false paradise where our minds and emotions – that thing called spirit – is so disconnected from our physical bodies that it supposedly can’t be affected by any actions except our own. It’s this lie, ingrained and long-told, that is killing our compassion and ability to empathize.

You need to love yourself more, you don’t love yourself enough, be humble, you’re too confident, you come off as a bitch, you’re intimidating, look people in the eye, don’t stare, don’t be so intense, laugh more, smile more, if you smile too much people won’t take you seriously.  There are no problems, only solutions, no obstacles only challenges. Try, try again, keep trying, if you had any talent at all you would have made it by now, why don’t you find something else to do.  Rise above it all, take a breather, be realistic, pay attention, heal yourself. See, the problem with you is. . .

Yes, I know.  I have no tattooed pigs.  It would never have occurred to me to tattoo a pig. I am closer to the pig, and feel more for her, than for the artist.

You can’t afford that kind of thinking.  No one wants to hear the pig’s side of the story.  They want bright and colorful amusement.  Something they can laugh at, make a calendar of, display on their coffee table, or frame on their wall.  A conversation piece, a knick-knack, a little something to gab about at the water cooler.

I would rather rescue the pigs and damn those who collect tortured skins as art.

Don’t be an idiot.  Pigs cannot buy their own farms; artists can and do.  Stop making excuses.  All any of us can do is find our own version of the painted pig, parade it around, and hope it’s successful enough to buy us the freedom to do what we really want to do.

You’re really fucked up.  Wim Delvoye is fucked up.

It’s a fucked up world we live in, and see, that’s your problem. . .

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As many of you tuned into this series as tuned out. Poverty is a depressing subject. There are no ready-made solutions, and the only thing new under the sun is that the everyday problems of the working poor are getting worse, and are more likely to trickle up to the middle classes. Those at society’s lower rungs, who have little insulation and no safety net, are particularly hard hit when the economy worsens, but as we learned from the last all-out American depression, few people are immune from the ravages of an economic free fall, no matter how hard they work, or how bright and hopeful they are.

We don’t know yet how America will recover from its present set of disasters.  Will it get worse before it gets better?  Will a new President be able to stop the bleeding, and restore public confidence?  Will members of Congress set aside their personal agendas, special interests, and pork barrel trade-offs in order to heal the country of its financial and ethical wounds?  We don’t know, but many of us hope for exactly that, and more.

Every election season and, in fact, every turning tide of social belief and philosophy, brings us face-to-face with those whose views differ from our own.  Sometimes the arguments we have are so simplistic that they shouldn’t even be had — at least not in a nation that has progressed beyond darker ages.  Racism, sexism, and all the other “isms” that would exclude people from opportunity on the basis of their biology are born of ignorance, and have no merit, socially or intellectually.  It’s the job of an advanced society to make this clear to those who yearn for the days when they were specially privileged, and viewed as superior due to their race, sex, age, class, physical ability, religion, or sexual preference.

That job is getting done, sometimes in bits and pieces, sometimes in small leaps and bounds, but it’s precarious, and occasionally dangerous work, tinged in bitterness and frustration.  Decades into the battle for social parity and inclusiveness, irrational hatred still exists.  Injustices, large and small, are perpetrated daily against those who differ from some archaic and dogmatically rigid American ideal.  There are still millions of Americans who do not find golden doors of opportunity awaiting them, but nearly insurmountable fences and locked gates.

Among these millions, many are poor and struggling working class citizens.  In the political dialogue of soccer moms, “bubbas”, the “liberal elite”, family values, Joe Six-Packs, and the omnipresent nuclear family, the poor have all but become invisible.  It’s not trendy to talk about the poor in an age dominated by bootstrap philosophies, plastic surgery, jogging suits, and positive thinking mantras.  It’s not politically expedient for politicians to raise the specter of increasing poverty at a time when government has bloated itself on war, debt, corruption, and corporate pandering.

Then there’s us, the public, each of us with our own struggles, whether we’re tucked away in suburbia or living next to the train tracks.  It is far too easy for us, the Haves and the Have-Nots, to negate each other, with one side screaming about injustice and inequality, and the other side screaming about handouts and  self-determination.  These are old arguments, circular and ineffective, yet we have a hard time escaping them long enough to work on practical solutions.

We must get past the knee-jerk blame and convenient ideologies that leave us trapped in an endless loop of accusations and recriminations.  We can do this by conscientiously refusing to adopt dogmatic hostilities, and by demanding an end to the irrational attitudes and policies that contribute to oppression.

Class issues are emotionally loaded, and attacking the characters of people, rich or poor,  is every bit as easy as romanticizing the lives of others. The wealthy often see poor people as having freer, simpler, less complex lives.  The poor often see the wealthy as having no problems that can’t be solved or lessened with money.  We create caricatures of each other because most of us don’t really know, and can’t really know, what life would be like for us on the opposite end of the spectrum.  Even well-intentioned social experiments, undertaken by such authors as Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed) or John Howard Griffin (Black Like Me), provide only a small glimpse into one side of the opposites.  Ehrenreich may have learned more about the working class, and Griffin more about race, but since neither of them were reared in the roles they assumed, and could drop their experiments if  they became dangerous or burdensome, they could not know the full, long-term effects of either poverty or racism.

The comedian Spike Milligan once said, “All I ask is to be given the chance to prove that money wouldn’t make me happy.” It would be interesting if a working class author could undertake an experiment in the tradition of Ehrenreich, and give us a poor person’s perspective on the rich, but nearly impossible.  It is much easier to scurry down the social ladder than move up, even temporarily.

In any case, social experiments, academic analyses, cross-hostilities, and even compassion will not get us where we need to go if we are to end, or even significantly lessen, poverty in America. What we need to do is look at the issues of class, poverty, and long-standing policies with fresh eyes and rational minds.

Is it logical that school funding is largely based on neighborhood?  Is it logical to have no time limit on subsidized housing?  Is it logical for employers to be able to run credit reports on job applicants, including in occupations not dealing with finances?  Is it logical that auto insurance rates be based on credit scores?  Is it logical to have a minimum wage that is below any realistic poverty level?

Are the criteria of aid programs logical, beneficial, and in line with the actual costs of living?  Is it more rational to practice prevention, and help people while they still have some resources, or to wait until they have virtually nothing left – often including even the roof over their head?  If one has a proven disability, or long-term or terminal illness, how long should the wait for SSDI payments be?    Should there be a different process and category for bankruptcies caused by major medical bills?

Should there be a sliding fee for necessary State services, like auto registration, drivers license renewals, and copies of birth certificates?   Should it be mandatory for employers to provide insurance?  Should there be stricter regulation of the insurance and medical industries to prevent price gouging? Is it feasible that a portion of the earned income credit or social security survivor’s benefits be held in trust for a child’s future education?

Should universities have a sliding fee?  Should colleges re-examine the tradition of a broad-based core curriculum in favor of more targeted programs?  Is an engineer who took two years of French, and promptly forgot most of it after college, a better engineer? How many more people would be able to access college and gain a professional degree if programs were streamlined?

Would a federal or state emergency loan program, available to every head of household to borrow up to a thousand dollars in times of an emergency, be less costly and more efficient than other, more rigid, assistance plans currently in place?

These are just a few of the questions that might be asked in a brainstorming session on lessening poverty and opening doors of opportunity in this country.  Admittedly, they are not all perfect questions, and some may be controversial, but they all seek possibility instead of blame, and place solution over ideology.

We need to swing open existing doors of opportunity, and create new ones if we are to end the blight of poverty in America.  Compassion is a fine fuel, but it burns quickly and is too often distributed on a whim. A demand for logical solutions, while not nearly as stirring or emotive, will keep the lamps of inclusion lit and shining brightly not just for this generation, but those that follow.

*Photo courtesy of TheBloggess.

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We live in a world of instant everything. Every human situation, it seems, comes attached with cliches, platitudes, bromides, stereotypes and parodies. There is, conceivably, a box to place every person in, and a label to slap them with. There are also socially created barriers that inform perception, determine response, and decide opportunity. As society evolves, so do these barriers.

In the 1970′s, for instance, it was not unusual for job applicants to lack college degrees. Today, four year degrees are required for almost every corporate position, including those that are considered entry-level.

Throughout history, but even more apparent in today’s political climate, the have-nots have born the brunt of social stereotypes, bootstrap philosophies, and feel-good bromides. They’ve been romanticized in songs and novels, damned by social critics, and sacrificed at the altars of law and politics.

The pride and strength of the working poor is legendary — their clothes are old, but never dirty*, their love for each other overcomes all, and they’re only poor if they choose to be* — because it’s love, and not money after all, that makes a person truly rich. They bear drudgery and ridicule with hearty stamina, and sing and dance their way through meager lives filled with hardship, always hoping, always praying, and never losing sight of what’s really important.

At the same time, there’s something wrong with those people — something inherently flawed about them, like their character, their ambition, or their intelligence. It can’t be about any of the “isms” because, as we’ve all come to learn through the example of the rare exception, the -ism’s don’t really exist. After all, if Loretta Lynn can work her way out of a coal mining town in Kentucky, and Oprah Winfrey can become a billionaire, then anyone can. It’s just a matter of really wanting to achieve, and working hard enough to find success. And since there’s no such thing as luck, unless you’re talking about the kind people make for themselves, there are no logical reasons for failure, only excuses.

Last night, engaged in a conversation with a new friend, I had cause to revisit some of my darkest days as a young single parent. My husband had managed to get a divorce from another state, with the Navy’s help no less, stating that he had no children. He left while I was pregnant and had a one year old daughter. His legal maneuver left him off the hook for child support but still gave him the legal rights of a father. There was no legal recourse for me since at the time my state, Nevada, did not cross jurisdictions. It took twelve years to find even the minor relief of terminating his rights. He never paid child support, and never saw or expressed interest in seeing the children.

I worked two jobs, while struggling to pay daycare and rent. One job wouldn’t cover both, much less buy groceries, and I was evicted twice, and had my power shut off several times. One of the lowest points I remember was a cold day in October, when I washed my cocktail waitress uniform out in a dark bathroom, with cold water, because I had no electricity. No heat, either, so the babies were bundled in snowsuits and covered with blankets. We had no food in the house to speak of, and when I woke up to go to work, my uniform was still wet. I had to hop a bus to daycare, then to a casino where a poker player fried my leg and my last pair of nylons with the tip of his cigar. I broke down crying, and was promptly fired.

In those dark days, hope was tinged with desperation and need, and I drove myself past exhaustion, while at the same time trying to be the kind of mother I always wanted. One who was essentially happy, loving, and present. It took years, an incredible amount of energy, and living through multiple traumas to make a life that wasn’t desperate, or teetering on the brink of disaster. It wasn’t even a middle class life — there was no home in the suburbs, 401K, or college fund — but it was a life that covered the essentials.

I know poverty because I’ve lived through its varied realities, from the grumbling hunger to the bone-chilling coldness; from the pain of infections I couldn’t afford antibiotics for, to being robbed because I lived in a bad neighborhood and was an easy target. I’ve suffered from the policies and punitive measures that steal hope, time, and money from those who can least afford to lose anything.

I know bootstraps and bromides. The romanticizing of poverty, and the damnation of the poor. In this series, we’ll discuss economic realities and policies, as well as the emotional cost of being poor in America, the richest country in the world.

Excerpted from songs:
*Stevie Wonder, Livin’ for the City
*Dolly Parton, Coat of Many Colors

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1. The Meaning of Things

I’ve never lost my childhood sense of mystification – my ability to be amazed by the intricate puzzles and foggy mazes surrounding the reality of a situation. And, over the years, my need to know the meaning of things, and to have those meanings make sense, has only grown stronger.

I suspect that if the world were as simple as wheat and chaff, the chaff would be far more plentiful. So many of us seem to be in a constant search for something outside our own realm. In reaching for that something, we superimpose the unnatural upon even the most common realities. A shadow becomes a ghost, a falling leaf becomes a message, and the human mind becomes a god, capable of performing miracles. . .if only one believes.

Platitudes and abstractionist philosophies abound, and many would argue that they are harmless. I strongly disagree. What becomes popular in our society becomes pervasive, affecting everything from our cultural mores to our social opinions.

2. The Tyranny of Positive Thinking

I remember when the gun of positive thinking was turned against cancer patients in the 80′s. Scores of books and literature were written that either laid sideways blame on victims for having the disease of “repressed emotions” or “negativity”, or that effusively promoted positive thinking as the cure. Those who died were not positive enough – they didn’t believe enough in the power of their own mind. Twenty years later, it’s what Dr. Jimmie C. Holland, in her book The Human Side of Cancer, refers to as “the tyranny of positive thinking.”

Unfortunately, despite major long-term studies showing that while having a positive attitude may help patients handle their disease better, it does not directly affect survival rates, the tyranny persists. The latest psuedo-science headline screams “A Positive Outlook on Life May Protect Against Breast Cancer”. Sadly, some breast cancer victims will read or remember only the explosive headline, and wonder if they brought the disease on themselves by not being cheerful or optimistic enough.

Outside of the realm of cancer, the tyranny of positive thinking has led to the massively held belief that unhappiness of any sort is some sort of disease – one caused by a mind that refuses to see the glass as half-full – that does not find beauty in pain, or redemption in tragedy.

And once again, platitudes abound.

Gratitude. . . turns what we have into enough, and more . . . -Melody Beattie
You can have everything you want in the world if you love yourself first!! -
Louise Hay
I am the perpetrator of my suffering – but only all of it. – Byron Katie

I had a revealing conversation once with a therapist who mindlessly repeated the oft-stated belief that “no one can make you feel hurt without your permission.”   I asked her what would happen if at that moment a madman stormed into her office and shot her.  Would she be hurt?  Could she will the bullet to miss her? What if it wasn’t a bullet, but a fist or a flying stapler – would the weapon make a difference?  Would she, bruised and bloodied afterwards, refuse to carry the affect of such an assault, maintaining the same unlocked doors and sense of security?  What if it was not her, but her daughter?

Of course people can make you feel hurt without your permission.  They can do so with a weapon, with words, with broken promises, bullying, or diminishment.  Others can rob you of a livelihood, a sense of safety, or even a person you loved.  They can steal the money you needed to retire or pay the rent.  The bad actions of another can have a profound, and even lifelong affect.

Ah, but. . . “We can’t control the actions of other people, we can only control how we feel about it.” Enter the foggy maze, where a bullet becomes inspiration and an unwarranted fist becomes a lesson.  Where those who die young were wanted in Heaven by God himself, and where pain, and struggle, and even the worst circumstances can be willed away . . . if only you believe.

3. Women, Unhappiness & the Chemical Solution

If only you believe in gratitude, says Beattie, whatever you have will be more than enough. And if it isn’t? Maybe it’s because you didn’t love yourself enough or think the right thoughts, according to Hay. In the end, Katie tells us, all suffering is self-inflicted. The robbery, the assault, the disease, the death. . .we must have wanted it on some level – or maybe God and the fates decided we needed it – or maybe it’s some karmic lesson left over from life #46 that we need to learn for life #47.  After all, there are no accidents.

It doesn’t surprise me that women make up the majority of those who most strongly espouse this fantastical kind of thinking.  We make up 50-51% of the population, yet hold only a scant percentage of the political and social power.  Lacking equal affirmation, and standing outside the doors of power, we seek change where we can – within the boundless territory of self.

It’s also not surprising that much of this magical thinking is, at its core, overly forgiving and tolerant of outside sources, and heavy on self-blame. Women have been molded, domineered, and duped into ready forgiveness and self-blame for centuries.

We learned that we bring forth children in pain to pay for Eve’s want of knowledge. Our monthly cycle was not a sign of health, but a curse. We were taught that as long as the weapon used against us was no thicker than a man’s thumb, assaults against us were sanctioned by God.  When even the most senseless wars of men killed our children, we were told it would be ignoble not to feel proud of our sacrifice.  Our emotions have been, at various times, labeled as madness or hysteria.  We have been romanticized as pleasing helpmates, cheerful housewives, and doting mothers. Scorned as ball breakers, brash women, hags, and bitches when we didn’t tow the patriarchal line.  Even now we are often blamed for rape, the divorce rate, and the destruction of the nuclear family.

The unhappiness of women seems to be viewed through a different lens than the unhappiness of men. It’s likely that the same unbalanced social mores that rate assertiveness differently for the sexes does the same when it comes to emotion. In other words, when men express unhappiness, it may be considered reasonable given circumstances, whereas a woman’s unhappiness is suspect – caused solely by her own actions, raging hormones, or negative, complaining female mind. If we can’t find our happy place in imaginative mental revisionism, then there’s always a chemical solution. According to a 2003 study from the University of Michigan, the ratio of women to men on anti-depressants in 2:1-3:1. Even after accounting for gender-based differences, such as postpartum depression, the ratio is high.

While clinical depression is caused by a biological imbalance, I have to wonder if at least some of those prescriptions aren’t being written for women who feel guilty for not being the reality shifting revisionists and perfectly cheerful workers-daughters-wives and mothers society tells them they should be.

4. The Blinding Aftermath

Unhappiness is not a disease, and outside of true medical conditions, it is also not a symptom. It seems disingenuous to promote positive emotion as a natural, healthy response while blacklisting unhappiness as unnatural, unhealthy, and solely a matter of choice.

In a society where most circumstances, and the emotions surrounding those circumstances, are thought to be a matter of choice,

- social injustices are minimized or negated,
- complaints, no matter how valid, are derided,
- reality becomes “what you make it” rather than what it actually is,
- the pressure on changing external forces is lessened,
- and compassion and empathy are spared.

It is easier to wear blinders in a world where human unhappiness is considered a self-fulfilling prophecy or disease.   Rather than going through the hard work of correcting injustices, we can blame the victims. We can refuse to see victims, and see instead only people who failed to make good choices.  We can more easily turn a blind eye to the suffering of others, and turn a deaf ear towards their complaints, when we believe that whatever they are suffering is self-perpetrated.

We can harm each other in a myriad of ways, and then claim we are not responsible for the aftermath.  We can be less compassionate, less generous, and less empathetic when we believe that the problem with other people is their attitude rather than their circumstance.

Certainly, happiness is preferable to the lack of it –- that is not the question. The question is one of genuineness, and realism, and rationality. In promoting positive, magical thinking not just as a self-help tool, but as the ultimate cure for nearly every human condition from cancer to social marginalization, what have we accomplished?   What have we lost?  What does the future hold for a society that makes bestsellers of books like The Secret, in which the author claims, “Everything that’s coming into your life you are attracting into your life.”  Writer Tim Watkin, of the Washington Post, points out that “Hard work, talent, education, even luck go unmentioned. As The Secret puts it, all you have to do is ‘put in your order with the universe.’ Ask. Believe. Receive. That’s the mantra.”

It’s a mantra that has been played like a lulling serenade, particularly during the reign of Republican congressional then Presidential rule, in which big business and war took precedence over people, and invisible bootstraps were the only things offered to those reeling from high unemployment rates, skyrocketing inflation, and a record number of home foreclosures.   The years from 1999-2004 (the last year studied) saw a nearly 20% increase in the suicide rate among 45-54 year-olds. For women, the rate leapt 31 percent.  Coincidence?   Or a matter of circumstance?  Researchers believe that the prime suspect is a high rate of prescription drug use and abuse, particularly of anti-depressants.

5. The Monster in the Closet

On May 30, 2008 an elderly man in Hartford, Connecticut was run over by a car on a busy street.  The driver did not stop, and no one, not even a single person, stopped to help him, or tried to divert traffic away from his body. Torres, 78, was left paralyzed from the neck down.  “At the end of the day we’ve got to look at ourselves and understand that our moral values have now changed,” Police Chief Daryl Roberts was quoted as saying. “We have no regard for each other.”

What regard can we have for ourselves and others when magical, positive thinking is the order of the day? When we believe that someone, somewhere else, is in charge of helping those who need it – or worse, when we believe that almost every human need is a self-contained matter, and that experiences and tragedies, no matter how harsh or unjust, are somehow chosen?

To what end is the self-flagellation guised as positivity? If we cannot truly “think it and be it” – if the outside world does not turn on our most focused and heartfelt wishes – and the future we so studiously and lovingly envisioned does not pan out, is it because we did not Ask, Believe, and Receive correctly?  Were our thoughts not happy enough, positive enough?

Realism in the age of magical thinking has become the monster in the closet. The scary thing that we avoid for fear of being swallowed or overtaken, or swept up in a battle when all we really want to do is relax –-  let go and let God. Find inner peace.  Fill up on a feast of gratitude, platitudes, and self-love when sustenance is short, believing that eventually we’ll discover the secret to life-long happiness and contentment.

If realism is viewed as a monster, it is not an imaginary one, nor will it go away if ignored or abandoned in favor of magical thoughts.   It needs our action, awareness, involvement, and yes – our continued struggle for a world that is better in reality, and not just in hope.   Our shared reality, in particular, needs us, front and center and standing at attention, willing to bravely face the unpleasant truths and do battle with harmful forces, if it is ever to arrive at a place of true social justice, lasting peace, and fully realized potential.  We need bravery, not bromides, to create the changes we seek.

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After the devastating thing happened, I took a walk down the shoulder of one highway and up the incline of another. It was rush hour, and cars zoomed past me going 70, 80 miles per hour. I could feel the speeding wind at my back — an unnatural sensation that ebbed and flowed according to some stop light that I had already passed miles ago. I wasn’t prepared for this walk, I was wearing the wrong shoes and carrying the wrong kind of load, and I could feel the blisters forming and the muscles in my back starting to rebel. I pressed on, the devastating thing still coursing through my veins, impelling one foot in front of the other, as whole other layers of myself cracked and broke.

I could have waited for a ride. I could have stood – there. Except I couldn’t stand – there. I couldn’t. I needed to move. As far away as possible, and quickly.

There is so much death on a highway. Broken turtle shells, flattened birds, the decaying bodies of stray cats and squirrels. In the decades since I last walked on the shoulder of a busy road, I had forgotten the smell of exhaust fumes, tar, and sunbaked corpses. I had forgotten what it feels like to walk such a dangerous line, where every breath is a gift from the person behind you, who may or may not be paying attention as they eat their burgers, reprimand their kids, or fiddle with their radios. Thirty-six inches is all that separated them from me and the guard rail, and beyond that, the dark and murky Mississippi River, where a lone fisherman sat on a hollowed-out log casting his line .

There have been occasions in life when I’ve felt like a warrior. When I have fought through the muck and mire of circumstance or people, and stood my ground – when pride and strength and a sense of rightness propelled me forward, willing to face any consequence, no matter how harsh. At 16, with nothing but a Greyhound bus ticket and $4 in my pocket, I made it to California, where I walked the highways in sandaled feet, carrying a suitcase full of music and poetry, and a couple of pairs of jeans. I had nothing, but I was strong and determined, and my fear of the unknown was less frightening than what I left behind.

I think of those days, when I was hungry and penniless, and sharp-eyed and full of hope, and I don’t romanticize them. The gnawing feeling of an empty belly, the rains that fell, and the clothes that never seemed to dry, the sticking heat, the chapped skin, the chronic cough, the sleeplessness – they were not Halcyon days, but days of survival, sustained by dreams and quickly made friends on the streets. We traded stories and cigarettes and dire warnings, and then mostly forgot about each other as we went our separate ways. I remember few of their names, but I remember their stories. We were the unwanted children. The often brutalized never-should-have-beens. Our stories were full of anger, sadness and confusion. We trucked in despair and longing and nervous laughter, each of us looking for a niche – a people, a place, or a thing to call our own. Some of us found something to hold onto, others did not. I was one of those who did.

Thirty years later, I walk down a highway, the smell of death in my face, danger at my back, and I wonder if I could do it again. I wonder whether this devastating thing, coming on the heels of lesser others, should be a call to a different kind of battle. One that involves shedding everything that’s familiar, but wounding — omnipresent and unrelieved. The battle of running away from something and not just towards something else.

I know about the bootstrap bromides that would have me stand where I am, facing down adversity, eventually rising with more character or personal strength than ever before. I don’t feel in need of any more character or painful life lessons — particularly of the variety that causes the religious to want to pray for me, or to tell me that God will never give me more than I can handle.

Anyone who is breathing “handles” what they’re dealt. If you’re hit by a tsunami and live, you’re forced to handle the aftermath. If you’re a train hopping drifter surviving on cigarette butts and Listerine, you may stink to high heaven and be half-mad, but still – if you’re waking up every day or two, you’ll handle your life, for better or worse, because until your heart stops beating, you don’t really have a choice. The mere handling of life is not necessarily joyful or fulfilling. It’s a biological imperative – a hardwired response that leaves even the catatonic and brain damaged breathing in and out.

The fight or flight response is also built-in, and as I walk over the broken shells and torn feathers on Hwy. 101, my instinct is to run. Far and fast, past the smell of rot, the certain dangers, and the spirit that’s splintering with every step closer to more of the same.

I doubt my instinct to run, and question its rationality. I have stood so long, and so stubbornly, wielding every type of self-preserving weapon in defense of my right to eclipse the workaday survivor that others wanted me to be. I have built sanctuaries wherever I was, and nurtured dreams, and tendered the words that beat in my chest like a second heartbeat.

It may be that the sanctuaries were made of straw and the dreams were made of impossible things. That the words were just words after all, to be replicated and repeated by any of the thousands of brick-and-mortar writers who are far better qualified and more substantially connected than me – but joy can be found even in a squatter’s paradise, as long as it’s safe.

I no longer feel safe. My sanctuary has been torn apart, the footsteps of predators have shattered my peace, and the ground beneath my feet has grown shaky.

Run run run. Fast and far into the unknown, risking everything for the chance to feel unviolated and whole. Or stay, and take the blows, and count down the years it will take to recover – yet again. Neither choice is easy, and there are no ready-made answers.

There are feet, itching to run,
and a spirit that’s breaking.

There’s a falling in, and a falling apart,
and a want for something miraculous,
or at least attainable.

There are doors that need to be shut
and windows that need to be opened &
a sense that I’ve been here too many times before,
pressing my luck against the jagged glass
until scars felt like good fortune.

I know how to survive. Breathe in, breathe out, put one foot in front of the other, and whether running or staying, don’t give up. Look forward, not back. Hang onto some hope, even if it’s tenuous or temporary.

What I don’t know how to do is build an inviolate sanctuary – one made of bricks and steel, and far removed from mayhem. Tonight, as I stretched out under the light of the moon, it seemed to me that one moment the stars were showing me a blueprint, and the next, Orion was offering me his sword. Even the constellations aren’t clear. I took a deep breath, folded my hands under my head, and closed my eyes — my foot tapping to some ancient drum, my heart pounding against its anchors.

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Tomorrow, the religious wrong, while pretending religion has nothing to do with it, will attempt to beat me over the head with their imagined moral authority and their too-real power. Chest-beating Christians will circle around me in a vulturous group, waiting to take the eye they feel they are owed. Not because it’s really owed, but because they feel a sense of entitlement, especially when it comes to black sheep who aren’t members of their flock. Stay tuned for that story.

For now, I want to tell another story about God, who’s often confused with Jesus, even though the two actually had little in common except a disputed paternity claim. The pre-Jesus God was pretty fierce. He razed whole cities in anger, and didn’t even spare the children. He turned a woman into a pillar of salt for merely glancing over her shoulder. He led a man to hold a knife to his toddler’s throat as an act of faith, and then said hey, just kidding, you passed. Not a nice guy, God. Not someone you’d want to invite to your weekend barbeque or cocktail party.

God’s image needed a little softening up, so along came Jesus, a wild story, a bestselling book, and all these years later, millions of crosses and Virgin Mary’s dangle from the walls, necks, and rearview mirrors of the righteous believers. Except many of them are not all that righteous, by definition of the word, tending to take after the almighty God far more than the gentle Jesus they melded him with. Meaning the badly religious are often some of the most wrathful, unforgiving, and punishing people here on Earth. Yet they demand for themselves a level of respect that far eclipses any good they created – if they attempted to create any good at all.

At least God is said to have created life and Earth. The Religious Wrong, on the other hand, have created only monstrously huge institutions to perpetuate the idea that using God as their shield makes them infallible by default. Sinful, but perpetually forgiven, no wrong is too wrong for absolution. Absolved, they are pure, and pure they sin again, and the cycle leaves them, at least in their eyes, exonerated from moral blame or judgment outside of Heaven’s.

The same people will cry “human nature is sinful” when confessing, yet once the Hail Mary’s are given and curtain is pulled back, they are quick to return to their state of imperviousness: Jesus forgives them, even if only through ancient words and stained glass windows, and this forgiveness is far more important than the forgiveness of other people, no matter how badly they’ve hurt them.

The funny thing is – and it becomes funny if you witness it often enough – is how quick the Religious Wrong are to disown each other when the proverbial shit hits the fan. The Christian who beats his wife and kids isn’t really a Christian (even though the bible allows for a little family beating, as long as the victims are women and children). The Muslim who murders isn’t really practicing Islam (despite that whole yarn about martyrdom and 40 virgins).

The first time I consciously processed how reactionary and frightening the Religious Wrong could be, I was in 7th grade, in Mrs. Hand’s class. I casually said “Oh, God” in response to something a classmate said to me when Mrs. Hand flew out of her chair, grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me up to her desk. I had no idea what I had done to provoke the attack, although she kept insisting that I had cussed. My response of “God! No I didn’t!” threw her over the edge, and it was only then that I suspected. I was sent to the principal’s office, where I spent a fruitless half-hour with Mr. Campbell debating the issue of free speech and religion in a public school. Of course, Mr. Campbell won because he held the power. I left school the next year, when the choking, claustrophobic feeling of school became too much to bear.

I had really exited years before, as a third grader who was denied a skip in grades for “failure to conform to the rules of the classroom”. That year, I tested three to five grades above level in every subject, but couldn’t get through the torture of a school day without drifting off, or sneak-reading a book carefully hidden on my lap. Counselors were consulted, tests were taken, and everybody except my 3rd grade teacher thought I should be moved to fifth grade. Mrs. Herron’s reasoning was that such a move would be a “reward for bad behavior”. A cross-wearing Catholic, Mrs. Herron didn’t believe in spoiling a child, even with education, and her rod was to rack me into submission by way of mean-spirited boredom. And I, a child who loved books and learning, grew to hate school. I became a daydreamer and clock watcher, who learned through books on loan from the County library rather than through people.

People were scary to me then, and often still are. Irrationality frightens me, and more so when it’s ensconced in religious mysticism. The structure of an “organized” religion, complete with masses of brethren, allows religion a credibility and standing shared by no other fable or myth. I have to wonder if millions of people believed in Leprechauns, how many monuments would be built, how many laws written, and how many offenses would be taken at those who didn’t believe there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Tomorrow, the religious wrong will pretend that religion has nothing to do with their eye-plucking. They will talk, instead, about offensiveness, mine, of course, because God knows they are pure, blameless, and ultimately absolved – even as they talk crudely of tits and ass, dicks and balls, white trash, Mexicans, and bodily functions. Even as they scream profanity across the aisles, bite each other’s backs, and seek to do real harm to others – they are forgiven.

But let a black sheep make one sarcastic comment . . . and all hell breaks loose.

More to the story tomorrow.

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