Honesty

I'm working on honesty. It's not easy. It's almost harder when you talk about being honest, because you set your expectations for yourself higher. Everybody has a different idea of what it means to be honest. And, as my long-departed mentor Gloria often said, "People are as honest as they can stand to be."

There's radical honesty, the kind I practiced at 17 when I left home and decided Fuck all the bullshit lying that everyone does to protect everyone else. It was also a Fuck You to my parents for reading my journal without my permission. You want honesty? Here you go! No more filters. It felt great, actually, to just declare myself and let the chips fall. It was incredibly liberating and often painful but I and my best friend Anny preferred the pain of the truth over the pain of finding out the truth later.

It was a lifestyle, and it still influences me now. But in the interim years I learned that timing of truth-telling and softening it and deciding if and when someone is ready for the truth (especially when it comes to your kids), all these adult ways of being also have their place in the life of someone who wants to actually function in this society.

It's a slippery slope, though. I learned the power of secrets and how they can create private worlds between two people, worlds that can live side-by-side with everyday life and make things really exciting. But the web of lies takes a ton of energy to maintain, and eventually the web breaks down somewhere and the truth oozes out, or explodes onto the scene. And then things can be really shitty. And the truth, that thing that starts out so pure and wonderful, can actually cause permanent damage to an otherwise great relationship.

So after a long hiatus, a period during which I considered myself a "very honest" person by the way, I'm challenging myself to return to honesty as a higher ideal. Not constant, unfiltered radical honesty, but honesty where it counts. Like not lying to your partner or your kids. Like telling people on your floor that it's not working out, that they should find another place to live. Like admitting when you haven't even thought about something at work that you said you would take care of. That kind of stuff.

Raising the bar. It makes you look at all the ways over the years you've really been dishonest with yourself. Or complicit in dishonesty.

It's hard, and it's work. But it's so liberating to come clean.

The Invisible War

Saw The Invisible War at the SF International Film Festival yesterday. It's a very, very powerful film about military sexual assault. If you are in San Francisco, please go see it Monday April 23 or Tuesday May 1. It's a must-see for anyone interested in contemporary women's rights.

After the screening during the Q&A, a number of women in the audience spoke about having been raped in the military, and thanked co-directors Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering for shining light on this hidden subject. Through their live testimony and responses from Kirby and Amy, I learned some new things about why rape in the military can be even more traumatic than rape in the "civilian world." It's about betrayal. These women are broken down in bootcamp to become part of a close-knit team that depends on each other in truly life-or-death situations. They are stripped of their former identities and taught obedience to those of higher rank. They exit bootcamp so enthusiastic about their service to our country, and as such are also extremely vulnerable to serial sexual predators. Or, in military terms, these women are "high value targets."

Statistic: 15% of men in the military have attempted rape or assault prior to entering, double the percentage in the civilian world. And get this: sexual predators average 300 victims in their lifetimes if not caught.

So the military provides "the perfect storm" for rapists. Aggressive predatory dudes in a culture that not only tolerates but promotes sexual harassment, 15% who have already tried or succeeded at rape and gotten away with it, all stuck together in a world where naive, bright-eyed women (and men) are ready to obey all commands. These women are totally unprepared for being assaulted by their comrades or, more likely, their superiors. Often, the person they need to report the crime to IS THE PERPETRATOR. Can you imagine? These poor women interviewed in the film all wanted to kill themselves. Their choices were to report the crime to the perpetrator or his close buddies and risk punishment or further harm to themselves, go AWOL and lose all their military benefits for the rest of their lives, or commit suicide.

Those who do report, only estimated at 20% of the actual number of victims, received such terrible treatment that they say it is almost worse than the rape itself-- while the perpretrators go on to higher rank and most often experience no consequences at all. And of course go on to rape again and again, both in the military and outside. In fact, for those who are subject to some investigation and let go, they are trained to navigate the criminal system when they get out - so they can continue raping in their hometowns without being caught or prosecuted.

Meanwhile these women's lives are not just temporarily disrupted. Many reported permanent psychological and physical damage such as back or face injuries-- that the VA won't pay for!! Most are on gobs of medication for depression, PTSD, anxiety, and are often agoraphobic. Many can't hold jobs and end-up homeless. Their lives are pretty much fucked. We are talking about 19,000 victims (women and men) in 2010 alone, and over half a million victims in the last five decades. This is very serious.

The film will be released in June, and has already made some shock waves. The goal is to change how sexual assault is handled within the military, and things are starting to happen. Please see this press release on the film's website issued by the U.S. Department of Defense. It's not nearly enough. But it's a beginning.

Sign the petition to the U.S. House Of Representatives Committee on Veterans Affairs.

Kudos to Kirby and Amy for working on behalf of women to battle one of the largest, best-funded and secretive institutions in the world .

Revolution is Nigh

Farewell, My Queen, Benoit Jacquot's beautiful film about the last days at Versailles before the Revolution, opened the San Francisco International Film Festival last night. I have always been fascinated to near obsession with that moment in history, so I loved Jacquot's adaptation of Chantal Thomas' novel about the last four days before the shit went down.

Jacquot said something really interesting during the Q&A which explained the realism that was so palpable in that most surreal setting of Versailles. He insists that his film crew be as loyal to the period as possible, making the set and costumes correct down to smallest detail, but he instructs the actors simply to act, to be present in their characters and the drama at hand. Not to worry about the period.

Jacquot thus achieves this amazing feeling that 1789 is not very long ago at all. That the styles then were just styles, not so different from the crazy shit that we might wear in 2012. You feel like you are there, behind the scenes, during those last four days when the Revolution is on, when people in Court are deciding whether to flee or remain and risk being beheaded. When it begins to dawn on people that it might be better not to be a member of the aristocracy, that people are actually just people.

The unbelievable disconnect as Marie Antoinette is facing the truth about the future, yet still, protected by her anxious servants, some of whom are beginning to assert their autonomy, she is ordering them to pack the household for her anticipated journey--as if to accommodate the annoying revolution she were just going to change venues and set up in another palace. She is worried about her jewelery and whether to bring chocolate makers and a spinning wheel to help mitigate her imagined boredom once they arrive in Metz. (Of course, she never makes it there.) The absurdity of her concerns while people outside the gates are starving, rioting, looting...and making lists for the guillotine with her name at the top.

The effect of Jacquot's film for me was the remembrance that revolutions do happen, and that shit can actually change. That the people at the very top living in their glass houses think they are immune to the will of the people, but they are not. When things get bad enough, even a fortress such as Versailles and centuries of class systems and social orders, and all treasures from the from the  rape and pillage of continents: nothing can protect you.

Farewell, My Queen made me think that a revolution is coming in this country. About the shocking inequality and poverty in America. Have you heard the recent reports about the effects of the 1996 "welfare reform act"? People at the bottom are truly suffering and pushed to do outrageous things to feed their children. Right here. Right in our own cities. I see it outside my window right now.

It's not surprising that people at the bottom are sucked into the prison industrial complex. It's a hungry, out of control machine that is enslaving over two million people in America today, over 700 per 100,000 adult residents, mostly African American men. We have the highest rate of incarceration in the world and in the history of human kind. And yet presidential candidate Romney, who lives at the very top of the pyramid and who pays a lower tax rate than I do, wants to decrease the safety-net in this country for those at the very bottom. He and people like him at the top need a slave class to feed their investments that keep them where they are. Poverty feeds that machine.

My kids have been telling me that revolution is nigh. I've thought in the past, Yeah, right. But Farewell, My Queen reminded me that the revolution in France was inspired by the American revolution. When people get hungry enough, shit goes down. 

May 1 General Strike.

Break It Down

What happens when your head is clear? When you meditate every morning and do yoga before drinking cleansing noncaffienated tea before starting your insane day?

So far, it makes everything a little less insane. Day 11.

Note: Ian set out on his journey a week ago. He is learning about Life. He was refused entry at the Canadian border. Apparently having a DUI on your DMV record now makes you a threat to national security. Maybe that and the fact that he only had $20 in his pocket and was on foot and wearing a backpack. Do they check people's facebook pages at the border now before they decide to let you in? I wouldn't be surprised. If yes, they would not necessarily have found Ian, who's facebook name is End Capitalism.

Maybe the Canadians are mad at the U.S. for being such dicks about Canadians crossing the border in the other direction. I would be. We are dicks to everyone. Why shouldn't they be dicks back to us?

So Ian is getting a real taste of "hitting the wall."

And I am getting a taste of "there is nothing you can do about it."

He seems to be taking it in stride. He's walking and hitchhiking and sleeping in parks and at friends houses. Who knows where he will go. Into the wild...but hopefully not all the way in. Shedding things along the way that no longer seem necessary to him. He is yearning for nature and authenticity. I hope he finds what he is looking for. Or at least what he needs.

I am shedding, too. And dealing with the new stuff that comes up. Stuff that's not necessarily new but that I haven't been able to deal with for years because I've been dealing with crisis after crisis. You know what I'm talking about. The really hard stuff. The murmur underlying your well-being that you've been ignoring so long that you pretended there is nothing that can be done about it. The murmur you never talk about, because it's just too big or overwhelming so you just try to forget about it.

But it's there.

That kind of stuff.

What I'm finding out, now that my head is a little clearer, is that by looking at those things head on and putting them on the table, they just are not that bad.

Break it down. Talk about it. Share your fears about it with someone else. Come up with a plan.

Things take time. But you can do it. Take the time. Don't be afraid.

This is what I tell myself.

This is how I'm going to finish a piece of writing this year.

Full Deck

Yeah. Turning 52. No big deal.

But so much Facebook love yesterday!! Thanks, people.

Can I just say something about Mellenium, the restaurant on Geary and Jones? Whoa. It blew my low-expectations-on-my-birthday mind. It was AMAZING. Makes me consider becoming a vegan.

Here is why:

Chopped raw salad with kale, cabbage & bitter greens, brassicas, pickled red onion, sun dried tomatoes, avocado-cucumber "green goddess" dressing, cashew cheese crumble. I don't understand everything that was in this or why, but it was YUMM.

Mediterranean Spiced Green Farro & Lentil Cake (WTF?) = Greens with rosemary-lemon cashew cream, balsamic & Aleppo chile glazed artichokes, roasted tomato chutney, crispy leek hair, green olive-green chile tapende. WTF??? Astonishing.

Ginger, kumquat and carrot/coconut sorbet. To die for.

Okay?

Joe and I graduated from therapy today. We went in realizing we had nothing to talk about. I said, "I think we are graduating." Dossie said, "Yep." And we talked about good things. Then, for the first time in my life, I left therapy 10 minutes early.

Wow.

Maybe I will soon be able to afford to buy some new clothes!

Playing with a full deck. Not so bad.

Good Bye Koosh!

Today we are giving away our cat.

We've had him since 2003. Ian was 11 years old and he wanted a cat. Joe said No. I am totally allergic to cats, but Ian really wanted one, so, after much debate about short-haired vs long-haired cats and how we would keep the cat away from me, I took Ian to the Ferel Cat Lady of Inverness. 

We drove up to Inverness with a cat carrier. We walked into her house. It was kind of dark. This lady  had dozens of cats in different rooms, but it wasn't too weird. She just loved cats, and wanted to find them homes.

She took one look at Ian and sat him down, and said Wait right here. After a few minutes, she brought over the sweetest four-month old tabby kitten with orange hair that matched Ian's. It was instant love.

The cat hid for the first couple of days at our house. At one point we thought we'd lost him, and the kids made signs to post in the neighborhood. It turned out he was hiding on a shelf in Ian's room.

His name was Basil at first, but he became The Koosho. The Koosh. The Shoke.

The Koosh is the best cat in the world. Everyone loves The Koosh.  Joe loves The Koosh more than just about anyone.

The Koosh is fiercely independent, and loved living in Bolinas where he roamed freely. He always let us know when he wanted to come in or out. He never complained.

When we moved to the City, we left him at the house with our new tenants. The boys were around  and fed him. But at some point there were several dogs living in the house, and The Koosh would hide up in the attic for days at a time.

So we brought him to the City.

The Koosh is not a City cat.

He's crying right now, lonely for the outdoor world, and his kitty friends and all the wildlife that he can torture, kill and snack upon. Where he can poop in the sunshine and wild grass and hide it, never in the same exact place twice.

So today, we are giving him to someone in Bolinas who really wants him. We've all said our good bye's. He doesn't know it yet, but he's about to get his freedom again.

Tomorrow Ian leaves, too. But he'll be back.

We'll miss you, silly cat.

Teaser

Whoa. Six days since last post. Don't know what happened.

Went to Quiet Lightening reading at the Boxcar Theater on Natoma. Amazing. Eight minute readings with no introductions. Such diverse writing. Inspiring. My friend F. and I are thinking of submitting for the May reading. Scary.

What am I struggling with?

I made some moves since my last post.

My therapist said, "The grown up you is very well resourced now. You have the strength to talk to the child and tell her what you want and need."

It resonated. I talked to the child. I told the child, "Be strong! You know what you want. I'm not going to indulge all your irrational impulses, because by waiting, you will get what you really want."

The child said, "No!! Please!! Give it to me now!!"

I gave her a teaser. "Here," I said. She was happy.

"Now go write a a fucking story."

So I'm writing a fucking story.