OKBender

Vernal Falls

Marriage. It changes and evolves. I've been meeting people lately who have marriages like mine, where the people involved love each other very much, and want to keep loving each other and stay close as a family, but accept that change is inevitable.

It's hard at first to admit you want change. But then, it's harder not to. You want more. You want to explore other people. You want it to be okay to be yourself. If you are lucky, your husband or your wife figures this out at the exact same moment you do. But usually, one person figures it out first, and the other one has to decide to trust, and come along, and figure out how to meet their own, changing needs, which means redefining the marriage. Or else the marriage ends. Which is hard on the family.

I'm seeing more and more marriages evolve into healthy family dynamics where everyone figures it out. It's so refreshing to see couples find ways to maintain their families without sacrificing too much of themselves. A family is an organism, aka a contiguous living system. If members of the couple are not feeding each other enough, or rather, finding ways to feed themselves, the whole family suffers. Things get twisted, and people behave in desperate ways, knowing something is wrong but not what.

I think of the old definition of marriage the way I think of nuclear families and suburbs. All bad ideas that once seemed good, and safe, but are actually isolating and scary, based on outdated, patriarchal systems of ownership. What are the benefits of marriage? Tax breaks, and social acceptance. Sometimes it means being able to stay in the country where you want to live. Security? Not really. Since 50% of marriages break up. Marriage provides the illusion of security, an invisible blanket that covers our deepest insecurity: that we will die alone and uncared for.

I am convinced that the best way to assure that I won't die alone and uncared for is by finding out how to take care of myself, by connecting deeply with people, and sharing my life with as many people as I can.

When a couple grows and changes, and the members embrace each other for who they really are, the family blossoms. And the whole social network surrounding the family blossoms along with it.

The Nest

Finding personal space within the family dynamic is difficult. A lifelong exercise. We all do it differently. Those of us who grew up in big, chaotic families might have a kind of strategy that means seeking isolation and order. When I was a kid, I made friends with girls who were only children. I liked going to their houses where it was quiet. The refrigerator was always full. No siblings to battle for food and attention, and where you could sit and have a meal that was prepared for you by a mom who had more time than your mom ever did.

My house growing up was never boring. There was always action. I had four brothers and a sister, so tons of cute boys around, more testosterone than estrogen. I gravitated towards the action, but also needed isolation to regulate my energy.

And that's exactly what I created as an adult: a life overflowing with action, tons of grown-up kids and their friends busy at the studio on Market Street. They need help with projects or to figure out their budgets or to listen to their arguments about how to fight gentrification or how to dismantle capitalism. Though Zoe and her friends balance it out, my home life is still dominated by male energy. I seek isolation from it at The Nest.

The Nest, where I sit right now, is so quiet. I'm listening to birds waking up. At night, I hear the train whistle blowing through West Berkeley, and that's all I hear. I don't need earplugs and a black-out eyemask to sleep. I am even weaning myself off sleeping pills.

Joe visits The Nest. The kids visit The Nest, especially when they need to do laundry. My lover visits The Nest. The Nest is neat, and spare, and has only my things. Things that were once buried in the family home in Bolinas, and before that in Portland, or San Francisco, or Los Angeles. The Nest is a place where my visitors come to regulate against their personal chaos, internal and external.

The Nest is by invitation only, but there is always room.

Mid-Market Update

Trash Night on Stevenson

When we moved into our studio space on Market Street there was one sweat shop in this building and a weird Chinese import storefront. And us. The rest of the building was empty, had been for years. Stevenson was (and still is) crack alley. Hustlers of all stripes lurked (and still lurk) in the no-man's land between Civic Center and Powell Street, our block. Lost tourists clutched (and still clutch) their Juicy Couture bags and briskly walked toward their hotels wondering how they suddenly found themselves off course, in front of our building.

All of that is still the same, except there are other people there too now. Young people with money who are from somewhere else. And they are serious about making more money than you or I have ever thought about making. Or maybe we have thought about it, but not like these kids. They are determined to actually get it, like, this year.

Over the last three years, Joe and I filled two floors of this building with artists who could otherwise not afford to live in the City. For a long while, it was just us and the sweat shop. But the building is not empty anymore. Now there is "Hash Map App Labs" taking up one whole floor. College dropouts camp out up there to learn how to build apps in three months.  On the now posh sixth floor is "Advisor" or The Company That Supports the Back End for Apps. More rich kids, a little older and even more serious, and also from somewhere else. These people are not artists.

Stevenson is still the best destination in the City for having a psychotic breakdown, finding crack or heroin, or getting your cocked sucked by someone who needs money to purchase crack or heroin. Even Stevenson is rapidly changing. Two buildings have been rehabbed already on our block, and it means one thing: more rich kids flooding in to push up the price of real estate.

We talk about gentrification around here. It's tough to be the first wave of gentrifiers, usually artists. You can develop a sense of indignation for being an early adopter who makes a shitty place livable, when in come the rich kids to buy 300 sq foot condos for half a million dollars. But what can you do? You are just a part of the problem.

Is it a problem? Depends on who you are.

We hope the crack fiends and trash pickers can help keep it real around here.

Thinkin Bout You

Or do you you not think so far ahead?

The ramp up to the holidays is like...you are on a freighter heading for the shore of the New Year and you cannot stop it. Even if the motors are all off, and we are 15 whole days away, we are uncontrollably speeding toward the rocky shore of January 1. So just sit back and let it happen, right? Wrong. There's the feeling that you need to take care of everything before the end of the year. Why? Because of taxes. Or simply, because it's the holiday season. Or, because people expect that from you. Or, it's just what I do every year.

It's hard to stay cheerful, amongst taking care of all the 2013 things you were supposed to do earlier, and now there are not 15 whole days, but really 5 or 6 "legitimate business days" left, and you feel inevitably cheated by time itself. Time is saying, "I won bitch." You have to accept that you really have only five days left, including today, because you have to accept that when December 23 falls on a Monday, you can't expect anyone to be "working," except those who have to. Let's not even talk about the thousands of Wallmart workers and homeless people who have to work every single day of the year. Solution: Don't shop. If you take that out, there's a lot more time left. Five days might even be enough time.

I broke my own vow and bought two, tiny hand-knit items, one for a teeny baby girl and another for a teenier, yet-to-be-born baby of unknown gender. I bought them from the knitter. I felt good that I wasn't paying for shipping or for any middle-men or store mark-up profits, I paid the real cost to the person who raised the alpaca, spun and died the wool, just kidding, I paid the person who knitted the sweater and hat, so it was pretty expensive. It seemed totally worth it. I'm imagining knitting tiny things with small needles taking a lot of skill and concentration, so I'd probably charge a lot, too. After buying those things, I said, "I'm done..." Though City Target has a way of luring me in for things I did not previously know I needed until I'm inside and it's too late.

What do you expect from the holidays? It's good to figure that out so you don't get pissed. A feeling of closeness to someone? Or closeness to a whole lot of people? It's unrealistic to say, I want a feeling of closeness to everyone. Though I take that back. I was experimenting recently standing on the corner of 7th and Market, kind of a bad corner, or let's say a corner where you can expect the unexpected, and I decided to see if my own facial expressions actually changed the way people looked to me. I softened my facial muscles, and put on a soft warm smile, and what I think of as doe eyes, (not deer in the headlight eyes), eyes that are innocent, that don't judge someone as psychopathic right off the bat. During this short experiment, I swear to god, even the psychopathic ranters looked better to me. And on that corner at all times there are a few insane people, who can be quite scary. I watched people pouring off the 9 San Bruno onto the bus stop island to share it with the (probably) insane, and I was amazed that all the faces seemed kinder and gentler than usual. There could be something here...

I just googled "micro facial expressions" and of course the #1 link is a best seller I could order right now and have on by bookshelf tomorrow called Emotions Revealed: 

Renowned psychologist Paul Ekman explains the roots of our emotions--anger, fear, disgust, sadness, and happiness--and shows how they cascade across our faces, providing clear signals to those who can identify the clues. 

What I'm trying to say, which I have no idea if Ekman says in his book, (even though I did read some paragraphs, including the book's conclusion that Amazon so kindly provided) is that you can actually affect your personal experience of life based on facial expressions you can consciously change (or at least can change in short bursts of consciousness when you remember and observe, and until and unless you are too old and all your expressions are carved too deeply to maneuver much). If I change my face to "kind and accepting," not only do people (weirdly) look better, they react to my nicer face. It can cause a change reaction. That's what I'm saying. I'm going to keep experimenting, but experience tells me, for example, when I'm a bitch in line, and have Bitch Face on, even if I don't say anything, I'm just being that bitch, things tend to go badly and spiral into worse. 

I'm telling myself that it's worth a try to simply change my outgoing face. Especially during the holiday season, if say, one is buying gifts or not buying gifts, it might be a good experiment... anytime.

These are all reasons I think it's dangerous to get plastic surgery. When you botox your worry lines away, what happens when you want to express concern to your boyfriend or child about an accident or a bad thing that happened? Your smooth forehead says, "I don't understand why your bleeding elbow is a problem," or "Am I supposed to be sorry that you didn't get into that college you had your heart set on?" or "I'm so sorry you got fired." Your blank forehead says, well, nothing. Because the botox* is "temporarily paralyzing" your face. I just decided I'm firmly against botox. I know some of my best friends have done it, or do it-- because I guess it's like an addiction. You need to re-do it every three months or suddenly you look much older, or think you look older than before. 

A cheaper answer: smile more. Soften your jaw and your eyes. The worst that could happen is your smile lines deepen. I think I'm going to try to remember that today: to notice my facial expressions, even when I'm sitting at the computer staring at the screen. Right now I'm trying it. This seems like an excellent and even marvelous place to stop.

*Botox is one of the many trade names for the neurotoxic protein called botulinum toxin that is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. In large doses, the protein causes botulism, a rare paralytic illness often linked to food poisoning. 

Everybody Daylight

Local 123.  Every face lit up by LED screens. Headphones on while sucking up Four Barrell.

Holiday parties encourage gluttony, obsessive trying of potluck dishes, toasts to survival, drinking excessively and therefore hangovers. Last night I only made it to two holiday parties of the four I had planned to attend. Perhaps meeting that overly ambitious schedule meant not trying every dish or drinking three glasses of wine at the first party. Kind of messed up the plan, but was good for end-of-year toasts. To want to go to four parties was gluttonous. And stupid. Especially when it meant traversing the Bay. Oh well. Will I figure it out next year?

Once again I am boycotting holiday traditions--not all, but the ones that have to do with shopping. Gave my whole family of origin copies of Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg for Thanksgiving, more than I've given them in a couple of years -- in terms of material gifts. Maybe one or two of them will read it and change the way they communicate with their kids, their spouses, their siblings (including me), or with our parents. You can shove a book into someone's hands and turn on the light, but you cannot make them read. Or get it even if do they read it. No one else but me can help me get something. I have to want to get it. And be ready to get it.

Nonviolent communication or NVC has revolutionized conversation in my family. When conflict arises, which of course happens almost everyday, one of us will invoke our shared language and ask about the feelings and associated needs, so we can re-state our requests, and maybe even talk about strategies to address this particular issue differently in the future. It transforms shitty moments into, "Okay, I think I understand why I was acting so shitty, and thanks, yeah, for helping me figure it out." Then we move on about our business. Four out of five Benders have been practicing NVC now for two years or longer.

I gave a copy of NVC to my nephew who is a heroin addict. His addiction started with Xanex or "bars." He's only 19, and on his fourth or fifth rehab attempt. Or more. But something has changed in him. I saw it when we visited him two weeks ago. I don't know what changed. I wonder if it helps knowing that not only do his mom and dad and brothers, but his aunts and uncles and cousins all really want him to live. It's hard to break out of your own little nuclear family bubble and your own overwhelming work and personal needs to reach out to your struggling 19-year-old nephew who lives in another part of the state. It's hard to know what to do. I decided to start texting him, asking him how he is doing, and telling him how much I love him. He doesn't always write back, but I don't mind.

I hope that my beautiful nephew decides to live among us. He says he has to take it one hour at a time.

Hank to Hendrix

Hello Friends. I am up early waiting for Zoe, so we can take some stuff to storage. Then she gets on BART for SFO and Mexico to stay with Carolen and Wind for a month. Then I get on BART to go back to Berkeley.

Zoe just canceled the storage trip. "XXX decided at the last minute to go on an adventure, so no truck. I'm just gonna call it good," she said.

The struggle is more or less the same. I'm just a little older. On the outside. What is five months? Five years? Doing what I do.

I always expected that you would see me through. 
Can we get it together, can we still stand side by side?
Can we make it last, like a musical ride?

I talk. I write emails. I recently wrote a 200 page piece that I hope to share with you someday. It's about struggle.

I struggle to be a supportive parent to adult children. A supportive partner. A supportive friend. A supportive lover. But not too supportive. Not so supportive that I resent people and am so drained that I have nothing left. That is my biggest fear. That I don't know how to stop giving when I've given enough. I am a compulsive giver. It's not always a bad thing, but I think I am possibly disabling my kids, to some extent. (My secret hope and rationale is that I am modeling generosity.) I am a "needs-anticipator." I "move so quickly that people don't even know they need something before I have filled it." I am a "let's-do-it-right-now" kind of person. Why wait? I don't wait. I do. If you are too busy, I just do it myself. I don't like lists, because that shows future needs. I don't like "needs build-up." I like to take care of it.

Not everyone operates this way. That's difficult for me. I like working with people who, like me, like "right now." I like "taking the first step," even if it's leaving a message after business hours.

It's dawn on one of two of the eighth-shortest days of the year.

My adult children can hold forth in highly intellectual discussions with friends our age who have perfected their arguments. I feel good about this. Everyone agrees that "the system must change." That "capitalism is over." Then some of us go off to jobs, and others stay home and make art and think about capitalism changing. I often buy dinner. And plane tickets. I anticipate that I will be doing so until the day comes when they will have to buy me dinner and plane tickets. When I am too old for capitalism to support me anymore. When I can't "do it right now" without their help.

Blind man

I took the bus to San Rafael for an appointment. On the way home there was a guy sitting a few rows in front of me carrying on the most annoying chat with the driver. The guy went on and on the entire ride about bus service and how his day went and where he was going, which BART train he was going to take. I thought at first he was a fellow bus driver who worked for AC Transit. I wanted to shout, "Please shut the fuck up!" I was calculating whether I was going to make it back to SF in time for a crucial bank deposit.

But as we neared the Civic Center, where this guy apparently was also getting off, I saw he was holding a white cane. I felt bad for my judgment of him. Buddy, you can chat all you want!

There was a kind-looking old lady smiling next to him that I assumed was his mother. She got off the bus before him though and went her way. Then a few people pushed in front of him as he tried to get off the bus.  I let him get off in front of me. As he stepped down he was asking the bus driver again, “Did you say I turn left or right to get to the BART entrance?”

“Left!” the driver shouted as the blind man stepped down into intense Civic Center pedestrian traffic. “Cross one street then turn right and the entrance is down on your left!” the driver continued.
I took the man’s arm gently as I stepped down. “Do you need assistance getting to BART?”

He took my hand like a child. “Yes. After my AC Transit experience this morning I’m a little nervous about finding the right entrance.” I held his hand and led him down Hyde and across McAllister, warning him about every transition. “We’re stepping down into the street...We’re going to walk up the ramp. The escalator is coming, here, grab the handrail on your right. Step onto the escalator- now.” He obeyed helplessly and with total trust. I stood next to him as we descended into the station, and the person behind me said in an annoyed voice, “Could you step aside so we can move a little faster?” 

I looked behind me and moved so that she and the people behind her could hurry down. “I know..” the lady said as she pushed by me. “I see... but I’m a mother...”  

A stream of people hurried past. I thought about how I can be in such a hurry sometimes, how I nearly hit pedestrians sometimes when I’m driving a car. My banking urgency seemed so trivial compared to this man’s journey across the street.

“I just had to visit my friend in Santa Rosa," he told me. "He’s a paraplegic. I hadn’t been to visit him since 1989.”

“Is he blind, too?” I asked. I had met a blind couple recently, and learned that the blind often only associate with each other.

“Yes. We met in school. He had an accident, a car hit him, and left him paraplegic. He travels with his cane, but Hayward is just too far for him to come see me.”

“Wait, he’s paraplegic and uses a cane?”
“Yeah, he uses the cane and his electric chair.”

“Wow.”

The BART station was so confusing as I imagined it from his non-sighted perspective. “I’m going to take you to the entrance."

“What train are you taking?” he asked.

“I’m not. I live around here. I can walk you through the station towards my place.”

We walked by some buskers. “He sounds like Cab Calloway,” the blind man said.

“Yeah, they are good. We have to walk a little to the left to avoid them,” I said and steered him around.

As we got to the turnstile, which seemed like miles from the entrance, he pulled out his ticket. “I just hope to God I have enough on here to get to Bayfair.” He handed me the ticket to confirm. I extended my arm as far as I could and squinted to read the blurry print without my glasses.

“More than enough. Nine dollars and forty five cents. You’re golden," I said. "You’re going to go down the escalator, which is about fifty paces on the right - past two stairways, and when you get down there you are going to turn right to the platform - the Dublin/Pleasanton or Fremont trains will pull up on your right.”

“Okay...” he said tentatively as we got to the turnstile, busy people rushing by. I changed my mind and pulled out my Clipper card as he was fumbling with the BART ticket.  “There is it!" he said proudly. "The hole in the BART card has to be in the upper left corner!” he held up the card and I noticed the tiny hole for the first time. He felt for the slot on the metal turnstile and inserted it, floated his hand along the top to retrieve it and started forward. “Which way is the escalator?”

“I’m going to take you down to the platform,” I said and held his hand again. 
We walked across the long distance to the escalator. This time I stood behind him so people in a hurry could pass. But the blind man kept groping for me. “I”m afraid of falling down when I get off,” he said, so I moved in front of him so he could keep his hand on my back as we descended. As we approached the bottom I saw the long lines of commuters waiting for various trains. I wondered if they would be kind to him. I worried about him. Then a train pulled up just as we were nearing the bottom of the escalator, and the sign said it was a Fremont train.

“I’m going to help you get onto the Fremont train that is pulling up right now.”
“We might miss it.”

“We might. But I think we are going to make it. We are stepping off the escalator now.” I took his hand and the train doors were still open. People in the line got on and we followed. Just stepping across the raised yellow warning dots--which I now have a new appreciation for--and onto the train itself is a huge leap of faith for a blind person. I got onto the train with him. “Okay, you’re on!”

“Thank you so much for your assistance. I really appreciate it.”

I said good bye, stepped off and the doors closed. I will never know his name. 

My fucking problems are nothing, I thought as I pulled out my phone and started opening up the Credit Union app to check on their hours of operation, see if I was going to make it or not. I was briskly walking and tapping my account number into my phone and not paying attention to my surroundings when I realized, fuck it. Don’t be an asshole. If I make it I make it. I’m not going to rush and be a dick. I rush way too much.

I made it.